Food for the Fishes

4

It worked like a dream. I had to compromise, sure — Trebbio was kept locked up in Baiae’s tiny holding-cell off the market square — but after a fifteen-minute interview with an increasingly-worried town officer I walked out with a letter empowering me to investigate Licinius Murena’s death.

That day was the funeral, butting in would’ve been crass, and besides we were booked for a visit and dinner to one of Mother’s friends who had a villa further down the coast, near Misenum. Pals of my mother’s can be hit or miss, but this one and her husband were okay, even if they did bring the conversation round pretty smartly to their new yacht and keep it there. Priscus, I noticed, was unPriscusly quiet throughout; he has a tendency to assume that everyone he comes in contact with has a deep and abiding interest in recherche topics like Umbrian marriage customs and Phoenician silver mines in Spain. This time we hardly got a single bleat out of him the whole visit. I had the distinct impression that the old guy was sulking.

We stayed over. The next day as soon as we got back I sent Bathyllus round — equipped with the town officer’s letter — to arrange a meeting the following afternoon with Licinius Murena’s widow.

Okay; so we were in business. First stop was the fish farm itself, half an hour before the scheduled meeting, to check out the basic facts. Zethus had said that Murena had been found by his manager. I couldn’t remember the guy’s name, if I’d ever heard it, but obviously he was the one to talk to.

Fish farms are common everywhere along this part of the Campanian coast. Some of them — the ones belonging to ordinary private villas — are pretty small-time and hardly worth the name: a couple at best of simple concrete tanks formed by projecting berms closed off at the far end and with a coarse-meshed gate on the sea side that lets the small fry in so the captive fish can feed but can’t get back to the open sea. Basically, they’re just larders for keeping shellfish or the finned variety alive until it’s wanted. Others — the commercial ones and the ones belonging to Baiae’s richer punters — are a lot more complex: anything from a dozen to fifty huge tanks, subdivided to make finding and lifting the fish easier and prevent the more vicious buggers from snacking on their less aggressive pals. Some places even have tanks that’re closed off from the sea altogether and kept supplied with fresh water from wells and springs inland: freshwater fish like barbels fetch prices you wouldn’t believe, even here in the seafood gourmet’s paradise where there’s plenty of the other sort. Fish-fanciers can be pretty obsessive, too. The story goes that old Lucullus — a gourmet if there ever was one — had an underground channel cut through the mountain between his estate and the sea, just so he could keep his dinner fresh and swimming. Digging the channel cost more than the estate.

Mind you, the returns are pretty hefty. Fish costs an arm and a leg in Rome, especially in winter. Prawns and sea-urchins can be literally worth their weight in gold pieces, and a decent-sized tuna’ll set you back the price of a slave. Serious stuff.

Murena’s fish farm was very definitely in the second category: a network of concrete tanks projecting out into the bay beyond the stretch of rocks at the far end of the beach where Trebbio must’ve had his lines, and for a good hundred yards along the coast the other way. There was a flanking wall cutting the place off from the shore and running up to a gate further inland, but it’d collapsed at the sea end to an easily-climbable height and been left unrebuilt. Either Murena had been slovenly over repairs or he hadn’t viewed theft as a serious danger. Whichever the reason was, for anyone who didn’t want their presence officially known informal access to the farm from the sea side would be easy-peasy. One for the prosecution, although even with his head for booze I doubt if Trebbio could’ve managed it in the state he was in when he left the wineshop.

Under normal circumstances I’d’ve shinned over the wall to check out the practicalities, but this first time things had to be done formal. Besides, for the purposes of the interview I was wearing a decent mantle, and these things aren’t designed for a scramble over brickwork. I followed the wall up the beach to the gate.

There was a slave on duty, naturally: places like that, you don’t just wander in as the mood takes you. A young guy with a prominent Adam’s-apple. He stood up when he saw me coming.

‘Yes, sir?’

‘Marcus Valerius Corvinus,’ I said. ‘I’ve got an appointment with the Lady Gellia.’

‘Villa entrance is further on, sir.’

‘Yeah, I know. I wanted to have a word with the farm manager first. What’s his name?’

