Finished Business

NINE

As a matter of fact, the market was pretty quiet. Unsurprisingly so, really: we were halfway through the afternoon, the morning rush was long over, most of the stalls were tenantless and clear of produce, and there was only a scattering of both stallholders and customers. I couldn’t see any porters in evidence, either, so the chances of Otillius still being around were pretty slim. Even so, it was worth asking rather than putting it off and having to take the long hike back here another day.

I tried a couple of the remaining stallholders first with no result, before an old woman selling eggs pointed me towards the edge of the square.

‘You might find him over there, dear,’ she said. ‘It’s where a lot of the men go when they’ve finished for the day.’

I looked. Sure enough, there were some tables and benches with people sitting at them.

‘Thanks, grandma, much obliged,’ I said, and walked over. It wasn’t an actual wine shop, just a drinking area with a canvas booth and a makeshift bar counter. But it was popular enough, and filled entirely, as the old woman had said, with the male element of the market’s sellers and porters. I got a few glances as I went up to the counter, but they were curious rather than unfriendly ones.

The guy behind the bar was already pouring me an earthenware cup of wine from the single jug on the counter — basic was right; evidently you took what you got — and I pulled out my purse.

‘You happen to know a porter by the name of Otillius, pal?’ I said as I paid.

‘Titus Otillius?’ The man gave me my change. Well, the price couldn’t’ve been lower, anyway. ‘That’s him.’ He nodded. ‘The big guy over there in the corner, with the red tunic.’

I took a sip of the wine, decided I’d been grossly overcharged after all, and followed the direction of the nod. ‘Red’ was an exaggeration, but from the looks of the tunic in question I’d guess it was more or less a permanent fixture that had never seen the inside of a fuller’s shop. Maybe our barman here just had a very good memory.

‘Big’, however, was a gross understatement: Naevius’s garden slave, Cilix, came to mind. With added extras. And a head-banger into the bargain, right?

Thank you, thank you, Vulpis. Most appreciated. Still, I had been warned.

Shit.

Ah, well, such are the sacrifices I make in the service of honesty, truth and justice. I sighed inwardly and carried my cup over.

‘Titus Otillius?’ I said. He looked up but didn’t answer. ‘Name’s Corvinus. Marcus Corvinus.’ Still no response. There was another stool at the table opposite him. I pulled it out and sat. ‘I understand you’re Tarquitia’s husband.’

‘So they tell me,’ he said. ‘I haven’t seen the little bitch for almost a year.’ His eyes went to the stripe on my tunic. ‘Who the fuck are you?’

‘I said. Marcus Corvinus.’

A hand the size of a ham reached out and grabbed my tunic just below the neck. I jerked forwards, spilling my wine.

‘You one of the bastard’s relatives?’

I temporized. ‘Ah … which particular bastard would that be, now?’

‘Who do you think? Naevius fucking Surdinus.’

‘Uh-uh.’ I reached up and slowly, gently, unprised the grip, finger by sausage-sized finger. ‘Not me, pal, no way. Perish the thought. No relation whatsoever, not even by marriage. But I am looking into his death. Purely as a favour, you understand.’

‘Surdinus is dead?’ Otillius took away his hand. He could’ve been faking it, sure, but the surprise on his face and in his voice looked and sounded real.

‘Yeah. As of five days ago.’ I was watching him carefully for signs of further imminent head-bangership. Or whatever the phrase is. They were all there, in spades. Bugger. ‘Someone dropped a lump of stone on top of him.’

The surprised look slowly turned into a grin, and it broadened.

‘Well, bully for them,’ he said. ‘You know who did it?’

‘Not yet. I told you, I’m just looking into things at present.’

‘You shake them by the hand for me, then, when you do.’

‘So you haven’t seen your wife — Tarquitia — for almost a year?’ I said, straightening the tunic.

‘That’s right. Since she took up serious with the old lecher and moved in with him.’

I shook my head. ‘She didn’t do that. He set her up in a flat somewhere.’

‘News to me. Mind you, she’d keep that quiet, to stop me gatecrashing the happy home. Which I would’ve done if I’d known where the fuck it was.’

‘You didn’t?’

‘Uh-uh. Me, I thought she’d be up at that fancy villa of his on Vatican Hill. She talked about it enough when she met him first, but I wasn’t going to try anything there.’ He was still grinning. ‘You’ve spilled your wine. Let me get you another cup. Shit, this is the best news I’ve had in a month.’

‘No, that’s OK, pal.’ The tabletop was the best place for the stuff. I could just see it eating into the wood. ‘I’m fine. So you won’t, uh, have heard about the property he sold her?’

‘What property? And how the hell could Tarquitia afford any kind of property? She hadn’t two copper pieces to rub together.’

