Trade Secrets

SEVENTEEN

I got back in time for a quick steam in the bathhouse before the dinner gong went. Then, changed into a fresh tunic, I joined Perilla in the garden. Bathyllus had had the local minions carry out the requisite furniture, and he was currently supervising the ferrying of the starters.

‘We eating al fresco then, little guy?’ I asked him as I stretched out on the other couch.

‘That was my idea, Marcus,’ Perilla said. ‘It’s a lovely evening, and it’d be a shame to eat inside. Besides, it’s part of the holiday.’

‘Fair enough.’ I held up my wine-cup for Bathyllus to pour. ‘So what are we having tonight, Bathyllus?’

‘Braised chicken with a pungent ginger dressing, pureed greens with a lovage-savory sauce, and a chickpea and fennel casserole, sir. Meton brought the ingredients in the coach with us from Rome.’

Yeah; that made sense: Meton likes to do his market shopping first thing, as soon as the stalls open for the day. And he would’ve as soon sent out for a takeaway from the nearest cookshop as trust the local staff to order in before we arrived. He might be a surly bugger when he liked, which was most of the time, but where food was concerned he was a professional to his grubby fingernails.

‘Great.’ I reached out for a quail’s egg and dipped it in fish sauce.

‘So.’ Perilla did the same. ‘How did your afternoon go?’

I gave her the rundown. ‘The Correllius menage is a weird set-up. And my informants – Agron and my butcher pal – were pretty much agreed that the guy was crooked as they come, or the next thing to it.’

‘It’s odd that his wife wasn’t interested in finding out who stabbed him, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah, well, there could be several reasons for that. Barring the simplest one that she’s just a cold-hearted bitch.’ I leaned over for the wine jug and topped up my cup. ‘Which she is, no question. Mind you, from what I know of Correllius they weren’t exactly a well-matched couple. He had a good twenty years on her for a start, and he was a real barrel of lard, while she wouldn’t’ve been out of place at a Top Five Hundred get-together. Soignee. That the Greek word?’

‘It’ll do.’

‘Right. That lady was soignee in spades.’

Perilla selected a fried broad-bean rissole. ‘Do you think she might’ve been behind the stabbing herself?’ she said.

‘It’s the most obvious explanation, sure.’ I took a swallow of the wine: if Meton had brought along a stock of culinary supplies with us, I’d had Bathyllus do the same on the liquid side, and we were well-fixed. Oh, the villa would have a pretty good cellar, no question, and Fulvina’s husband would keep it stocked, but you can take cadging too far. Besides, I wouldn’t altogether trust a guy whose metier was Aqueducts and Sewers to have a good nose for wine. ‘The fact that he hadn’t actually been murdered and the authorities weren’t interested in an investigation would be a godsend to her. And we wouldn’t have to look far for the actual perp. His exec, Doccius, fits the maid’s description perfectly, Mamilia clearly has him eating out of her hand, and equally clearly he’s not too cut up about his boss’s death either.’

Perilla set the remaining half of the rissole down on her plate.

‘You’re saying that Doccius and the missing businessman, Marcus Pullius, are the same person?’ she said.

‘Yeah. Why not?’

‘But, Marcus, dear, that’s impossible!’

‘Oh? How so?’

‘Well, obviously it is! Correllius saw Doccius every day. He was hardly likely to get away with arranging a meeting with him under another name, now, was he?’

‘Hang on, lady. We don’t know that Correllius set the meeting up with this Pullius guy personally, or even that he’d ever clapped eyes on him. He might’ve done it at second hand. In which case as his deputy Doccius could well have made the arrangements himself.’

‘That’s hardly likely. Not if whatever deal Pullius wanted, or claimed he wanted, to discuss was important enough to warrant a sick old man travelling all the way to Rome in person. Either he’d have been personally involved at the start or sent Doccius in his stead.’ Perilla dipped the second half of the rissole into the fish sauce. ‘Besides, Doccius couldn’t have known that Correllius would fall asleep – call it that – on the Pollio bench. The chances were that he’d be in full possession of his faculties when they met face-to-face, as they’d have to do, and he’d certainly know him then.’ She popped the rissole into her mouth and chewed. ‘No, it’s just silly.’

The lady was absolutely right, of course; put like that it was silly. Still-

‘OK,’ I said. ‘Maybe Pullius wasn’t Doccius himself. But the principle holds good. Doccius – with or without Mamilia’s collusion – could’ve arranged the phoney meeting to manoeuvre Correllius into a position where he was on his own and they could take him out in relative safety, using a hitman. The phantom Pullius. After all, why Rome anyway, if it wasn’t to get the guy off his usual patch?’

