David Wishart - Last Rites

‘Yes, the ring was young Marcus Lepidus’s. Although I hadn’t seen it for a long time. How Cornelia got it, or why she was wearing it round her neck, I have no idea.’

‘Right.’ I took a deep breath. ‘Let’s start at the beginning with the basic facts. When her parents split up, remarried and moved away from Rome, Cornelia went to live with Marcus Lepidus Senior’s family. True?’

‘She was only four at the time. Neither parent particularly wanted her in their new ménage, and Lepidus Senior was her uncle. It was a natural arrangement.’

Shit. I’d been told about the Lepidus connection! When I’d asked Furius Camillus about Cornelia he’d mentioned Lepidus himself, only I’d assumed it was just a slip of the tongue and he’d meant the girl’s actual father Lentulus. Fool! ‘Lepidus had – or has, rather, because the guy’s still alive – two children of his own, a daughter and a son. The son, Marcus, was two years younger than Cornelia. They grew up together.’

‘Only for the next four years. Cornelia became a Vestal when she was eight. Marcus, of course, would be six. At which point, naturally, the tie was severed and Cornelia moved to the House of the Vestals. Four years, Corvinus, hardly justifies the term “growing up together”.’

‘Don’t split hairs, lady! Obviously the two were very close. They kept up the friendship, only any one-to-one meetings had to be secret because they weren’t brother and sister by blood, or even stepbrother and stepsister. They kept it up until practically the day the girl died. What I want to know is exactly how close they got to each other.’

Torquata sat up. ‘ Corvinus! ’

But I’d had enough; certainly too much to be frozen out. ‘Come on, Torquata!’ I snapped. ‘Up to now largely thanks to you I’ve been working on the assumption either that Cornelia was killed by a stranger or, if she did know the man, a sexual connection between the two of them was unlikely. Now I find out, no thanks to you, that there’s a prime candidate who’s been seeing her regularly since they were kids together.’

‘In public, certainly, and perhaps even as a fellow guest at the more respectable private dinner parties. I don’t deny that. Vestals, as you know, are not cloistered. However -’

‘Junia Torquata, I’m not talking about those sorts of meetings and well you know it! I’m talking about the sort of rendezvous Servilia witnessed.’

‘Servilia is a -’ Torquata stopped and bit her lip, then went on more carefully. ‘Servilia did not like Cornelia. A product of one of those petty jealousies I mentioned. The meeting may have been an isolated incident and the rest the result of my sister-in-Vesta’s overheated imagination. Certainly I knew nothing of any unaccompanied trysts, or I would naturally have put a stop to them.’

‘What Servilia saw doesn’t sound like an isolated incident to me, lady. And if it wasn’t, that makes a big difference. Sure, the girl was a Vestal, but Lepidus Junior was no direct blood relation, and the two obviously liked each other a lot or they wouldn’t’ve got together. The meeting could’ve been an innocent brother-sister level but it could equally be an assignation between lovers. Whether you like it or not sex is back on the cards, and the pregnancy angle with it.’

‘Corvinus, I have already told you that under no circumstances would Cornelia have broken her vows. And young Marcus Lepidus is neither a seducer nor a murderer, especially of a girl who was both his cousin and a Vestal virgin. I have known him from birth and I can assure you of that fact categorically.’

There was something wrong. Maybe it was something in her eye or in her tone, I didn’t know, but it was false as hell. However certain her words sounded, I’d bet a sturgeon to a pickled mussel that Torquata wasn’t as hundred-per-cent convinced of the truth of them as she wanted me to think she was. And the reason was she still knew something that I didn’t and was terrified that I’d find it out. So what the hell was it?

Then I remembered her shock the last time I’d been here with Camillus, and what exactly it had been that we’d been discussing; and the hairs stirred on my neck as the answer hit me.

Oh, Jupiter! Jupiter best and greatest! We’d got our murderer!

‘Marcus Lepidus can play the flute, can’t he?’ I said quietly.

Torquata stiffened. She closed her eyes and I thought she was going to faint, but then she opened them again and stared straight at me without blinking, her face expressionless. She was a fighter, the chief Vestal, I’d give her that. Even when she was beaten.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘As a matter of fact he can. Very well indeed. The Aemilii Lepidi have always had strong musical interests. And of course the Cornelii connection was an added incentive. The Cornelii were Graecophiles from the first.’

I stood up. Well, that put the lid on it: Marcus Lepidus was our man. The why and the how were details that could be cleared up later by the chief city judge. Sure, there’d be the question of alibi or lack of it and maybe a few small loose ends no one would ever tie in, but the simple fact that Lepidus was the killer was plain enough. ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Thanks for your help, Junia Torquata. I’ll see you -’

She reached out and gripped my wrist. Gods, the lady was strong! I could almost feel the bones grating.

‘Wait,’ she said.

‘Torquata,’ I said gently, not moving, ‘it’s finished.’ I felt sorry as hell for her, but there was no more to be said. ‘The guy’s guilty six ways from nothing. He has to be.’

‘Marcus Lepidus did not kill Cornelia.’

‘Fine. Give me firm proof – give me any proof at all to weigh against what we’ve got – and I’ll scratch him off the list.’ Silence. ‘Yeah. Right. Now if you’ll let me have my arm back I’ll -’

‘Talk to him. Let him put his side of the story.’

‘You admit there is a story?’

She hesitated. ‘Marcus was… very fond of Cornelia, yes. As a sister, I mean. He’s a very weak boy in many ways, sensitive and easily dominated, which perhaps explains his reputation.’ Jupiter! I wondered whether the chief Vestal wasn’t showing unexpected pseudo-maternal astigmatism here. Sure, I’d never met young Marcus Lepidus, but I’d heard of him, and ‘reputation’ was right in spades. The kid was neck and neck with the fastest set in the city, and whatever Torquata said he was no sweet little cowslip. ‘I won’t beg you, Corvinus, because I’m acting in the interests of truth. Also I admit that the facts would all seem to be pointing to one conclusion. However, I think it would be very, very foolish to condemn the boy without a hearing. Go and see him. See him now.’

I sighed. Yeah, well; it wouldn’t serve any useful purpose, I knew, but what can you say?

The Lepidus place was a big, old, rambling house with a big, old, rambling garden that took up a sizeable slice of the Quirinal; which figured, because the Aemilii Lepidi were one of the oldest, richest and most aristocratic families in Rome. Not to mention exclusive. Like I say, I’d never met the son but I knew the father slightly. Certainly I knew of him: Marcus Aemilius Lepidus Senior had been on the defence bench at the Piso trial – in fact he’d been the only straight-shooter involved in that fiasco – and before that his name had been one of the ones Augustus had suggested was fit to have the title ‘emperor’ tacked in front of it. Mind you, the sharp old bugger had added the footnote that he wouldn’t’ve touched the job wearing three sets of gloves. Which tells you something about Lepidus Senior.

I knocked on the door – a huge slab of ancient oak banded with iron – and the door-slave opened up. Not your usual cheeky type; the guy was solid oak like the door itself, and he obviously took his job seriously. I introduced myself.