Trade Secrets

FOURTEEN

First thing just before dawn two days later we took the carriage over to Ostia, together with Perilla’s maid Phryne, Bathyllus up front next to driver Lysias, and Meton perched on the roof clutching his set of kitchen knives and best omelette pan: there’d be caretaker staff at the villa, sure, but they wouldn’t run to either a ranking major-domo or a proper chef, and if we weren’t going to be dossing down on Agron and Cass’s living-room floor after all then I’d no intention whatsoever of slumming it. Perilla had got clear directions from her poetry pal before we left – fortunately, as it turned out, because the villa was one of several along the coast south of the town itself – and we arrived just a whisker shy of noon.

Caesia Fulvina had sent a skivvy through the previous day to say we’d be coming, so at least we were expected. While Bathyllus organized the local bought help to transfer the luggage from the coach and Meton went off to inspect the kitchen facilities, Perilla and I did the tour of the premises.

Fulvina and her husband – he was something big in Aqueducts and Sewers, I remembered – weren’t short of a silver piece or two, that was certain; they might only use the villa as a holiday home, but it was absolute top-of-the-range. Building space in Rome is at a premium, of course, even on the hills, and unless your last name is Caesar, or close to it, or your annual income’s well over the six-figure mark so you can afford a little property over on the Janiculan with its four dining rooms, covered riding exercise yard, and small private zoo, you can’t be too ambitious. Ostia’s different. Oh, yeah, sure, a seaside villa on the Bay of Naples’ll set you back an arm and a leg, but property prices along the Laurentian coast are still pretty reasonable, and for what you’d pay for a house on one of the better-class hills in Rome there you could buy – or build – a villa three times the size and still have some loose change left in your pouch.

Certainly the place’s owners hadn’t spared any expense, either where scale or decoration were concerned. The driveway up from the gate passed through carefully landscaped grounds planted with trees and bushes that screened the house itself from the coastal road and the shoreline beyond it. The rooms were twice as big as the ones we had at home, and there were more of them. Most of the ones downstairs had mosaic-inlaid floors – there was a lovely one in the atrium with its centrepiece Neptune’s chariot drawn by seahorses, surrounded by conch-blowing Tritons – and at least one wall with a full-scale fresco on it; while the bedrooms upstairs were big enough to swing several cats, were floored with cedar, and had windows looking out to sea or down onto the porticoed garden studded with statues to the rear. There was even, off to one side, a small cistern-fed bath suite.

‘But this is lovely!’ Perilla said as we made our way back downstairs. ‘Absolutely perfect!’

Yeah, I had to agree. I’d been through to Ostia quite a few times over the years, but by the nature of things they’d been flying visits, and they’d been restricted to the town itself with, when I couldn’t manage the thing in a oner, a shakedown on the couch at Agron’s place. Getting the use of Fulvina’s villa had been a real stroke of genius on the lady’s part. Once Meton had sussed out the local market – which, knowing Meton’s scale of priorities, would be as soon as he’d laid out his chef’s knives, made sure everything was hunky-dory where equipment and larder were concerned, and terrified the wollocks off Fulvina’s kitchen skivvies – I reckoned we’d be as well-set-up here as we were at home. Better.

‘Fine,’ I said. ‘I’ll just leave you to settle in and get on with things.’

She stopped, and stared at me. ‘Oh, Marcus! Be reasonable!’ she said. ‘You’re not going to start straight away, surely?’

‘Naturally I am. What did you expect?’

‘Come on, dear! We are on holiday after all.’

I grinned. ‘You may be, lady. Me, I’ve got a job to go to. And after six hours twiddling my thumbs in the coach I could do with the walk.’ True: I’m no coach-traveller, me, and fourteen-plus miles with only a couple of cushions between me and the Ostian Road cobbles, even if Lysias had stuck to the unpaved verge whenever he could, had left me in sore need of exercise. ‘Sore’ being the operative word. ‘Enjoy. I’ll see you later.’

Like I said, the villa was on the coast road, and the town itself was a bare half-mile away, at the Tiber’s mouth. An easy distance to walk, particularly given the weather we had at present: it was distinctly cooler here than in Rome, and much fresher-smelling, although that wouldn’t’ve been difficult, particularly at the height of summer in comparison to anywhere in the city downwind of the river, with a pleasant, salt-tangy breeze off the sea. Perfect weather for walking, in fact, especially after a six-hour carriage-drive. The countryside wasn’t bad, either: the Laurentian coast on the inland side of the road grows a fair proportion of the town’s fruit and vegetables, and most of the space between the big villas is taken up with small farms and market gardens, with the occasional vineyard or orchard; while on the sea side you get the small family owned boats that supply the town’s fish market.

