David Wishart - Old Bones

'I wasn't involved. At no point was I involved. I wish to make that perfectly clear.'

I turned back. Got the bugger!

Big grey eyes blinked at me. 'It was Aulus's scheme. Aulus and Clusinus. I asked no more than my usual commission.'

Yeah, sure; and my name was Tiberius Caesar. 'Go on,' I said.

There was a single bead of sweat on the Owl's forehead. 'Clusinus came to Aulus. He said he'd found a way into a tomb. He couldn't get there very often but if Aulus would handle what he brought out he was willing to make a deal for a cash advance and a half share of the proceeds. That's all I know.'

I frowned; there was something wrong here.

'Where was this tomb?' That was Lippillus. He'd obviously decided that he'd played the stooge for long enough.

'Somewhere in the Caere cemeteries. Clusinus wouldn't tell him the exact location.'

'He mention any more partners?' I said. 'Your brother, I mean?'

'No. Not to me. Only him and Clusinus.'

'Not a smoothie lawyer called Gaius Aternius?'

'You asked me that before. I've never heard of the man.'

'You said that about Titus Clusinus too, pal.'

'It's the truth, nevertheless.'

Uh-huh. Well, there was no reason for Bubo to tell his brother about any arrangement with Gaius Aternius. Not that that would save the Owl once the bastard got around to…

I stopped and backtracked as the implications of what we were being told caught up with me.

Shit.

We weren't talking tombs at all. The Owl had said one tomb; one tomb, precise location unspecified, with a secret way in…

Hell. If the guy was telling the truth then we were screwed. I'd been basing my theory on tombs, plural, looted over a period of months or years; also on the assumption that both the other partners would know which tombs Clusinus would be robbing at any particular time. Or at least the area involved. They'd have to, because the Cominii would need that information to work their trick with the militia.

One tomb 'somewhere in the Caere cemeteries' that only Clusinus knew about and was robbing in his free time made the whole thing a nonsense. There was no point to an arrangement with the Cominii at all. And if that went then everything went.

Jupiter's balls on a string! I felt like weeping!

'Corvinus? You all right?' Lippillus was staring at me.

'Sure,' I said. 'Just a touch of wind.'

That got me another strange look, but Lippillus was no fool and he didn't chase the subject. Oh, well, it wasn't the end of the world. We weren't beat yet. Maybe Clusinus had had his own deal going with the Cominii and Aternius had just hired him to kill Navius. When you got down to it the tomb scam didn't actually need to have anything directly to do with the murders at all, I'd already worked that out. Not Clusinus's or Navius's, anyway. And Bubo's death could still be coincidence. It was just a case of letting the pattern rearrange itself.

I turned back to the Owl. 'So how far gone was this scam?' I said. According to the original theory it'd never got further than a gleam in Bubo's wicked little eye. Now everything was back up for grabs I just didn't know what to assume any more.

'Clusinus was still…negotiating with my brother, as I understand.'

'Yeah? Using what as bait?' The eyes blinked, but that was all I got. Something cold touched my spine. Why I'd asked the question I didn't quite know, but it'd gone home. I felt Lippillus tense up, too. 'Come on, Owl! Your brother was a smart businessman. A small-time crook from out in the sticks tells him he's got a private tunnel into a big Caere tomb but wants some money up front before he starts stripping it, Bubo's going to send him away with a flea in his ear. If he can still talk for laughing. Unless the guy happens to have a couple of samples to get him hooked, prove the whole thing's on the level. And in that case Bubo would want to test the market, see how much the deal was likely to be worth. That means you. So give!'

Silence. Lippillus cleared his throat.

'Or of course if you prefer instead,' he said conversationally, 'while Corvinus here carries on his chat with you I could go round to the local Watch Headquarters and bring back Quadratus and a few of the lads to turn over your shop. In which case the provenance of everything we find – and I mean everything – will be investigated very carefully indeed, and should the requisite purchase receipts not be immediately forthcoming we will then pin your crooked hide to your fancy front door with the rustiest set of nails we can lay our hands on in the short time available to us. How does that sound?'

