Illegally Dead

4

Pontius’s wineshop is in Castrimoenium’s main square. Normally on a day like this I’d’ve sat on the terrace outside and watched the world go by, or as much of the world as you get in a town where a dogfight’s an event, but there were no punters in evidence so I pushed the door open and went inside.

‘Hey, Corvinus!’ Gabba lifted his winecup. Life has few near-certainties, but one of them is that whatever time of the day you push open Pontius’s wineshop’s door chances are you’ll find Castrimoenium’s most dedicated bar-fly on the other side of it. ‘How’s the boy? Holidays again?’

‘Yeah, more or less.’ I nodded to Pontius behind the bar. ‘Can’t keep me away. How’s it going, Gabba?’

Pontius hefted a wine jar from the shelf. ‘Nice to see you back, Corvinus. The usual?’

‘Fine.’ I put the money on the counter while he poured a half jug of the local wine and set it down with a cup in front of me. Not Latium’s best, Castrimoenian, not by a long chalk, but it’s not bad stuff for everyday drinking on its home ground, and Pontius’s is as good as you’ll get anywhere.

‘More or less?’ Gabba pushed his cup over for Pontius to refill. ‘Not another murder, is it?’

‘Uh-uh.’ I poured and swallowed. ‘No murders.’

‘That chancer of a chef of yours trained any more sheep?’

‘Not that he’s mentioned.’

‘He wouldn’t, would he?’ Gabba sniggered and took a sip of his fresh cupful. ‘Not to you, pal. You bring him up here with you?’

‘Yeah, Meton’s here.’

‘Well, you tell him from me he did a good job and it’s stuck. Last winetasting you couldn’t get odds on Dassa for love nor money, and quite right too because she scooped the pot again hooves down. Even “Lucky” Maecilius was impressed, rest his bones, and that old bugger hadn’t a good word to say about sheep.’ Another sip. ‘Especially ones that’d just crapped on his boots.’

‘Maecilius is dead?’ I said. Not that I was surprised, mind, because the last and only time I’d seen him was two years ago, and he’d looked like a pickled mummy even then.

‘Sure. Hit by a lightning bolt just after the Winter Festival.’ Gabba took a proper swallow. ‘Right in the middle of a call of nature, too.’

‘Lightning in December?’

‘As ever was. From a clear blue sky, smack through the latrine roof. He had style, did old “Lucky”. One of nature’s true incompetents to the end.’

‘Left a tidy bit, too,’ Pontius said. ‘Fifty thousand, so they say. Plus the farm, and that’s worth four times as much again.’

‘Could be,’ Gabba said. ‘Could be, Pontius, boy. In the right quarter.’

I took another swig of the Castrimoenian and topped up my cup from the jug. ‘So what else has been happening?’

‘Not a lot, consul.’ Gabba emptied his own cup. ‘Just the usual. Carrinatia’s billygoat slipped his tether and ate his way through Titus Memmius’s cabbage patch. Paetinius’s youngest is pregnant again, father unknown — that’s her third. Oh, and of course there was that killing in the street ten days back, but you wouldn’t be interested in that.’

‘What?’

‘Tell a lie, it was twelve days. Or am I mixing it up with the day the wheel fell off Petrusius’s cart and killed the chicken?’

‘Gabba, you bastard —!’

He was grinning. ‘All in fun, just winding you up, boy. Twelve days it was.’

Gods! ‘Never mind the exact fucking date! What killing?’

‘Some mad bugger went for one of the local worthies with a knife, middle of the street, broad daylight, no reason. Could’ve saved himself the trouble, in the event, because the worthy pegged out himself not long after. No connection, natural causes.’

‘Chap by the name of Lucius Hostilius.’ Pontius was pouring a cup of wine for himself. He took a sip and put it down on the bar. ‘The worthy, I mean. Local lawyer, or was.’

My brain had gone numb. ‘You said a killing. So who was killed?’

