Finished Business

THIRTEEN

‘Everything to do with the will checks out,’ I said to Perilla when I was changed into a dry tunic and ensconced in the atrium with a cup of wine beside me. ‘Apart from a few minor bequests, Surdinus Junior gets the bulk of the estate; Marcus — Hellenus — gets a third, while Tarquitia gets the interest on fifty thousand sesterces and the capital when she marries. Which, of course, we know she’s done already. So at least no one’s telling porkies there, and there’s nothing we’re missing.’

‘Hmm.’ Perilla was twisting a lock of her hair. ‘You’re sure Hellenus and Tarquitia were working together?’

‘Yeah. That’s more or less beyond doubt. And everything fits in. Vulpis at the Poppies confirmed that Hellenus did their wall paintings for them about eighteen months ago. That must’ve been when he first met Tarquitia. Whether or not they’re an item sexually — then or now — I don’t know, and it doesn’t really matter. Business partners, now that’s another thing entirely.’

‘I’d go for yes, myself,’ Perilla said. ‘Her husband strikes me as more or less a dead weight, and apart from providing her with a legal claim to the bequest capital, he doesn’t really serve any useful purpose. He certainly has no right to a share of the money; that was left specifically to her.’

‘Yeah, right.’ I took a mouthful of the wine. ‘As far as the scam itself is concerned, the whys and wherefores are pretty obvious. The original idea was Hellenus’s. He couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t be written out of his father’s will completely; all it would take would be a clause to that effect, specifically excluding him by name from a share in the estate. So he needed a little nest-egg in advance, something up front. Hence the deal with Tarquitia, the purpose being to milk the old man of as much as he could before he hung up his clogs. Plus, naturally, anything he could get would be all the less at the end of the day for Surdinus Junior to inherit. I reckon that figured pretty highly, too.’

‘So he arranged the … well, we’d best call it the encounter between his father and Tarquitia.’

‘Yeah. Of course, he couldn’t be sure anything’d come of it, but Tarquitia is a very sharp cookie, and I’d say where attracting men is concerned she knows what she’s doing.’

‘As you proved yourself, dear.’

I grinned. ‘Bugger off, lady. Fixing things up wouldn’t’ve been difficult. He hadn’t any formal connections with his family any more, sure, but I’ll bet you there was someone among the bought help he’d kept in touch with, or who’d kept in touch with him. An old nanny, maybe, or more likely a female slave with a crush. He’s pretty good-looking, our Hellenus, and a smooth talker. Me, I’d bet women just fall into his lap. He and Tarquitia make a good pair. It’d just be a case of waiting for the word that his father was going to a dinner party where there’d be dancing girls laid on for dessert and that’d be it. Tarquitia could arrange the switch easy as pie, and the rest would be up to her.’

Perilla put her chin on her hand. ‘It’s all very cold-blooded, though, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘I mean, on both their parts. After all, Hellenus had made his choice; he’d walked out on his father saying he wanted no more to do with him. And Surdinus couldn’t’ve behaved better towards Tarquitia. His own wife said he treated her more as a daughter than a mistress. The whole thing’s completely sordid and shabby.’

‘Agreed. I’m not defending them. Far from it. Still, I very much doubt that they’re our killers, either one or both together, and that’s the important thing at present.’

‘Of course, you can make a case for Hellenus. On his own, without Tarquitia.’

‘Is that so, now?’ I settled down and took another swig of the wine. ‘Go ahead, lady. You have the floor.’

‘Let’s say he did know the details of the will after all. That isn’t impossible, given that he was working with Tarquitia. Quite the reverse; we only ever had her word that Surdinus never told her them, and we know what that’s worth.’

‘Fair enough.’

‘Very well. How do you think Surdinus might have reacted if he were to find out there was a connection between his mistress and his younger son? Particularly — and he wasn’t a stupid man, remember — if he discovered the nature of the relationship?’

‘How would he do that?’

‘Perhaps someone told him.’

‘Like who?’

‘His other son. It wouldn’t’ve been too difficult for Surdinus Junior to arrange for Tarquitia to be secretly followed, to see if she were up to something. In which case she would have led him straight to Hellenus.’

Shit; she was right. It was possible, in fact it was more than possible, and the natural thing for Junior to do when he discovered he was being systematically ripped off by his father’s mistress. If he could prove to Surdinus that Tarquitia was nothing but a chiseller on the make — and, worse, that she’d been planted on him by his estranged younger son — then the scam was dead in the water.

‘Chances are he’d’ve confronted her, then gone off and changed his will,’ I said. ‘Disinherited Hellenus, cancelled the fifty thousand bequest. And, of course, any up-and-coming plans for selling more property to her at a peppercorn price.’

‘Exactly. Hellenus would have lost his third of the estate, and while all the property Tarquitia had persuaded his father to make over to her would be hers in law, he’d have no claim on it at all. In effect, he’d be left penniless, with no prospects, and in a far worse position than he’d been in before. Totally dependent on her goodwill. The threat of all that would give him a prime motive for murder.’

Bugger, it would, too. Even so …

‘I’m sorry, lady,’ I said, ‘but it won’t work.’