‘But why should Doccius – or Mamilia, for that matter – want Correllius dead?’

I sighed. ‘Come on, Perilla! Doccius was Correllius’s right-hand man, from the looks of things he’s the one actually running the business on a day-to-day basis, and he’s a good-looking devil in himself. Mamilia’s not all that much older than he is, she may not be a stunner, exactly, but she’s well set-up all the same and knows it, and she was married to a fat sixty-odd-year-old slob. Probably a seriously rich fat sixty-odd-year-old slob, at that. Do the maths yourself.’

‘Correllius was also not a well man.’

‘According to Doccius, sure, but-’

‘Marcus, he died a natural death, and Clarus was of the opinion that that wasn’t surprising in the case of a man of his age and in his physical condition.’

‘OK,’ I said grudgingly. ‘So?’

‘So if it were a case of dead man’s shoes, sexual attraction, whatever, then why go to the trouble of murdering him? After all, the situation would resolve itself before very long. It just wouldn’t be worth the risk. I think we can give Doccius the benefit of the doubt here, don’t you?’

True. At least on present showing. Bugger.

We’d finished with the nibbles, and Bathyllus was wheeling in the main course. I helped myself to some of the braised chicken and the pureed greens.

‘Yeah, well,’ I said. ‘The Mamilia-Doccius pairing’s too good just to let slide. And we’re only at the start of things here.’ I passed her the chicken, and she spooned some onto her plate with a helping of the chickpea casserole. Not a great one for greens, Perilla.

‘Fair enough,’ she said. ‘Leave that aspect of it for the moment. What else have you got?’

‘The most interesting thing is a guy by the name of Fundanius. Publius Fundanius. Turns out he’s a crook as well and that he and Correllius had been at daggers drawn for years.’

‘Hmm.’ She held up her cup for Bathyllus to pour in some of the fruit juice and mint concoction she was currently favouring. ‘Same objection, surely. If the man hadn’t gone the length of murder before, then why do it now?’

‘I don’t know, lady. Like I say, it’s early days to be theorizing. Maybe the situation had changed somehow recently, or Correllius had done something that really got up his nose. Maybe he’d just got out of the wrong side of bed one morning and decided he might as well stiff the guy and be done with him. In any case, Fundanius is a front runner, and from what I saw he might well be up for it.’

‘You’ve met him?’

‘Briefly. At Correllius’s house. He dropped by to give Mamilia his condolences. Or at least that’s what he said.’ I frowned. ‘That was odd, if you like.’

‘In what way?’

‘Come on, Perilla! Why should he? Like I say, he was no friend of the family, and according to my butcher pal Rubrius he was more likely to spit in Correllius’s urn than shed a tear over it. And there was no love lost between him and the widow, that was for sure.’

‘Perhaps it was just good manners on his part. It does happen between business rivals. Correllius was dead, and so presumably was the feud, whatever it was about. Perhaps he was simply making overtures.’

‘Yeah.’ I was still frowning. ‘Even so, it smells. And putting together a case – a hypothetical one, anyway – wouldn’t be too difficult.’

‘Namely?’

I laid down my spoon. ‘OK. Say for some reason Fundanius was responsible for knifing the guy. There’s no mileage in rousing Mamilia’s suspicions, is there? Quite the opposite. Oh, sure, at present he’s not exactly persona grata in the Correllius household, but with the boss dead the family business is bound to be drifting a bit. Say that “making overtures” was exactly his intention, that he was angling for some sort of merger, or at least a spheres-of-activity deal. Oh, not right away, that’d be asking too much. But softening things up might be another matter. Like I said, we don’t know the exact circumstances – or not as yet, anyway – but something along those lines might well give him a viable motive.’

‘Of course,’ Perilla moved the chickpeas on her plate around with her spoon, ‘there is another possibility. Extension, rather. Not that I’m advocating it, mind, but it’s worth considering.’

‘Yeah? And what’s that?’

‘That your Fundanius and Mamilia were in it together from the start.’

I’d picked up my spoon again and had a piece of Meton’s chicken stew halfway to my mouth. I laid it down.

‘What?’

‘It’s as good a theory as any, dear. You’ve already suggested that Mamilia might be involved sexually with Doccius. Why not with Fundanius instead? In fact, he’s a lot more probable. At least he’s from the same social level.’

‘Lady, you weren’t there! When the guy came in you could’ve cut the atmosphere with a knife!’

‘But of course you could. I’m sure the last thing she would have expected or wanted was for her lover and partner-in-crime to drop by when a stranger whose declared intention was to investigate her husband’s death was present. All that would be needed is that she would have the nous and acting ability to carry the thing off. Or do you think she’d be incapable of that?’

