David Wishart - Old Bones

'I saw the funeral pass,' I said. 'You weren't there.'

She laughed. 'I'm a working girl. I've got commitments. Besides, I doubt if his wife would've been too happy about me turning up at the graveside.'

'No.' I kept my voice neutral. 'Maybe she wouldn't. Arria knew about you, then?'

'Of course she did. Arria may be a stuck-up cow but she's no fool. That marriage was a simple trade-off, connections for cash. She was happy enough so long as the money kept coming in.'

Smiler had mentioned connections, too. 'She come from a good family?'

'The best in Caere. Her brother married the mayor's daughter.'

Something cold touched my spine. 'Cominius's daughter ?'

'Unless there's been an election I haven't heard about, sure.'

So Bubo's wife was a collateral relative of Aternius's, was she? If I wanted an explanation of how the bastard had known about Clusinus's connection with Bubo I needn't look any further. It seemed like I'd have to talk to Arria Metella after all.

'Can you give me an address?' I said.

'For Arria?' Absently, she reached up to the neck of her tunic and tugged at it, pulling it off the shoulder. 'I could. There's no hurry, though. The funeral'll be over by now, but she'll still be busy with the purification rites. Besides, I'm not on again until tonight.'

'Humour me.'

Our eyes locked. Then she sighed, twitched the tunic back and hugged her breasts. 'The big house at the top of Crows' Staircase,' she said. Her voice was dull. 'Near the Shrine of Atropos.'

I stood up. 'Thanks.'

'Don't mention it. Just fuck off and leave me alone, okay?'

I left the wine where it was and went back downstairs.

Crows' Staircase was well-named: I was gasping for breath half way up, and the back of my legs hurt like hell. The view from the top was something, though: I could see across the plains in every direction, down into the valleys either side of town where the tombs were and over to the north-west almost as far as Pyrgi. Bubo's place you couldn't miss. It was perched out on a spur like an eagle's nest, and just the thought of standing on the balcony gave me vertigo.

The front door was still hung with cypress branches. I knocked and a slave opened it. He had a chunk of hair missing in the front. Whoever had wielded the funeral scissors had taken his job seriously where the domestic servants were concerned.

'Yes?' he said.

This was the tricky part: the afternoon of a funeral is no time for a social call, especially if what you really want to discuss are the dead man's shady business affairs. However, I'd got my approach all worked out.

‘I'm sorry, friend,' I said. 'This is Herminius Bubo's house, isn’t it?'

He gave me a look like he'd just caught me chalking a nasty word on the doorpost. 'Yes, sir,' he said. 'But the master's dead. We've just burned him.'

'Yeah, I know.' I went into my routine. 'I was down at his shop earlier and I saw the funeral pass. Only I didn't know it was his at the time. I'm only in Caere for the day and I thought maybe I should come up and give my condolences to his widow.'

I'd let the guy have the full force of my patrician Roman's plummy vowels, and he blossomed like a rose, which was just what I'd been playing for: in my experience house slaves are the biggest snobs you could ever hope to meet, and he couldn't've had many purple-stripers standing on his doorstep.

'If you wait here, sir,' he said, 'I'll see if she's receiving. What name shall I say?'

I told him; all four bits, because I was out to impress. 'She won't know me,' I said. 'But we have an acquaintance in common. Gaius Aternius, the mayor's nephew.' Yeah, well, that was true enough. And good society runs on being able to name shared acquaintances. The fact that I thought the guy was a crook and multiple murderer and hoped to nail him as such had nothing to do with anything.

That put the icing on it: Baldy turned almost affable, and let me wait in the porch. Two minutes later I was being shown through into the atrium where Arria Metella was waiting to receive me.

Hatchet face was right: I could've used the lady's nose to split kindling. She was pleasant enough, though.

'Valerius Corvinus,' she said, stretching out a hand. 'It's good of you to come. I saw you when we passed Aulus's place of business, naturally, but I didn't know you were a friend of his or I would have spoken.'

'I wasn't.' No point in lying, especially when I didn't have to. 'I was going to see him, sure, but I'd never met him. When the guy in the shop next door told me he was being buried I'd've come to the cemetery but I didn't like to impose. Still, I felt I should come and pay my respects in some way.'

'Most thoughtful.' She gave me a sad smile, then turned to Baldy who was hovering in the background. 'Sestus, a cup of honey wine for our guest. Do have a seat, please, Corvinus.'

Baldy bowed and left, while I pulled up a chair and sat down. Honey wine, right? If I went before Perilla I'd leave instructions that for the duration of the mourning period unless it was actually asked for that muck should stay in the cellar where it belonged.

Arria turned back to me. 'What exactly was your business with Aulus, by the way?’ she said. ‘I doubt if I can help -I know very little of that side of things – but I'd hate to think your visit to Caere was entirely wasted.'

The question sounded completely natural. Either Bubo's widow had the art of dissimulation worked out to a tee or she was genuinely ignorant of what the guy's business entailed. Probably the former: I'd met wives like Arria before, and they'd spent so long cultivating a blind spot to what their husbands got up to outside the family circle they'd come to believe the fiction themselves.

'Nothing in particular,' I said. 'I was told he dealt in high-class antiques. My stepfather's a bit of a collector. I thought I might drop in and look over his stock, maybe pick up something I could put by for a present.'

She preened; there couldn't've been many purple-stripers interested enough to paw through Bubo's merchandise. 'Aulus certainly did have some beautiful things,' she said. 'He had excellent taste.' Another sad smile. 'Taste, but no sense. I told him the shop was no place to keep them on a permanent basis, even with the iron shutters and that new strongroom of his, but he insisted. Of course, that was why the poor dear was killed. It was an open invitation for burglars.'

'New strongroom?'

'Yes. He had it built a month ago by one of the local masons.' Oh, yeah: the mason's hammer that he hadn't returned and the killer had used to bash the guy's skull in. Poetic justice. 'Not that he used it, to my knowledge. Silly man. Quite ridiculous.'

Baldy came in with the wine. I took a token sip and set the cup down. The hairs on my neck were prickling. 'He didn't?' I said.

'No. Not at all. And it must've cost thousands. Of course, there's no extra space in these Lampmakers' Street properties, and the foundations are solid rock. Aulus had to dig a small cellar and put in an iron trapdoor.'

The prickle became a full-blown itch. 'You're sure? That he never used it?'

Arria gave me a suspicious look. 'Certain,' she said. 'The thieves cleared the shop out, but the trapdoor was hidden by an empty storage chest and the padlock was intact. He'd left the key at home, and when I opened it the strongroom was empty. Valerius Corvinus, I'm afraid I fail to see what possible interest this can have for you.'

'Just curiosity,' I said. Was it hell! Jupiter on wheels! 'One more thing. Did your husband ever mention a guy called Titus Clusinus?'

She stood up. 'Young man, I'm beginning to doubt your motives for coming here today after all. Perhaps you'd better leave.'

Well, maybe I had overreached myself. Pullia had said the woman was no fool, and the turn the conversation had taken would make anyone smell a rat. Still, I had no regrets. That nugget about the strongroom and Arria's reaction to the name Clusinus were worth a little aggro. I stood up too.