David Wishart - Foreign Bodies

I asked an old woman feeding her hens for directions, and was pointed to a walled villa, slightly off the main drag and fifty or so yards short of the Gate itself.

There was no slave on duty outside, which again by Roman standards was unusual; but then I was beginning to get the measure of the place, and I wasn’t unduly surprised. I pushed open the gate – no livestock, although there were a few chickens, and the area inside was a proper garden, with ornamental bushes, flower beds, and even a couple of statues – and went in.

The house was the same two-storey variety as the ones I’d passed, although a tad up-market from the average: stone-built at bottom with a wooden-frameworked upper level and an open porch running its length. Halfway up the gravel path that led to it, to one side, was a small summer house with the shutters up. Yeah, that would be where the guy had been killed. I stopped and looked around me. A good dozen yards to the gate I’d come through, and about the same to the house itself. Twice that, either side, to the boundary walls. No real cover anywhere, barring a few low bushes and the occasional fruit tree, and although the boundary wall was just too high to see over from the road it’d be virtually impossible, once you were inside the gate, to make your way to the summer house and back without being seen. If anyone had happened to glance down from one of the second-storey windows above the porch, then-

‘Can I help you?’

I turned. A woman was coming round the side of the house, carrying a basket of roses: mid-forties, small, dumpy, by her fairish-ginger hair done up in braids and her general colouring obviously a Gaul. Smart, good-quality over-tunic and light cloak fastened with an expensive-looking cloak-pin, though, so despite the basket not one of the help.

‘Ah … yeah,’ I said. ‘My name’s Corvinus. Valerius Corvinus. I’m here to-’

‘I know why you’re here. You’d best come inside.’

She led the way towards the porch without another word, and I followed, through a small vestibule and into the living room. There was a youngish girl there, obviously from her rough woollen tunic a servant this time. The woman gave her the basket.

‘Put these in a vase with water, Cotuinda,’ she said. ‘They go in the dining room.’

‘Yes, madam.’ The girl, with a quick, curious glance at me, took the roses and left.

‘Diligenta?’ I said.

‘That’s right.’ The woman unpinned her cloak. ‘Have a seat, Valerius Corvinus. We’ve been expecting you. The emperor’s well?’

‘Hale and hearty, when I left,’ I said. Interesting; she’d asked after him like he was an old friend, or an acquaintance, at least. But I suppose that was fair enough: Claudius was no stranger to Lugdunum, and before he’d been made emperor, member of the imperial family or not, he’d been nothing particularly special.

‘I’m glad.’ She hung the cloak on the back of one of the wicker chairs – there were no couches in the room, just chairs – and sat down. I took the chair opposite. ‘So. You’re investigating Tiberius’s death. What can I tell you?’

Straight in, matter-of-fact; clearly a no-nonsense lady, Cabirus’s widow.

‘More or less everything,’ I said.

‘Fair enough. You’ll want a clear, orderly account. Give me a moment, then, to organize the facts in my head.’ She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again. ‘It happened about a month and a half ago. We’d just eaten, the family, I mean, and we all went for a lie-down; I don’t know about in Rome, but a short rest after lunch is customary here. Tiberius went out to his den as usual – that’s what he called the summer house in the garden, by the way. You saw it?’

‘Yeah,’ I said.

‘I went upstairs to our bedroom, Publius did the same, to his.’

‘Publius is your son, right?’

‘My younger son, yes. He’s sixteen. The elder is Titus. He lives with us as well, but he’d had lunch out as he usually does. He’s an officer in the procurator’s guard, and he generally has duties in the morning and afternoon.’

‘Your bedrooms would be where, exactly?’

She frowned. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Overlooking the garden, or at the back of the house?’

‘Oh, I see. Ours – Tiberius’s and mine – is at the back; Titus’s and Publius’s are above the porch, either side of the front door.’

‘You have a daughter, too living at home, I understand? Claudilla?’

‘Yes, indeed. But Claudilla was away at the time, as she still is. An extended stay with an older childhood friend of hers in Arausio who was married last year and is about to have a baby.’

Yeah, I’d forgotten; Nerva had said she was away. ‘And your son Publius didn’t happen to see anything suspicious?’

‘No. Hardly surprising, because there would have been no reason for him to look out of the window. But you can ask him that for yourself, naturally. He’s upstairs at present. I can have him called, if you like.’

Well, it had been worth checking, although I hadn’t really expected any other answer: spot someone creeping around the garden the afternoon your father gets himself murdered and you tend to remember it. Besides, if he had seen anything he’d’ve said so at the time, and Nerva would’ve told me. ‘No, that’s OK,’ I said. ‘Later, sure, if he’s at home; I’d appreciate it. So. There was no one up and around who might’ve seen something? House or garden slaves, that sort of thing?’

‘No one at all. We have very few servants, inside the house or out of it; you’ll find that’s quite normal here. There’s the kitchen staff, the cook and two helpers. They would be clearing up, then having their own meal in the kitchen, which again is at the back of the house. Cotuinda you saw; her father Quadrus is our major-domo and his wife Potita is the housekeeper. We have another maid-of-all-work, Escenga. Rather a simple girl, I’m afraid. All of them would be busy with their duties, or resting if they’d finished them. The gardener is Nantonus. He’s getting on a bit now, poor man, and he goes home for lunch and a sleep in the afternoons. He lives quite locally, just on the other side of the Gate.’

Uh-huh. Bugger; I’d have to get used to these Gallic names. What was wrong with the good old bought-help tags like Felix and Tertia? ‘So what happened then?’ I said.

‘I came down as usual about the ninth hour; Tiberius normally put in an appearance shortly afterwards, when he went to his study to deal with business matters. You know he was a wine-shipper?’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Yes, I knew that.’

‘On this occasion, though, he’d arranged to meet a business associate in the centre of town, so he needed to be up and around earlier. Certainly before mid-afternoon. When I came down there was no sign of him. I assumed, of course, that he’d overslept. I went straight to the den and …’ She stopped. ‘I’m sorry. I thought I was well over this, but it seems I’m not, after all.’

‘That’s OK,’ I said. ‘In your own time.’

‘Thank you.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I went to the den and found him lying on the couch, stabbed through the heart. That’s all I can tell you, I’m afraid.’

‘Did he have any enemies? Anyone who’d want him dead?’

‘Absolutely not, as far as I know. Why should he? Tiberius was no one special, just an ordinary person, and he was well liked locally.’

‘The governor’s aide mentioned a Julius Oppianus.’

She shook her head decisively. ‘Oppianus would never have murdered Tiberius. They didn’t get on, of course, they never had done, but Julius Oppianus is no murderer.’

‘Yeah, that’s what the governor said. None the less. You care to tell me about him?’