Shit; it made sense. All kinds of sense. And it would explain a lot of the oddness: the fact that Fundanius, persona non grata or not, had been able just to walk in past the door-slaves, the fact that Mamilia was obviously completely un-cut-up about her husband’s death, and not least the fact that, to put it mildly, she wasn’t too keen on the circumstances being dug into. And if I’d ever met a lady who had the coolness and sheer brass neck to become mistress of the situation at the drop of a hat, then Mamilia was the one.

‘It’s possible,’ I said carefully: if I’ve learned anything these twenty-odd years it’s not to let Perilla see she’s slipped one past me.

‘I mean, how did Fundanius strike you in himself? The sort of man someone like Mamilia would go for, all being equal?’

‘He was OK, yeah.’ Better than OK, particularly when you compared him with the dead husband: near the lady’s age, good-looking, fit as a flea, and with an urbane polish about him that matched hers. Successful, too; that, I was sure, would weigh with a hard-nosed woman like Mamilia.

‘There you are, then. And the sexual element isn’t particularly necessary. You say that, as a businessman or whatever you like to call it, Correllius wasn’t held in very high regard? By his chief assistant Doccius, at least?’

‘Yeah, well, that was the impression I got. But then it may’ve been wrong.’

‘Assume that it wasn’t, which is a fair assumption under the circumstances: in his delicate physical condition Correllius couldn’t have been totally on top of things. If Mamilia was ambitious in her own right – and from your description of her I’d say that was extremely likely – then she may well have decided to cut her losses and make a more profitable alliance.’

I thought of Doccius’s changed manner when he was talking to the lady. Yeah, that would fit, too. Despite Mamilia’s claim to me that she’d no connection with the business side of her husband’s affairs I’d lay a pretty hefty bet she was involved up to her carefully plucked eyebrows. And not as a silent partner, either. I suspected that, however things had started out, latterly there’d been only one real boss of Correllius’s outfit, and that boss hadn’t been Correllius. Or even, given his behaviour vis-a-vis Mamilia, Doccius.

The theory was beginning to make sense in spades. Certainly, I’d be looking into Publius Fundanius before we were much older.

‘Well?’ Perilla finally spooned up some of the chickpeas she’d been shoving around on her plate. ‘What do you think? Viable or not?’

‘Sure it’s viable,’ I said. ‘Whether it’s right is another matter. Mind you, for it to work it’d need Doccius to be in on things off his own bat.’

‘How so?’

‘Because Correllius might be slipping his cogs where the business was concerned, but I’ll bet you anything you like his deputy was well up to speed. Mamilia might be the brains of the outfit, but she’s still a woman.’

‘Marcus, that is pure sexism!’

I grinned. ‘Agreed. But like it or not, whatever dealings the company was involved in – legit or crooked, it doesn’t matter – business is a man’s world. She’d need someone to front for her at the top level with clients and customers, and Doccius’d be too much in place already to bypass. Too smart and full of himself to con, too. Besides, it would’ve made things much easier where the Pullius angle was concerned.’

‘You think that there was an actual Pullius, then?’ Perilla took a sip of her fruit juice. ‘I mean, that he existed as an individual in his own right?’

I shrugged. ‘Not necessarily under that name. But sure, he must have done for the thing to work, because we need an actual perp who also had to be a stranger to Correllius, a complete outsider. And whatever they claim to the contrary I’d bet a flask of Caecuban against a used corn plaster that both Doccius and Mamilia know perfectly well who he was. If your conspiracy theory’s right then my guess would be that the three of them – counting Fundanius – invented the sham business meeting to get Correllius over to Rome where their specially hired hitman Pullius could safely stick his knife in. In the event, of course, that wasn’t necessary, but they weren’t to know that at the time. And it would certainly explain the cover-up now.’

‘You don’t think Doccius would have any issues with working for Fundanius? After all, he’d been the number one rival for years. There must’ve been at least a bit of bad blood, or at least distrust.’

I shook my head. ‘Uh-uh. I didn’t see much of the guy, sure, but I’d put him down as a professional to his finger-ends. Not a leader himself, but the sort who has to know that his boss is a professional too. Whatever Correllius had been in the past, he’d lost it, and he’d lost Doccius’s respect. Mamilia, on the other hand – well, Doccius clearly has a lot of respect for Mamilia, which is significant in itself. And if she decided to join forces with someone like Publius Fundanius, then I can’t see him kicking up too much of a fuss.’

‘Hmm.’ Perilla helped herself to more of the chicken; she has a good appetite, the lady, bigger than mine, and no doubt the drive from Rome and the change of air would’ve helped. ‘So. What about this wineshop business?

