David Wishart - Old Bones

'Ah, Candidus. Just pour and leave us to ourselves, will you?' Veluscius turned back to me. 'Mine will be mostly water, Corvinus. I don't imagine you'll care to follow my example.'

I took a sip of the wine Snow-White handed me. Nice.

'First of all, Arruns is quite right,' Veluscius said. 'Velthur Navius did forge his father's signature. And old Cominius did connive at the deception.'

Well, well, well. 'Aren't you a bit late admitting that, friend?' I said. 'And why tell me?'

Veluscius shrugged. 'Fifty years ago telling the truth wouldn't have done any good. It was a matter of personalities. Cominius was mayor himself at the time, and the most powerful man in Caere. Velthur Navius was one of the biggest landowners in the district, a member of the Caeretan Town Council. And Aulus Arruns may have been one of Vetuliscum's oldest residents but like his son he was too cross-grained and standoffish for his family to win much support. Now, conditions haven't really changed, and the result of any modern court case would probably be the same, as Arruns well knows. The difference is in myself. I no longer have a position to lose and frankly I'm too old now to care.'

'So the Cominii are crooks?'

'Most certainly, at least where property is concerned. It's a family tradition. And I'd include young Gaius Aternius with them. His mother, of course, is the mayor's sister.'

'You said the name Clusinus rang a bell.'

'Yes.' Veluscius took a sip of wine. 'That matter, naturally, is much more recent and quite above board. Or, I should say, within the limits of the law. Cominius and Aternius advance five-year loans to property owners on the security of the property itself. The terms are very favourable but there is no provision for renewal, and it is no coincidence that without exception the recipients are the sort of people who will default when repayment becomes due. At which time, of course, the property becomes forfeit. One agreement along those lines was entered into with Titus Clusinus.'

Hey! 'And when would the loan expire?'

'I left the Cominii almost exactly four years ago. If I remember rightly – and although I no longer have access to the company records there is nothing wrong with my memory – the contract had been signed in October the previous year, so repayment would be due quite shortly.'

I sat back. So; Aternius had a definite link with Clusinus. I’d got the bugger. The only question was, why should Aternius kill him to get his farm when he’d default anyway? The guy had been broke, anyone could see that. All Aternius had to do was wait a couple of months and…

My spine went cold. No, cancel that: if what Vesia had told me was true then Clusinus may have been broke when he died, but he had prospects; big prospects that hinged on whatever deal he had cooking with Aulus Bubo. If that had gone through presumably he'd've had the money to pay off the loan and then, if he wanted to, sell the farm on the open market and recoup his outlay. Probably better than recoup, from what Veluscius had said, if he was willing to wait for even a half-decent offer. But whatever the deal was, it had died with him before it could happen. A month or so down the road, Aternius was going to show up at Vesia's place, wave the signed contract under her nose and tell her to get the hell off his land. And he wouldn't've been able to do that if Clusinus hadn't been dead.

It worked; sure it did.

'One more thing,' I said. 'How exactly are the Cominii doing these days? Financially, I mean?'

Veluscius hesitated. 'Well enough,' he said. 'But my sources tell me they are overextending themselves. The cash-flow, if you understand the term, is imbalanced.'

'In other words, the bastards've got plenty of irons in the fire but they're in danger of getting burned, right?'

'You put it very succinctly. That would certainly seem to be the case.'

'If Gaius Aternius made a good marriage would that help?'

'Considerably.' The old guy gave me a sharp look. 'Is he likely to?'

'If I don't miss my guess he's got his eye on Sicinia Rufina. And it might well be mutual.'

'Indeed? Then the lady had better consult a good lawyer concerning the future management of her financial affairs before she signs the marriage contract,' Veluscius said. 'Aternius has his own agenda.'

Yeah. I'd just bet he did. And I was beginning to think that part of it had been four murders.

Before I left, I asked Snow-White about the Cockerel.

'It's Caere's biggest cookshop, sir,' he said. 'With' -he coughed delicately – 'entertainment. Very popular with the younger set.'

Starched drawers was right: the guy must've been all of twenty-four and he came on like a dowager. No sniff, though. If it'd been Bathyllus I'd definitely have got a disapproving sniff; that bastard was so straight you could use him to draw lines.

'Sounds fun,' I said. I wasn't being sarcastic: I've always liked dens of iniquity, the more iniquitous the better. 'Near the baths, I was told?'

'That's correct. In Half Moon Street, not far from the Veian Gate.'

All the way back to the centre of town, in other words. Hell. Walking I enjoyed, but these old Etruscan city planners had been real exercise nuts. Caere had stairs everywhere, and in some of the side alleys you practically needed climbing spikes. Well, it was good for the waistline. I waved Snow- White goodbye and headed for the Hinge.

So; Aternius was definitely a front runner. I could make him now for the murders of Navius and Clusinus, and more important the same motive would account for both. I might even stretch things to Bubo. If killing Clusinus safeguarded his investment that end then Bubo's death made doubly sure: beating the guy's head in with a hammer was a pretty effective way of making certain he didn't call round to Vesia's to find out why his business pal wasn't coming out to play any more. The only question was, in that case how had Aternius known about the deal in the first place? Sure, Clusinus might've told him in advance that he'd be coming into some money and intended to pay off the loan – in fact, he'd've had to've done to give Aternius reason for murdering him – but he wouldn't've let on where the cash was coming from, especially if there was some illegality involved. Above all, he wouldn't've mentioned Bubo. So how could Aternius have made the connection? It was a detail, sure, and there could be half a dozen plausible answers, but it niggled.

The way to the Veian Gate took me past the market square, and I called in at the clink to see Papatius. He was pretty low, which was understandable with the prospect of me for an advocate, but at least the militia heavies had stopped beating him up. Whether that was a bad or a good sign I wasn't sure; probably the former, since it implied they thought they'd got enough on the poor bastard to strangle him already. There wasn't much I could do about it either, least of all entertain him with a lively run-down of my current theories: I doubted if the news that the principal investigator and counsel for the prosecution might well have cogent personal reasons for putting him underground would have a very cheering effect, while any suggestion that his wife and girlfriend could be jointly responsible for the murders would've lost me a few teeth. So I confined myself to patting him manfully on the shoulder and telling him not to give up hope.

On my way out I pumped the guy on the desk – not my sharp-eared pal from last time but a younger, less jaundiced version – on the subject of Bubo's murder. Not surprisingly, the militia were treating it as straightforward burglary with related homicide. Smiler's run-through was accurate as far as it went, and I didn't get much more: at some time between sunset and dawn, Bubo had been beaten to death with a mason's hammer – it had been found in the gutter round the corner – which his wife Arria had identified as having been left behind by workmen carrying out alterations the previous month and not returned by him, the shop had been stripped of everything that wasn't nailed down, and no one in the surrounding houses and flats hadn't heard nothing, officer. I got the distinct impression that the militia guy, speaking for his colleagues, regarded the investigation as closed: like Smiler, they were fully aware of the nature of Bubo's activities and reckoned the bastard had only got what he was due. There was, of course, no suggestion that the murder was in any way connected to the ones in Vetuliscum, so Papatius continued to be banged up.