Finished Business

TWENTY-THREE

We took the carriage through to Castrimoenium that evening. Perilla had sent a skivvy on ahead, so at least we were expected; meaning that, when we rolled up well after midnight, we didn’t get the locked door and the dogs set on us. The hellhound Placida excepted, naturally, but then with her you stood more chance of being drooled to death than anything else, and she meant well.

Childbirth, of course, is a risky business at the best of times, but where Marilla was concerned I needn’t’ve worried; she was blooming. Clarus said the pregnancy was going as it should and the sprog looked like being on time. Which, in the event, he was. After several days of nail-biting tension and a couple of false alarms, young Marcus Cornelius Clarus came squalling into the world bang on the button an hour after dawn on the first day of the festival. He was introduced to the household and the household gods; Juno the Light-Bringer had her post-natal sacrifice and set of thank-you clothes, and after he’d thrown his ninth-day party and sicked up all over Perilla’s shoulder, life settled down into an easy holiday pace.

Oh, yeah, sure, I’d thought about Surdinus and the rest of it from time to time, but there’d been enough going on to keep my mind occupied. Plus the fact that being away from the city and completely out of things had given the whole boiling a sort of mental distance as well. By the time Perilla had finally had enough of playing the doting grandparent and given the thumb’s-up for heading home, I’d virtually drawn a line under it.

Until, that is, sixteen days into the new year and halfway through our second morning back, Naevia Postuma rolled up.

This time, both of us were at home. Perilla laid the book she’d been reading down on the table beside her couch and gave the lady her best smile.

‘Naevia Postuma,’ she said. ‘Well, this is a surprise.’

‘Then it certainly should not be.’ Postuma glared at Bathyllus until the little guy had wheeled out one of our broadest and strongest chairs and set it behind her. She sat; the chair creaked in protest. ‘Valerius Corvinus, you gave me your word of honour that you would find my uncle’s killer.’

‘Ah … in actual fact …’ I began.

‘Don’t prevaricate! That was certainly the impression I formed during our last interview, and you know perfectly well that you have done nothing of the kind. It’s an absolute disgrace!’

‘To be fair, Naevia Postuma, it wasn’t entirely Marcus’s fault,’ Perilla said. ‘How was he to know that the death was going to link in with a plot against the emperor? After which, of course, the whole thing was taken out of his hands.’

‘Stuff and nonsense. Uncle Lucius was no traitor.’

‘No one’s claiming that he was,’ I said patiently. ‘Quite the reverse. My guess is that one of the conspirators tried to recruit him, he was about to blow the whistle on the business and the guy panicked and had him killed. End of story.’

‘Which conspirator?’

I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I hadn’t got that far. But the question’s academic because the conspiracy is busted, the emperor had everyone responsible in the bag well before the festival, and by this time they’re all dead as mutton. Like Perilla told you, as far as I’m concerned the case is closed.’

‘That it most certainly is not.’

I blinked. ‘Uh … I beg your pardon?’

‘Granted. The case, as you call it, Valerius Corvinus, is most definitely still open. Very much so. Alexander has given me his most firm assurance to that effect.’

Gods! I was prepared to make some allowances, sure — after all, the lady was right, in a way, and I hadn’t delivered in full in terms of the contract, if contract there had been — but my patience was wearing thin here. Besides, I couldn’t see what else she expected me to do. Not with the real professionals on the job and an emperor in the background who was as mentally stable as a rhino with a migraine.

‘Look, lady, you can tell Alexander from me that he can take a flying-’ I began.

‘Marcus!’ Perilla snapped.

‘Leap.’

Postuma stood up. ‘I repeat, young man, the case is not closed. Very far from it. Furthermore, because of your inexcusable shilly-shallying-’

‘My what?’

‘-time is of the essence. According to Alexander, you have only until the Palatine Games to do as you promised. Should you fail, the consequences will be disastrous; Alexander was most clear on that point as well. Now that is all I have to say, and the rest is up to you. I’ll see myself out. Good day to you both.’

