David Wishart: Trade Secrets

Another swallow. Then, slowly, Siddius nodded. ‘That’s more or less it, yeah,’ he said. ‘Not spot on, but more or less.’

Glory and trumpets! I kept my face straight.

‘Only,’ I said, ‘you’d’ve had to know that too, wouldn’t you? A load of empty amphoras hanging at the end of your crane-hook’d feel a lot different from a load of full ones.’

‘Yeah, they would.’ He grinned. ‘Only the buggers weren’t empty, were they? They’d been filled with water. So I didn’t know they was dodgy until they smashed, did I, clever Dick?’

Well, at least he was talking, and the precise detail didn’t matter much; in fact, if the amphoras had been full it made more sense. At any rate, the theory held good, in spades.

‘What about the water?’ I said. ‘Wouldn’t somebody notice that?’

He shrugged. ‘Been raining that morning, hadn’t it, so the quay was wet in any case. Nothing to notice, except if you were there at the time. I had that crooked bastard Nigrinus over a barrel. How he managed the switch or swung things in the first place, I don’t know and I don’t care, but it was a pretty good scam. Contract for a big consignment, swap the amphoras for ringers, load them onto a leaky tub like the Porpoise that’s long overdue for the breaker’s yard, stage a fake accident, and you’re laughing.’ He gave me a sharp look. ‘The Porpoise went down, didn’t she?’

‘Yeah. Just off the Corsican coast.’

‘And the crew got ashore safe?’

‘Yeah, they did.’

He nodded with satisfaction. ‘There you are, then. The perfect scam. No one’s crying but the guy who owned the original cargo, and you may be down one leaky old tub but you’re up eight hundred amphoras’ worth of oil and wine.’ He frowned. ‘Mind you, it’d take a lot of organizing. Just the shifting and storing would be a major job, big-time stuff. I wouldn’t’ve thought Nigrinus’d be up to that. You live and learn.’

Yeah, I’d agree. Still, I had my own thoughts on that score.

‘The cargo’s owner was Marcus Correllius, right?’ I said.

‘Yeah. He didn’t handle things himself, mind. Guy’s too ill to involve himself much with everyday business these days, or so I hear. He left the nitty-gritty to his manager, Publius Doccius. Now there’s a real hard bastard. If Nigrinus was putting one over on him then no wonder he was sweating when I dropped the load.’

Bullseye! ‘Doccius wasn’t there himself at the time?’

‘Nah. Saw the loading started, then buggered off to the nearest wineshop for a drink.’

‘The guys doing the loading. They were Correllius’s?’

‘Sure. Doccius always uses a company team. It’s cheaper that way.’ Yeah, Cispius had told me that was how it worked. ‘He would’ve used one of his own men for the crane, too, but he’d broken his wrist.’ He laughed. ‘Bad luck on Doccius’s part, of course, because then the accident might not’ve happened. I was pretty hungover that day.’

‘And none of the team – the loaders – noticed that there was something funny going on?’

‘Must’ve done. But they weren’t going to get involved, were they? That might just lead to trouble.

Uh-huh; Cispius again. He’d said that shoving your nose in and asking questions when you worked for Correllius was a bad idea. And given my suspicions – more than suspicions, now – where Doccius was concerned they’d probably have been right.

‘So,’ I said. ‘What happened then?’

‘I finished the loading, nice as pie, and then went to Nigrinus to put the bite on. Like I say, the guy was sweating. He grumbled, sure, but when I threatened to take the story straight to Correllius he paid up like a lamb. Five gold pieces I got from him for keeping my mouth shut, and cheap at the price. They came in handy, as well, because next day that bastard of a quay-master Arrius sacked me.’

Which had probably, in fact, saved his life: me, I wouldn’t’ve given a copper quadrans for it once he’d told Nigrinus what he’d seen. The sacking had been lucky for both of us.

‘The other guy who witnessed the accident. Gaius Tullius,’ I said. ‘You happen to know what he did then?’

‘Nah. Not a clue. I hardly even noticed him, and like I say he was nowhere near me when I dropped the load. Probably just went about his business.’

Yeah; that I’d believe. Only Tullius’s business, I’d bet, had comprised putting the bite on himself. Which, if I was right, was exactly why he’d ended up dead.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said. ‘Forget it.’ I handed over the coins. ‘Thanks, pal. That’s been a great help.’

He pocketed them. ‘Any time.’

So; next major port of call, as it were, Publius Doccius. Only before I did that I needed a little insurance of my own.

Siddius was right: disappearing eight hundred amphoras and selling on their contents would take organization and manpower, and if Nigrinus didn’t cut the mustard in that department then I’d bet Doccius couldn’t’ve managed it either; not off his own bat, at least. For a heist like that, he’d’ve needed a partner with real clout, and there was only one obvious candidate; Publius Fundanius. Fundanius made all kinds of sense: he’d have the organization that could cope with something on that scale, he’d’ve jumped at the chance to do the dirty on his long-time business rival, and – which was really the clincher – I’d seen Doccius at his villa, where presumably he’d gone straight off when Mamilia threw him out on his ear. Where, again presumably, I’d find him now.

Only, especially after Agron’s repeated warnings, I wasn’t going to walk in blithely and accuse them both to their faces, was I? Oh, sure, I was a Roman purple-striper, with all that entailed where the authorities were concerned, but that hadn’t seemed to cut much ice with the bastards so far, had it? Not when their hitman of choice Sextus Nigrinus had tried to zero me on at least two occasions. So insurance of a very physical kind it had to be, plus an ally who had the same kind of clout that Fundanius had; and my best bet on that score was the injured party, Mamilia. Persuading her re the whys and wherefores shouldn’t be difficult, given that she already knew that Doccius had been on the fiddle. And as far as Fundanius himself was concerned, if she had an axe to grind it was one I’d bet she would cheerfully have smacked him between the eyes with. So Mamilia it was.

No time like the present. I headed across town in the direction of the Hinge.

The Tullius side of things was obvious, too. If Gaius Siddius, coincidentally and fortunately for him, had disappeared into the woodwork after conducting his business with Nigrinus, Tullius hadn’t been so lucky. He wasn’t to know, of course, that he was messing with some pretty hard guys, or he might’ve thought twice about trying on a bit of blackmail, but the whole thing had been done off the cuff; he’d seen a chance to make a dishonest silver piece or two, and he’d taken it. Who exactly had done the actual killing – the captain’s brother Sextus or Doccius himself – I didn’t know, and it wasn’t crucially important at this stage; nor were the precise circumstances of how he’d been lured to an out-of-the-way spot like the Shrine of Melobosis off Trigemina Gate Street. What was important was I knew now who was behind the murder, and why.

Case solved. Or almost, bar the shouting.

‘Valerius Corvinus! This is a surprise!’ The lady actually gave me a smile; clearly our relationship had moved up a notch, which was all to the good under the circumstances. ‘What brings you back so soon? I was just about to go out, but I can spare you a few minutes.’