‘The man with the knife. You mind, Corvinus?’ Gabba hooked my jug over and topped up his empty cup. ‘Hostilius was lucky, he’d his partner with him, big strong bugger able to handle himself, and he did good and proper.’ He clicked his tongue. ‘Five seconds later and it was Goodnight Alexandria fair and proper.’

‘Who was the knifeman?’

‘I never heard a name myself.’ Gabba took a long swig. ‘Pontius?’ Pontius shook his head. ‘Don’t think there was one, in the end. He wasn’t a Castrimoenian, whatever, and whoever the bastard was he hadn’t been living easy. Dressed like a tramp, stank to high heaven.’

‘Why did he do it?’

‘I told you, no reason, bugger was out of his tree. The pair of them were just crossing the street minding their own business when he runs up, draws a knife and goes for Hostilius.’

‘He wasn’t hurt? Hostilius, I mean?’

‘Nah. The blade caught in his mantle-fold. That gave his partner the chance to pile in, get the knife off of the bastard and skewer him.’

‘This partner got a name?’

‘Acceius. Quintus Acceius.’

‘Many people see this?’

Gabba’s eyes narrowed and he set his cup down. ‘Ten or a dozen, maybe,’ he said. ‘I told you, it was broad daylight in the main street. What is this, Corvinus? You sure there hasn’t been a murder?’

‘Uh-uh. Just interested.’

‘The hell with that, boy! I know interested, and that wasn’t it, not by a long chalk.’ He turned to Pontius. ‘Know what I think? I think Lucius Hostilius got the heave after all and our Corvinus’s been Sent For.’

Fuck! ‘Gabba — ’

‘That true, Corvinus?’ Pontius said.

Things were slipping fast here. He might look like a cow’s backside and soak up more wine than a sponge, but Gabba could see through a brick wall with the best of them. And drop a juicy titbit like murder into the casual conversation at Pontius’s and it’d be all over town before you could say ‘oops!’.

Fuck was right.

‘Yes, indeed.’ Gabba emptied his cup again and reached for my jug. ‘My belief, Pontius old mate, for what it’s worth, is that someone slipped the legal gentleman a noxious foreign substance on the sly and someone else has rumbled the fact and called our lad down to finger the perp. What do you say yourself?’

‘Gabba — ’

‘Of course I could be wrong. Put your head out the door and check for flying pigs.’

Jupiter! I tried again. ‘Gabba, watch my lips. There has not been a murder. Okay?’

‘You know your right eyebrow twitches when you lie?’

So must Sisyphus have felt when he saw his fucking rock roll back for the umpteenth-millionth time. I sighed and poured myself another shot of wine before the bastard finished the jug for me. ‘Look, just get the hell off my back, will you?’ I said. ‘We’re spending a few days with our adopted daughter and Perilla’s aunt, right? No other reason, that is it. Finish, end of story.’

Gabba shrugged. ‘Have it your own way, consul,’ he said. ‘Not that it surprises me, mind. Word is the man was asking to be stiffed.’

‘Is that so, now.’

‘Could’ve been the wife did it. Could’ve been the partner.’ He winked. ‘Could’ve been the both of them together, wouldn’t be the first time that’d happened. Convenient, that’s what I call it.’

‘Nah, I don’t believe that one. Quintus Acceius isn’t the philandering type.’ Pontius picked up my jug and shook it. ‘Looking a bit empty already, Corvinus. You want the other half?’

‘Yeah, why not?’ I said sourly. ‘I might strike really, really lucky and have some of it to myself this time.’ Shit. Well, I’d tried. And so long as I didn’t actually confirm anything there was no comeback. ‘I thought you said his partner saved this Hostilius’s life. Why should he kill him seven days later?’

‘Did we mention exactly when the gentleman died, Pontius?’ Gabba gave me a beatific smile. ‘I suppose we must’ve done.’ Bugger! ‘Never mind. Well, Corvinus, the general consensus of local gossip is that relations between the two weren’t exactly amicable. Chiefly because on separate occasions Hostilius had accused the man in public of screwing his wife and told Acceius’s own wife to her face, ditto, that she was no better than a whore. Both loudly, at length, and with full appropriate embellishment. That do you for motive?’ I said nothing. ‘Me, I wouldn’t blame either of them for getting rid of the bastard just on general principles. He was an embarrassment all round and getting worse.’

