David Wishart: Last Rites

‘It hangs together, certainly, although there are problems besides the large one of the murder weapon…’

‘Yeah? Like what, for example?’

‘…which we won’t go into for the present.’

‘Gee, thanks, lady!’

‘So. What’s theory two?’

‘Theory two has X’s assignation with Cornelia.’

‘Oh, Corvinus!’

‘Hang on! The difference is that it may not have anything to do with sex. Or not on that occasion, anyway.’

‘You told me that both Junia Torquata and Lucius Arruntius were convinced that Cornelia died a virgin. Not to mention the girl’s maid.’

‘Look, I’m just covering the possibilities here, right? And the chance that X was her lover is one of them.’

‘Very well.’

‘Actually, there’re two major differences between theories one and two. The reason for the assignation is one.’

‘And the other?’

‘That the meeting wasn’t prearranged. Which is why Cornelia died.’

‘All right, Marcus. Carry on.’ It wasn’t often I had Perilla’s full attention, but I’d got it now. ‘This is fascinating.’

‘Okay. First of all I admit theory two is more unlikely because, as you say, Torquata, Arruntius and Niobe are all against the pregnancy angle. However, it does explain the knife, and so far as I can see it fits all the known facts.’

Perilla’s lips twitched. ‘You’re hedging,’ she said.

‘Sure I’m hedging! I’ve been mauled often enough to know when hedging’s called for!’

‘Don’t snap. There’s no need for it.’

‘Right. Fine.’ I downed another mouthful of the Setinian and filled the cup. ‘So. Cornelia is pregnant and X is the guy responsible. He knows the score because she’s told him, and he also knows that when the fact becomes apparent he’s in trouble up to his eyebrows. Sure, she might do the noble thing and refuse to divulge his name, but he can’t depend on that. Pregnant women don’t always act rationally, especially if they’re Vestals and all they’ve got to look forward to when the happy news breaks is a pit near the Colline Gate. And just as there’s only one penalty for her there’s only one for him: to be flogged to death publicly in Cattlemarket Square. So X has no option but to cover his tracks.

‘He chooses the night of the Good Goddess ceremony for the reasons I’ve already given: getting into the house initially may be difficult, but once he is in everything’s comparatively easy-peasy. He dresses up as a flutegirl -’ I stopped: Perilla was frowning. ‘You got a comment, lady?’

‘Not at the moment, Marcus. Go on, please.’

‘Uh-huh. Okay. He dresses up as a flutegirl and takes part in the rite. Cornelia – and this is important – doesn’t know he’s there; probably he stays well in the background, keeps his head down and his face hidden. When the rite’s over he watches and waits his chance; sooner or later, if he’s lucky, Cornelia’s going to leave the room to take care of the demands of nature. When that happens he slips out into the porch, runs round to the garden door and lies in wait for her in the hall passage near the latrine. When she comes out he attracts her attention and calls her over. Now he’s got no reason to carry on with the charade; in fact for the next bit of the plan to work she has to recognise him. Which she does. Cornelia isn’t going to give the alarm; he’s her lover, after all, and she wouldn’t want him caught. Besides, she trusts him. He takes her into one of the bedrooms. Okay. Now the scenario can go two ways. Either he kills her straight off with the knife he’s brought with him for the purpose or he persuades her to kill herself. The end result’s the same. And once Cornelia is dead he pulls the bolts and does a runner.’ I paused and looked at Perilla. ‘So. What do you think?’

She was winding a lock of her hair round her finger. A good sign; she does that either when she’s tired or when she can’t think of a comeback. Great! It seemed I wasn’t going to be vaporised with sarcasm this time after all.

‘It works, Marcus,’ she said finally. ‘Certainly it explains the knife. The main difficulty, as you say, is the pregnancy.’

‘Yeah. Only I can’t get round that.’

‘What if X had another reason for seeing Cornelia alive as a threat to him?’

Hey! ‘Go on,’ I said.

‘You say Torquata told you that the girl had had something on her mind the last few days. What if she’d… I don’t know; seen something, heard something involving X that put it in her power to harm him in some way. And she was swithering over whether or not to report it.’

‘It’d have to be something pretty big. Whoever X is, he’d think twice about killing a Vestal in cold blood. More than twice, for all sorts of reasons. Unless he’s totally out of his tree, and that sort of thing gets you noticed in other ways.’

‘Admitted. We can’t even begin to guess the nature of the reason itself. But it is possible in general terms, would you say?’

‘Yeah. Yeah, it’s possible.’

‘Very well. Taking that as a modification to your theory, where does it lead us? The first part’s fine: X insinuates himself into the rite, waits for Cornelia to leave the room and takes the back way into the hall. He watches for the girl to come out of the latrine and -’ She stopped. ‘No. No, that’s a problem. If X isn’t Cornelia’s lover then he can’t just lure her into the bedroom on the pretext that they have to talk. She’d be at the least suspicious and, if she did see through his disguise, she would certainly have given the alarm.’

‘What about the original idea? That he made a noise, intentionally this time, that brought her within grabbing distance? It’d be risky, sure, but again it’s possible. From the look of the girl I’d say she was no shrinking violet, and if she thought the house was sealed the likelihood that she’d be facing a male intruder wouldn’t’ve entered her head.’

‘Hmm. All right. And being a man he would have the physical strength to overpower her, plus the advantage of surprise. Very well, Marcus; we’ll accept that with reservations. Having decoyed the girl into the hall, he grabs her, covers her mouth, pulls her into the bedroom and stabs her, being careful to choose the throat to give the impression of suicide. He then straightens the body to ensure there’s no suggestion of a struggle, places the girl’s hands round the hilt of the knife and leaves through the back door.’

Yeah; it would work. It would work very well. And the big plus was that it got us over the pregnancy question. Sure, it left the matter of the guy’s reasons wide open, but like Perilla said we couldn’t even begin to guess at these anyway. And the hairs on the back of my neck were prickling. That was always a good sign. I reached for the jug and topped up my cup.

‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Okay. Let’s move on to who X is.’

Perilla frowned. ‘That’s the real puzzle,’ she said. ‘Oh, not his name, just who he is. The murderer doesn’t make sense.’

‘Run that past me again, lady. In simple Latin this time.’

‘It’s a matter of class. Whichever of the theories you choose X had to belong to the same social stratum as the women. Neither Vestals nor senior consuls’ wives mix with the lower classes, so there would be no opportunity for… connection, if you like.’

‘I see. Okay. Agreed.’

‘Also, he knew the layout of the house; he had to, to be able to plan his movements in advance. That again argues a certain inside knowledge that could only be gained by social intimacy, which in itself would entail parity of social standing. Of course, the house slaves themselves would have the information, but I think we can safely rule them out on grounds of motive.’