Finished Business

EIGHT

So. Onwards and upwards. Or in this case, downwards, both physically and socially, all the way from the dizzy heights of the Pincian to the vegetable market, between the western slopes of the Capitol and the river, and Tarquitia’s Five Poppies Club. This, by a happy chance, would take me down Iugarius, where according to Sullana her ex-husband’s upwardly mobile not-quite-a-bailiff had his office. I could call in there on the way. Besides, it was an excuse to drop in at Renatius’s wine shop, also on Iugarius, for a quick restorative cup of wine and — hopefully — more detailed directions.

As it happened, the quick cup of wine turned into two slower ones plus a plate of cheese, olives and pickles, but I got the directions OK. Like Sullana had said, Gallio’s office was near the Carminal Gate at the south end of the street, on the ground floor of a newish tenement block which was owned by the family. According to my informant, one of the regular bar-flies, it was a pretty thriving business, and Gallio himself was now the senior partner of three, the other two being his sons. Certainly, when I pushed open the door and went in, the place had a busy feel to it, with half-a-dozen clerks working full out. I gave my name and business to the nearest one, and he led me through the back to a small inner office where the man himself was sitting behind a desk.

The senior partner was right: you didn’t get much more senior than Naevius Gallio and still be on the right side of an urn. He had to be eighty at least, and what he was doing still working the gods alone knew, because mobile — upwardly or in any other direction — was something the old guy, by the evidence of the crutches behind his chair, wasn’t any longer to any great degree. Even so, he seemed bright enough when he waved me to a stool.

‘Now, Valerius Corvinus, what can I do for you?’ he said. ‘I know, of course, of Naevius Surdinus’s death — a terrible business, that, simply terrible — but not what your connection with him might be.’

I told him, and he sat back.

‘Murdered?’ he said. ‘Surely not! Who would want to murder Master Surdinus? You’re certain?’

Same question as Sullana’s, and I gave him the same answer. ‘Absolutely. The stone that killed him was loosened and dropped on him deliberately.’

‘But this is — excuse me a moment, please.’ There was a cup of water on the desk. He picked it up with both hands and drank, so shakily that some of it was spilled. I waited until he’d put the cup down again. ‘It’s unbelievable. Why would anyone do something like that?’

‘His ex-wife, Cornelia Sullana, said that you managed his business affairs.’

‘That’s quite correct. Or administered, rather, under instruction. My family, as you’ll have guessed from our name, have had charge of the Naevius estate for three generations. My grandfather was the first Naevius Surdinus’s freedman-bailiff.’

‘So Sullana told me.’ This next bit was going to be tricky. ‘Uh … I understand that shortly after they were divorced, about a month ago, Surdinus made over part of the property on the Vatican Hill to his mistress, Tarquitia.’

The old lips pursed. ‘That is correct. Through a duly-witnessed process of sale, for the sum of five denarii.’

‘And that when Sullana ceased to be his wife she had no more to do with his financial affairs.’

‘Naturally not.’

‘Ah … have there been any other major changes since, do you know?’

‘I do.’ You could’ve used Gallio’s tone to sand wood. ‘Of course I do, since he gave the task of carrying them out to me. Four, to be precise, all in favour of the lady you named. The transfer of a tenement building in the Subura, for a similar amount to what she paid for the Old Villa. Ditto an oil-pressing concern in Veii. Ditto, a blacksmith’s and saddler’s business near the Capenan Gate, back here in Rome. Ditto, an ironmonger’s shop in the Velabrum.’

Jupiter! ‘All this was in a month?’

‘Yes. Total value in the region of three hundred thousand sesterces. And he was planning on more.’

Gods alive! The guy had been haemorrhaging money like there was no tomorrow.

And, of course, for him there hadn’t been …

‘You didn’t try to stop him?’ I said.

Gallio just looked at me. ‘Of course I tried,’ he said. ‘What do you think? But in the last analysis the property was his, to do with as he thought fit, and Master Surdinus was a very stubborn man. There was very little I could do.’

‘You didn’t tell anyone? Like his son, perhaps?’

‘Naturally I did. However, in the younger Surdinus’s case, the same strictures applied. There was nothing he could do about it either. His father was perfectly sane, so there was no question of diminished responsibility. Not legally, anyway. He had a perfect — and absolute — right to do as he pleased.’

And Tarquitia hadn’t told me. Nor, for that matter, had his son.

Shit.

I carried on down Iugarius to its end, by the Tiber. We were definitely downmarket here: the ground between the blunt end of Capitol Hill and the river, like that whole stretch of riverside south to Cattlemarket Square and beyond, is low-lying, and even nowadays after all the improvements to the drainage system and the riverbanks themselves, it’s prone to flooding. Added to which, in summer the stink from the Tiber and the thriving insect population are definitely two of the area’s most notable features, meaning that anyone of a sensitive disposition who can afford to own or rent elsewhere on higher ground, or at least somewhere that doesn’t smell so obviously of Tiber mud and sewage, generally does just that, for reasons of simple self-preservation. Mind you, there’re plenty who can’t or don’t, and the area round the vegetable market is seriously full of tenements that make up a micro-community of their own. Well-off it isn’t: the Poppies’ clientele would be low-spending regulars, porters and stallholders from the market, with a sprinkling of local tradesmen with actual shops to their names to add a bit of class and raise the tone.

I found the place with a bit of help from a passing bag-lady trudging home with her string bag loaded down with assorted root vegetables, and tried the front door. Locked, of course — it was far too early for customers — and knocking on it didn’t produce an answer, either.

Bugger.

