David Wishart: Trade Secrets

Which is what I did.

Next morning I left Perilla to snooze on as usual – not an early-morning person, the lady – and went down to breakfast on the terrace. Clarus and Marilla were up already, Marilla tucking into her usual light breakfast of omelette, cheese, olives, dried fruit, bread rolls, and honey, with young Marcus gurgling away and blowing bubbles in his basket beside her.

‘You’re around early, Corvinus.’ Clarus was like me: a straightforward breakfast-roll-dipped-in-olive-oil man. ‘Going somewhere special?’

At dinner the previous evening I’d been careful to avoid, at Perilla’s insistence, any mention of Tullia Gemella’s visit. Clarus would’ve been interested, certainly, but that would’ve been as far as it went. Marilla was another matter. Adopted or not, she’s a lot like me in many ways: she’d’ve insisted on the full gory details, as far as I could give them, and she’d’ve wanted to be involved. Oh, sure, I was under no illusions, and neither was Perilla: being Marilla she’d find out eventually what was going on, and pretty soon at that. But I wasn’t going to precipitate things, because if I did then the lady had made it abundantly clear that she’d have my guts for garters.

‘Just a bit of business,’ I said. ‘Someone I have to see in Ardeatina Road.’ I reached for a roll. ‘You got anything special planned yourselves?’

‘We thought we might do the Pollio,’ Marilla said. ‘Take Marcus with us. It’s a lovely day, and I can sit in the Pollio garden with him while Clarus does his thing inside with Erasistratus. What sort of business?’

‘Nothing important. Just someone I have to talk to.’

‘Oh?’ Marilla put down the knife she was holding. ‘About what?’

‘Come on, Princess! I said it’s not important, just-’

‘Corvinus, you never have business. Certainly not at this time of the day. It’s a murder, isn’t it? Or something like that, anyway.’

Bugger. ‘Why should it be a murder?’

‘Because you’re not telling. And your left eyelid twitched.’

Hell. This I didn’t need, certainly not at breakfast: motherhood hadn’t affected the lady’s ability to recognize fudging when she heard it, anyway. And when she did she was as efficient as a ferret down a rabbit hole.

‘Look, Marilla,’ I said. ‘I told Clarus yesterday that I’d nothing like that on at present.’ I turned to Clarus. ‘Right, pal?’

‘True.’ Clarus dipped a piece of his roll in the oil, eyes lowered; he was definitely learning, was Cornelius Clarus.

‘There you are, then.’ I poured some of the oil from the flask onto my own plate. ‘So just clam up and eat, OK?’

‘Hmm.’ She picked up the knife again, and I breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Then she put the knife down. ‘Even so-’

Fuck.

Bathyllus, our major-domo, buttled over with a fresh supply of rolls. Saved by the domestic.

‘Would you like an omelette this morning, sir?’ he said.

‘Uh, no, that’s OK, Bathyllus.’ I dipped the roll I was holding into the oil and stood up. ‘Actually, I’m a bit pushed for time. I’ll just take this with me. Have a nice day, kids. See you later.’

Jupiter, that had been close! I made my escape. Quickly.

I was going down the steps when I saw the cat. Or what had been the cat. It was lying on the pavement right next to the house wall, halfway between us and the neighbours’ property; neatly laid out, like someone had put it there. I went over to look. Pure white Parthian, groomed to its carefully manicured claws, about as far from your average scrawny street moggie as you can get, and definitely now an ex-feline.

Oh, bugger. Admetus.

To say that we didn’t get on with our immediate neighbours was an understatement. The situation at present wasn’t one of outright war, sure, but if we’d been countries both sides of our common border would’ve been fortified in depth and guarded by six legions on constant alert and a battery of artillery kept at hair-trigger readiness. And cats figured largely among the areas of possible friction. Where a love of cats was concerned, Titus Petillius and his ex-housekeeper-now-wife, Tyndaris, were the ailurophile’s ailurophiles, and the fact that a few years previously our temporary house guest, the hellhound Placida, had nailed Admetus’s sister had consigned Perilla and me to leper status. If even the slightest suspicion were to arise that the brute’s death lay at our door metaphorically as well as literally then, if it meant getting rid of us, the Petillius household would welcome a leper colony as neighbours with open arms and a standing invitation to dinner.

Something had to be done. And quickly. I bent to pick the cat up. Bathyllus could arrange for it to be buried in our garden, and Petillius would be none the wiser …

‘Murderer!’

I straightened. The man himself had just come out of his front door. He was standing on the top step, goggling, finger pointing accusingly.

Oh, shit.

He came towards me. I backed off.

‘Uh … Look, pal,’ I said. ‘I just found it, right? Someone must’ve dumped it there.’

He was glaring at me like Medusa on a bad-hair day.

‘Cat-killer!’

‘I’d nothing to d-’

‘By the gods, if there’s any justice in Rome you will pay for this!’

‘Oh, come on, pal! It’s only a cat! And like I said I only-’

Mistake. Make that Medusa with a grade-one hangover, an abscessed tooth, and an extra supply of snakes. He was deep purple now and about a hair’s breadth from apoplexy. Without another word, he snatched the limp body out of my unresisting grasp, turned, and marched back into the house, slamming the door behind him.

Yeah, well; that could’ve gone better. It seemed that the truce was well and truly over. Still, there was nothing I could do about it at present; we’d just have to hope that the guy would calm down enough to listen to reason. And that in the interim there’d be a herd of flying pigs.

I went back inside, apprised Bathyllus of the situation, then set off again for the Tullius place.

Ardeatina Road is our side of town, but about as far down as you can go without running out of city; a fairish hike, but pleasant enough on a good May morning. Tullia Gemella’s description of the house as a pied-a-terre was just about right – it was one of those places built for the cheap end of the market, for punters who feel themselves a cut above a tenement but can’t afford the fancy prices asked for hillside properties – and with the cypress branches round the door the place wasn’t too hard to find: the funeral would be over by now, sure, but the household would still be in mourning. I knocked on the door, introduced myself to the door-slave, and was taken into the pocket-sized atrium.

Annia, the dead man’s widow, wasn’t alone. There was another guy with her, and when I came in they were deep in urgent conversation. Then Annia saw me, and put a hand on the man’s wrist. He looked round.

‘Uh … I’m sorry,’ I said, stopping on the threshold. ‘You’re busy. Maybe I should come back later.’

‘No, that’s quite all right.’ The lady smiled. No looker, Annia, not by a long chalk, but she was no mouse either, I could see that straight away. Tullius’s widow had poise . ‘This is my brother Quintus.’ Yeah, I could’ve guessed that: similar age – early thirties – same chunky build and heavy features. We nodded to each other. ‘Gemella told me you’d be coming, or that you might be, rather. And why, of course. I’m very grateful.’

Not that she sounded it, exactly. I suspected that arms had been seriously twisted here. Or at least responsibilities firmly pointed out.

‘I’ll leave, dear,’ Annius said. ‘We can discuss things another time.’