David Wishart - Last Rites

‘The master at home?’ I said. ‘The young master?’

‘He’s in mourning, sir. I doubt if he’s receiving visitors.’

‘Give him my apologies, but say it’s important. Very important.’

‘Very well, sir. If you’d care to wait.’ The door-slave led me through and left me in a gleaming marble atrium the size of a racetrack. There were statues there that wouldn’t’ve looked out of place in the Wart’s villa on Capri, and the ornamental pool was big enough to stage a mock sea fight. Rich was right.

The slave reappeared. ‘Would you follow me, sir?’

We went down an expensively panelled corridor paved with coloured marble that ended up at what was in effect a separate self-contained suite facing on to the garden. The slave stopped at a door, knocked and opened it. We were in a small reading-room.

‘Marcus Valerius Corvinus, sir,’ he said gently.

The guy lying on the couch looked terrible. The mourning didn’t help, mind – that much stubble doesn’t lend anyone an air of sharpness and insouciance – but his tunic was creased and rumpled like he’d slept in it and his face was red and puffy. I could see what Torquata had meant: he had soft, almost feminine features, long eyelashes and a weak mouth and chin. Not one of life’s forceful characters, that was sure. A follower, not a leader. He’d’ve made a good flutegirl, though.

He got up. The slave left, closing the door behind him.

‘What can I do for you, Corvinus?’ His voice was flat and dead. ‘Venustus said it was important.’

I cleared my throat. Hell, the guy might be guilty, but he was obviously also suffering. I wasn’t going to enjoy this. ‘It’s about Cornelia. I’m… looking into her death. As a favour to the chief Vestal.’

‘Looking into her death?’ Something shifted in his eyes. He waved me to another couch, then sat down again on his own one, his movements jerky. ‘But it was suicide, wasn’t it? They told me it was suicide.’

I hadn’t moved. ‘The Vestal Servilia said she’d seen you talking to her the day before she died. Outside Pearl-sellers’ Porch.’

His mouth went slack with shock. ‘She said what?’

‘You deny it?’

I thought he wasn’t going to answer, but finally, quietly, he said, ‘No. I don’t deny it. But -’

‘Or that you’d been seeing her regularly over a period of years?’

Another pause, even longer. ‘No.’ His voice was a ghost’s. ‘Not that either.’

‘Cornelia was wearing a ring on a cord round her neck. Was it yours?’

‘A ring?’

‘With two clasped hands.’

He swallowed. His eyes were glittering. ‘Yes. That was mine. I gave it to her years ago, a keepsake. I didn’t… didn’t know she… carried it around with her… but certainly -’ He broke off and took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry, Valerius Corvinus, but I’m very tired and very upset and I really don’t know what you want of me. I’d like you to go.’

‘Not yet.’ I tried to make the words as unthreatening as possible. Maybe he didn’t know, but in that case he was one of the poorest guessers I’d ever come across. ‘I have to ask you what exactly your relationship with Cornelia was.’

‘But that’s simple.’ He half smiled. Or maybe that was what he tried to do but it didn’t come out right; maybe he was the one who was simple. ‘I loved her, of course.’

I loved her, of course . Jupiter best and greatest! My stomach went cold. I crossed over to the other couch and sat down. ‘The girl was a Vestal,’ I said quietly.

‘Yes, I know that. Of course I do.’ The half-smile was still there, and it just looked… wrong. My skin crawled. ‘That was the problem. She came when I was two. She was chosen to be a Vestal when I was six. That’s all I had of her, Corvinus, four years, before I was left alone with the Bitch. I can’t even remember half of them.’

‘“The Bitch”?’

‘Lepida.’ Uh-huh. The elder sister. She’d be the Lepida who’d been married to Drusus Caesar before the marriage was dissolved and Sejanus took her over as his mistress. She was in her late twenties now, still single and one of the hottest, fastest ladies in Rome. ‘That’s a joke, by the way. You can laugh if you like.’

‘Uh… what’s a joke, friend?’ He hadn’t laughed himself; hadn’t even sounded amused. I shifted on the couch. The lack of expression in his voice was getting to me seriously; it wasn’t natural, and it wasn’t healthy, no more than his lack of resentment at what anyone else would’ve seen as a covert accusation. This guy was Weird with a capital ‘W’, and he was making me nervous as a cat at a dog-breeders’ convention. More than anything else I wanted out of that room, out of that house…

But I couldn’t go yet. Not now that he was talking.

‘Lepida. It means pleasant, agreeable. Lepida was a bitch when we were young, she’s still a bitch. The Bitch. Cornelia was the only sister I had. I couldn’t let her go, could I?’

I said nothing.

‘We didn’t meet for almost five years. I saw her in the street sometimes. Sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose. Then I saw her maid one day, buying a scarf in the Velabrum. I gave her a message, she brought one back. That was how it started. Then two months later Cornelia managed to slip away herself. We’ve been seeing each other ever since, whenever we can. I gave her the ring six years ago. When I came of age. She didn’t want to take it, but I insisted.’

The question had to be asked, and the straighter the better. ‘Did you sleep with her?’

He looked directly at me for the first time, his eyes wide.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Of course not.’ But there was no surprise in his tone, or shock.

‘Cornelia was murdered. By a man disguised as one of the flutegirls attending the rites.’ I paused. He was staring at me now, but he didn’t speak. ‘You play the flute yourself, don’t you?’

Silence. Then, suddenly, his face changed as the penny dropped and he was on his feet and headed for my throat, so fast that I only had time to stand up and raise my arms to catch him as he hit. He was heavier than he looked, in good condition, and more to the point he was angry as hell. It took me all my time and all my strength to prise his thumbs free of my windpipe, spin him round and get an arm-lock on him. He struggled for a bit then went limp against me like a sack of grain. I let go and he slid to the ground, then I stepped back and waited. He sat at my feet, his head in his hands.

Minutes passed. Jupiter knew where the slaves had got to – we’d made enough noise to bring the whole household running – but no one came. Finally he looked up.

‘You think I murdered her.’ There was no anger left in his voice. It was chillingly calm like before, and it sent a shiver up my spine.

There was no point playing games. ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘That’s what I think.’

He scrambled to his feet. ‘Then you can go and fuck yourself.’

Ouch. He meant it, too. Well, perhaps it was for the best. For a minute there I’d actually felt sorry for the guy.

‘Maybe you didn’t do the actual killing,’ I said. ‘The girl could’ve killed herself. But you were directly responsible.’

He looked at me like he was seeing me for the first time; didn’t speak, just looked. And his expression was sheer blank horror. Then he began to move his head slowly, numbly, back and forward, back and forward…

‘No,’ he said. ‘No.’

The change was so sudden it was shocking. I had the weird feeling he was talking to himself, trying to convince himself, not me, and not doing too well. The hairs crawled on my scalp. What had I said to Perilla? Anyone crazy enough to kill a Vestal would show it in other ways…