And she left.

Bugger.

‘So, dear,’ Perilla said when the room’s vibes had settled and we were alone again. ‘How do you think that went?’

‘Come on, lady! What did she expect? And whose side are you on, anyway?’

Perilla sighed. ‘Yours, of course,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. And you’re quite right, there’s nothing more you can do.’

‘Isn’t there?’

She stared at me. ‘Marcus, I distinctly heard you telling her that there isn’t. And you are not taking this any further. For one thing it’s not safe.’

True, unfortunately. Still, although I hated to admit it, the safety angle was only one factor in all this, and not necessarily the most important one, either.

‘Agreed,’ I said. ‘No argument. Only, if we’re being totally honest here, the lady’s VIP pal is right about the case not being properly closed; there’re too many loose ends dangling around. And I didn’t like that bit about the Palatine Games much above half, either.’

‘Marcus Valerius Corvinus, you are not telling me you believe that nonsense about Alexander the Great? That is just silly!’

‘Yeah, well, maybe. Stranger things have happened, and me, I like to keep an open mind.’

‘I told you, it’s just a harmless eccentricity. Postuma’s been claiming he talks to her for years. No one pays any attention any more.’

‘Even so, the guy was bang up to scratch originally about Surdinus’s death being murder when all the evidence pointed towards an accident. And the Palatine Games are only eight days away. Plus there’re no prizes for guessing what the disastrous consequences will be, not when we’ve already got a conspiracy on the books.’

‘A failed conspiracy. You said it yourself.’

‘Let’s assume it hasn’t. Failed, I mean, or not completely. That it’s still up and running.’

She’d picked up her book when Postuma had stormed out. Now she set it down again.

‘Marcus, I will get really angry with you in a minute!’ she snapped. ‘The conspiracy is dead! Whatever else Gaius is, he’s no one’s fool, and your friend Felix certainly isn’t one either. Besides, they used torture on the poor men that they did catch. Don’t you think that if there were any other people involved they’d’ve had the names out of them long ago?’

I thought of Graecinus, or what Felix and his pals had left of him, anyway. I hadn’t mentioned that side of things to Perilla — as far as the lady was concerned, I’d just gone to the palace for a chat with the emperor — but she was no one’s fool, either, and where treason was concerned, torture was normal practice.

‘Maybe they didn’t know them,’ I said.

‘Of course they did! They must have done!’

I let that one pass for the present; Perilla wasn’t in any mood for a prolonged argument, and I wasn’t chancing my luck where getting mauled was concerned. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Then maybe they just decided that protecting them and giving them a chance of getting rid of Gaius after all was more important than saving their own lives. Or saving themselves pain, rather, since the poor buggers’d know they were for the chop whatever they said. Where they got the courage from, the gods know, but it happens sometimes.’

‘Not very often, I would imagine. If anything, I’d expect things to go the other way. The temptation would be to give the names of people who were completely innocent, simply to suggest that you were cooperating.’

‘Yeah, like Capito did. OK, fair enough. Good point.’

‘Who’s Capito?’

Oh. Right. She wouldn’t know about that side of things. Capito — or rather his evidence, relayed to me by Gaius — had fallen by the wayside in the rush to get down to Clarus and Marilla’s, and naturally once we were clear of Rome, anything to do with the case had become a no-go area. ‘Herennius Capito,’ I said. ‘The imperial procurator. You remember? His son Bassus was with Sextus Papinius when he had his riding accident and I found them both together in Capito’s office. Felix bagged them just after I left.’ I was frowning; there was an itch somewhere at the back of my mind, just where I couldn’t quite get to it. ‘Gaius mentioned it, that day at the palace. Capito claimed there were more people involved than he knew about, and the names he came up with were pretty impressive.’

‘Such as who?’

