David Wishart - Trade Secrets

Cispius it was, then. Assuming, from what Rubrius had told me, that his daughter still had her fuller’s place near Guildsmen’s Square and the old guy himself was still above ground …

I’d just have to keep my fingers crossed.

Guildsmen’s Square, where the Ostian trade guilds’ offices are, is on the Roman Gate side of town, between the theatre and the river. There were quite a few side streets and alleyways in that part, but finding a fuller’s shop is always easy: all you have to do is follow your nose. Literally. So that’s what I did, and found the place no problem.

It was tucked away in a cul-de-sac just past the town baths, a single large room opening out directly onto the pavement and with a couple of mantles hanging from a clothes line stretched between the buildings either side. I edged carefully round them, trying not to breathe through my nose – fullers may be used to the smell of well-matured urine, but for those whose olfactory sense hasn’t been already blunted it’s a pleasure to be rationed – and went inside.

There were a couple of guys in loincloths knee-deep in a vat, treading the hell out of a bundle of dirty mantles, and a grey-haired man in a badly stained tunic ladling sulphur from a bag into a sulphur-burner. Obviously the boss: the first perk of seniority in the fulling trade is that you don’t spend a large slice of your working day up to the knees in diluted piss.

‘Good morning, sir.’ He set the cracked wine-cup he was using as a ladle down on the bench. ‘How can I help you?’

‘Hi,’ I said. ‘I was looking for a man by the name of Cispius.’

‘The Dad?’ His eyes widened, and I saw them stray to the purple stripe on my tunic. ‘Yeah, he’s upstairs. What do you want with him?’

Hey! At least I’d got the right place. And, it seemed, old Cispius was still alive and breathing. If being upstairs from a fuller’s establishment wasn’t a mixed blessing where the latter was concerned.

‘Just a word or two,’ I said. ‘It’s about a pal of his who died about ten years back. A Gaius Manutius. I understand he kept up for a while with the widow.’

The man grinned. ‘“Kept up”, is it? Well, the Dad’s always been a bit of a dark horse, but I never heard of no widow, me. Not that sort, anyway. Still, you’re more than welcome to go up and talk to him, whatever it’s about. You’ll be doing him a favour, stuck in that room on his own all day with only the wife for company. Stairs just outside and to the left there. I’d take you up myself but the wife would have a fit unless I’d had a good wash first.’

‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘Thanks, pal. Your wife’s at home?’

‘Nah, she won’t be back for an hour or two yet. Out doing the shopping. But you’ll have no trouble finding him.’

I went outside again and up the stairs. There was a wooden door at the top. I knocked and went in.

The room above the shop was empty, but the lady of the house was obviously the house-proud type: swept and dusted to an inch of its life, and what little furniture there was had been carefully polished with wax. There was even a bowl of fresh flowers on the table. Not a single sniff of urine.

‘That you back already, Cispilla, girl?’

An old man’s voice, from the room adjoining. I went through.

It was a bedroom, smaller than the living room, mostly taken up with a big bed, carefully made with a chequered cover. Next to it was a single unmade truckle bed propped sideways against the wall, and a high-backed chair next to a window overlooking the main street, with the old man sitting in it. His legs were swathed in a rug.

‘Who are you?’ he said.

‘My name’s Corvinus. Marcus Corvinus. Your son-in-law said it’d be OK to come up.’

‘That’s as may be. What do you want?’

‘Just a chat, if it’s OK with you,’ I said equably. ‘You mind if I sit down?’

‘Suit yourself.’ His eyes, like his son-in-law’s, were on the purple stripe. ‘What’s your business here?’

I sat down on the edge of the bed next to him. ‘I was hoping you could help me out with something. It’s about a friend of yours. A colleague, really. Guy by the name of Gaius Manutius?’

The suspicion hadn’t left the old man’s voice. ‘I knew a Gaius Manutius, sure. But he’s long dead, ten years back.’

‘Yeah, I know. That’s the point. I was hoping you could tell me about how he died.’

‘Why do you want to know that?’

‘It’s … well, it’s a bit complicated. But it has to do with a man by the name of Marcus Correllius. You both used to work for him, I understand?’

‘Correllius, eh?’ The thin mouth twisted into a smile with no humour in it. ‘That bastard! What’s your connection with him?’

‘He’s dead as well. Murdered, in fact.’ Best to keep things simple. ‘I’m looking into the whys and wherefores.’

‘You were a friend of his?’

This, I suspected, would weigh. ‘Uh-uh.’ I shook my head decisively. ‘Definitely not. In fact, I never even met him. I told you: it’s complicated. But I need to find out more about him.’

‘He was a crook. I’ll tell you that straight. And if he’s dead – murdered – the bastard had it coming. You won’t find me shedding tears for Marcus Correllius.’

‘So if he was a crook, what sort of crook was he, exactly?’

‘Every kind. You name it, he was into it. So long as it turned a profit, that was fine with him.’

‘Can you give me some examples?’

Cispius frowned. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘I used to work for him, right? Nothing fancy, just the heavy stuff. Loading, unloading, carts or ships mostly, sometimes on the regular quayside, sometimes up or down the coast at a time and place when there wasn’t no one around to notice. Doing what I was told and no more. I kept my eyes shut and my mouth closed, and I didn’t ask no questions. Never, ever. And if I did see something I shouldn’t’ve seen, or something happening that didn’t quite square with the law, then I put it out of my mind straight off. The pay was good, compared with what I’d’ve got breaking my back heaving wine jars and so on over at the docks, so I wasn’t complaining. I even put by enough to give Cispilla and her man a hand paying to set up the business. So no, purple-striper, I can’t give you no examples, because I was fucking careful not to think about what I was doing. Clear?’

‘Yeah, it’s clear. Clear and understood.’ I waited until the frown had left his face. ‘So. What about Gaius Manutius?’ I prompted gently.

Cispius grunted. ‘Manutius was different,’ he said. ‘He was a proper bad one, was Gaius Manutius. Cocky on top of it, thought he was smart, the sharpest knife in the box. Oh, don’t get me wrong; he was a good mate, best I ever had although he was young enough to be a son, and I’d’ve trusted him with my last copper coin. But he was too smart for his own good. That’s what did for him in the end, the poor bugger.’

‘Yeah? So what happened?’

Cispius frowned again. ‘If you want details, you’ll have to whistle for them,’ he said. ‘I told you: I didn’t ask, and if he’d offered to tell me, I’d’ve shut him up as soon as he started. All I know is he’d got hold somehow of some information he should never’ve had and tried to make something out of it on his own account. Next thing, we were down at the docks doing a bit of loading and the crane slips its load right above where he was standing. Smashed the poor bugger’s head to pulp like a ripe melon. And that was that.’

‘It could’ve been an accident.’

‘Sure it could. And pigs can fly.’

‘What makes you so sure it wasn’t?’

‘Look. We all worked as a team, right? Same lads, every time. Each of us had a job to do, and it was a man by the name of Geminus who worked the crane. Only that day Geminus had been transferred to another job at one of the other quays and there was someone else at the levers. Youngish guy, name of Doccius. You come across him in your travels?’