David Wishart - Foreign Bodies

‘No. But-’

‘There are no buts; I simply did not feel the need at the time to provide full details. Since you seem interested, I will now. Quadrunia, my elder sister, is married to a wholesale draper, an obnoxious man whom I cordially loathed. They make an excellent match. She still lives in Augusta; Licnus does not, and for all I know might be dead. Now is your curiosity satisfied?’

‘Ah … yeah. Yes, it is,’ I said. ‘Look, I’m sorry if I caused any offence. It wasn’t deliberate. And it isn’t Biracus’s fault; he told me that what happened during and after the Florus revolt was dead and buried. I just-’

‘That is so. And I’d prefer if it stayed that way. What’s past is past.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Now. I’m sorry in my turn that I lost my temper: you’re a Roman, Corvinus, not a Gaul, and some things – depths of feeling – you don’t understand. You can’t be expected to, and I forgot that for a moment. Forgive me?’

‘Sure. Forgiven and forgotten.’

‘Good. It’s reciprocal. Well, if that’s all this time-’

‘Actually, I was wondering if I could have another word with your son Publius.’

She frowned. ‘Publius? Of course. What about?’

‘Just a couple of things I wanted to ask him. Is he at home?’

‘Yes, he’s upstairs in his room. He usually is, unfortunately; it’s difficult to get him out of there. Shall I call him?’

‘No, I’ll go up, if I may.’ I hadn’t planned, when I arrived, to talk to the kid – sixteen, and so technically an adult, he might be, but I thought of him as such. In the light of events, it might be better to do things in private. ‘If it’s all right with you, naturally.’

‘Of course it is. His room’s at the top of the stairs, immediately to your right when you reach the landing. I can have Cotuinda take you, if you like.’

‘No, that’s OK,’ I said. ‘I can find my own way. Thank you, Diligenta.’

‘You’re welcome.’

The stairs were at the far end of the entrance corridor. I went up, found the door, and knocked. No answer.

‘Publius?’ I said. ‘It’s me. Marcus Corvinus.’

‘What do you want?’

‘Just a chat.’

There was a pause. Then he said: ‘OK. You can come in, if you have to.’

Grudging as hell. Still. I went inside.

The room was big, and very light, with the sun streaming through the open window facing me. The kid was sitting at a large desk – a table, really – under the window itself. It was covered with a jumble of models: temples, ships, chariots. Pride of place in the centre was one I recognized as Lugdunum’s theatre, complete and beautifully made of wood and painted canvas. There was another, smaller table to one side with woodworking tools, a small vice and paint pots and brushes. Rolls of canvas and thin wooden spars were stacked beneath it. The place looked more like a workshop than a bedroom; the only evidence of that was the bed itself, a clothes chest, a few shelves and a couple of cloaks hanging from pegs set in the wall.

‘I’m busy,’ Publius said. ‘What do you want?’

‘I told you. Just a chat.’ I closed the door behind me. ‘It won’t take long. I need the answers to a couple of questions, that’s all.’

‘Questions about what?’ He had a tiny paintbrush in his hand, and he was working on what I recognized as a scale model of one of those three-piece bits of theatre scenery that you get in the wings of a stage, with stylized representations of the three main settings for scenes in a comedy: town, country and seashore. He laid it down carefully and turned to face me.

‘That’s a pretty impressive hobby you’ve got there.’ I indicated the contents of the table. ‘Must be skilled work.’

‘It is. I’ll ask you again: questions about what?’

‘Detailed, too. And hard on the eyes. It’s a good job you’ve got so much light here. The window overlooks the garden, doesn’t it?’

‘You know it does; you can see for yourself. And you asked me that before, didn’t you?’

‘And whether you’d seen anything, the day of the murder. Yes.’ There were a couple of theatrical masks hanging on the wall: a comic slave’s and a tragic heroine’s. They looked home-made, but they were pretty good, all the same. ‘All the same, I’ll ask you again, because it’s important. Did you? See anything or anyone?’

‘No. I said I was asleep.’

‘With the shutters open? That must’ve been difficult, this room facing south and all and it being the early afternoon.’

He hesitated. ‘The shutters were closed. I closed them when I came up.’

‘Is that so, now? And you didn’t happen to look out at all while you were doing it?’

‘I may’ve done. So? It’d only be for a moment. What could I have seen?’

‘I don’t know. But you’d have a good view. Someone in the garden, perhaps. Someone you knew.’

‘Like who?’

‘Your Uncle Quintus?’

He stared at me. ‘ No! Why should I have seen him?’

‘Just an idea.’

‘Then it’s nonsense. I told you: I didn’t see anyone. No one at all. Clear?’

I shrugged; he seemed genuine enough, but it had been worth a try.

‘OK,’ I said. ‘What about Titus?’

He went very still. ‘What about Titus?’

‘The impression I got when I talked to him was that before your father died Titus had … well, maybe “had a disagreement with him” is putting things too strongly. But there was a coolness. Am I right?’

He hesitated again. Odd, though: I had the feeling that the tenseness had gone out of him. Then he said, grudgingly: ‘Maybe.’

‘You happen to know why?’

‘No.’

‘Could it have had anything to do with his girlfriend? Aia?’

‘How do you know about Aia?’

‘So you do? Know about her, I mean?’

‘Just that she exists. I’ve never met her.’

‘Your father didn’t know. Or maybe he did, that’s the point, at least latterly. Did your mother?’

‘No. Titus was keeping her a secret. I only know about her myself because he let it slip one day. But he made me promise to keep my mouth shut. Which I did, because she was Titus’s business, no one else’s.’

‘So you didn’t tell your father about her? Or Titus didn’t?’

‘ No! ’

‘And your father didn’t find out about her some other way?’

‘How should I know? Probably not; it was never mentioned, at any rate, and it would’ve been.’

We were back to the sulky, sideways looks. Ah, well; that was a point or two cleared up. Or at least clarified. On the other hand, there’d been that hesitation over the shutters, and the odd reaction when I’d first brought up the subject of Titus …

‘Fair enough,’ I said, turning towards the door.

‘That’s all?’ Surprise.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Shouldn’t it be? Unless there’s anything else you want to tell me.’

‘No. No, nothing.’

‘Right, then. I’ll see you.’

But he didn’t answer. He was already reaching for the bit of stage scenery he’d been working on and the paintbrush.

I went back downstairs. No sign, now, of Diligenta, but Cotuinda was waiting, and she saw me out.

Right; where to now? There was still a slice of the morning left, and under normal circumstances I’d be reckoning I was due a cup of wine somewhere. However, a promise was a promise, so I was stymied. I still had my doubts about abstinence doing me any good, mind: far from feeling more chirpy and alert, I was going around half the time with my tongue hanging out.

So. Perhaps a call on one of the also-mentioned: this phantom girlfriend of Titus’s, or at least on her father. Maybe a waste of time, but my gut feeling was telling me that the change in relationship between Titus and Cabirus was important in some way. Besides, he’d’ve had to have some reason apart from congenital secretiveness for deliberately lying to me about his love life. And the discovery on Cabirus’s part that his elder son was seeing – presumably, from the cover-up, with serious intentions – the daughter of a felon that he’d had publicly flogged would fit the bill pretty neatly.