Well, I hadn’t come all this way to give up that easily. There was an alleyway at the side, and investigating it revealed a small courtyard full of empty wine jars and a back door to the place through which a guy was carrying a couple of fresh jars to add to the pile.

‘Hi.’ I waited until he’d dumped them and straightened up. ‘Could I have a word, do you think?’

‘Sorry, mate,’ he said. ‘I’m busy and we’re closed. Open an hour before sunset. Come back then, OK?’ He turned to go back inside.

‘It’s about Tarquitia.’

He stopped and turned back, and I saw his eye catch the purple stripe on my tunic beneath the cloak.

Rapid reassessment. Yeah, well, rank does have its privileges.

‘Ah … right, sir,’ he said. ‘What about her?’

‘She used to work here, yes?’

He was still looking at me suspiciously, which was understandable: you wouldn’t get many purple-stripers hanging around area like this, and even fewer would be interested in the staff of a third-rate nightclub like the Five Poppies. Not interested enough to have a name to hand, certainly.

‘Yeah, she did,’ he said at last. Then he shrugged. ‘What the hell? You’d best come inside.’

I followed him in. The place — it was just one room, and not a big one, at that — was pretty basic, with a few plain wooden tables and stools, a bar counter with its wine rack behind and a low stage at one end. Someone had decorated the walls, though, with murals, and they were surprisingly good: Silenus on his donkey, hung with grapes and holding up a wine cup; what looked like a rout of Bacchanals; and a woodland scene with a satyr sitting beneath a tree playing the double-flute while a couple of deer and a set of birds in the lower branches listened.

‘You the owner?’ I said.

‘Nah. Barman and general dogsbody, me.’ He pulled up a stool at one of the tables and indicated another. I sat. ‘Name’s Vulpis.’

The name fitted him, or more likely it was a nickname: he was small, wiry, sharp-featured, red-haired and generously freckled. Definitely fox-like. Probably, like Tarquitia, a north Italian with Gallic blood. They might even be related.

‘Marcus Corvinus,’ I said.

He nodded. We had, at least, contact. ‘Well, then, Marcus Corvinus,’ he said. ‘If you want to talk to the boss, you’ll have to come back when we’re open. He’s generally in just before sunset, but it varies.’

‘No, that’s OK,’ I said. ‘At least I think it is. If you can help me yourself, that’d be great.’

‘I’ll do my best. Tarquitia, you said.’

‘Yeah.’

‘She hasn’t worked here for nigh on a year now. Took up with some old nob she met at a dinner party. At least, he was a guest and she was part of the entertainment.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ I said. ‘His name was Naevius Surdinus. He’s been murdered.’

He stared at me and gave a low whistle. ‘And Tarquitia’s involved?’ he said. ‘Directly, as it were?’

‘Not necessarily. Why would you say that?’

‘No particular reason. But you wouldn’t be round here asking questions about her if she wasn’t, right?’

Fair enough. ‘You knew her well?’

‘Sure. She was on most nights. Not a bad voice, good little dancer, very fair juggler and acrobat. The punters we get in here don’t expect too much, but they recognize talent when they see it. She had it and she was popular. Easily the best of the bunch. The boss was sorry to lose her.’

‘You know anything about her background?’

‘Not a lot. She’s from Padua originally, like me, although that’s just coincidence. Worked there for a year or so before coming to Rome. That’d be four or five years back. She did an audition for the boss and he took her on straight away. That’s about all I know. Anything else, you’d have to ask her husband.’

‘Her husband?’

‘Sure. Titus Otillius.’ He frowned. ‘You didn’t know about him?’

Jupiter! ‘No, I didn’t. They been married long?’

‘Two or three years. He works as a porter in the market, and he was one of our regulars. That’s how they met.’

Two or three years. So she’d been well and truly spliced when she took up with Surdinus. Yet another thing that the lady hadn’t told me.

Also very relevant, where the terms of the will were concerned. Interesting …

‘He know about Surdinus?’ I said.

‘Naturally.’

‘And he didn’t mind?’

Vulpis laughed. ‘Yeah, well, that’s something I can’t tell you,’ he said. ‘Me, I’d mind like hell, particularly since Tarquitia wasn’t that sort of girl. A prostitute, I mean. Oh, sure, a lot of the talent we have here go with men for money — most of them, in fact, that’s par for the course in our business, and there’s nothing wrong with it. But Tarquitia didn’t. Oh, she was no blushing virgin, she slept with some of the customers off and on, but only by her choice, and money didn’t always feature. But after she married Otillius, all that stopped. He’d’ve half-killed her if it hadn’t.’

‘But taking up with Surdinus was different?’ I said.

He shrugged. ‘Seemingly. Can’t say for sure, myself.’

‘You know where I can find him? This Otillius?’

‘Oh, yes. Nothing easier. But you don’t want anything to do with Otillius, sir. He’s a total head-banger.’

‘Come again?’

‘Known for it. Why a girl like Tarquitia should take up with someone like that, let alone marry him, I can’t fathom. Still, who knows how women’s minds work, eh? He punched her around now and again, but she seemed happy enough.’

‘They still an item?’

‘Again, that I can’t tell you. Like I say, I haven’t seen her around for almost a year. Otillius drops in sometimes, but it’s not a subject I’d risk raising with him, and he doesn’t volunteer.’

‘So where can I find him?’

Another shrug. ‘Well, sir, it’s your funeral,’ he said. ‘Don’t come back and say you weren’t warned. Your best bet’s the market. Any of the porters’ll be able to point him out to you. And there’re plenty of people around in case he does decide to get nasty.’

Shit. Still, it had to be done.

Things were getting complicated. And I was rapidly beginning to revise my opinion of sweet little Tarquitia.