David Wishart - Last Rites

Still glaring at me, the guy lumbered inside and set his solid back against the wall. I swear the stonework creaked. I closed the door.

Servilia looked me up and down. ‘The atrium is this way?’ she said.

‘Yeah.’ I was beginning to feel slightly steam-rollered here. ‘Just go straight through.’

She cleared her throat. ‘Do you normally answer your own door, young man? Just out of interest?’

‘Uh, no.’ Jupiter on wheels! ‘I’m, uh, sorry about that. We’ve – ah – had a slight domestic crisis.’

‘Really.’ She made the word sound like she’d caught me in the middle of a full-blown orgy and the atrium was packed wall to wall with naked dancing girls. ‘Never mind. I am prepared to make allowances.’ Another freezing stare. ‘ Some allowances.’

‘That’s great.’ I edged across the lobby. Servilia didn’t move, and the freezing stare dropped another couple of temperature points. ‘Uh… is there a problem?’

‘Naturally,’ she said, ‘you will want to make yourself respectable before we talk. You have my leave.’

Ouch. The mantle. Or lack of one, rather. ‘Got you,’ I said, nodding. ‘Right. Right. Fine. Just follow me, then, and my wife’ll look after you while I change.’

Perilla was reclining sedately on the couch in her receiving visitors pose. Thank the gods for a wife with social graces. I made the introductions and bolted upstairs to comply with the decencies.

When I came down Servilia was sitting stiff as a ramrod on the most upright, least comfortable chair we’d got. She fixed me with a disapproving eye, and I noticed that Perilla was smiling brightly and looking ragged at the edges. Obviously a little of this lady went a long way.

I lay down on my usual couch. ‘Now, Servilia,’ I said. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘It is more a question, Valerius Corvinus, of what I can do for you. I have some information regarding my deceased colleague Cornelia which, painful though it is for me to pass on, I consider relevant to your enquiries.’

Uh-huh. I perked up; maybe letting the old sour-face over our threshold hadn’t been such a mistake after all. ‘Does – ah – Junia Torquata know you’re here?’ I said.

Her thin lips set. ‘As a matter of fact, no. I have not consulted the chief Vestal, partly because the information is mine alone to give and partly because I am not at all sure that she would -’ She stopped.

‘That she would what?’ I prompted.

Servilia gave me a long slow stare. ‘My reasons, Valerius Corvinus,’ she said, ‘are immaterial, and none of your concern. I would be grateful if you would simply allow me to provide you with the information and refrain from asking irrelevant questions. Is that agreed?’

I was beginning to take a real dislike to Servilia. ‘Yeah. Yeah, okay,’ I said. ‘It’s agreed.’

‘Good.’ She glanced at Perilla. ‘Perhaps your wife could leave us. My Axeman is in call, so the proprieties would be observed. And I would prefer for the sake of the sisterhood that the fewer people who know of this the better.’

I felt myself flushing. ‘Now just a minute, lady!’

‘That’s all right, Marcus.’ Perilla got up quickly. ‘I have some work to do anyway. A pleasure to meet you, Servilia.’

The Vestal sniffed.

When Perilla had gone I turned back to her. ‘Now,’ I said.

‘Cornelia was seeing a man. A young man. Clearly on a regular basis. And they were on terms of considerable intimacy.’

A cold knot formed in my stomach. ‘You’re sure of that?’

‘I saw them together myself.’ There was no mistaking the quiet satisfaction in Servilia’s voice. I felt my fist bunch. ‘Three days ago, the day before the girl’s death. The circumstances of the meeting were quite clandestine and completely unambiguous.’

‘Uh-huh.’ I kept my voice neutral. ‘You want to tell me the whole story?’ Sure she did; I couldn’t’ve stopped her with a blackjack. The sour old cat was enjoying every minute of this.

‘It was, as I said, three days ago. I was in my sitting-room, which opens on to a corridor off which Cornelia’s own set of rooms lay. I had occasion to…’ She hesitated. ‘That is, I decided to leave the room for a few moments. On opening my door I glimpsed a figure hurrying down the corridor ahead of me, wearing a heavy cloak and hood. Naturally I was suspicious.’

‘Naturally,’ I said.

Her eye went into me like a gimlet. ‘Valerius Corvinus,’ she said, ‘I do not find this either easy or pleasant. However, I would be failing in my duty if I withheld important evidence merely because it pained me personally to give it. Do you understand me?’

‘Yeah.’ I cleared my throat. ‘Yeah, I understand you.’ I did, too: the woman was a nosy, self-righteous, interfering bitch. Unfortunately, she was a nosy, self-righteous, interfering bitch with information vital to the case. ‘My apologies. Carry on, Servilia.’

‘I fetched my own cloak and followed, being careful, of course, to avoid being seen. By this time I knew who the woman was: Cornelia was a very… well-proportioned girl’ – a genteel cough – ‘and quite recognisable, even in that garb. She went straight to the side door of the house, which isn’t often used, and slipped outside.’

‘And you followed her.’

‘I did. As I say, at a discreet distance, which was just as well because the girl was obviously concerned that she should not be observed. However, since this occurred at mid-morning there were plenty of people about, and I was able to escape her notice. Also, the distance involved was comparatively short; less than a hundred yards, in fact. To Pearl-sellers’ Porch. There was a young man waiting near one of the pillars. She went straight up to him and they… embraced.’

‘“Embraced”? You mean they kissed each other?’

Servilia’s colour rose. ‘It was more of a hug, but still very indecorous behaviour for a Vestal; indeed, blasphemously indecorous. I… waited and watched under cover of a trinket stall while they talked, I would say for upwards of twenty minutes. Their heads were very close together as if they were whispering; Cornelia, of course, was hooded but the man was not. They became quite animated.’

‘“Animated”?’

‘Excited. But not pleasantly so. I could not see Cornelia’s expression, naturally, but I had the impression that the man was pleading with her about something. Several times he touched her arm.’

‘And that was all you saw?’

‘That was all. They embraced again and Cornelia ran down the steps and back, I presume, to the House of the Vestals, since she was there when I returned. The young man went off in the other direction.’

My scalp was prickling. Forget the obvious let-out clause of a long-lost brother and a fraternal hug: Cornelia, I knew, had been an only child. So the next question was the crucial one. ‘You, uh, you’d recognise the guy again if you saw him?’

She smiled; not a nice smile. ‘Oh, yes. Valerius Corvinus. Of course I would. His name is Marcus Aemilius Lepidus.’

It was too late to do anything about it that day, but I was down at the chief priest’s house early next morning interviewing Junia Torquata. I was pretty angry.

‘You knew!’ I said.

She was watching me calmly. Furius Camillus was out on priestly business and we were on our own in the chilly atrium, but the affront to propriety didn’t seem to worry her and I was past caring.

‘I did not know,’ she said quietly. ‘Servilia did not think fit to tell me.’

‘I don’t mean about the meeting.’ I’d been pacing around the room. Now I pulled up a chair that looked two hundred years older than Cleopatra and sat down facing her. ‘You knew the guy existed and they’d been friends for years, yet you never mentioned him. I’ll bet you recognised the ring, for a start.’