David Wishart - White Murder

‘Sure.’ Wonder of wonders, I got a proper grin out of him, too. Maybe these racing guys were human after all. We set off back towards the entrance. ‘Where are you bound next?’

After that business with the flying dagger I’d’ve liked to say ‘the nearest wineshop’ or maybe ‘home’, but the rain was holding off and it wasn’t even midday yet. ‘I thought I’d call in on the Greens. Get some sort of angle from them.’

The grin slipped. Uh-oh; mistake. Scratch the human.Yeah, well, I supposed it wasn’t exactly the done thing in faction social circles at the end of a visit to say you were off to chat with the opposition. The next bit of the walk was pretty quiet.

Cement-Features was still on the door. I gave him a smile but his face didn’t crack.

‘Thanks for your time, pal,’ I said to Hesper. ‘I’ll see you again.’

‘No problem.’ Hesper was frowning. I thought maybe it was the aftermath of the faux pas on the way over, but I was mistaken. ‘Hey, Corvinus. When you’re next door ask about a guy called Sopilys.’

I stopped and turned. ‘Yeah? Why should I do that?’

‘He used to be one of their grooms, six months back. I don’t know what he’s doing now, or what it was about, but he might be worth a word. He and Pegasus had a major punch-up outside the Black Cat.’

‘The Black Cat?’

‘It’s a Green wineshop, just this side of the Fabrician Bridge.’

Uh-huh; of course: the faction fans tended to have their own drinking holes, usually run by a landlord just as Colour-mad as they were. The Black Cat would be one of these. ‘Right,’ I said. ‘Thanks again, friend.’

‘Don’t mention it.’ He hesitated. ‘Pegasus was a bastard, sure, but he was our bastard. And he was a good driver. If you’re after his killer then you’ve got my backing.’

Maybe I’d read Hesper wrong; well, it wouldn’t be the first time. I set off for the Greens stable.

I got my wish. Minicius Natalis, the Greens boss, was out hobnobbing with the gentry and the guy on the gate – another slab-faced troll – wasn’t about to let a strange narrow-striper across the sacred threshold without prior permission in triplicate. And I’d reckoned the Whites were bad. Yeah, well: I reckoned I’d done pretty good for a first day, and my tongue was hanging out for a chaser to Cammius’s Spanish nectar. Besides, by pure but happy coincidence I’d got a wineshop figuring in the case, and the Sublician was almost on my way home. I could kill two birds with the one stone.

The rain was just starting as I went back down Triumph Road and turned right along the front of Marcellus Theatre. An itinerant pastry-seller covering up his tray pointed me in the direction of the Black Cat, half way down an alley off the approach road to the bridge itself. It was raining in earnest now, and I was glad I’d brought my cloak.

The landlord was obviously one of the real, hundred-percent, dyed-in-the-wool faction nuts. Green wineshop was right: the walls were green inside and out, the tables and benches were painted green, and there were about as many banners, pennants and statuettes around the place as one of the Circus hawkers could expect to shift in a good season. To cap it all off, the wall behind the counter had every Green win since Augustus was in rompers written up on it in table form, with plenty of room for additions. I didn’t even bother to check out the lunch menu. Probably pea soup and spinach rissoles. And fortunately there wasn’t a real eponymous cat on the premises, because it sure as hell wouldn’t’ve stayed black for long.

Yeah, well. That’s racing for you.

The only other customer was a tunic perched on a high stool at the counter. We gave each other a friendly nod.

‘What’ll it be, sir?’ The landlord himself was a tall skinny guy like a long drink of water with an out-of-town accent. He was rubbing the counter with a blue rag.

I looked up at the wine board. On its own at the top, starred, was a pricey Falernian, but my rule is never touch the stuff you find in a city wineshop until you’re sure of the place because nine times out of ten the nearest it’s been to the municipality of Falerii is where it’s sitting on the shelf. The other wines weren’t all that special: the usual cheap-and-cheerfuls from Gaul and Campania that you find in any low-grade wineshop plus a bargain-basement Sicilian.

‘Where’re you from, pal?’ I said to the owner.

He blinked. ‘Uh…Adria.’

Not bad. Could be better, but not bad at all. ‘You happen to have some Praetutian squirrelled away?’

The frown lifted: I ain’t never met the wineshop owner yet who doesn’t appreciate the customer that knows his own region, oenologically speaking. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘Jug?’

‘Make it a half. I need to stay reasonably sober.’

‘You’ve got it. You want some cold Picenan sausage on the side?’

‘Sure.’ What that might be – wine’s my bag, not sausage – I didn’t know, but politics told me I should have it. ‘Go ahead.’

I took off my cloak, shook it out and sat down on the stool next the tunic – a solid, middle-aged father-of-five type who was nursing a winecup and a plate of pickled cucumber – while he went to get the booze. Not a bad place, the Black Cat, if you made allowances for the furnishings. The floor was clean-scrubbed, the tables and the benches positively gleamed and someone, probably the proprietor’s wife, had put a clay pot of narcissi on the counter. Yellow was safe.

‘Nice weather for ducks,’ the tunic said.

‘Yeah.’ I spread the cloak over another stool where it could drip. ‘Hell on the rest of us, though.’

‘You made a good choice with the wine. Pinnius gets it from his wife’s cousin. It’s good stuff.’

I turned towards him with pleasure. Shooting the breeze with other wineshop punters is something I enjoy, and he was obviously a talker. ‘You a regular here, friend?’

He took a mouthful from his cup before he answered. ‘Got a vegetable stall by the Temple of Hope. I buy from a wholesaler the other side of the river so I’m in here most days. It’s on the way and you pick up the latest news on the team.’

‘You follow the Greens, then?’ Silly question in these surroundings, but the guy might simply be colour-blind, and the Reds didn’t have many places of their own. Or maybe his choice of faction had something to do with his trade.

I needn’t’ve worried, though; the guy was Green through and through. ‘Always have,’ he said placidly. ‘Man and boy. Never miss a race if I can help. My eldest son’s the same, desperate to be a driver. Mind you, kids that age – he’s ten next birthday – they all go through that stage. I wanted it myself.’

The landlord came back with the half jug and the sausage; it had cumin and lovage in it and it could’ve been pork but I wasn’t going to enquire more closely. I poured some of the wine into the cup and took a large swig. Good stuff, all right. Not up to the standard of the Latians but well worth drinking. ‘The name’s Marcus Corvinus, by the way,’ I said.

‘Quintus Cascellius.’ We shook, gravely. ‘Don’t see many narrow-stripers round here.’

It was the usual polite request for reciprocal info, and I obliged. ‘I’m looking into a knifing.’

‘Yeah?’ His face registered interest. ‘You with the Watch?’

‘Uh-uh. Purely private. The guy was a driver, you’ll know him, he used to be with the Greens. Pegasus.’

‘Sweet Mercury!’ He’d picked up his winecup. Now he set it down again. ‘Pegasus is dead? Pegasus? ’

He was staring at me like I was one of these messengers in a Greek play; him and the landlord both.