‘Arrecinus Clemens. He’s one of the two Praetorian prefects. And an imperial freedman, a guy named Callistus. One of the emperor’s top civil servants, seemingly a whizz kid on the financial side. Both good possibilities, according to Gaius.’

‘Then why weren’t they arrested? Or were they?’

‘No. Capito gave Gaius’s wife Caesonia as the third conspirator. At least, the third one he knew about, anyway. Gaius decided that he was doing just what you said, implicating innocent people in the hope of stopping the torture, so he didn’t take the matter any further.’ The itch was there again. ‘In any case, Capito died on him practically straight away, so that was the end of that. Of course …’ I stopped. Bathyllus had slipped back in and was doing his hovering-with-intent act. ‘Yeah, little guy, what is it? Postuma nick the best spoons on her way out?’

‘No, sir.’ He was looking self-important as hell. ‘A dinner invitation. From the palace.’

‘What?’ Perilla was up like a rocketing pheasant.

Oh, fuck, this I didn’t need! I swallowed.

‘Ah. Yeah, right,’ I said. ‘Sorry, lady, my fault. I’d completely forgotten about that.’

‘How on earth could you possibly …’

‘Gaius did say when we met that he’d have us round to dinner when we got back. I hoped at the time he was just making polite noises.’

‘Marcus, you absolute idiot!’ She turned to Bathyllus. ‘When’s the invitation for?’

‘Tomorrow evening, madam.’

‘Oh, gods! Tomorrow evening?’

‘Yes, madam. The emperor’s social secretary apologizes for the short notice, but he says to be assured that the occasion will not be a formal one.’

‘There you are, Perilla,’ I said. ‘Informal. No worries.’ That just got me a Look, after which she was up and moving in the direction of the stairs. ‘You going somewhere?’

‘I am going,’ she said over her shoulder, ‘shopping. Just as soon as I’ve changed and collected my cloak.’

‘Shopping for what?’

‘A new mantle, of course. If, that is, thanks to you it’s not too late to find a decent one.’

‘Come on, lady! The invite said informal and you’ve got dozens of the things already!’

That didn’t even get an answer. ‘Bathyllus, I need the litter,’ she said. ‘Inside of five minutes, please.’

‘Yes, madam.’

‘And Marcus, if you ever, ever do anything like this again I shall kill you in the slowest and most painful manner I can think of. I may even do it anyway, after I get back. Particularly if I can find nothing suitable. Is that clear?’

‘Yeah, well …’

But she was already gone. Sometimes I wonder about that lady’s sense of priorities.

‘Hey, Bathyllus,’ I said before the little guy buggered off in his turn. ‘A half-jug of wine, please. No hurry. After you’ve broken the bad news to the litter slaves will do fine.’ It was throwing it down outside, which was why I was hanging around the house, and no doubt our matching set of lardballs were toasting their toes in front of a brazier somewhere. Plus, knowing Perilla’s hyper-picky approach to shopping, they were in for a good few hours of lugging her round most of the mantle shops in the city. Fun, fun, fun. ‘Make it the Special.’

I might as well use the lady’s sudden absence to put in a bit of constructive thinking regarding the case. Because case it undoubtedly still was; Postuma’s Alexander had been right about that. And there wasn’t a better way of lubricating the brain cells than a cup or two of the Special.

Five minutes might have been pushing it, but she was back down in short order, dressed for a cold, wet January tour of the clothes shops. I got a distinctly acid look as she passed me going in the direction of the lobby. A couple of minutes later, the front door slammed hard enough to shake the paint off.

Well, that one certainly wouldn’t go down in the annals of How to Keep the Shine on your Marriage, would it?

I sighed. Bathyllus brought in the half-jug and cup, and I took a contemplative swallow.

