David Wishart - Old Bones

I left Perilla sleeping, ate a quick breakfast and set out for Public Pond.

The Pond is Rome's Twelfth District, lying south-west of the Caelian and taking in half of the Aventine and the Remuria, two of the poorest parts of the city: everything, in fact, between Ostia Road to the west and the Capenan Gate to the east. As one of the seven Regional Watch Commanders, Lippillus was in charge of both it and the Circus district that stretched up towards the Sublician. No sinecure, in other words. I had a lot of time for Flavonius Lippillus. When I'd first met him just under ten years before he'd looked like a fresh-faced kid just into his first adult mantle, and he had the sharpest brain I'd ever come across. Since then he'd come a long way. He'd lost the fresh-faced look and matured into something between a dwarf and a pixie, but the brain was still there. It was a mark of how good the guy was at his job that he'd made commander status fifteen years early and kept it, even in a business where names are everything: you can search the old consular and tribunician rolls until you're blue, but you won't find no Flavonii Lippilli.

Maybe that was another reason why I liked him.

I called in at Watch headquarters and got one of the squaddies. I'd missed Lippillus by about ten minutes: there'd been a late-night break-in at a house near the temple of the Good Goddess, and the owner had got fatally in the way. The squaddie gave me more precise directions and I went round to see if I could catch him up.

The house was easy to spot, largely because of the dozen or so ghouls hanging about round the doorway waiting for the corpse to be lugged out. It was an upmarket property by Aventine standards, which meant it wasn't a tenement, and whoever had built it had cleverly sited the little garden so it got watered for free by the drips coming from the Appian Aqueduct overhead. There was a squaddie on the steps keeping the ghouls at bay, but I gave him my name and Lippillus's and he let me through.

When I went into the tiny atrium Lippillus was kneeling by the dead man examining the wound on the side of his head.

'Festus, get -,' he began, and then did a double take when he looked round and saw me. ' Corvinus? What the hell are you doing in Rome?'

I grinned. 'Breaking promises.'

He set the man's head down gently on the tiled floor, stood up and absently wiped his hands on his tunic. I noticed they left red smears.

'You made them,' he said. 'You can break them.'

'Yeah.' I nodded at the corpse. While it was still erect and breathing it'd been a wizened-looking man in his sixties with warts and a penchant for brightly-coloured bathrobes. Now it was just sad. 'Anything interesting?'

'No. Just the usual. The bastards got in through the garden door. They probably thought the house was empty, because the neighbour says the rest of the family were at the races. Unfortunately for this old guy he had a bout of rheumatics at the last minute and stayed in bed.' He frowned. 'We'll get them. Maybe. If we're lucky.'

'How's Marcina Paullina?' Marcina was Lippillus's 'stepmother': definitely in inverted commas, because the lady was long widowed, only a couple of years older than he was and built like an African Praxiteles Venus. Also, I'd seen their sleeping arrangements.

'She's okay. Eating too many honeyed dates, though.' He grinned suddenly, and his ugly face lit up. 'You here for long?'

'Only a couple of days. We've borrowed a place near Caere.'

'Perilla's with you?'

'Sure. And the Princess.'

'Business or pleasure?'

'Business.' I hesitated. 'You know of a guy named Publius Herminius Bubo? Has an antiques store on the Sacred Way?'

'The Owl?' He hadn't even paused for thought, but that didn't surprise me: what Lippillus didn't know about Rome and Romans you could write on a bust sandal strap and forget. 'Sure. Just round the corner from Venus's Temple. What sort of business?'

'Maybe nothing.' I gave him a quick run-down of the Vetuliscum situation. 'I just need to talk with him. Tie up the loose end.'

'Uh-huh.' He was rubbing his jaw. Obviously he hadn't had time to get shaved that morning because I could hear the rasp. 'Loose ends I don't know about, but you're right about him being a crook. And about the high-class fencing angle. We've had our eye on the bastard for years.'

So. The brothers had been two of a kind. That added up nicely.

'Only an eye?' I said.

'More than that sometimes, but nothing serious so far. Or nothing we can prove. The Owl's sharp but he'll step out of line some day.'

Yeah; that made sense, too. Aulus Bubo had been so sharp that he'd cut himself. Still, that was the risk guys like that took. The grey area between legal and illegal was lucrative, but put a foot wrong and you could find yourself in an urn. 'You have time for a cup of wine, pal?' I said.

Lippillus glanced back at the corpse. 'Not now, I've got people to talk to. Later, sure, if you want.'

Yeah, well; I supposed the guy did have his living to earn, and though he hadn't said as much he'd have other things on his mind than entertaining layabout aristocrats. 'No problem,' I said. 'Perilla's given me the whole day off. Just tell me a time and place.'

'Hold on. We can do better than that.' His brow creased. 'You in a hurry to see the Owl?'

'No.' I wasn't: I'd been meaning to call in at the Foreign Praetor's office on the Capitol first to see what I could arrange in the way of an investigation of the Cominii, and like most officials these guys tended to get grouchy if you infringed on their afternoon siesta. 'I'd planned that for after lunch.'

'Fine. There's a cookshop half way along Tuscan. They do good tripe with fennel. Meet me there an hour after noon and have a jug waiting and we'll go together once we've finished it. I wouldn't mind the chance to sweat the Owl myself.'

'Great.' I paused. 'Uh…you're sure you're not tramping on anyone's corns here, pal?' I wasn't just being polite: the question needed asking. Whether Lippillus chose to put it that way or not he was doing me a big favour here because having a Watch Commander at my shoulder when I talked to the Owl would give me clout in spades; but at the same time he was putting himself out on a professional limb, and he knew it. Lippillus's patch was the Eleventh and Twelfth districts, full stop. The Venus's Temple stretch of the Sacred Way is Fourth District, and one thing you learn early in any business is not to poach.

'No problem.' Lippillus grinned. 'The Three-and-Four commander's Ummidius Quadratus. He's a nice guy, and he doesn't like crooks. Especially crooks he can't get to. If we can nail the Owl he'll pick up our cookshop tab and whistle while he does it. He might even throw in a couple of jars of Caecuban to make up the difference.'

'That desperate, eh? Fair enough.' I turned to go. 'Thanks, Lippillus. I'll see you at the cookshop.'

'Right.' He was already bending to re-examine the corpse. 'Order Setinian. Their Falernian stinks.'

I cut across the Palatine for old times' sake, even if it did mean climbing unnecessary stairs. Mind you, I hardly noticed the extra effort involved: one thing about a holiday in Caere, your calf muscles end up like knotted cord. I had meant to make a detour to take in our old place but I changed my mind: that was finished with, and I've never been one to cling to the past. Still, it would've been nice. In front of the House of Augustus and the slightly grander Palace of Tiberius, where the Wart, of course, wasn't, and hadn't been for some time, was the usual crowd of gawping tourists, and I had to push my way through: these bloody Egyptians get everywhere, and they don't move for you, either.

Nice curses, though.

Finally I cut my losses, went down Cacus Staircase into the Velabrum and turned right along Tuscan Street. I spotted Lippillus's cookshop straight off; sure enough, it had tripe with fennel on the board, and I'd bet it would be as good as the guy had said. I'd timed it perfectly; the sun was just past its full quarter and I wasn't all that far now from the Market Place and the Capitol.