David Wishart - No Cause for Concern

So Paetinius – or rather the Paetinii, father and son – were still firmly in the frame, and currently the only game in town. What I needed, though, was proof, and that was the bugger because I hadn’t the least idea how to get it.

Ah, well. No doubt things would work out in the end. And Perilla might have some thoughts on the subject.

I finished off the wine and nibbles – not too impressive, either of them; I wouldn’t be revisiting this place – and headed back to the Caelian.

When I got home, the lady was pacing the atrium and fizzing. In her best togs, too.

‘Marcus, where have you been?’ she snapped.

‘Uh…’

‘You’ve forgotten, haven’t you?’

‘Forgotten what?’

‘Dinner with Lippillus and Marcina, of course.’

Oh, hell. She’d got me bang to rights. It’d been arranged a month ago, Meton squared and everything. We didn’t go out much, but dinner with my Watch pal Decimus Lippillus and his wife, either at their place or ours, was a regular event. And this time it was at their place on the Aventine, which made matters worse because we’d have to get there.

‘Look, I’m sorry, lady,’ I said. ‘Things intervened.’

‘Well, you’re here now. You’ve no time for a bath, just a quick wash and brush up. I’ve told Bathyllus to lay out a clean party mantle, and the litter’s ready and waiting. We can still make it if you hurry.’

‘What about Agron and Cass?’ My other long-term pal, the big Illyrian and his Alexandrian-Greek wife Cassiopeia, who’d been invited as well. Like they always did when they came up to Rome, they’d be staying over with us.

‘They arrived hours ago and went on ahead. Now move! ’

I moved.

We made it with nothing to spare, the litter-slaves pulling up outside Lippillus’s tenement, nostrils flaring and sweating like thoroughbreds. Not that I had much sympathy for the bastards: they weren’t exactly overworked, and all of them could use a couple of inches off the waistline.

The tenement was new, built for the upper end of the market, and Lippillus had only just moved in, so this was the first time I’d seen the place. He’d done a deal with the owner for a long lease on two first-floor apartments, and used his Watch Commander contacts with the city’s Department of Buildings and Public Works to convert them into a single flat with more going for it than you usually find, even in first-floor top-of-the-range properties. No internal plumbing, of course, but at least from what the guy had told me there was more than enough room to swing a cat, which was rare in any tenement block, and the architect had even managed a small kitchen. Considering that there were no kids to complicate matters – unlike the situation at Agron and Cass’s place in Ostia, where they were five up and counting – he and Marcina were pretty well set up.

We climbed the stairs. Lippillus must’ve been watching from the window, because the front door was open and he was waiting for us.

‘Hey, Marcus, how’s the boy?’ he said.

‘Not bad.’ I handed him the jar of Setinian I’d brought with me. ‘Housewarming present.’

He beamed: Lippillus was almost as fond of a good wine as I was, but Watch Commanders’ pay doesn’t stretch to jars of the top-grade stuff. ‘You mind if we don’t open it now? Only Agron’s brought along a jar he and Cass got from one of his brothers-in-law, and I’ve got some of that ready mixed. From a vineyard near Massilia.’

‘No problem, pal.’ I’d mental reservations, sure – Agron’s thing was cheese, not wine, and neither he nor Cass were serious wine drinkers – but a guest doesn’t dictate what booze his host serves. Besides, I’m always up to try something new, and Gallic wines in general were coming along nicely, as long as they travelled.

‘And these are for Marcina.’ Perilla, a step or two behind me, had been carrying a tray of custard pastries with glazed fruit and nuts on top. ‘Meton made them specially, from a Syrian recipe he’s been meaning to try.’ Marcina, like Cass, had a sweet tooth, although unlike in Cass’s case the consequences didn’t show: Marcina Paullina could still’ve modelled for Praxiteles’s Athena, easy. Not just round the waist, either.

‘Great!’ Lippillus kissed her on both cheeks. ‘We can have them for dessert. You could use Marcina’s pastries for doorstops. Come on in.’

We did. The living-cum-dining-room wasn’t big, but this was a tenement flat after all, and with what had been a couple of the original partition walls taken away there was more than enough floor space for the usual three couches and central table. Agron and Cass were stretched out on one of the couches with wine cups in front of them, and the starters were already in place.

‘Hi, Corvinus,’ Agron said. ‘You made it, then?’

‘On two wheels. Eight feet, rather. My fault entirely.’

‘Marcina’s in the kitchen putting the final touches to the main course,’ Lippillus said. ‘You want to take that tray straight through to her, Perilla? We’re just about ready to eat.’

‘Yeah. I’m sorry about that, pal.’ I lay down on the other side couch. ‘Something came up.’

‘A case?’ Lippillus was ladling wine from the mixing bowl on another table to the side into a third cup. He handed it to me. ‘Here. See what you think.’

I sipped. Not bad; not bad at all. Not quite Alban standard, but close. Very close. ‘I’m impressed.’

Agron grinned. ‘Cass’s brother Timon had it as a gift from a customer,’ he said. ‘The guy deals in kitchenware, mostly, but he knows his wines and he owns a small vineyard just north of Massilia. Not a commercial setup, just for his own use, so he can afford to concentrate on quality. Surrentine vines, yoke trussing, low yield. We did a deal over a repair job.’

Yeah, that made sense: what with Ostia’s shipping trade in decline, Agron’s carpentry business mostly dealt in carts these days, but Cass’s family had been involved with ship-building and ships in general for generations and ship repairs were still an occasional sideline. Particularly where family was concerned. Timon, I knew, like most of Cass’s considerable number of male siblings and cousins in both Ostia and Alexandria, was in the shipping trade itself, and deals in that direction tended to be in kind and/or favours owed rather than cash.

Lippillus filled a cup for himself and lay down on the top couch. ‘So,’ he said. ‘What’s the case?’

I gave him the basic rundown. He frowned when I mentioned Eutacticus – organised crime bosses aren’t exactly flavour of the month with Watch Commanders, particularly when they double as clients – but he didn’t comment. ‘That’s about as far as I’ve got at present,’ I finished. ‘The Paetinii are in it up to their eyeballs, that I’d swear to, but proving it’s another matter.’

‘It adds up, certainly. I don’t know anything about the son, barring that he’s in with a pretty fast set socially, but Paetinius Senior’s no wide-eyed innocent, that’s for sure.’ Lippillus chewed on a stuffed olive. ‘And he may not be quite in Sempronius Eutacticus’s league yet, but he’s getting there fast. If you do manage to nail him, Marcus, I’d be very interested. And, of course, anything I can do to help just let me know.’

‘There is something,’ I said. ‘It may not be important, because as far as I know it has nothing directly to do either with the Paetinii or with young Luscius’s death, but it’s the only lead I’ve got at present and I may as well chase it. The dead accountant. Astrapton. He left a record of a contact he was using to squirrel away the bullion he’d been creaming off the top of Eutacticus’s profits. Or at least I think that’s how it worked, assuming it isn’t a false trail. Name of Larus. Ring any bells?’