David Wishart - Foreign Bodies

He swallowed. ‘Nothing major, not enough to damage the company, but yes, I’m afraid I was.’

‘You like to tell me why?’

‘I like gambling and I’m not very good at it. Sometimes I had to’ – he hesitated – ‘borrow from the firm to settle an urgent debt.’

‘Did your brother know?’

‘Latterly he did. Right at the end, in fact. Silus told him. Oh, I don’t blame Silus; he’s a company man first and foremost, always has been, and I’d got complacent and careless. It wasn’t difficult for him to spot what was happening.’

‘So how did he react? Your brother, I mean?’

‘How do you think?’ Quintus gave a weak smile. ‘He was furious, of course, called me every name he could lay his tongue to. I promised I’d pay the money back – which I will, over time; I meant it when I said “borrow” earlier – and eventually he calmed down. It wouldn’t’ve been in either of our interests to have made a big thing of it. I told you: we worked well together, we each had our own strengths. If there’d been a rift the company would’ve suffered.’

‘He didn’t tell your sister-in-law?’

‘No. He said he wouldn’t. What would’ve been the point? When push came to shove it was between the two of us, and as far as he was concerned the matter was closed.’ He gave me a straight look. ‘I didn’t kill him, Corvinus, that I swear to. I wouldn’t, whatever he’d decided.’

‘OK.’ Not that I was totally convinced; like I’d told Perilla, I didn’t trust Brother Quintus as far as I could throw him. ‘So what happens now? Where you and the company are concerned?’

‘Nothing. Or nothing drastic, anyway; it’s business as usual, except that I’m on probation, as it were. And as I say I’ve promised Diligenta that over time I’ll repay every copper piece.’

‘Just out of curiosity. Your nephew Titus. Did he know as well?’

‘Gods, you have been thinking!’

‘Yeah, I do that sometimes. So?’

‘As a matter of fact he did, yes. He’s no fool, young Titus; he worked it out from the other end.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Titus isn’t a gambler, or not much of one. But he has friends who are, and they talk. I’d been losing heavily over the previous months, but every time I’d managed to pay up on the nail.’ He shrugged. ‘Titus just got to wondering how, and the answer was pretty obvious. He came to me shortly before Tiberius died and asked me straight out.’

‘You admitted it?’

‘There wasn’t anything else I could do. I told him that it was all over and done with, there’d be no repetition, and that his father already knew. He accepted that; with a very bad grace, mind, and we’ll never be close again, but he’s family, like Diligenta. We’ll all come through to the other side, eventually.’

Uh-huh; well, that explained the sudden coolness, anyway. And Biracus was right, Titus was a secretive cove. Score another for Gallic family solidarity in hiding the dirty linen.

Which reminded me.

‘Why did you leave Augusta twenty years ago?’ I said.

‘What?’ Quintus frowned; fazed for a moment, like I’d expected him to be. ‘What has that got to do with anything?’

‘It’s a simple question, pal.’

‘But I told you already, when we talked last: it was a business decision, a sensible one as things have proved.’

‘Nothing to do with the Florus revolt, then?’

‘Absolutely nothing. Why should it have been?’

He was lying, that I’d bet a year’s income on. And the question had rattled him; I’d place a hefty bet on that, as well. Interesting.

‘When I talked to him Julius Biracus seemed to think it had,’ I said. ‘Or implied it, rather. And he said for definite that your brother-in-law – Licnus, wasn’t it? – had been involved on the losing side.’

‘I don’t … I …’ He stopped. ‘Corvinus, I’m sorry, but you’re prying into what doesn’t concern you. All that’s in the past, some of it is painful – certainly too painful to talk to you about just to satisfy your curiosity – and I promise you it has absolutely no connection whatever with my brother’s death.’

‘You’re up there often enough on business. Do you have anything to do with the remaining family?’

‘That’d be Quadrunia – Diligenta’s sister – and her husband; Licnus is long gone, where to I don’t know and don’t care. In any case, your answer’s no. Quadrunia still lives in the town, as far as I know, unless she’s moved, or unless she’s dead, both of which are possible. I’ve had no contact with her or her husband – none of us have – since the day we left.’

Jupiter, there was real venom there; venom, and something else. What it was, I wasn’t sure, but there was no mistaking it. Even so, there was no point in pursuing things any further.

‘Fine,’ I said. ‘We’ll leave it at that.’

He stood up; he was looking relieved, and a lot more relaxed than he had been when I’d arrived.

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘By the way, how is the investigation going?’

‘Not bad,’ I said. ‘I’m making some progress, anyway.’

‘In any particular direction?’

‘There are one or two leads,’ I said cautiously. ‘You’re off up north soon?’

‘Yes. First thing tomorrow morning, in fact. We’ve a consignment due for shipment upriver, but I’ll be going by road and travelling light, which means I’ll already be in Augusta when it arrives.’

‘Fair enough. Have a good journey. Thanks for coming.’

‘Yes, well, I hope it’s cleared the air. Good luck, in case I don’t see you again before you leave.’

He held out his hand. I shook it.

Hmm.

Perilla got back just before dinnertime.

‘Did you have another good day, dear?’ she said, kissing me.

‘Not bad. Tell you later. How was yours?’

‘Excellent. Oh, thank you, Bathyllus.’ The little guy had followed her in with her usual barley-water-and-honey concoction on a tray. ‘We did a tour of the local temples. Really local ones, I mean: Sucellus, Taranis and the Mothers. Most interesting.’ Yeah, I’d bet. ‘And then Caninia took me on a visit to a friend of hers, so we spent the afternoon there. Mostly discussing this year’s fashions in Rome. You would’ve been bored stiff.’

Never a truer word was spoken. No mention of Crinas, either, but I didn’t feel inclined to push things in that direction. Bathyllus came round to me and offered the tray with a single cup of wine on it. I took it and sipped. Bugger! We were back to the watered-to-within-an-inch-of-its-life stuff; obviously our major-domo was still in profoundly miffed mode, or – equally likely – he wasn’t risking being found out by Perilla and roasted over a slow fire. Ah, well.

Now for the bad news. This I was not looking forward to.

‘We’re going to have to go to Augusta,’ I said.

‘ What? ’ She was staring at me.

‘Yeah, I know. There are still avenues to explore here, no arguments. But the real answer to all this is up north; I can feel it in my water.’

‘Marcus, that is almost four hundred miles!’

‘That far, eh?’

‘Of course that far!’

Hell; another half-month of thumb-twiddling; still, it couldn’t be helped, unless I did it alone and on horseback, and just the thought of what would be involved in that made me queasy. ‘There’s something screwy going on re whatever happened there involving the family twenty years ago,’ I said. ‘I’ve brought the subject up twice now, first with Diligenta and then with Brother Quintus, and they both reacted like a cat on hot bricks. I’m not going to find out any other way, so Augusta it has to be.’ I took a swallow of the wine. What there was of it, versus the water. ‘Look on the bright side, lady. At least it’ll let us see a bit more of the country.’