David Wishart - Last Rites

‘The head slave-woman Pythia said no.’

‘She could’ve been mistaken. Or lying.’

I shook my head. ‘Uh-uh. I know I said the woman was past it, but making sure the doors are locked at night, especially the back door, is the slave in charge’s prime duty. They don’t delegate, and they check and double-check, particularly when the master’s a punctilious bastard like Galba. That door was bolted, at least at the start of the evening. Which meant that someone unbolted it deliberately later and left it unbolted. And if that had nothing to do with the murder then I’m a blue-arsed Briton.’

‘Very well, then. We’re back to our list of suspects. On the other hand, of course, it could have been Cornelia herself.’

I stared at her. ‘ What? ’

‘The very fact that the door was left unbolted subsequent to the girl’s death implies that the killer had no means of relocking it behind them. An accomplice – a live accomplice – would surely have done that. The obvious alternative implication is that the person who opened the door was no longer able to bolt it; indeed, that she was dead.’

I sat back. ‘Lady, I’m sorry, but that doesn’t make sense. Why should Cornelia open the door at all?’

‘I don’t know. Unless it was by prearrangement and she knew the person on the other side.’

I took a swallow of the wine. It added up; even the timing added up. The rite’s over, technically the ban’s lifted, so although the house is still sealed for practical purposes the religious prohibition, strictly speaking, no longer holds; and the religious aspect would weigh with Cornelia, sure it would. She agrees to an arrangement with whoever the visitor is, then when the time comes she makes an excuse to her maid, goes to the back door and slips the bolts…

Only I couldn’t see Cornelia doing that, no way, nohow, never; not after what Torquata had told me about her. She hadn’t been the kind of girl who would take advantage of a technicality just because it suited her. Besides, who could the ‘visitor’ who turned out to be her murderer have been? A man? The man who belonged to the ring? That made the theory even more unlikely, because it meant the girl’s actions had been really underhand. And what would the purpose have been? Not an assignation, that was sure, not in a strange house full of people on one of the holiest nights in the year. Cornelia the Vestal would never have connived at that…

‘Lunch is served, sir.’

I blinked. Bathyllus had crept in and was doing his perfect butler act. When he saw he’d got my attention he cast a disapproving eye on the clock dripping away against the wall and sniffed. Bathyllus is no machine nut, either. He can’t even operate a corn mill without grinding his fingers.

Hell, theorising could wait: I’d missed out on breakfast, I’d had a hard morning and I was starving. Food first. Then this afternoon I’d go across to the fluteplayers’ guildhouse and check out the girls who’d been playing last night.

There was the question of the knife, too. That I hadn’t mentioned to Perilla; and the knife was interesting.

The fluteplayers’ guildhouse was near the Temple of Juno Lucina, at the Esquiline end of the Subura. I cut up Head of Africa (keeping my own head carefully covered as I passed Mother’s house) and made for the Carinae, skirting the Oppian Mount to the right. The weather had improved, but it was still blowing through rain: the worst kind of day to be walking. Heat and dry cold I don’t mind, but I really hate the wet.

That knife had got me puzzled. If Cornelia’s death had been suicide – which was still on the strong side of possible – then it needed explaining. Sure, you could pick up a weapon like that anywhere in Rome no questions asked, but it was the cheapest of the cheap: all you got was the basics. And that meant, in its original condition, the blade wouldn’t’ve cut porridge; the metal was poor and the manufacturer wouldn’t’ve spent good time and money giving it a proper edge. So the first thing any normal purchaser would do was take it somewhere to be sharpened, or do it themselves. That was the first point: stress the word normal. Like Niobe had said, Vestals don’t buy knives as a rule, and I’d’ve bet if I gave one of the cheapos to Torquata the idea of sharpening it wouldn’t’ve entered her head. To most women – let alone Vestals – a knife is a knife is a knife.

Point two: the knife Arruntius had shown me wasn’t just sharp, it was sharp . That edge had been a labour of love, with not a nick or a missing flake marring its line. Putting it on a cheap bit of metal must’ve taken hours and a great deal of care and skill. No blacksmith or cutler in Rome worth his salt would’ve taken the bother to get the thing into that condition; at best he’d’ve told the person who brought it in to chuck it over the side of Sublician Bridge and buy something he could really work on, or more likely sold them a replacement himself. No; whoever had sharpened it had done it personally, very carefully and very skilfully; and that couldn’t have been a Vestal. No way. It was a small glitch, sure, and there might be a dozen valid explanations, but like I say it bugged me.

I reached the fluteplayers’ guildhouse, a crumbling old two-storey property that looked like it might’ve reverted to rubble if you sneezed too close. Flutegirls aren’t all that well paid, apart from sometimes in kind when they perform services over and above the call of duty at private dinner parties, and the few copper coins creamed off the top of their wages to pay for a professional and social base wouldn’t rent or buy much, even in aggregate. I pushed the door open and went in.

‘Yes, sir, can I help you?’ A fat, fussy little guy with baggy jowls busied out of one of the doors in the tiny hallway. The expediter, obviously: musicians, like any fragmented group of professional individuals, need a front man who’s always around to take customer bookings and manage the timetables. ‘A private function, would it be? Dinner party? Wedding?’ I shook my head and his jowls dropped into pious respect position. ‘Funeral?’

‘Not that either, pal,’ I said. ‘Just some information.’

‘Ah.’ The jowls retracted, and he lost a lot of his eagerness. I pulled out a silver piece and the eagerness came back. ‘Yes, sir. Certainly. What can I do to help?’

‘I’m looking into the death at the senior consul’s house last night. You heard about that?’ A rhetorical question: sure he would. Probably half of Rome had by now, one way or the other.

‘Yes, sir. A tragic business. Tragic. For a Vestal to kill herself -’

‘I was hoping you might be able to give me a list of the girls who were playing.’

‘Nothing easier, sir.’ He palmed the silver piece. ‘But I tell you now, none of my girls was involved. I can vouch for them all personally.’

Yeah; I’d thought that might be the case. The musicians had been an outside bet anyway. ‘That’s understood, friend,’ I said. ‘No hassle. I’m just checking the angles.’

‘Of course.’ He looked relieved. ‘Then if you’ll come into my office I’ll show you the relevant tablet.’ I followed him into the room he’d come out of. There was a piled desk and two chairs in as good a shape as the building itself, with a set of filing shelves on each of the three facing walls. ‘Have a seat. I won’t keep you a moment.’

I sat down. He raked through the wax tablets lying on the desk, picked up one, checked the heading and handed it over.

‘There we are, sir. A dozen ordered, a dozen sent.’

I looked at the names. There were twelve, like he’d said, but one was scored through and another written beside it.