Yeah, well, maybe Perilla’s point about being on holiday wasn’t too far off the mark after all; the case aside, I reckoned we could spend a very pleasant few days here. The lady’s pal Fulvina and her husband certainly had the right idea. Perhaps we should get out of the city more often.

I still had most of the afternoon to play with when I reached the Laurentian Gate. Coming from the east along the main road as I always did when I travelled through from Rome, I wasn’t too familiar with this part of town. The Tiber, with its various wharves, landing stages, warehouses, and so on, not to mention the main dockyard area just outside the walls at Tiber Mouth itself and most of the public buildings – my usual stamping ground – was on the northern side; the Laurentian quarter to the south was almost exclusively upmarket residential. Even so, Ostia’s not big; you can walk across it from end to end practically inside of half an hour. And although the old fort that was built originally to protect Rome’s harbour is long gone, for practical purposes it’s given the place an overall shape. The street leading up from Laurentian Gate – the Hinge – takes you directly to the Market Square, the original fort’s centre, where it crosses the main drag, Boundary Marker Street, which runs the length of the town to the Roman Gate.

Easy-peasy, right? Especially when you compare it with Rome, which is a town planner’s nightmare. Mind you, off the main drag things got a bit more haphazard.

So; where to start? I’d have to call in on Agron, of course, to say we were here, check if he’d managed to trace the cack-handed crane operator Siddius for me, and maybe invite him and Cass round for dinner, but his yard was diagonally across town, by the river on the Roman Gate side. Lippillus had said that Correllius’s house – or his widow’s, now; what was her name? Mamilia, right – was one of the big properties south of Market Square on the Hinge itself. As a first port of call, then, that made sense; at the very least I could suss out where it was for later reference.

I carried on up the Hinge. Not altogether an easy matter: the street was pretty narrow, and there were quite a few pedestrians around, although not as many as there would’ve been in Rome at that time of day, plus – as wouldn’t be the case in Rome – you had the occasional cart to contend with. The locals didn’t seem to be in all that much of a hurry, either, as they would’ve been at home, which slowed things up further. Lippillus had been right, though: judging by the overall length and carefully maintained condition of their frontages the houses in this part of town were definitely well upmarket. I spotted a door-slave sunning himself outside one of them and asked for directions to the Correllius place, which turned out to be a scant twenty yards further up the street.

There was a door-slave there as well: a much bigger guy this time, bald as an egg but with arms as thick – and hairy – as an ape’s. Definitely prime bouncer material, which in a laid-back place like Ostia was interesting.

I went up to him, getting a long, suspicious stare all the way.

‘Afternoon, pal,’ I said when I’d reached conversational distance. ‘Would this be the Correllius house?’

He considered for a while, inserted a little finger into an ear the size and general shape of a cabbage leaf, wiggled it around, withdrew it, inspected the result, and wiped it off on his tunic.

‘It might be,’ he said finally.

I wondered for an instant whether that might be one of those weird philosophical paradoxes, like Achilles and the tortoise, but then Zeno the guy definitely wasn’t. What we had here was obfuscation, which was interesting again. I sighed.

‘Look,’ I said. ‘I know the master’s dead, right, but I was wondering if I could have a word with your mistress. That possible at all?’

‘Mistress is out.’

‘OK. Make it someone else, then. You choose.’

‘Business or social?’

‘Business. I’m through from Rome. It’s about your master’s death, as it happens.’

That got me another long, suspicious stare. Then he grunted and stood up.

‘Mister Doccius do?’ he said.

‘Perfect. Who’s Mister Doccius?’

‘The master’s deputy.’

‘Great. Mister Doccius it is.’

‘OK. You wait here, right?’ He paused, his hand on the door knob. ‘Name?’

‘Corvinus. Valerius Corvinus.’

Another grunt. He disappeared inside, closing the door behind him, and I kicked my heels for a good five minutes before he reappeared.

‘Mister Doccius’ll see you,’ he said. ‘Follow me.’

I did. Once through the front door I’d been expecting the usual standard arrangement of lobby plus atrium with rooms off to the sides and back, plus a peristyle garden to the rear, which was in effect what I got. But then chummie led me straight through the peristyle to a block of rooms on its far side whose doors opened onto a series of what, from their furnishings, were obviously offices. Most of them had clerks beavering away inside them, and the place had a definite busy feel about it that didn’t square at all with the private house side of things.