I pushed my own plate away. ‘Right. That was interesting enough, but whether or not it’s relevant, and if so how it fits in, I haven’t the faintest idea. The owner – Vinnia – had a five-star grudge against Correllius, that was for sure, but just having a grudge against someone isn’t enough when you’re planning a murder. Besides, he died in Rome, not Ostia, and to most Ostians at her level and of her profession the big city’s a million miles away. How would she set things up?’

‘Marcus, you don’t know for a fact that she had no connections with Rome. Ostia is only fourteen miles away, it’s a small town, and by no means everyone who was born here stays here. She may have relatives there and gone through regularly.’

‘Uh-uh. No relatives. The lady’s from Gaul originally, and Rubrius told me categorically that she’d no family in Italy at all. In any case, the theory’s too complicated. Why the hell should she make things difficult for herself when the guy only lives round the corner? Plus the fact she’s a woman, and our perp was definitely male.’

‘You know the answer to your first objection yourself, dear,’ Perilla said. ‘Security. Correllius was a powerful man in Ostia, with a large organization. Creating an opportunity to murder him here would have been difficult, to say the least; Rome would be much easier. As for your second point, yes, I agree that she can’t have stabbed the man herself, but there’s no reason why she couldn’t have had someone else do the job for her, is there?’

‘Such as who?’

‘I don’t know. How could I? Your butcher friend, perhaps. You said he was quite smitten with her.’

I laughed. ‘Rubrius? You’re joking!’

She ducked her head and smiled. ‘Actually, Marcus, yes, I am. He wouldn’t fit the maid’s description, for one thing, or I’m assuming he wouldn’t. But the principle holds good: she could have had a male accomplice.’

‘Yeah, well, whoever he was he’d have to be willing to risk putting his head into the strangler’s noose for her. Finding someone like that wouldn’t’ve come easy.’ I took a swallow of wine. ‘No, like I say it’s far too complicated. Leave it out. We’ve better fish to fry than Vinnia.’

‘Mm.’ She set the spoon down on her empty plate. ‘The way her husband died is a bit of a coincidence, though, isn’t it? I mean, as the result of an accident at the docks, assuming she’s right and that it was no accident at all. If the business with the falling amphoras in Gaius Tullius’s case wasn’t an accident either but his killer’s first attempt at murder, then-’

‘Too many ifs, Perilla.’ I refilled my cup. ‘Oh, I’ll grant you the coincidence, although on the surface both accidents could well have been just that. Ostia docks are no kids’ sandpit. There’s a lot going on there, a lot of heavy stuff being shifted around on a daily basis, and with the best will in the world accidents – even fatal ones – are bound to happen now and again. We can’t factor either of those into a proper theory until I’ve had a chance to talk to our cack-handed crane operator Siddius and Vinnia’s dead husband’s pal Cispius. If he’s still around, that is.’

‘Do you know where he lives?’ Perilla had finished off the chicken and chickpeas.

‘Uh-uh. Or not exactly. According to Rubrius he had a daughter whose husband has a fuller’s shop near Guildsmen’s Square. I might as well hunt her down tomorrow, for what it’s worth. I’ll pay a call on Fundanius, too. According to Rubrius, he’s practically a neighbour of ours, so I can use that as an excuse.’ I looked round; Bathyllus was hovering. ‘Yeah, little guy, we’re just about done. You can clear away. What’s for dessert?’

‘The chef has made a dried-fruit compote, sir.’ Bathyllus snapped his fingers for the skivvies with the trays. ‘He apologizes and promises that normal service will be resumed tomorrow when he can investigate the local fruit market.’

‘Compote’s great,’ I said. ‘And just top up the wine flask while you’re at it, OK?’

I stretched out on the couch. Eating al fresco had been a good idea: it’d settled in for a very pleasant evening. A bit on the cool side with the breeze from the sea, but from our raised terrace we had a fantastic view of the coast and the sunset; taken altogether, Ostia – or this stretch of coastline, rather – was not too bad. Not too bad at all. Certainly I couldn’t complain that this time round the case hadn’t had its incidental perks.

I glanced over at Perilla. The lady was watching me and smiling.

‘It is nice here, isn’t it, Marcus?’ she said quietly.

‘Yeah, it’s OK,’ I said. Perilla, it was clear, was really enjoying the break. Maybe we should hock some of the family silver and invest in a small out-of-town place of our own, and the advantage of Ostia over most of the places we’d been outside of Rome was that it didn’t offer much in the way of sightseeing. A definite plus, in my book: me, I’d go for the quiet life any time.

The case could wait for tomorrow. I took another swallow of wine, settled back, and closed my eyes.