David Wishart: No Cause for Concern

So that was that. We’d got Clarus and Marilla firmly hitched with only a few minor glitches, such as the senile octogenarian priest who’d overseen the ceremony deciding half way through the wedding supper that the assembled guests would really, really appreciate a song about an Ostian bargee, and now it was back to Rome and the same heady round of fun and excitement. I’d just spent a very pleasant couple of hours propping up the bar of Renatius’s wineshop shooting the breeze with the punters over a jug of Spoletan and was heading along Iugarius towards a shave-and-haircut in Market Square when the heavies came up on me from behind.

You know that feeling when you seem to be in two times and two places at once. Add to it a moment of extreme agony as you find yourself suddenly sandwiched between a pair of overmuscled gorillas with biceps straight off a marble statue and you more or less have the picture. It was like being hugged by an alleyway.

I glanced left and right. And up.

‘Oh, shit,’ I said. ‘You’re Eutacticus’s boys, right?’

The gorilla squeezing me on the left gave me a grin; I’d only ever known him as Laughing George, but no doubt his white-haired old mother had another name for him, probably ‘You Bastard!’.

‘Well remembered, Corvinus,’ he said. ‘Got it in one. The boss wants to see you.’

Again? Oh, joy in the morning; don’t four years just flash past when you’re having fun. And another chat with Sempronius Eutacticus, organised crime’s equivalent of a crocodile with attitude, wouldn’t even figure in a masochist’s definition of the phrase.

‘Care to tell me what about?’ My shoulders felt like they had parted company with my arms and moved up to the level of my ears. My rib-cage wasn’t too happy about things, either.

‘No.’

Ah, well, short and concise. Par for the course, where Laughing George was concerned, and I wasn’t going to argue. I wasn’t going to try running or screaming kidnap, either, because if I’d learned anything from my previous encounter with Eutacticus it was to go with the flow, because if you didn’t the flow was liable to wash you down a very deep hole and put the lid on.

‘So we’re going to the Pincian,’ I said.

‘Yeah.’

‘No transport this time?’

‘It’s a nice afternoon. We thought we’d walk.’ The grin broadened, showing teeth like the cheapest bricks in a third-rate tenement. ‘Besides, the boss told us you don’t like litters.’

‘Right. Right.’

Well, he was thorough, Eutacticus, I’d give him that. Still, I’d’ve liked to’ve been asked.

It wasn’t a chatty journey: Laughing George wasn’t to be drawn, and his pal had all the conversational pazazz of a brick. We headed in close-knit silence up Broad Street past the Saepta and Agrippa Field into the rarefied atmosphere of the Pincian Hill, where money – mostly new money – doesn’t just talk, it struts its stuff with a megaphone. I remembered Eutacticus’s place as soon as I saw it: tritons on the gateposts, score high for flash and zilch for taste, the worst the Pincian could throw at you and then some more on top. The statues flanking the driveway that led up to the house alone would’ve kept the quarry-owners in Luna in sturgeon and bears’ paws for a year, and the greenery providing the backdrop had been topiaried to within an inch of its life.

Laughing George nodded to the guy on the gate, and we were in. Then it was past another half dozen of scowling prime-rate bought help, up the cedar staircase and the deferential tap on the ivory-inlaid study door.

‘Come in.’

We did. The lad himself was on the reading couch, doing his crocodile-in-the-swamp-waiting-for-lunch impression. That wasn’t the surprise. The surprise was the woman sitting on a chair next to him: a little, mousey, middle-aged Roman matron like a straight-backed dumpling wearing a hairdo and jewellery and just radiating Respectability and Traditional Family Values. If old Marcus Cato, bless his puritanical socks, had had a mum, then this lady was a dead ringer for her.

‘Valerius Corvinus. Good of you to come.’ The crocodile jaws spread in a smile as genuine as a tin denarius. ‘How nice to see you again.’

‘Yeah, well -’

‘Thank you, Satrius. That’s all.’ Laughing George exited. ‘Corvinus, this is my wife Occusia. She’ll be the one talking to you.’ He got up. ‘I thought, though, that I should be here when you arrived. Just so we’re absolutely clear where we stand.’

‘Namely?’ I massaged my shoulders.

‘I need a favour, and in the light of our last encounter I believe you’re the right man to ask. Do what Occusia asks, and I’ll be very grateful. Very grateful indeed. Turn her down, or fudge things, and – watch my lips here, please – you’ll wish that you’d never been born.’ The smile broadened. ‘Your choice, absolutely no pressure. You understand?’

‘Ah -’

‘Good. I’m glad. Now if you’ll excuse me I have work to do.’

Scams to run, magistrates to square, bodies to hide. Busy, busy, busy. ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Sure. Have a nice day.’

He left, closing the door behind him.

Shit.

We stared at each other, the Respectable Dumpling and me, for a good half minute. Then she cleared her throat.

‘He’s a lovely man, really,’ she said. ‘When you get to know him. Pour yourself a cup of wine, Valerius Corvinus, and sit down.’

There was a tray with a silver wine jug and cups on the table in the corner. I went over and poured myself a badly-needed whopper.

‘You mean he didn’t mean it?’ I said.

‘Oh, yes. Publius always says what he means. But there’s no real malice in him, that’s just his way.’

Oh, whoopee. I took a major swig of the wine – first-grade Falernian, as if I’d expected anything less -, gave myself a top-up and took the cup over to the reading couch. Well, if my balls were properly in the mangle here – which they undoubtedly were – I might as well grin and accept the situation. For the time being, anyway.

‘Fine,’ I said. ‘So what’s this favour?’

‘I want you to find my son. Titus.’

Oh, really? ‘Gods, lady, if Eutacticus wanted me to find his son for him then why not just -?’

‘No. Titus isn’t Publius’s, he’s mine. From a previous marriage. Publius is his stepfather.’

‘Same difference. Why couldn’t he have told me himself?’

‘It’s complicated. He can’t be involved.’ She fixed me with anxious, mousey eyes.

‘Okay.’ I set the cup down on the small table next to the couch. ‘So maybe it’ll save us a bit of time if you just start at the beginning and talk me through it.’

The mousey eyes blinked. ‘Publius and I were married two years ago. He’d been divorced for twenty years, I’d been widowed for ten. He had a daughter – that’s Sempronia – and I had a son, Titus. He’s just turned twenty-two. Such a lovely boy, and we were so grateful to Publius for taking us in. However, to tell you the truth, they’ve never really got on. And recently it’s got worse. Much worse.’

Uh-huh. I was beginning to see the light here, and it wasn’t too difficult to guess what was coming next. ‘Your son’s done a runner?’ I said.

She nodded. ‘He left a note for Publius saying he was leaving, and if he found out that Publius was using his contacts to track him down he’d never see him again. He meant it, too. Titus can be quite stubborn, and he’s just as strong-willed in his own way as Publius is. Publius was very upset. He was planning to adopt him formally in spite of’ – she hesitated – ‘well, Titus wasn’t very keen to take his name, what with one thing and another. He never has been.’