‘Really?’ She sniffed. ‘You don’t think Hellenus is capable of murdering his father? Of arranging the murder, anyway?’

‘Oh, sure.’ He would be, too: the guy had been convincing and pleasant enough when I talked to him, but I was too old a hand at this game to let that weigh. And given a viable motive I’d bet he had the intelligence and willpower to think things out and carry them through. ‘No problems there.’

‘Well, then.’

‘Come on, Perilla! Think it through. Junior finds out about the scam and tells his father, with the result that the old man decides to change his will. Very shortly afterwards, Surdinus is dead and I turn up on the doorstep to break the glad news to him that it was murder. So what happens then?’

‘Ah.’

‘“Ah” is right. Given the circumstances, the guy would be falling over himself to point the finger. Quite understandably so. Only he didn’t, ergo he didn’t know anything about the scam, ergo the theory’s up the creek without a paddle. QED. No, my guess is that Tarquitia’s little con — or Hellenus’s, if you like — had nothing to do with the murder.’

‘Hmm. All right, Marcus. Point taken.’ She was looking seriously miffed, and I stifled a grin. If there’s one thing the lady hates it’s coming off second best. ‘So. What now?’

‘I confront her with it. Oh, sure, I know it won’t do much good, and like I say it probably isn’t relevant, but it’ll clear the air. Then it’s back to furkling around hoping that something comes up.’

‘Furkling around where, dear?’ Prickly as hell.

‘I thought I might pay a visit to Cassius Longinus.’

‘Why would you want to do that? And don’t say, “Because he’s there”.’

I grinned again, openly this time. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘You want the theory? To put him in the frame, I mean?’

‘Certainly, if you have one that’s valid.’

Ouch.

I topped up my cup from the jug. ‘Sullana claims she had an affair with him twenty-five years ago, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘She also said that if Surdinus had offered her a divorce any time these thirty-odd years she’d’ve agreed straight away.’

‘So?’

‘So if they’d been married thirty-seven years — which they had been — then the gilt must’ve worn off the gingerbread pretty quickly after the wedding. Certainly long before she decided to look for love and affection elsewhere. Maybe as much as ten years, and that’s a long time in a marriage that isn’t working.’

‘Marcus, dear, what exactly are you getting at?’

‘Gaius Secundus told me that Longinus was a very old friend of the family, dating much further back than his and Surdinus’s joint consulship. Oh, sure, twenty-five years would qualify him as that, no argument; but me, I was wondering about the gap.’

‘What gap?’

‘Between twenty-five years and, quote, “thirty-odd”.’

‘Marcus …’

‘Wait a minute, lady. Just listen. Say that when she talked to me Sullana was fudging things a little, intentionally so, and the affair happened closer to the thirty-five year mark — there’s your “thirty-odd” — rather than the twenty-five. That’d put Sullana in her very early twenties, pre-kids and a couple of years into a bad marriage; Longinus — presumably, given he was consul ten years back — just a bit older. Unmarried, unattached.’

‘And how do you know he was unmarried and unattached?’

I ignored her. ‘The perfect age and conditions for an affair, on both sides. And, well, it fits in pretty neatly with Surdinus Junior’s age.’

She was staring at me. ‘Marcus Corvinus, you should be ashamed of yourself!’ she said. ‘That is groundless speculation, pure and simple, and very close to muckraking! You’ve no evidence for Longinus being Surdinus’s father. None whatsoever.’

‘Sure I don’t. But it’s an angle worth considering if Longinus’s coming back to Rome at a time just predating Surdinus’s death is no coincidence. Sullana says that up to a month ago her husband had never even suspected she’d had an affair, and when she told him she had and who with, he was furious.’

‘But why on earth should Longinus kill Surdinus? If anything, it ought to be the other way round.’

‘Maybe he threatened to, and Longinus got in first.’

‘Corvinus, that is absolute nonsense!’

‘Or he was threatening to disinherit his elder son. Who, of course, wouldn’t be his elder son at all.’

‘That might be an additional reason for Surdinus Junior to kill his father, but it would have nothing to do with Longinus.’

‘Oh, yes, it would. If the thing went through, particularly just after Surdinus had divorced his wife of almost forty years, whether he made the reason public or not, people would put two and two together, and the chances are they’d come up with the right answer. Sullana would be disgraced, his natural son would lose a major inheritance, and the oh-so-honourable-and-upright Cassius Longinus wouldn’t come out of things looking too good, either. Plus the timing would be catastrophic. The guy’s just been hauled back to Rome, presumably in disgrace for committing some misdemeanour, anything up to and including treason, but probably just that, and his career’s already enough on the skids without word getting round that he’s the father of his erstwhile colleague’s elder son, when his reputation would go down the tubes as well. I’d say all that was a good enough reason for murder.’

‘Poppycock.’

‘Yeah, well, you can sneer all you like, lady, but at least it means that Longinus needs checking out. We only have Cornelia Sullana’s version of things to go on. Maybe his will be different. Or can you suggest another avenue I should be exploring?’

‘No, but …’

‘Fine. Longinus it is, then.’ I reached for the jug and refilled my wine cup. ‘After I’ve talked with Tarquitia.’