David Wishart - White Murder

Natalis shot to his feet like a rocketing pheasant. I’d been right about pint-size: the little bastard’s head didn’t come much further up above the desk. ‘That’s it, Corvinus!’ he said. ‘You get the hell off my property!’

Yeah, well, there wasn’t a lot else I could do; certainly we weren’t about to forge the bonds of a lasting friendship locked head to head like this. Not that there was a snowball’s chance in hell we ever would do. ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Suit yourself.’

I walked out with his glare burning my back. Maybe it’d been a mistake to rattle the bastard’s cage, but I felt a lot better for it. Outside, Socrates the troll was waiting, slightly crouched, to lead me back to the gate.

So that was that; short and definitely-not-sweet. One thing I was sure of, though. I wouldn’t’ve taken Titus Minicius Natalis’s word on tomorrow’s sunrise.

Okay; so I was persona very much non grata at the Greens stables. Be that as it may, I was still light on information about Pegasus’s career with the Greens. So where could I go?

I was just cutting through Vegetable-Sellers’ Square when I remembered the punter in the Black Cat; what was his name? Cosconius? Cascennius?

Cascellius. Quintus Cascellius. Right. And he had a vegetable stall near the Temple of Hope; back a way, near Marcellus Theatre. Good omen. Sure, it was an outside chance, because we hadn’t exactly parted on the best of terms, but he’d struck me as a decent type who’d at least had some sympathy for Pegasus. Certainly he was worth a visit.

I turned round and made for the Temple of Hope. It was on the very edge of Vegetable-Sellers’ Square itself, and like the name suggests vegetable stalls weren’t all that thin on the ground in that quarter. I buttonholed an old biddy selling spring greens off a spread-out cloth and asked her for directions. Three stalls and an obligatory bunch of cow parsley later, I struck lucky. There was the man himself selling radishes to a tenement matron with a chest like the front of a grain barge.

‘Hey, Cascellius,’ I said. ‘Remember me?’

I thought he might hand me a turnip and tell me where to put it, but he didn’t bat an eyelid. ‘The narrow-striper in the Black Cat,’ he said. ‘You still chasing knifemen?’

‘Yeah. And it’s Marcus Corvinus, if you’ve forgotten.’

‘Nothing wrong with my memory, neighbour.’ He put the copper coin the lady had given him for the radishes in his cashbox and gave me a long, slow, appraising look from under brows that would’ve done a bull credit. Come to think of it, ‘bull’ fitted him pretty well. I hadn’t noticed it particularly the last time we’d met, but here on his own ground the guy radiated a solid placidity that was definitely taurine. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘You have time for a cup of wine? Not in the Cat.’

That got me the long unsmiling look again, and I swear his lower jaw moved like he was chewing the idea over. ‘Okay,’ he said finally. ‘You’ve got it. I make no promises, mind.’

‘Great.’

He gave the cash-box to the woman selling dried herbs at the next stall. ‘Look after the shop for me, Mammo,’ he said. ‘I won’t be long.’ The woman flashed him a couple of teeth like an odontically-challenged beaver’s. ‘There’s a wineshop in Plane Tree Yard, Corvinus. We can go there.’

He led me between the stalls and into a cul-de-sac where there were a few crude wooden benches round a stunted plane tree. We sat down at one of them.

‘Nice place,’ I said.

It was meant to be ironic – we had a line of dripping washing above our heads – but Cascellius nodded seriously. ‘The landlord’s from Verona. He serves the best Rhaetian in the city.’

I glanced at him. Yeah, well: you live and learn. And there ain’t no reason why a fellow wine buff shouldn’t sell radishes. The waiter was hovering. I ordered a jug of Rhaetian.

‘Now,’ he said when it came and we’d sunk the first quarter-cup.

‘I need some information,’ I said.

‘So I gathered. To do with Pegasus, right?’

I hesitated. ‘Along with other things, sure. But let’s start with him, if you’re willing.’

He shook his head slowly. ‘It’s not a question of willing, Corvinus. I can’t help you. I’ll tell you that now. That’s can’t, not won’t, because I’m sorry the man’s dead and I’d help if I could. I scarcely spoke to him, nor did anyone else, including his faction mates. He might’ve come into the Cat a lot but he wasn’t a mixer.’

‘He didn’t have any close friends?’

‘None that I know of. Not in the Cat, anyway.’

‘Enemies?’

‘He wasn’t liked, even before the Sopilys business. But I never heard anyone actually bad-mouth him.’

Uh-huh. Well, not much mileage there. ‘What can you tell me about Minicius Natalis?’

He frowned. ‘Natalis?’

‘The Greens boss.’

‘I know who Natalis is. What’s your interest?’

‘Nothing in particular. Just curious.’

‘ “Just curious”, eh?’ I got the long considering stare again. Then he shrugged. He might be slow, but the guy wasn’t stupid: there was a brain under that curly topknot, and I’d bet he hadn’t missed the implications of the follow-on question. ‘Okay. I said I’d help and I will. He’s worked his way up from nothing. The man’s an ex-slave, from Leontini. Started out as plain Titus Minicius, drove for the Greens under the name of Olympius, bought his freedom and ended up as their leading driver.’ Right; I’d forgotten that drivers tended to drop their own names and take fancy Greek ones when they joined the cars. ‘He made his pile in prize money, but then he had a bad smash and broke his right arm. Shattered the bone. Some people say he lost his nerve after that. Anyway, he stayed with the Greens as master of stables and principal trainer. Ten or so years back when the previous boss died he made a deal with a consortium of purple-stripers to sub him and took over as faction master. That do you for starters?’

‘He’s good?’

‘Of course he’s good, he wouldn’t be the boss otherwise. His backers got their investment returned twice over inside two years. He knows the business six ways from nothing, and he’s hard, keeps the team on their toes. Rules his stable with an iron rod: one slip and you’re out.’

Yeah; that was the impression I’d got of him. The guy was tough as nails. And the fact that his whole career had been with the Greens was interesting too. I didn’t know about the Reds’ boss Pudens, but the other two had been relative newcomers, buying in at the top. Natalis had come up the hard way. That explained a lot.

‘You mentioned a consortium of purple-stripers,’ I said. ‘Who would they be?’

‘The top of the range. Imperial family, collaterals, Greens supporters going way back before his time. Tiberius has never been much into racing, but the Julians were always Greens. Prince Gaius, of course, he’s a prime supporter like his father and mother before him, and now he’s got the emperor’s favour he still chips in a fair amount.’ Yeah; I knew that already. It was one of the things that was worrying me. ‘Mind you, the Blues have their own gilt-edgers. The consul Vitellius, for example.’

Uh-huh. That I hadn’t known. I didn’t know Vitellius, either, but he had a reputation as a racing man. Not a very savoury one: a taker rather than a giver. If he was one of Rome’s current top magistrates it was because he’d bought himself his seat in the chair. Mind you, that put him in good company. If ‘good’ isn’t quite the right word.

‘So how exactly are the Greens doing at the moment? Compared with their average, that is.’

Cascellius took a swallow of his wine. ‘Okay. They had a few hiccups last year mid-season, mostly just bad luck, but they picked up later.’