Interesting yet again.

‘In here,’ chummie said, and without another word turned on his heel and disappeared back into the house proper, presumably to excavate the cabbage-leaf’s partner in comfort.

It was the middle room of the line, and bigger than the rest, but without the office furnishings. There were a couple of chairs facing outwards and a small table with the makings of a meal on it. The guy sitting on one of the chairs working his way through a plateful of bread, cheese, and cold vegetables was mid-thirties with black curly hair. If he wasn’t quite in the door-slave’s class for size, he was big enough, and most of it was muscle. One good step up socially from the bouncer on the door, this Mister Doccius, but clearly out of the same mould. I was beginning to get some pretty definite signals here: your ordinary provincial merchant establishment, let alone laid-back Ostian private residence, this place clearly wasn’t.

‘Sorry, pal,’ I said. ‘Bad timing. I’m interrupting your lunch.’

He gave me a long, considering look. Then, finally, he grunted and speared a piece of cheese with his knife.

‘That’s OK,’ he said. Grudging as hell; clearly not one for the pleasantries, Correllius’s exec. ‘Corvinus, wasn’t it? Through from Rome about the boss’s death.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Sit down.’ I did, and he chewed for a bit in silence, watching me. ‘This official in some way?’ he said finally, and then before I could answer: ‘Only we were told the death was natural. No surprises there. Correllius was fat as a pig, sixty plus, and he got breathless just walking across a room. He could’ve gone any time these past five years, so his doctor said.’

Delivered deadpan, and without so much as a smidgeon of sympathy. In fact, if anything there was a trace of contempt in the tone.

‘Yeah, it was natural,’ I said. ‘Matter of fact, the guy who found the body was my son-in-law. He’s a doctor himself, and he made the diagnosis. Also by coincidence the Watchman the clerks at the Pollio notified is an old friend of mine.’

‘Is that so, now? Bully for you.’ Doccius picked up the wine-cup and took a swig. ‘So. If the boss just up and died natural, then what’s this all about?’

‘He was stabbed. After he was already dead, sure, so there’s no actual crime involved, or not much of one as far as the Watch is concerned, but still. You knew that, presumably?’

‘Sure I did. I’m not blind, and I saw the body when they brought it back.’

I waited, but there was nothing more.

‘And you don’t think that’s worth looking into,’ I said at last, making it a clear statement, not a question, and loading it with as much sarcasm as I could.

His eyes never shifted from my face, and he carried on eating.

‘Should I?’ he said finally.

‘Yeah, I’d say that’d be a reasonable assumption.’ I was beginning to get angry now, and I was more than a little puzzled. ‘You’re his deputy, after all, or so the door-slave told me. The guy may’ve died naturally, but that’s only a technicality. In effect he was murdered.’

He speared another piece of cheese, chewed deliberately and swallowed.

‘“Murdered” is a strong word,’ he said at last. ‘And you admit yourself that it’s the wrong one, because Correllius was already dead. Me, now, I’ll settle for the technicality. If that’s OK with you and the Roman Watch. It saves a lot of hassle that way, and hassle I can do without. We all can here.’

I just didn’t believe this. ‘Look,’ I said. ‘Seemingly he’d arranged to meet a guy that day, a business associate by the name of Pullius. Marcus Pullius.’

Doccius’s hand, poised over the bowl of vegetables, stopped in mid-air.

‘Who told you that?’ he said sharply.

Hey! We’d got a reaction at last! ‘The slave he had with him. Mercurius. Or at least that was the name he gave to my Watchman friend. You know anything about him?’

He picked up the bread and broke it.

‘Not a thing,’ he said. ‘Pullius is no one I’ve ever heard of, that’s for sure. And you don’t want to believe anything that dozy bugger Mercurius said. He always did have his head up his backside.’

‘You can ask him for yourself. He’s on the premises, presumably.’

‘Was.’ He took another swig of the wine.

‘How do you mean, “was”?’

‘I told you: he was a dozy bugger without the sense he was born with. He had an accident twelve or fifteen days back. Fell off the roof while he was up replacing a cracked tile and broke his neck.’ His eyes challenged me over the lifted wine-cup. ‘So that’s that. I’m sorry, but you’ve had a wasted journey.’

‘OK. Fine.’ I was having real trouble keeping my temper now, but if he wanted me to lose it I wasn’t going to give the bastard the satisfaction. ‘Just one more thing before I go, pal. Correllius was in the import-export business, right? Wine and oil, specifically?’

