David Wishart - Last Rites

‘We go up and knock,’ I said. ‘Then we take it from there and play it as it comes.’

Lippillus grinned. ‘Good plan, Scipio,’ he said.

I gave him the finger. ‘Right. Let’s go.’

It was the usual seedy tenement; in fact, seedier than most since the tenants didn’t seem even to have the energy to lug their garbage out into the street before they dumped it, so the smell on the staircase was something else. We got up to the top floor with no more excitement than a brush with a stray dog scavenging among the bones and vegetable peelings, and Faustus banged on the door. No answer. Three more bangs and the door opposite opened. A wizened old guy put his head out. If I’d seen him on the stairs I would’ve taken him for a less savoury piece of the garbage.

‘What…?’ he said.

Which was as far as he got before Chilo snarled ‘Watch!’ at him and he ducked back in.

I reached past Faustus and tried the handle. Locked. So. The lady was out.

‘Okay,’ I said to Lippillus. ‘You’re the expert here, pal. What do we do now? Go down again and hang around till she gets back?’

But Lippillus was fumbling in his belt-pouch. He brought out a lock-pick. About five seconds later the door was open.

‘Uh-uh,’ he said. ‘We wait for her in comfort. Except for Faustus.’

I was happy to go along: I might have the shout, but Lippillus and the other guys obviously knew what they were doing and they’d done it before. Faustus went downstairs to keep watch across the street. If Myrrhine showed up he’d give us a wave when she was safely inside the building then follow her up to cut off the only possible escape route.

The operative word was if . I hoped that the woman wasn’t staking out Harmodia’s flat after all, because if she was then we were in for a hell of a long wait.

Lippillus relocked the door with his pick while I took a look round. Which didn’t involve much more than what the phrase literally means. As far as Lippillus’s waiting in comfort went, you could forget it. There was only the one room, and that was standard for an under-the-tiles let in this part of town, i.e. poky as hell, cold as an Aventine landlord’s heart and with about as many amenities as a rabbit hutch minus the straw. It was neat, though: not a speck of dust. A house-proud killer, right? The thin mattress on the floor had a clean blanket lying on top, carefully folded, and beside the window was an old clothes chest that might’ve been only a prayer’s length away from kindling but actually showed signs of having been polished. That was all. Except, of course, for the lady’s collection of knives.

They lay on top of the chest, five of them with space for a sixth, arranged in a tidy row from big to small along with a well-used whetstone, a cup of water and a leather strop. I picked one up and tested it with my thumb. Cheap quality, with a plain wood and leather grip like the knife that’d killed Cornelia; only, like the murder weapon, it had an edge you could’ve split a hair on.

The missing sixth was the one we’d have to worry about.

‘Nice hobby.’ Lippillus was standing behind me.

‘Yeah.’ I put the knife down. ‘Well, that puts the lid on it. If there was any doubt, which there wasn’t. She’s our killer.’

Chilo had settled his big shoulders against the wall that formed an angle with the window, just far enough back to keep an eye on the street below without being seen himself. The top of his head brushed the beam that supported the tiles above us. He looked like he could stand there for ever. I just hoped he wouldn’t have to.

‘Okay, Marcus.’ Lippillus sat down on the mattress with his back to the wall. ‘While we’re waiting for your girlfriend to show you can tell me just what the hell’s going on. After that, we’re down to swapping jokes.’

It was more than halfway through the afternoon before Chilo, still watching, made a quick sideways movement with his hand and we knew we were in business.

The party walls in these places are pretty thin: we could hear the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs clearly, long before the rattle of the key in the lock. In that room, there was nowhere to hide; we’d just have to rely on the element of surprise. Chilo flattened himself against the wall next to the door jamb on the opening side while Lippillus and me took the front, in full view. With any luck, Myrrhine would be so busy worrying about us that she wouldn’t see the guy who really mattered until it was too late.

There was a pause, a long one. Then the door opened slowly.

Too slowly.

Maybe it was a sixth sense; it had to be, because I’d take my oath that none of the three of us had so much as breathed with the bitch outside, let alone made any kind of noise. Whatever the reason, when Chilo went for her round the jamb she stepped back quickly like she was expecting it and punched him once, hard, in the chest. He gave a sort of grunt, dropped his club and slipped to his knees. I could see the woman’s hand clearly now, the one she’d punched him with, and it had something that wasn’t a key in it. There was blood there, too. Shit.

I yelled and jumped for her, but Chilo was in the way, sprawled across the threshold, and my foot caught against his leg, spinning me round. The woman drew her hand back and Lippillus shouted a warning, but there wasn’t a lot I could do except grab for her knife arm and hope my fingers connected.

I missed and went sprawling on my back with Myrrhine standing over me.

Footsteps hammered on the stairs. She paused, glanced sideways, then at Lippillus, and her eyes widened. I swear she shrugged. Reversing the knife, she put the point beneath her own throat and shoved…

Suddenly there was blood everywhere.

Faustus and Lippillus got to her at the same moment, pinning her against the door, but I could see she was a dead weight already and the knife-hilt, with no hand to support it now and no blade visible, was sticking out from under her chin. Jupiter, that thing had been sharp! I pulled myself to my feet and slumped against the jamb.

‘You okay, Corvinus?’ Lippillus said over his shoulder.

‘Yeah.’ All I felt was sick. That and grateful that Myrrhine hadn’t had time for herself and me both. ‘Check up on Chilo.’

Lippillus left Faustus holding the body and bent over the fallen Watchman. He was down there for a long time before he shook his head.

Well, I’d got my fourth corpse after all. And a complimentary fifth. The bitch had gone out with a bang.

She’d taken what she knew with her, too.

I left Lippillus to clear up the mess. ‘Mess’ was what it was: another guy dead, Myrrhine dead and the case shot to hell. Not that it was anyone’s fault, we couldn’t’ve played it any more carefully than we did, but that only made things worse. I still felt guilty; about Chilo, especially. The guy had a wife and a young son. I asked.

I’d nowhere else to go now, either: with no Myrrhine to question, the trail to whoever was backing her – if anyone was – wasn’t just cold, it didn’t exist. Any theories I might have had were either disproved or didn’t admit of proof one way or the other. I didn’t even have the ghost of a suspect any more, not one with any sort of credible motive anyway, real or theoretical. In short, we were five-star, no-nonsense, totally and irrevocably buggered.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt so miserable.

I broke the bad news to Perilla and we had a quiet post-mortem dinner while she tried to cheer me up. At the dessert stage Bathyllus made some sniffy comment about cathouses and I snarled at him, really snarled, which is something I never do: baiting the little guy is one thing, but he and I both know it’s a game and we’re happy just to score points off each other with no real blood spilled on either side. He apologised, which is a thing he never does, and that made me feel worse.