Right. So where did we start? First, and pace Perilla, with the assumption, crazy as it might seem, that Postuma’s Alexander was more than the product of a slightly nutty middle-aged woman’s fevered imagination; that, in fact, imaginary or not, dead over three hundred years or not, the guy was worth listening to. Alexander had been fairly insistent throughout that what I was looking for was a solution to Surdinus’s murder, not the uncovering of a conspiracy against the emperor. Oh, sure, the two were bound up together, no arguments there — and in the end I’d bet that it came to the same thing — but even so there had to be a reason for the preference.

So. Given the ongoing impossibility of tracing the actual perp - our freedman friend with the scar or birthmark or whatever — it was back to my four original suspects for the role of murderer-by-proxy, the guys at Longinus’s house: Cassius Longinus himself, Valerius Asiaticus, Anicius Cerialis and Julius Graecinus. Graecinus was dead, of course — at least I assumed and hoped he was — but I’d’ve taken him off the list anyway. Conspirator or not, if he’d been lying when he’d sworn under torture that he knew nothing about Surdinus’s death then he had a lot more courage and strength of mind than I could ever have mustered. So not Graecinus.

Not Cerialis, either. Given the theory — and I could see nothing wrong with it — that X, the killer, had had Surdinus murdered because he was threatening to expose the conspiracy to Gaius, Cerialis had no motive, because he was working for the emperor himself. Oh, sure, running the chance of having their clandestine operation put in jeopardy by a premature whistle-blower might’ve been an inconvenience — I only had to think about what had happened in my own case to see that — but it surely didn’t warrant taking the guy out. He’d’ve shown himself a loyal and conscientious subject of the emperor, and a quiet word would’ve been enough. Besides, if for one reason or another that had been the way things had happened, either Felix or Gaius himself would’ve made no bones about telling me so straight out.

So not Anicius Cerialis, either. Which left Longinus and Asiaticus. And given the likelihood that the story of his adultery with Cornelia Sullana, which had provided Longinus with what paltry scraps of motive I could hang on him, was so much moonshine, plus the fact that having only been in Rome five minutes — and that by Gaius’s own doing — made him an unlikely conspirator, Cassius Longinus was a definite also-ran.

Asiaticus it was, then.

Right; what did I know about him? Seriously wealthy, ex-suffect consul but not currently political, at least according to Gaius. Had resigned his suffect-consulship five years back prematurely because — again according to Gaius — he couldn’t take the pressure. Well-connected socially: married to the sister of Gaius’s ex-wife. Whom Gaius had proceeded to seduce, then get tired of and treat her cuckolded husband as a figure of fun, giving him a very personal motive for wanting to see the emperor in an urn.

Not a lot to go on, to put it mildly. Nor did Asiaticus — as far as I knew — have a direct connection with Surdinus. In fact, if I remembered rightly, when I’d talked to Surdinus Junior he’d told me specifically that his father hadn’t known Asiaticus except by name. Still, he’d certainly been a friend — or at least an intimate — of Julius Graecinus, who was one of Surdinus’s closest pals, and given that Graecinus was a co-conspirator, it’d explain why …

I stopped, frowning. Hang on; things didn’t add up here. The theory was that, for reasons best known to themselves, and forget the whys and wherefores, the conspirators had decided to recruit Lucius Surdinus — mistakenly, as it turned out, because the guy turned out to be a loose barrel in the hold and had to be got rid of. Now if Asiaticus was our man X — the murderer-by-proxy — then we had a major logical problem. The original decision to bring Surdinus on to the team could only have been made by someone who knew him well enough to decide that he’d be sympathetic to the cause. And that could only be Graecinus, because apart from him, out of the remaining members of our Gang of Four, only Longinus qualified, and even if Longinus was a member of the conspiracy in its latter stages he was out of the country at the time. Logically, then, Graecinus must’ve known at least of Surdinus’s initial involvement, however deeply that went, because he’d’ve done the recruiting himself. Or at least advised on it.

So far so good.

