David Wishart - Last Rites

‘What about the daughter?’

‘Not with that amount of money involved. She’s family, yes, but a million plus is big gravy. Raising that kind of cash would mean selling property. Even if Lepida had her own private fortune – which she might – old Lepidus is the legal head of the house. She’d have to go through him for a signature because he holds the purse-strings. And indulgent father or not he’s going to be pretty suspicious if she tells him she’s a million or two short on the housekeeping this month and can she please sell a few tenements to take up the slack.’

‘Hmm.’ Perilla rested her chin on her hands. ‘Very well. Why Lepidus?’

‘The same reasons I gave you before. Theory, rather. The guy’s stepped out of line somewhere in a big way and his son finds out. Young Marcus confides in Cornelia and Lepidus has her zeroed for the sake of safety.’

‘Through the agency of Sextius Nomentanus. How?’

‘How what?’

‘How does Aemilius Lepidus pick on Nomentanus to act as go-between? He can’t know, surely, that Nomentanus has the perfect contact in Myrrhine. Nor indeed that he would be sufficiently venal to consider becoming involved in the murder of a Vestal.’

I sank a mouthful of Falernian. ‘Jupiter, Perilla, I don’t know. The venal bit, sure, no hassle: Lepidus is a leading member of the Senate; he’d have his finger on the pulse, so he’d be aware of the guy’s circumstances. Also he’s no slouch when it comes to assessing character. But as far as the rest goes you’ve got me.’

‘There you are, then.’

‘There I am nothing. The circumstantial evidence adds up. He admits – because he couldn’t do otherwise – that he wrote the note that got Niobe killed, and he has the nerve and the brains to risk a double bluff. Also if he’s the guy ultimately responsible for Cornelia’s death then it explains his son’s message to me.’

‘“There are worse crimes than murder.”’

‘Right. Cornelia was practically the guy’s daughter. Or at least she’d been his ward. Killing her – even at second hand – would go beyond simple murder. Certainly in young Lepidus’s book.’

‘But, Marcus, it was Lepidus himself who told you what his son had said.’

‘So?’

‘Don’t be intentionally obtuse, dear. If Lepidus were responsible he wouldn’t have done that, surely. In fact, it would be an extremely foolish thing to do.’

‘Double bluff again, lady. We don’t know who else knew about the message. If Lepidus hadn’t delivered it and it’d come out later I might’ve smelled a rat. This way he comes across clean.’

Perilla sighed. ‘That’s all very well, but there’s nothing you can prove, is there?’

‘Sure there is. There’s the money. If Nomentanus has suddenly come into a fortune then he has to be able to account for it. Even if Lepidus didn’t pay him directly – which would be stupid, and Lepidus, at least, isn’t stupid – then the transfer has to have left a trail. It’s only a question of backtracking.’

‘So in the first instance you go to Nomentanus, accuse him of being a paid assassin, and ask to see his accounts.’

‘Gods, Perilla!’

‘But Marcus, what alternative do you have?’

‘We do this officially. I go to Camillus, explain the situation and ask him to set up an investigation of the guy’s finances. Under the circumstances he’ll do it, sure he will: at other times a phoney inheritance might slip past the board with no more than a raised eyebrow or two, but if there’s a good chance it’s payment for the murder of a Vestal the authorities will take the bastard’s accounts apart with tweezers and a scalpel.’

‘Aemilius Lepidus is a very influential man. If he were involved then he’d have any investigation stopped, surely. Or at least compromised from its inception.’

‘He wouldn’t dare. Any attempted monkey business would be an automatic admission of guilt. And if I ask Camillus to use imperial auditors instead of senatorial he’ll have even less of a chance. These boys are sharp, they’re mean as rabid ferrets, and because they’re only responsible to the Wart they can tell any interfering broad-striper, including Aemilius Lepidus, to go and play in the sandpit.’

‘Well, I must admit it does sound promising.’ Perilla kissed me gravely. ‘Let’s leave it for the night. Now. Do you really want any of these tartlets or shall we get Meton to shelve them for tomorrow?’

Uh-huh; a proposition, if I ever heard one. I grinned. ‘Shelve them, lady. Shelve them by all means.’

‘Good.’ She kissed me again and got off the couch. ‘In that case I think we should just go to bed.’

Fine by me. Absolutely fine. I finished the wine at a gulp and followed her upstairs.

Afterwards I lay awake with Perilla asleep in the crook of my arm. The link between Myrrhine and Nomentanus was still bugging me. Perilla had been right, of course: knowing that the woman would make the perfect killer was only the half of it. By the time Cornelia’s murder was on the cards, Myrrhine had been gone a year, squirrelled away on the Aventine. So how the hell had Nomentanus known where to find her, especially at what must’ve been short notice? An intermediary was possible, sure; but I doubted that Myrrhine had any friends at the temple, certainly not anyone she’d let into the secret of where she was holed up. Proculus’s house was out for the same reason: sure, she could’ve had friends there, but a killing and a theft were pretty big disincentives for any of her fellow slaves to keep up what could turn out to be a dangerous acquaintance if she was ever caught. Besides, she’d struck me as a loner: withdrawn , the archigallus had said, even before she did her runner. For anyone in her past life to have known about the Aventine tenement would’ve meant she’d made overtures herself, and that just didn’t sit right: I couldn’t envisage Myrrhine, having made her break for freedom, putting herself in the power of any former acquaintance, friend or not, who might choose to cash in by splitting on her. Also, how would Nomentanus have known who to approach?

Okay. So that horse wouldn’t run and we were left with Nomentanus himself. Could the guy have caught sight of her by accident, maybe, any time in that intervening year and recognised her? But surely, if he had, he would’ve blown the whistle. And she would’ve been careful to keep away from the better parts of town where there was more of a chance that she’d be spotted. Which was why, no doubt, she’d chosen the part of the Aventine down by the Raudusculan Gate. That wasn’t exactly an area where you saw many-

Shit. I stopped. It was possible; sure it was. It had to be something like that, anyway, and checking wouldn’t be too difficult. Furthermore, if I was right then we’d got the guy by the balls and all we had to do was pull.

Enough for the night; more than enough. I eased Perilla off my arm, turned over and went to sleep.

I got to the Crocodile about mid-morning. The same punters who’d sloped off when I’d walked in with Lippillus and the Watchmen two days before were drinking at the counter, but this time all the reaction I got was a long hard stare from the nearest. Yeah, well; it was nice to think you weren’t a threat to anyone’s simple pleasures.

‘Hi, Hippo,’ I said. ‘Remember me?’

‘The wine buff.’ The fat man beamed. ‘Of course, sir. What can I get you?’

‘Another cup of that Sulmonian would do nicely, pal. And a word with your girl Phoebe if she’s around.’

The beam broadened. ‘Phoebe’s with a customer at present, sir, but if you’d care to wait I’m sure she’d be delighted to accommodate you.’