A blink, and the answer was too long in coming. ‘Yeah. We deal in wine and oil, among other things. So forget your “specifically”, because the company has various business interests covering a pretty wide range.’

Yeah; that, from what I was beginning to glean about the set-up here, was probably true. And I’d bet that not all of them would figure among the Ostian Honest Trader of the Year categories.

‘Your boss had a consignment about half a month back bound for Aleria on a ship called the Porpoise, master Titus Nigrinus,’ I said. ‘That right?’

Again the hesitation, and his eyes definitely flickered. ‘Possibly,’ he said. ‘I’d have to check the records to be sure, but I’ll take your word for it. Again, so what?’

I gave him my best smile. ‘Probably nothing. Certainly nothing to do with your boss’s murder; sorry, death. Just a snippet of information I came across recently in connection with something else. Don’t let it worry you.’

‘Why should it worry me?’ But he was rattled; obviously so. ‘Now, Corvinus, that’s my lunch break over and I’ve got more to do today than I’ve time for. You mind?’

‘Not at all.’ I got up. ‘Thanks for your trouble.’

‘A pleasure.’ Not what his eyes said; not by a long chalk. ‘I’ll see you out.’

We walked through the peristyle garden and into the house proper. I was crossing the atrium when I came face-to-face with a stylish middle-aged woman coming from the direction of the lobby.

She stopped.

‘And who might you be?’ she said.

‘This is Valerius Corvinus, madam,’ Doccius said. ‘From Rome. He came to talk to me about the boss’s death. He’s just leaving.’

A complete change of tone: he didn’t exactly go the length of tugging his forelock, but the impression I got was that he wasn’t all that far off it.

‘You’re Mamilia, yes?’ I said. ‘Marcus Correllius’s wife?’ I was tactful enough to avoid the word ‘widow’. Mind you – and it was odd, to say the least – the lady was wearing everyday dress, not a mourning mantle. Pretty expensive everyday dress at that, and slap bang up to fashion, if I was any judge. Plus for a woman who’d lost her husband under tragic circumstances less than a month before she wasn’t looking exactly prostrate with grief. She was wearing full make-up, for a start, and I’d bet that wherever she’d been it wasn’t to sob at the late Correllius’s graveside.

Like I say, odd. And very, very interesting.

‘I am indeed Mamilia,’ she said. She was giving me a long, considering look. ‘Corvinus, your name was?’

‘Yeah. Actually, it was you I came to see in the first place, but your door-slave said you were out.’

‘Which was quite true. I was, but as you can see I’m back.’ The eyes finally shifted, as if she’d been carefully weighing up a range of options and finally come to a decision. ‘So by all means you can talk to me now, if you wish.’ Doccius opened his mouth to say something, but she held up a hand and he closed it. ‘That will do for now, Publius. Thank you for taking care of Valerius Corvinus in my absence, but you have work of your own, I’m sure.’

‘Yes, madam.’ He shot me a look that wouldn’t’ve disgraced a basilisk, turned on his heel and went back out through the peristyle.

Mamilia watched him go, then turned back to me. ‘Sit down, Valerius Corvinus,’ she said. ‘You’ll find that couch beside you perfectly comfortable.’ She sat down herself in the chair beside the ornamental pool and tidied the folds of her mantle. ‘Now. Marcus’s death. First of all, if you don’t mind my asking, what precisely is your interest in the matter?’

I repeated more or less what I’d told Doccius. She frowned.

‘Forgive me,’ she said. ‘But I need to have this clear. Your friend the Watch Commander. He’s of the opinion that no real crime was committed since my husband was already dead, yes?’

‘Uh, yeah, more or less. Or rather not of the level that would warrant a full-scale official investigation. But-’

‘Don’t you think, then, that we should simply leave things as they are? I mean, if poor Marcus was dead already when he was stabbed then what, really, is the point?’ I just gaped at her: Doccius was one thing, but this lady was Correllius’s widow, for the gods’ sakes! ‘Or don’t you agree?’

Bland as hell. Jupiter! I counted, mentally, to ten. ‘The man was murdered, lady,’ I said carefully. ‘Or just as good as. All that happened was that whoever stuck the knife in him thought he was asleep. No, of course I don’t f-’ I stopped myself just in time. ‘Of course I don’t agree.’

