David Wishart: White Murder

‘Surely I will.’ Cammius stood up as well.

‘I’ll see you anon, then.’

Huffy as hell. We waited for the door to close, or rather slam. When it did Cammius turned back to me. He was frowning. ‘You’re a racing man, Corvinus?

‘Uh-uh. Not me. Two or three times a year, max.’

‘That’s a pity. I wouldn’t’ve had to apologise because you’d’ve understood. Gaius Acceptus thinks the traditional partnership gives him a licence to run the Whites as well as the Blues, especially since he’s been in the business for longer than I have. Sometimes it’s good to remind him that we’re independent heads of separate teams.’ He almost smiled. ‘Wine?’

I’d thought he’d never ask. This sounded promising. ‘Yeah. Yeah, that’d be great.’

There was a tray with jug and cups beside the door. He picked up the jug – it was solid silver, and it looked heavy – poured for us both, handed me mine and sat down again. I drank: not bad stuff, not bad at all. Only thing was, I couldn’t place it.

He must’ve noticed my expression. ‘It’s Spanish,’ he said. ‘Not from one of the big new commercial estates, though. It comes from a vineyard planted by the Carthaginians three hundred years back. Original vines, or so the maker claims. He’s an old business acquaintance of mine, and his family’ve been farming the land for generations. They say Hannibal’s father would drink nothing else.’

Well, I hadn’t heard that old Barca had been much of a wine buff, but if so I couldn’t fault his judgment. It was liquid velvet, not in the imperial Caecuban bracket but still as good as the best Setinian. ‘Who’s his city dealer?’ I asked.

Cammius chuckled; with Acceptus gone he was thawing fast. ‘No one; he doesn’t export. And because the yield’s low he only sells to friends. Selected friends, at that. My share’s no more than ten jars a year and friend or not he makes me pay through the nose, but it’s worth it.’

‘You’re from that part of the world yourself?’ I was being polite; like I say, you could’ve used the guy’s accent to grate cheese.

‘New Carthage. I was a merchant there for thirty-five years before I retired. Ran a fleet of ten ships at the finish.’

Yeah, right; that made sense. It didn’t just explain the wine, it explained the jug as well. Plus the pricey bronze. Retired merchant-shipowners can be seriously rich people. Mind you, to own a faction he’d have to be rolling. ‘So when did you take over the Whites?’ I asked.

‘Five years ago, when my wife died and I moved to Rome. The last gentleman’ – he said the word like it tasted sour – ‘to manage them had eaten and whored his way through what should have paid the bills and made them a team to be proud of in themselves. Which, Corvinus, is my intention, despite what plans Gaius Acceptus may have to the contrary. When the mastership came up for auction I jumped at it. If it had cost twice the money I’d still have paid. Running a faction is the most satisfying job in the world.’ He smiled. ‘Especially for a Spaniard, because the Spaniard who has no love for or interest in horses is a corpse.’ He caught himself, the smile vanished and he made the sign against the evil eye: Spaniard was right. ‘ Absit omen. My apologies, and also for allowing my tongue to run away from me in other ways. So. Back to business. Tell me more about this theory of yours.’

I told him; the whole thing, including the idea I’d had about the murderer hiding in the building across the way.

‘Pegasus, now. You’re sure he was waiting for someone? Absolutely sure?’

‘Yeah.’ Interesting; I’d noticed that was the aspect of the affair he’d latched onto before. As, indeed, had Acceptus. ‘You, uh, think that’s important, sir?’

‘Oh, yes. It’s important. Much more perhaps than you realise, not being a racing man yourself.’

‘Yeah? And how would that be?’

‘Pegasus had his habits. One of them was, he might’ve gone drinking outside now and again but he had his favourite shops and he stuck to them. When the Watch told me he’d been found in an alley off Iugarius I wondered if they’d got the right man. Now you tell me he was meeting someone. In the racing business, Corvinus, these two things – a strange wineshop and a meeting – don’t add up well. Certainly not to something I intend to ignore.’

‘You mean he had a scam going?’

‘Let’s just say I’d be interested to know who the other man was. Very interested.’

‘The guy’s dead. If there was a scam, that’s dead too.’

‘Maybe so, maybe not. Every faction has its secrets. If one gets out then the faction master has to know before he can take the appropriate steps. But he judges. Only him, no one else, because that’s what being faction master means. No one else has the right. You understand me?’

The grey eyes had gone diamond-hard. Cammius might be a nice enough old guy, but there was steel there, not far beneath the surface. And I’d guess that where his faction was concerned he didn’t take any prisoners. ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Okay. So we both want to find the murderer. You give me a free rein and I’ll do my best to nail the bastard. Do we have a bargain?’

He hesitated, then held out his hand. I took it. ‘We have a bargain,’ he said firmly.

‘Fine.’ We shook. ‘So. Tell me about Pegasus. From the beginning.’

Cammius turned his winecup between his fingers. ‘He joined us almost exactly four months ago. The end of November, just after the Plebbies.’

‘The Plebbies?’

‘I’m sorry. I’ve taken to using my faction’s own slang. The Plebeian Games.’

‘Uh-huh. And he came over from the Greens, right?’

‘He did.’

I hesitated: in the light of the recent spat with Acceptus this next bit was going to be tricky. ‘Uh…forgive the question, but you happen to know his reasons?’

I half expected to be given my head in my hands like the Blues faction master, but Cammius didn’t bat an eyelid. ‘No,’ he said. ‘And I’ll admit I didn’t think of asking. Gaius is right about that, at least. We were lucky to have him, very lucky. Pegasus may have had his faults but he was a top-notch driver, a real first-rater, and that’s the thing in this business. More than the horses, even.’

‘Yeah? And why’s that, exactly?’ I hadn’t missed that ‘faults’, but you learn to go with the flow, and the guy was talking. I could pick up on the details later.

He grunted with amusement. ‘You really aren’t a racing man, are you, Corvinus? A race isn’t just won by the fastest team, that’s only half of it. It’s also about timing and position, and as such you can’t afford to make mistakes with either. Give your team their heads too soon and you lose, too late and you lose. Box yourself in, give the man behind space to get through, take just one turn too sharp or too wide and you lose. Losing’s simple, no matter how good your horses are. Pegasus didn’t lose easily. He read the field as if he carried the book in his head. He was a natural, something we didn’t have and we needed badly. It’s a tragedy that he died. Especially when he did.’

‘He was that important?’

Cammius set the winecup down. The amusement had gone like it had never been, and only the steel was left. That and a slow, deep anger. ‘Five years it’s taken me to build up this faction,’ he said. ‘A lot of time, a lot of money, more sheer bloody sweat than you can possibly imagine, even if I don’t regret it.’ I said nothing. ‘Next season was going to be the first Whites year for decades. We’d got the horse and now we had the man. A few good wins to use as bait and we could’ve held our own with the Greens and Blues pulling in the cream of the up-and-coming drivers; and drivers is what we need. Yes, Pegasus was that important.’