‘Oh, it doesn’t matter. Nothing of much value.’ I put my empty cup down on the table. Evidently, the worst was over. Hopefully, at any rate. I breathed a quiet sigh of relief. ‘You care to tell me how she met this guy? At a dinner party, wasn’t it?’

‘Yeah, that’s right.’ He looked over my shoulder towards the counter and lifted an arm. ‘Hey, Barrio!’ he shouted. ‘Bring us a top-up over here, will you? My bill.’ Bugger. Then, turning back to me: ‘Queer thing, that was.’

‘Yeah? In what way queer?’ I said. Well, at least he was talking normally. All in all, a promising sign.

‘Tarquitia usually works — worked — with a girl called Hermia. She played the double-flute, Hermia I mean, while Tarquitia did whatever other bits they or the customer’d decided on. Singing, dancing, cartwheels, that sort of thing. It was a pretty good arrangement. Hermia’s a natural on the flute, but she’s no beauty, what with her squint, and she couldn’t throw a cartwheel to save herself. Tarquitia’s the opposite.’

‘So?’

‘So they’ve got a gig arranged for that evening. Only at the last minute Tarquitia tells Hermia that she’s done a swap. There’s another couple of girls booked for that dinner party I told you about, and she’s arranged with one of them to take her place.’ He shrugged. ‘Didn’t make no difference to the two sets of punters, of course; they were both getting what they paid for. Odd thing was, Tarquitia and the other flautist had worked together once or twice before, and it hadn’t worked out.’

‘Hang on, pal,’ I said. ‘Are you saying …’ I paused while Barrio came over with the jug and filled our cups. ‘Are you saying that Tarquitia was only at the dinner party where she met Surdinus because she made a switch at the last minute with one of the team who’d originally been booked?’

‘Yeah.’ He picked up his cup and drank. Inwardly, I winced. ‘Strange how these things happen, isn’t it? If she hadn’t done the swap she’d never even’ve seen the bastard.’

Strange was right. Or maybe not. Jupiter, what was going on here? ‘So what happened then?’

‘Way she told it to me, she was throwing a cartwheel that went wrong and she landed up on Surdinus’s couch. Pure accident, it happens sometimes, and it was too clumsy to be intentional because she made him spill his drink all over his party mantle. She apologized — not that he’d be complaining, mind — and when they’d finished the act he asked her and the other girl to stay. There wasn’t no funny business, at least that’s what she said, it wasn’t that sort of party, and she didn’t start any, either. They just talked. She’s a good talker, Tarquitia.’ He took another swallow of his wine. ‘Leastways, that’s what the little bitch told me at the time. Far as I knew, that was the end of it. Only half a month later I come home and she’s cleared out, leaving me a note to say they’re an item. You seen her?’

‘What?’

‘Tarquitia. You seen her, yourself, recently?’

‘Yeah. Over at the villa, as it happens. The one on the Vatican.’

‘She OK? Healthy enough, and that?’

‘She seemed so, yeah.’

He grunted and drank again. ‘Did she mention any plans she might have? A great little planner, she is. One of the best, and always was. “You’ve got to have a plan, Titus,” she’d say to me. “Plans make the world go round. They make the future. Without a plan, you’re going nowhere.”’

‘No,’ I said cautiously. ‘She didn’t have any plans. Not ones that she talked about, anyway.’ I wasn’t going to mention the Old Villa, let alone the other stuff. Including the will. Otillius hadn’t seemed a bad guy to me, certainly not bad enough to justify Vulpis’s description of him as a head-banger. Or not latterly, anyway. But then when I’d given him the news of Surdinus’s death I’d obviously been slotted into the ‘bosom buddy’ category — which had been absolutely fine by me, of course, because as a result he’d blossomed like a rose. However, if he found out that his wife was fair set to owning property worth the best part of half a million, I’d bet that’d be a completely different story. Liar and con-artist though the lady might be — and that aspect of things was pretty much beyond doubt, now — I couldn’t be the one to finger her. They’d have to work things out for themselves, if push ever came to shove. That side of things wasn’t my business, and I wanted no part of it.

There was always the chance, too — an outside one, I admitted, but a chance none the less — that Otillius had been stringing me along; that he’d been responsible for Surdinus’s death himself. He’d certainly had motive, whatever the points against.

‘Anyway,’ he was saying, ‘you tell her. Tarquitia. If you see her again. You tell her that if she wants to come back it’ll be fine with me. No problems, none at all. Clean slate. OK?’

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘OK. I’ll do that.’ I stood up.

‘You haven’t drunk your wine.’

Fuck; he’d noticed. ‘Nah. I’m not much of a one for wine, me,’ I said. ‘A sip or two now and again. Maybe two cups at the Winter Festival, just to celebrate, if it’s well-watered.’ I passed the cup over. ‘You have it, pal. Enjoy. I’ll see you around.’

I left.

Hmm. Quite a lot to think about there. On top of everything else.

Enough for the day. Back to the Caelian.