‘Then that’s unfortunate. But whether you do or not makes no difference, does it? If the Roman authorities decline to investigate the matter then the decision passes to the family, in other words to myself. Marcus is dead. That is …’ she paused – ‘regrettable, but the fact is that he died of natural causes. Anything else is a needless complication, and at base irrelevant. Certainly, and I have no wish to be rude, it is no business whatsoever of yours.’

True. Technically, at least. Even so, I just didn’t believe this; unnatural didn’t go far enough.

‘He ever mention a man called Marcus Pullius?’ I asked.

Not a flicker. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Who might that be?’

‘A business acquaintance, presumably. Only the strange thing is that no one seems to have heard of him barring the slave who was with your husband that day and who’s now dead himself.’ I just stopped myself in time from glossing the adjective with a ‘conveniently’.

‘Ah, yes. That would be Mercurius. A tragic accident. Tragic.’

‘Yeah.’ I managed to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. ‘Anyway, this Pullius seems to have vanished into thin air. According to Mercurius, he was supposed to meet Correllius outside the Pollio, but he never showed up. Or at least if he did then he was probably the killer.’

Mamilia frowned. ‘Excuse me, Valerius Corvinus,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry to repeat myself, but “killer” is the wrong word here, and I do think we should keep that fact firmly in mind. And I’m afraid I know nothing about Marcus’s business concerns. He didn’t confide.’ Interesting: she was lying there, I was sure of it. ‘Certainly he never mentioned a Marcus Pullius to me, not in any context.’

‘The thing is,’ I said, ‘if this Pullius was involved then we’ve got what amounts to a description of him.’

‘Oh?’ That came out sharply.

‘Yeah. From a lady’s maid who happened to come into the garden just as, presumably, your husband was being stabbed. Or immediately afterwards, anyway, because she caught sight of the man before he walked off.’

‘Very interesting. But, as I said, not of much practical use to anyone.’ She smoothed a non-existent crease from her mantle. ‘Now I’ve no wish to be rude or inhospitable, but there really is no need to prolong this conversation. Marcus was not a well man, and had not been so for some years. He is now dead, his death was not unexpected, and it occurred, your doctor son-in-law says, from natural causes completely consistent with his illness. To me that is what is important and there’s an end of the matter. From what you say, the authorities are in complete agreement with this opinion. Accordingly, I would be grateful if you minded your own business, whatever that is, and returned to Rome. Do I make myself clear?’

Gods!

‘Yeah. Perfectly clear. Thank you, lady.’ I was quietly fizzing. I stood up. So did she.

‘I’m sorry you had a wasted journey.’ She gave me a brittle smile: evidently now I’d had the firm brush-off there was scope for a return to the social graces. ‘Were you staying locally or are you just through from Rome for the day?’

‘Oh, I’m staying.’ Damn right I would be! ‘For the foreseeable future, anyway. A friend of my wife’s is letting us use her villa.’

‘How delightful. So your journey won’t be a complete waste after all; I’m glad. That would be one of the villas on the coast, I suppose?’ I said nothing. ‘Yes, they are very nice, aren’t they? I did try to persuade Marcus to build or buy us one – so much more pleasant than a house in town, particularly in the summer months – but he preferred to be in the centre of things. And, as you’ve seen, he virtually worked from home.’ She held out her hand. ‘I’m very pleased to have met you, Valerius Corvinus, and believe me I do appreciate your concern and the trouble you’ve gone to. I hope I haven’t given any offence; certainly none was intended. But I really do think this is for the best.’

Yeah. Right. And I was Cleopatra’s grandmother. I shook and turned to go …

A man was coming through from the lobby: late forties, fit-looking, grizzled hair well-barbered, and a snappy plain mantle. He stopped when he saw me.

‘I’m sorry, Mamilia,’ he said. ‘Your door-slave sent me straight through. He didn’t tell me you had company.’

‘That’s OK,’ I said. ‘I was just leaving.’ I glanced at Mamilia. Her face was set.

‘The gentleman’s name is Valerius Corvinus,’ she said. ‘He came to enquire about Marcus’s death.’

The man grunted. ‘Publius Fundanius,’ he said, putting out his hand.

I shook it. ‘Friend of the family?’

He hesitated. ‘Business associate.’ He turned to Mamilia. ‘I just called round to offer my condolences and ask if there was anything I could do.’

‘Kind of you,’ Mamilia said; you could’ve used her tone to ice wine.

‘Well, I’ll be going,’ I said; then, to Mamilia: ‘Thanks for taking the time to talk to me.’

‘You’re very welcome.’

This time, not so much as a blink. I left.