David Wishart: White Murder

‘That was unusual?’

Typhon frowned. ‘Sure it was. I was the gopher and I delivered plenty of messages to the Blues’ place, but not to the boss. Not ever. Standard rules, you give them to the gate guard and he passes them on in. Cammius tells me he wants this one handed over personal, face to face in private.’

I looked at Acceptus. He’d recovered his poise enough to control his expression, but he was still pale. ‘Ordinary race arrangements,’ he said bitterly. ‘I wondered about that at the time, but it wasn’t important.’

‘So you took the opportunity to try a little bribery?’ I said.

He shrugged. ‘Who wouldn’t, given the opportunity? The man could only have refused. Besides, I didn’t want to kill the horse, only incapacitate it for the next day’s race.’

Yeah; that I’d believe the day I saw a squadron of pigs flying above the Palatine. It might be what he’d told Typhon, and what he was saying now to get himself off the hook, but I’d bet different. Fifty gold pieces was fifty gold pieces, and a hell of a lot of gravy. Also, it explained the guy’s initial reaction: the news that someone else had been responsible for Polydoxus’s death had left him gobsmacked. I turned to Cammius. ‘Typhon’s right, isn’t he? You set him up. You set both of them up.’

The old guy was massaging his windpipe; I could see the livid red welts made by Typhon’s thumbs clearly on either side of the Adam’s-apple. Cario had moved to stand beside him. ‘Yes,’ he whispered.

‘What would’ve happened if neither had taken the bait?’

Cammius swallowed painfully and cleared his throat. ‘It was a risk,’ he said. ‘Not a big risk. Typhon is a greedy man, and Acceptus a jealous one. I was certain that one of them would make the offer, and if he did the other would accept. But if it didn’t happen then I’d’ve arranged things myself and made sure Typhon was blamed anyway.’ He coughed and swallowed again.

Typhon lunged, but this time I was ready and got a grip on him. Cammius watched dispassionately without even an attempt at defence.

‘I’m not proud of myself,’ he said quietly when Typhon had calmed down, and whether he was speaking to me or to him I didn’t know. ‘Not proud at all. Don’t think that. It was an evil thing to do. Telling you this is a relief, not a penance.’

I gave him a sharp look; yeah, I’d believe him. Unrepentant murderers didn’t have that grey expression of self-loathing. For the first time I began to feel a little sorry for Cammius. Still, I had a job to do.

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Carry on, Typhon.’

The guy was still glaring at Cammius. ‘I had a sleeping powder for the stable guards and a bolus for the horse. I slipped the powder into the lads’ wine, waited half an hour and went back with the bolus.’ He paused. ‘After I’d given it to the horse I had it away over the wall before someone turned up and grabbed me.’

Leaving Gaius Acceptus believing he’d done the dirty successfully. As of course he had, although the plan hadn’t been his at all. Clever. ‘Where did you go?’ I asked Typhon. ‘Just as a matter of interest?’

‘I was with a friend in Ostia. Not a racing friend. Her cousin captains a ship on the Alexandria route and he’d’ve given me passage no questions asked. Only thing was, the guy wouldn’t be back for a month so I was stuck. I didn’t know until yesterday when Eutacticus’s men turned up that the horse was dead.’ He shot Acceptus a look of pure venom.

Acceptus stared back frozen-faced. ‘The dose must have been too strong,’ he said. ‘Or the horse had a weakness. In any case it was an accident.’

I noticed that no one, not even Cammius, was looking at him or paying him any attention at all. The guy was nailed, and they knew it. Acceptus knew it, too: his face might be devoid of expression, but his eyes were panic-stricken. I remembered what Eutacticus had said about not having favourites where business was concerned. The guy could wriggle and bluster all he liked, now and later, but in my considered opinion Gaius Sextilius Acceptus was up shit creek without a paddle.

Typhon’s hand was clutching my arm. ‘Corvinus, you know the truth now, right?’ he said. ‘These bastards set me up, both of them. Doping, sure, I’ll admit to that, but I didn’t know the horse would die. You heard Acceptus here; the plan was just to put it out of the Megalenses. As far as I knew, at least. Tell Eutacticus that, will you? Soon as we leave that fucker’s going to kill me. Straight up, no kidding.’

Yeah, he just might, at that. Not that I could muster a great deal of sympathy, because if Typhon had thought for one second that Acceptus would pay him fifty gold pieces up front just for nobbling a horse for a single race then he wasn’t the streetwise guy I took him for. I didn’t believe him any more than I believed Acceptus.

‘Oh, I think Eutacticus knows the truth already, pal,’ I said. ‘He wouldn’t be here if he didn’t.’ How he’d gone about it I didn’t know – certainly not by the route I’d taken – but that I’d bet my last copper on. And, in the light of our last conversation, Eutacticus’s knowledge was relevant to what happened next. Our arrival had certainly interrupted something, and it didn’t take much imagination to guess what. Typhon wasn’t the only guy currently with one foot in the urn.

Apropos of which, it was time to consider our next move, practically speaking. I glanced over towards Laughing George. The guy was sitting with his arms folded, glowering. I reckoned the five of us – including Typhon and Acceptus, who’d both have a vested interest, but counting out Cammius – could take him, and daily workouts or not Eutacticus himself wouldn’t be a problem. We could worry about the repercussions when the time came, but at least we’d’ve got the old man to the comparative safety of the city judges’ offices…

Maybe Cammius had caught the edge of my thought, or, more likely, he’d made the obvious link from what I’d just said. Or, there again, maybe he’d just said all he wanted to say himself and made his mind up. Whichever it was, he suddenly got to his feet .

‘Have we finished?’ he said. ‘If so if you’ll excuse me I have a little business to take care of in my study.’

My guts went cold. Oh, shit. One thing about having a purple stripe to your mantle and six hundred years of tight-arsed, poker-backed aristocratic forebears is that you recognise a good old Roman euphemism when you hear one. Throwaway lines like ‘I have a little business to take care of in my study and I’m just going outside for a while. I may be some time’ tend to have a significance over and above their surface meaning.

Cario had got it too. He stiffened, but didn’t move.

‘There’s no need for that, sir,’ I said quietly. ‘Pegasus was blackmailing you after all. Extenuating circumstances. And you weren’t the one who actually poisoned the horse. The city judge’ll -’

He turned on me. I wouldn’t’ve believed that the human skeleton that Cammius had become would have that much energy left to spend, but his eyes blazed. ‘You think I feel guilty about Pegasus?’ he said. ‘ Pegasus? And, Corvinus, I did poison Polydoxus. You accused me of that originally, and you were right: Acceptus and Typhon here were just my agents. I had to do it, yes, but that fact remains. I killed him, and I killed a faction. My faction. I can do the judging myself. Now let me go to my study, please.’

I remembered my conversation with Florus. There were a lot of similarities between the two men. Yeah; maybe the murder of Polydoxus and the death of the faction were the real crimes after all. At least in the mind of a racing man. I swallowed; it was his decision, and his right. And the end result might be the same in any case. ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Go ahead. We’ll give you half an hour.’