‘Ligurius, sir. No problem.’ He unlatched the gate. ‘He’s probably in his office. Straight ahead and to the left as you go in. If he’s not then any of the boys’ll tell you where to find him.’

‘Thanks, pal.’ I paused. ‘You on here nights as well, by the way?’

‘No, sir. No one is. The gate’s locked at sunset.’

‘Keys?’

He hesitated, then said carefully: ‘Uh…could I ask your reason for asking, sir?’

I took out the letter I’d brought with me. Not that the guy could read it — literacy isn’t part of a gate slave’s job description — but it looked official and had the town officer’s signature at the bottom. He glanced at it, swallowed — investigations into a master’s death always make the bought help uneasy, for obvious reasons — and nodded. ‘Ligurius has one. He’s responsible for locking the gate at sunset and opening up in the morning. Decimus Tattius. And the master himself, of course.’

‘Who’s Tattius?’

‘The master’s partner, sir.’

‘Uh-huh.’ I filed the name for future reference. ‘Ligurius live on site?’

‘No, sir. In the town.’

‘There isn’t a night-watchman?’

‘Not necessary, sir. There’s one up at the villa, but we’ve never had no trouble, and the villa being so close the place is safe enough.’

‘Fine. Thanks, friend.’

I went in. It was more or less what I’d expected. To the right — between me and the sea — were most of the tanks, with here and there a slave walking along the berms with a long netted pole. As I watched, one of them slipped the net end of the pole carefully into the water then lifted it with a kicking fish trapped in the mesh. He laid the fish on the ground, checked the side of its head, measured it against a length of cord he kept round his waist, then put it gently back into the water.

Ahead and to the left, the gate slave had said. Sure enough, set against the high boxwood hedge that probably screened the farm off from the villa gardens behind was what had to be the office building, open-fronted and with a stretch of stone counter, a bit like a free-standing shop. There were two guys inside, a tunic and a mantle, with their backs to me, talking. The mantle was wearing mourning. I went over, and when they heard me coming they turned round.

‘Ah…I was looking for the manager,’ I said. ‘Guy called Ligurius?’

The tunic gave me a very careful once-over. ‘I’m Ligurius,’ he said quietly. Which, by the look of him, was his normal tone of voice. ‘How can I help you?’

‘The name’s Marcus Valerius Corvinus,’ I said. ‘I’ve got an appointment with the Lady Gellia.’

The mantle — mid- forties, long-jowled and po-faced — had been giving me a once-over of his own, not a very friendly one, either. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said. He stretched out a reluctant hand. ‘Titus Licinius Chlorus. Murena was my father, and I’m also the business’s accountant.’

I shook. The hand was thin and parchment-dry with fingers like leather-wrapped bones. ‘I’m, uh, sorry about the circumstances,’ I said.

‘So are we all.’ That came out dry too, but there was something in the tone that jarred. Sarcasm, maybe. A cold bugger, this, and he was watching me closely, like I was a specimen. ‘You asked for Ligurius. No doubt you wanted to know the background details to my father’s death before you talked to us.’ I didn’t answer, but that didn’t matter because he’d already turned to the manager. ‘You won’t need me for that. Apua, bring Valerius Corvinus up to the house when he’s finished, will you?’

‘Certainly,’ Ligurius said. I glanced at him. Interesting: the voice had been quiet like before, but there was no forelock-tugging tone to it and no ‘sir’ tacked on the end. The guy wasn’t wearing a freedman’s cap, either. Freeborn, then, and careful that people knew it. And what was this ‘Apua’? I doubted if someone like Ligurius merited the three names, and in any case Apua was one I hadn’t heard before. The word meant ‘anchovy’. Maybe it was a nickname.

‘We’ll see you later, Corvinus,’ Chlorus said.

‘Sure.’

He left. Ligurius and I stood looking at each other. He was about the same age as Chlorus, but a good head shorter: no more than five four, spindly as a hazel stick and balding. Not the sort of guy who stood out in a crowd.

‘Now,’ he said. ‘You’ll want to see where it happened. Follow me.’

We walked towards the top line of tanks, then for twenty or thirty yards along the curve of the first row. Finally, Ligurius stopped.