The Owl blinked at him. Then without a word he went over to the strongbox that stood against one of the walls, took a key from his mantle fold, opened it and brought something out. He handed it to Lippillus.

I looked. The thing was a gold bracelet with a raised granular decoration. It was old, very old, and one of the most beautiful bits of jewellery I'd ever seen. Jupiter alone knew what it'd sell for, but I'd've hated to be picking up the tab.

'Thank you,' Lippillus said formally. 'I'll give you a receipt, naturally.'

'Don't bother,' the Owl said. 'Just take it and get the hell out of my shop.'

'As you like. That's all?'

'All I got. All my brother ever got. I swear it.'

Lippillus weighed the thing in his hand and looked at me. I nodded.

'Well, I hope you're right, Owl,' he said. 'I really do. Because if we find you're lying you'll be lucky to end up peddling good-luck charms from a tray in Cattle-market Square with both your hands attached.'

The Owl swallowed and said nothing.

As we left, my brain was buzzing. I'd seen a piece like that before; another bracelet, not nearly so fine, sure, or so big, but the style was the same. Thupeltha had been wearing it when I'd last seen her in Vesia's kitchen.

There wasn't much else I could do in Rome, not as far as the case was concerned. In a way it'd been a wasted journey: finding out that Crispus was the praetor's rep for Caere had been a real bummer, and all my talk with the Owl had done was pull the plug on my pet theory. Or part of it, anyway. On the other hand, at least I knew now that the rep would be Crispus and that particular avenue was a dead end, and on the personal level I was quite looking forward to the trial. Maybe Aternius hadn't passed on my name to the Roman authorities or more likely Crispus hadn't bothered to read the preliminary info sheet properly; but whatever the reason was he obviously didn't know who Papatius's lawyer would be, and I'd been very careful not to tell him. I could just see the look on the bastard's face when he came into court and saw me on the defending counsel's bench.

Another plus was that I'd got the bracelet. I'd thought Lippillus might've hung on to it as evidence against the Owl, but he'd shrugged as he'd handed it over.

'Evidence for what, Corvinus?' he'd said. 'Sure, we've got his witnessed admission that it came from a tomb, and maybe we could nail him for fencing stolen goods. But the admission is all we've got. His partners are dead, the scam's buried and we don't know which tomb it came from. The Owl's slid out from under too many raps already, and this time I want him stitched. If you can use it to find the information from the other end go ahead with my blessing.' He grinned. 'And if the bastard does happen to get his head bashed in like his brother in the next few days Quadratus won't be shedding any tears.'

I winced. A nice guy, Lippillus, but all Watch commanders have that hard streak to them; it goes with the job. And he didn't like crooks.

I'd planned to go straight back to Vetuliscum the next morning, but I decided that wouldn't be fair to Perilla and the Princess: two ten-hour coach journeys inside three days doesn't constitute much of a holiday, and the lady still had the other half of the Saepta to buy up. So we spent the day bumming around. I took my walk through the Subura – it hadn't changed much, except some bits of it had fallen down and been replaced with other bits that looked the same, only in worse condition – and called in at Scylax's Gym to check that the financial whizz-kid Daphnis wasn't screwing me over the accounts. The place was doing pretty well. The ex-centurion I'd got in when Scylax had died to handle the practical side of the business had gone on the wagon – when he'd started to see little green and pink Illyrian tribesmen crawling up the walls his long-suffering daughter had finally blown the whistle and pocketed the wine cellar key – and the punters were getting real value for money. He was no masseur, though, and Daphnis had hired a big guy from Patavium with muscles like rocks and hands like grappling hooks. I risked one session and decided to let my flab stay where it was. In the evening we had Lippillus and Marcina round to dinner, and I sent one of Mother's slaves to Agron's place in Ostia to ask him and his wife as well. Meton went overboard and cooked us an ostrich. Jupiter knew where he'd got it from – high-class poultry you need to order days in advance, unless it's featured on the programme at the Games in which case there's a temporary glut – but it made his holiday, too, and a happy chef is a thing of pure delight.