‘Come on, Gabba!’ Pontius grunted, setting down my fresh half jug. ‘Have a bit of charity. Everyone knew he couldn’t help it. Besides, the man’s dead. “Nothing but good”, remember?’

An easy-going lad, Pontius, but he was beginning to sound a little tetchy. Gabba in full flow tended to have that effect on people. Tactful and politically correct were two things the guy wasn’t.

‘Maybe so, maybe so.’ Gabba took another careful sip of his wine. ‘Of course, if Wonder Boy the great detective isn’t looking for motives to murder Lucius Hostilius then he won’t want to know about Fimus either. That right, Corvinus?’

‘For the gods’ sake!’ Pontius had been leaning on the bar. Now he straightened and turned away. ‘That’s it, Gabba, enough’s enough! You’ve had your fun, but the joke’s over.’

‘Fimus?’ I said. The word means dung.

‘Marcus Maecilius, “Lucky”’s second son.’ Gabba was grinning. Pontius still had his back to us.

‘Yeah? So if he’s got a handle already then why Fimus?’

‘Ah, well, now, I’m glad you asked that. Nothing to do with non-existent murders, of course, but of marginal interest in itself. Would you happen to have any of that wine spare?’ I sighed and slid the new half jug over. Gabba refilled his cup. ‘Fimus is your solid agricultural type, you see, close to the earth and redolent of nature at her most basic, and he’s also only got one eye.’

He waited, expectantly.

‘Uh…so?’ I said finally.

‘One eye? Fimus as in Polyphemus? It’s what we simple folk out here in the sticks call a bilingual pun, consul, combined with a recherche literary illusion.’

Oh, shit!

‘The word’s allusion, Gabba, boy,’ Pontius murmured, turning round. ‘Literary allusion.’

‘By gods, your wine must be getting better.’ Gabba took a swallow. ‘No, same old dishwater. Must’ve been just a slip of the tongue after all.’

Pontius snorted, and I grinned despite myself. ‘Gabba, just tell me straight, okay?’ I said. ‘About how this Fimus fits into things.’

‘No, I’ll tell you.’ That was Pontius. ‘Fimus and Hostilius were talking together. Then Hostilius starts shouting, he calls Fimus a thief and a liar and smacks his face. That’s all that happened, Corvinus. All there was to it.’

‘Yeah? When was this?’

‘Eight or nine days ago in the square outside.’

‘You know why?’

‘No, Fimus wouldn’t say, nor Hostilius either. Fimus just walked off and left him standing. That’s it. All there is.’

‘Come on, Pontius!’ Gabba took another swallow of wine. ‘You know damn well what it was about, or you can guess!’

Pontius moved over to stand in front of him. He was looking serious as hell now, and he’s a big lad. Their eyes locked, and Gabba edged back on his stool.

‘Maybe I can at that,’ Pontius said slowly. ‘There again, maybe I’d be wrong. But in any case, boy, it’s none of my business, and it’s not yours or Corvinus’s either. There’s been no crime committed as far as we know’ — he looked at me, and I stared back expressionlessly — ‘and I won’t hear the dead or the living slandered in my bar just for amusement. Now you’ve had your fun and it’s over. Call it a day or drink up. The same goes for you, Corvinus.’

The silence lengthened. Finally, Gabba waved his hand like he’d burned the fingers.

‘Ouch!’ He shrugged. ‘Very well, Pontius lad, point made and taken on board. You care to choose a subject for conversation?’

Pontius sucked a tooth for a few seconds, frowning. Then he grinned. ‘Rome’s always good for a laugh,’ he said.

Confrontation over; a good lad, Pontius, and he can gauge his clientele to a T. We shot the breeze about Rome, and the new emperor, and finished the other half jug.

Hmm.