‘This is it,’ he said.

I looked down into the water, and the hairs rose on my neck…

There must’ve been dozens of the brutes, five feet long if they were an inch and the thickness of my thigh, stacked under the water to within a foot of the surface like rolls of cloth in a draper’s shop. As I watched, the one nearest me moved, sliding his long belly across the tops of his pals like he and they were greased. I caught the glint of a wicked eye and a flash of teeth bigger than belonged by rights on any fish.

‘Almost fully-grown,’ Ligurius said. ‘Another month or so and they’ll be ready.’

My gut turned. ‘You’re still going to sell them?’

He shrugged. ‘It’s not my decision, but why not? There’s a lot of money tied up in these beauties.’

Yeah, and I’d bet that the fact they’d breakfasted on their erstwhile owner wouldn’t harm the sale price, either. You’d think covering that up would be the natural thing to do, but you’d be wrong: like I say, where morays that’ve eaten human flesh are concerned there’s always some weirdo who’s prepared to pay extra for quality.

Ligurius moved so he was standing beside me, looking down; like we were next to a grave, which in a way I suppose we were. ‘I found him in the tank when I did my morning check,’ he said. ‘Or what was left of him. I wouldn’t’ve known at all but for the mantle.’

Jupiter, the guy was calm enough! That might just be how he was made, sure, but I had the distinct impression that losing his boss even under these circumstances hadn’t cracked him up unduly. Which was interesting.

‘What time do you pack in for the day?’ I asked.

‘Sunset. I lock the gate behind me when I go. The farm’s still accessible from the villa, though, of course. The perimeter wall goes round both.’

‘I understand Murena made a habit of coming down here alone of an evening.’

‘That’s right. With a bag of scraps from dinner. He liked to watch them feed.’

Gods! I shut that image out of my mind. ‘Could it have been an accident?’

He sucked on a tooth for a long time before replying. ‘It’s possible. Never mind the fish, once he was in the tank it would’ve been difficult for him to get out. He couldn’t swim, and there was no one around that time of the evening to hear him shouting. If he shouted at all.’

‘Why shouldn’t he?’

‘He’d been getting fainting fits recently. He could’ve been unconscious when he hit the water.’

I felt my eyebrows rise. ‘Fainting fits?’

‘So I believe, although I can’t vouch for it personally. He always looked fit enough to me. You’d have to ask his doctor.’

Was I wrong, or was there a certain woodenness of expression there? More than usual, that is. And Toothy Alcis had mentioned a doctor…

‘Who would that be, now?’ I said.

‘His name’s Diodotus. He has a practice in town.’

‘Okay.’ I very carefully didn’t look at him. ‘So what about…not an accident?’

Pause; long pause. ‘That I wouldn’t care to comment on,’ he said at last. ‘Perhaps you’d better talk to the family.’

Yeah; right. And the woodenness was still there, with bells on. There were things the guy was obviously not saying, even by implication, and I was beginning to get a prickle at the top of my spine. ‘They would be who, exactly, now?’ I said. ‘I’ve got names for the Lady Gellia and the son who just left, Titus Chlorus. Who else is there?’

‘The younger son’s Nerva. Aulus Nerva. Then there’s a daughter. Real name’s Licinia, naturally, but she’s always been called Penelope.’

‘Any of them Gellia’s kids?’

He almost smiled, but not quite; no more than a twitch of the lips. ‘No. Gellia’s younger than any of them. The boss married her after his first wife died.’

Had there been just a smidgeon of hesitation before the last word? I wouldn’t’ve put serious money on it, mind, but that’s how it came across. And I was still getting the poker face.

‘How about the partner?’ I said. ‘What was his name? Tattius?’

But Ligurius had already turned and was walking back towards the office. ‘I’m just the hired help, Corvinus,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘If you want any more information you’ll have to get it from the family. If you’re done with me — and I can’t really tell you anything else — then I’ll take you up there now.’

I followed him, thinking hard.

Yeah, well: accident it may still have been, but I’d met one of the sons and the manager so far, and if they were anything to go by I reckoned that as far as real, genuine grief at Murena’s death was concerned the fish had the edge.

Things were shaping up very nicely.