David Wishart: No Cause for Concern

Imber was out; his wife said I’d find him in one of the dockside wineshops getting an early skinful with his cronies. She didn’t seem too happy about this, or particularly sympathetic towards anyone who had business with him, Roman purple-striper or not, so I thanked her politely, got the name of the wineshop and its precise location, and then pissed off to try Gaius Florus.

Florus’s place – a tight little cottage at the end of an alleyway – was blissfully quiet. Which it might not have been, given that elderly widowers (which he was, Agron had told me the evening before) often live with their married daughters and, inevitably, assorted pack of grandchildren. On the other hand, he was almost stone deaf, which meant the interview on my side had to be conducted in short sentences with the words spaced out and shouted, with lots of repetition. All Florus’s customers were local, and he’d dealt with the same ones for years. Scratch the Genua possibility.

Which left Imber. I was getting a bad feeling about this.

Well, at least I’d be talking to him in a wineshop. And after fifteen minutes’ strained conversation with Florus my throat was dry as a razor-strop.

I found the place. Not exactly your drinking-hole of choice, but I wasn’t going to be picky. There were four or five nautical types at the bar, perched on stools and obviously settled in for the duration; I got the usual long stranger-in-the-room stare and a couple of nods before they turned back round and got on with the serious business of sinking the booze.

‘What can I get you, sir?’ the barman asked me.

I glanced at the board. None of the names were familiar: this being Ostia, I’d guess they were Spanish or Gallic imports. ‘What would you recommend, pal?’

‘The Lauronensian’s good.’

‘Okay. Make it half a jug.’ I hitched myself up on a stool and turned to the local punters. ‘Any of you gentlemen Gaius Imber?’

‘That’s me.’ The guy next to me turned sideways.

‘Valerius Corvinus. I’m making enquiries about a possible customer of yours. Guy called Astrapton. Ring any bells?’

‘Nah. Not one of mine.’

‘Greek. Early to mid twenties, good looking, snappy dresser. He’d be a regular. Four large crates over the past eight months, at about two month intervals between each crate. One of them held marble statues.’

He shook his head. ‘Not me. The only regular orders I’ve had over the past year’ve been from local firms. And they’ve all been going on much longer than that.’

Bugger! ‘You’re sure? I was told the Seagull.’

‘That’s my boat right enough. Going west?’

‘That I’m not sure about.’

‘In that case you could try one of the other boats with the same name. Florus, he ships up the coast. Or there’s Titus Secundus. He’s on the Sicilian run.’

‘I’ve tried them. They’re not the ones either.’

‘Then I’m sorry, pal. I can’t help you.’ He turned back to his wine and his mates.

Hell! Well, you couldn’t win them all, and like Eutacticus had said finding the Seagull, man or boat, wasn’t important any more. I’d’ve liked to’ve ticked the last box, though.

‘Here you are, sir.’ The barman put the half jug and a cup in front of me. I paid, filled the cup and sipped.

Not bad. Lauronensian, eh? That’d be Spanish. I’d have to keep an eye out in future for that one.

Imber turned back round. ‘Hang on, friend’ he said. ‘I’ve just had another thought. You sure the Seagull you want’s an Ostian boat?’

‘Uh-uh. That just seemed a reasonable bet. All I have to go on is the name.’

‘Only there’s Quintus Fulvius’s. That’s out of Massilia. He works the route from the other side.’

I felt the first prickle of excitement. ‘You know where he’d happen to be at present?’

‘Sure. Berthed at Quay Five. He’s just got in. He’ll be unloading and then taking on cargo for the return leg.’

‘Quay Five. Great!’ I downed the wine in a oner and passed him the rest of the jug. ‘Here, pal, have this on me. Where’s Quay Five?’

‘Straight down to the harbour, turn left and it’s about half way along. You can’t miss it.’

‘Got you! Thanks a lot!’

I left at a run.

Ostia may be in decline as a port, but it doesn’t show where its harbour’s concerned: if you don’t know where you’re going, even if like me you’ve got a good sense of direction, then the various quays, moles, sub-harbours and dead ends can be worse to negotiate than Minos’s labyrinth. Also, when anyone uses the phrase ‘you can’t miss it’ you can be cast-iron sure the place you’re looking for’ll be the devil to find. Finally, I was stopping every likely-looking punter I met and asking them for help, but it still took me a good half hour.

There were boats of different sizes moored nose to tail all along the stretch, but only one – the one at the far end – seemed to have any sort of activity connected with it. Yeah, Imber had said the captain – Fulvius, wasn’t it? – would be unloading his incoming cargo. I made my way towards it between the various crates, bollards and general quayside lumber that filled a lot of the space between the storage sheds and the quay itself…

Which was when the guy jumped me.

He came out of the shed I’d just passed. I turned when I heard the footsteps, which was lucky, because the knife he was holding missed my back and sliced along the front of my tunic. I grabbed his arm and kneed him hard in the balls, then swung him round hard towards the quay’s edge and let go.

He went over, into one of the boats: a good eight feet down. In the process, I heard the crack as the back of his head hit the edge of the stonework.

Shit. I looked where he’d fallen.

He was lying still, crouched up like a foetus, face hidden; his head at an angle, resting in a spreading pool of blood. There was an iron ladder let into the wall near the stern of the boat. I climbed down it and went to look, pulling the head back on the broken neck.

Publius Paetinius.

‘Hey! What’s going on?’

I looked up. A guy was standing on the quayside above me.

‘You tell me,’ I said. ‘He came out of nowhere and tried to stick a knife in my back.’

‘He dead?’

‘Very much so.’

‘Holy Neptune!’

‘Yeah. Right.’ I went back to the ladder and climbed up it. The guy was still staring down at Paetinius’s corpse. ‘I’ll report it to the harbour-master, of course. You be a witness?’

‘Sure.’ He was looking sick. ‘I’ll be sailing first thing tomorrow morning, mind. If the wind’s right.’

‘Your name Fulvius?’

He gave me a sharp look. ‘Yes. Yes, it is.’

‘I was just coming to talk to you. Valerius Corvinus. You carry some goods ever for a guy by the name of Astrapton?’

‘No. Not me.’

I repeated the description I’d given to Imber and the other two. ‘Greek, aged around twenty-five. Good looker, well-dressed. The goods would’ve been packed in crates, four of them, maybe more, shipped separately over the last eight months.’

‘You mean Quintus Philotimus. At least that’s the name he gave.’

Choirs of heavenly voices sang. ‘It’ll do, pal. Where were they bound for ultimately? You have a delivery address, or a name, maybe?’

He frowned. ‘Hold on. What’s this about? You’re saying the goods were stolen?’

‘Yeah. Yeah, that more or less sums it up. I’m representing the legal owner.’

‘Massilia. For collection by a Titus Sestius. Which is what’s been happening. Up to now, anyway.’

Bull’s-eye! I hadn’t known where the now-defunct Paetinius Junior’s mother Sestia originated from, but I’d bet now that it’d been Massilia. And that this Titus was a brother, or at least a member of the same family. ‘That fits,’ I said. I wasn’t going to let on who the corpse below us had been, mind, not even to the harbour-master: complications at this stage and this far from Rome and Lippillus I could do without. As far as the local authorities were concerned, at present at least, the guy had just been a common-or-garden mugger after my purse.