Finished Business

FOUR

The villa, like I say, was huge: a central block with two flanking wings reaching out to enclose symmetrical hedged walks studded with bronze and marble statues. In front of the main entrance was a big fountain: Centaurs and Lapiths fighting, with the water coming out of their mouths. Impressive as hell. I glanced over at the wing to the left: it was older and just a bit shabbier, and sure enough it wasn’t properly integrated with the main building. Also, it had an entrance of its own. No sign of Tarquitia, though, and the place looked deserted.

What the two entrances had in common was that both of them were hung with greenery, the sign of a house in mourning.

There was a bell-pull to the right of the door. I pulled it, and the door was opened immediately by a slave in a mourning tunic.

‘Marcus Valerius Corvinus,’ I said. ‘I’m here at the request of your dead master’s niece, Naevia Postuma.’

He didn’t answer, but bowed and stepped aside, opening the door wider. I went in. The vestibule was bigger and more expensively fitted out than our atrium.

‘The young master is in the library, sir.’ The door slave took my cloak and laid it on top of an inlaid chest that could’ve belonged to one of the Ptolemies. ‘If you’d like to follow me?’

The library, it transpired, was on the first floor, and getting there took us a good two minutes’ walk. The slave opened the cedar-panelled door, bowed me inside, and said to the guy standing by the window: ‘Marcus Valerius Corvinus, sir.’

‘That’s fine. You can go,’ the guy said. Then, as the slave bowed again and went out, closing the door behind him: ‘Pleased to meet you, Corvinus.’ Yeah, well, he didn’t sound it, and the look I’d got when the slave had given him my name would’ve frozen the balls off a Riphaean mountain goat. ‘Sit down, please.’

I did, on one of the reading couches. Perilla would’ve loved the place, because the walls were lined with book-cubbies, and all of them looked occupied. I hadn’t seen anything like it outside the Pollio Library.

Lucius Naevius Surdinus Junior was tall and thin, with a dissatisfied twist to his lips that reminded me of the old emperor. Tiberius. The Wart. The nickname would’ve suited Junior here, too — all in all, not one of Rome’s best lookers, particularly since, being in mourning, he hadn’t shaved. Wading birds in moult came to mind.

‘I’m …’ I began, but he held up a hand.

‘Yes, I know exactly why you’re here,’ he said. ‘Cousin Postuma sent a messenger yesterday afternoon. She’s a very forceful lady, besides, as you know, being the wife of a man to whom the emperor granted the honour of a suffect consulship for the latter half of the year, and both of these facts make her difficult to refuse.’ The dissatisfied twist became an actual scowl. ‘That doesn’t mean that you’re particularly welcome.’

Shit, I wasn’t having this. ‘Look, pal,’ I said. ‘Just remember that coming here wasn’t my idea, right? Judging from what Naevia Postuma told me, I’d say she was off with the fairies and your father’s death was a complete accident. But, like you said, she’s a hard lady to refuse. So if you’d just cut me a bit of slack and let me go through the motions to my own satisfaction, then we can all get on with our fucking lives with a clear conscience. OK?’

He’d blinked and bridled, but the scowl had faded.

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘Anything you can tell me, basically. And then if you’d let me take a look at the scene of the incident, maybe let me talk to any of the staff who might’ve been around the place and seen something, that should more or less do it.’

He grunted. ‘That seems fair enough. Although as for myself I can’t tell you very much.’

‘You weren’t here at the time?’

‘Yes, I was, in fact. But in my own suite, in the east wing.’

‘Alone?’

The scowl was back. ‘I’m not married, if that’s what you mean. I was, but my former wife and I decided to part company.’ Jupiter! Marital discord and divorce seemed to be par for the course in this family. ‘So, yes, I was alone. We’re talking, by the way, about very early morning, halfway through the first hour, four days back. At least, according to the slaves, that’s when my father went out. And his body was found an hour or so later, when the workmen arrived.’

‘He made a habit of visiting the tower that early? When there was no one around?’

‘Not the tower, specifically. He liked to walk around the grounds after he’d breakfasted, if the weather was good. And the tower was on his usual route. He generally stopped off there, just to see how the work was progressing. If he wanted to talk to the workmen about anything in particular, then of course that was a different thing.’

‘So where is this tower exactly?’

‘In our south-east corner. In fact, it’s part of the boundary wall.’

‘And he was found exactly where?’

‘At the base, next to the entrance. The block of masonry that fell on him was beside the body. It’s still there, of course. The workmen have checked, and it came from the parapet directly above.’

‘No one was around at the time?’

Junior shrugged. ‘None of the workmen, certainly. As I said, they don’t come until later, and then only if the weather is good. And none of my outside slaves has reported seeing anything, which is not surprising. The gardens where they all usually work are mostly on either side of the main drive, or around the house itself.’

‘Anything else you can tell me?’

‘About the accident? No, I think that’s all.’

‘About your father, then.’

That got me a long, slow stare. ‘Nothing that’s relevant,’ he said at last. He turned away, towards the window. ‘Apropos of which, I notice you were talking to the woman Tarquitia before you arrived.’

‘Yeah? How did you know that?’

He indicated the window. ‘The view from here is superb, which is why it’s one of my favourite rooms. You can see right down the drive, almost to the main gate. You can certainly see as far as the rose garden.’

‘All right. Yes, I met her and we talked. So?’

‘Let me be clear about this, Corvinus. As far as I am concerned, that woman has no connection with our family, and no claims on it. She’s a troublemaker and a gold-digger, and my advice to you would be to take anything she says with a very large pinch of salt.’

‘Would it, now?’ I said. ‘So does that mean she’s not the owner of your west wing? What she called the Old Villa?’

The scowl was back in spades. ‘At present, unfortunately, yes,’ he said. ‘But I’m contesting her ownership. And that is frankly none of your business.’

‘Does she feature in your father’s will at all?’

‘Valerius Corvinus!’

I shrugged. ‘It’s just that, if she is a gold-digger, I thought that she might. And that’d be quite interesting. If, which it won’t, of course, the death turned out to be murder after all.’

Again I got the long, slow, considering look. ‘As a matter of fact,’ Junior said finally, ‘she is one of the beneficiaries, and quite a substantial one. My father left her the interest on fifty thousand sesterces, the capital to be hers absolutely on marriage.’

Shit! Fifty thousand sesterces was a hell of a lot of gravy, particularly to an ‘entertainer’. And the interest, at the average rate of eight to ten per cent, would come to just shy of five thousand a year. Quite a respectable income, to put it mildly.

‘Does she know?’ I said.

‘I expect so. There’s no reason why she shouldn’t; he was open enough with her where everything else was concerned. But, of course, you’d have to ask the lady herself. If you can trust her to give an honest answer.’

I let that one pass. Still, it was something that needed serious thinking about. By the gods, it did. I stood up.

‘Well, if that’s all you can tell me, Naevius Surdinus,’ I said, ‘I won’t take up any more of your time. Thank you for talking to me, and of course my condolences. If I could just have a look at the tower?’

‘Certainly.’ There was a bell-pull beside the door. He walked past me and pulled it. ‘My estate manager, Leonidas, will show you it. I’ll have him fetched. Good day, Corvinus.’