Only at that point the whole thing gets wobbly, because that’s where Graecinus’s knowledge of the situation stops. Or ostensibly stops, anyway. Which brought us to three possible scenarios.

First, Graecinus had been telling the truth, and the connection between Surdinus’s murder and the conspiracy was a complete mare’s nest from start to finish. Possible, sure, but for all kinds of circumstantial reasons as likely as a snowfall in July. File and forget.

Second, that when the guy had sworn to me that he knew nothing about Surdinus’s death or the identity of his killer, despite all Felix’s torturers could do and the prolonged, unbearable pain, he’d been lying through what few teeth the bastards had left him. If you could credit him with that much sheer persistent courage then that scenario made perfect sense: although Valerius Asiaticus might’ve been under suspicion at that point, he was a long way from Gaius’s sliding table, and one word from Graecinus would’ve put him on it before you could say ‘rack’. Me, I doubt if I could’ve done the same, given the circumstances, but I had to admit it was a viable possibility.

Third scenario, the really interesting one. Back, in a way, to the first: that when Graecinus had said he knew nothing about Surdinus’s murder he’d been telling the absolute truth. Not, though, this time because the dead man and the conspiracy weren’t connected, but because X was working to his own agenda; the decision to have the guy killed and the arrangements for his actual murder were made on his own authority, without the knowledge and agreement of the others. If that was the case, then we were faced with what could be an entirely new ball-game: unless X — Asiaticus — was playing things off his own bat, which was pretty unlikely, then he was working for or with someone else. In other words, what we had was a conspiracy within a conspiracy, one that was still up and running, and one that neither Gaius nor Felix knew about. And, presumably, I had until the Palatine Games in eight days’ time to crack the problem.

Shit. Score one for Alexander.

I took a long swallow of the Special.

So, what did I do now? The most sensible course of action, naturally, would be to take the whole boiling straight to Gaius, or to Felix, at least. Where treason was concerned, they were the experts, and if the plot went ahead and succeeded then it was Gaius himself who’d get the chop. Only I couldn’t do that, could I? Not yet, anyway. First, because it was only a theory with nothing to back it up; second because Gaius himself had told me in so many words that as a conspirator Asiaticus was a non-starter, and given the emperor’s current mental state I wasn’t stupid enough to risk contradicting him. The third reason, though, was the clincher: I’d seen what happened to treason suspects first-hand, and there was absolutely no way I was about to finger Asiaticus — or anyone else — to Felix when I wasn’t a hundred per cent cast-iron sure of the bastard’s guilt myself. Absolutely no way.

Eight days it was, then. Bugger. I took another swallow.

Right. Plan of action. When in doubt, dig and see what turns up that you can use. I needed to find out more about Julius Asiaticus. Also, of course, about the two guys whose names had cropped up in Herennius Capito’s evidence, the Praetorian prefect Arrecinus Clemens and the top-notch civil servant Julius Callistus: Gaius could dismiss them if he liked, but me, I couldn’t take the risk, and besides, my gut feeling told me they came into this business somewhere along the line.

So a visit to Cornelius Lentulus was definitely in order, because if my pal Caelius Crispus was the expert where the private, seamy side of Rome’s Great and Good went, then old Lentulus balanced him where their public and not-so-public roles as political animals were concerned. Balanced, that is, in its purely metaphorical sense: physically Lentulus would’ve made three of Crispus with a large helping of blubber still to spare, and he wouldn’t have balanced anything lighter than a hippo. As a brain, though, and a mine of information, eighty years old or not the guy was in peak condition. Also, he lived just up the hill from us, which, given the current filthy weather was an added bonus. Not even I enjoyed slogging my way through streets with mud and worse up to the ankles, in the teeth of a freezing rainstorm, and in general early January wasn’t the time to be out and about in Rome.

Lentulus it was, then, and there was no time like the present. I downed the rest of the wine in my cup and went to change into my outdoor things.

Onwards and upwards.