David Wishart - Last Rites

Perdicca glanced quickly at Torquata, then away again. Her lips tightened.

‘No, madam,’ she said.

‘Nothing at all?’ Silence. ‘Perdicca, Niobe is dead and we are only trying to help. If she did tell you anything then we need to know what it was.’

‘She said it wasn’t her secret to share, madam. She would’ve gone to the’ – again her eyes flicked nervously towards Torquata – ‘to the Lady Junia, but she decided she couldn’t. It wasn’t her secret, see. Or that’s what she said.’

‘But she told you?’

‘ No , madam!’ That came out sharp. Uh-huh. So there was spunk there after all.

‘You’re sure?’ Silence again. ‘Perdicca, we are only trying to help. I give you my word that if Niobe did tell you anything then whatever it was you need not be afraid to repeat it, for her sake or your own.’

The old woman raised her eyes. ‘I swear, madam,’ she said. ‘I swear by Vesta herself. She didn’t tell me nothing. Like she said, it wasn’t her secret. She didn’t tell me nor no one else, neither. And that’s my word, madam.’

Perilla sighed. ‘Very well. Let’s leave it. Now. About what happened today. The Lady Junia Torquata says that Niobe asked permission to go to the market. Do you know why that was?’

I’d been watching the old slave carefully and I saw her freeze. I shot Perilla a look and she nodded imperceptibly.

‘No, madam.’ We were back to the whispers and the lowered eyes.

‘Perdicca, I’m sorry,’ Perilla said softly, ‘but that’s just not true, is it?’

Silence.

‘All right. So why did she go? To meet someone?’

A long pause. Perdicca was trembling now, but I’d bet it wasn’t through fear: despite appearances I’d reckon they didn’t come much tougher than this old bird. All she was doing was deciding which way to jump. Finally, she made up her mind.

‘Yes, madam,’ she said.

Shit. I sat up. Perilla didn’t move.

‘Do you know who?’

Instead of answering, Perdicca reached inside her tunic and brought out a scrap of paper. Perilla took it, smoothed it out and looked at it. Her breath caught.

‘How did you get this?’ she said.

‘She asked me to keep it for her, madam.’

‘You know what it says?’

‘No, madam. I can’t read. But Niobe told me.’

‘And how did Niobe get it?’

Another nervous glance at Torquata. ‘One of the other slaves found it behind the side door yesterday morning, madam. It had her name writ on the back.’ Torquata stiffened but she said nothing.

Perilla handed the scrap of paper over to me without a word. There were only a few lines. It was a note asking for a meeting by the Aemilian Hall on the market side of the Sacred Way, and it was signed Marcus Lepidus.

‘Is it genuine, do you think?’ Perilla asked when we were back in the carriage and on our way home.

‘It could be, sure,’ I said. ‘Good quality parchment, virgin, not a reused offcut. Good hand, well spelled. And the timing would fit as well.’

‘So? You don’t sound convinced.’

I wasn’t. ‘It smells, Perilla. When I saw the guy he was in no condition to write notes, let alone neat ones, even given that he’d a reason for sending it. And why the hell sign his name?’

‘He might have had no option. Not if he wanted to be sure that Niobe would come.’

‘She went and she was murdered, lady. By which time Lepidus was already dead. I think that’s a fairly strong argument in itself for the thing being a fake, don’t you?’

‘Unless, as you said, the murder had no connection with the note and the killer was watching the building in any case.’ Perilla sighed. ‘No. I’m sorry, Marcus; I’m only playing devil’s advocate. You’re quite right. Of course it’s a fake.’

‘Okay.’ I settled back against the cushions. ‘So if it was sent by the killer to winkle Niobe outside, then what does it tell us?’

‘What we already know: that the girl knew something and had to be silenced. Also, naturally, that her secret involved Marcus Lepidus.’

‘Yeah, right. But we can do better than that. It also confirms the fact that there’re two people involved, a brains and a brawn. Whoever wrote that note it wasn’t our pal the fluteplayer, not unless the guy includes a good Roman education among all his other talents. He was given it, or it was delivered for him, by someone who could write and spell.’

‘There’s another thing.’

‘Yeah?’

‘It’s only a feeling, but if the note were genuine then I would have expected more of an air of secrecy in the message itself. Unless the young man was an absolute fool he must have known that signing his name, unavoidable under the circumstances though that might be, was unwise in the extreme. And it doesn’t sit well at all with the method of delivery, which was definitely clandestine.’

‘Uh, yeah.’ Sometimes Perilla’s way of putting things makes my head hurt, but I’d caught her general drift and she was right. ‘You mean that if Lepidus had really wanted to make sure the meeting stayed secret he’d’ve said so.’

‘Exactly. Or included an instruction to Niobe to tell no one or destroy the note on reading, perhaps. It’s as though whoever wrote the letter didn’t care whether anyone knew of its existence or not.’

‘Or that they actually wanted it to be found after the girl was dead so Lepidus would be nicely set up to take the rap. Yeah; that fits. And that way it would kill two birds with one stone, Niobe and Lepidus both, because when the delivery was made Lepidus himself was still alive.’

Perilla was quiet for a long time. Then she said: ‘There is one further point. Whoever wrote the note knew the girl quite well; Niobe herself, I mean, not just the fact that she was Cornelia’s maid.’

‘You’ve lost me.’

‘You don’t assume literacy in a slave, Marcus, not unless they’ve been trained as a clerk or a secretary. To send a personal note in the first place implies the knowledge that the recipient can read it. So the killer, or the brains behind him, rather, had to know that Niobe had been schooled with Cornelia.’

‘That’s no big deal. It wasn’t a secret, surely.’

‘Perhaps not, but it is a further indication. Lepidus himself would know, certainly, but there’s no reason for anyone else to. Not outside the family or the sisterhood itself, anyway.’

‘Fair enough. We’ll just have to -’ Suddenly my jaw stiffened and I found myself yawning. Jupiter, I was whacked! Although it wasn’t especially late I’d had a heavy day even before Camillus had called us out. ‘Look, let’s pack it in for the night, okay? I haven’t got the mental energy for puzzles any more.’

Perilla smiled. ‘If you like,’ she said. She leaned over and kissed me.

I glanced out of the window. We’d turned down the long drag between the Circus and the southern slopes of the Palatine. More than halfway home, in other words, and just in time because the weather was getting worse. Gods, but I was tired! Well, Camillus, Arruntius and company couldn’t complain they weren’t getting value for money.

I pulled my cloak round my ears and settled down into the cushions.

I was down pretty late the next morning, although earlier than Perilla who was still flat out. I checked our smug piece of cutting-edge technology for glitches in passing, but whatever the hydraulics whizz-kid had done to its insides seemed to be holding. Not that I trusted the bugger an inch. It was probably busy working out third-level scenarios in its master plan to take over the empire.

Bathyllus was setting the breakfast table. Extensively. Me, I don’t go much beyond a crust or two first thing, but Perilla scours the market for exotic dried fruits, cheese wrapped in straw and those fancy pots of Greek honey with herbs in. Or what I hope and trust are herbs.