Finished Business

ELEVEN

In the event, I shouldn’t’ve been so smug: finding chummie wasn’t easy after all. Which, I suppose, was fair enough, given that — barring at its ends, where the starting gates and triumphal parade entrance are — the Circus has more access points for the punters along its almost-mile circumference than you can shake a stick at. Naturally, this being a non-race day, most of the souvenir booths and shops that serviced them were closed, but even so by the time I’d worked my way along the Palatine side and back round to the southern edge, I’d asked at a good couple of dozen places with no result. The weather didn’t help, either: I’d barely come down off the Caelian before it had started to drizzle, and ten or fifteen minutes later it’d been throwing it down. Not pleasant; not pleasant at all.

When I did finally strike lucky it was in a cookshop where I’d stopped off for a dry-out and a restorative late-morning plate of beans and bread.

‘Hellenus?’ The guy ladling the beans said when I asked him. ‘Young guy, well-spoken. Not a freedman; free-born, yes?’

‘That’d be him,’ I said. ‘Artist, right?’

‘Sure.’ The cookshop owner nodded in the direction of one of the side walls. ‘That’s one of his over there.’

I turned and looked. Not a mural as such, just a small painting that was part of a more simply decorated wall: a still life with a loaf of bread, various dried pulses, and a few assorted vege-tables. The subject was suitable for a cookshop, sure, but even so a piece of decoration like that was a lot more upmarket than you’d expect in a place like this. It was well done, too; not one of your cack-handed amateur’s daubs.

‘It’s good,’ I said.

‘Isn’t it?’ The guy beamed and passed me my bowl and hunk of bread. ‘He did it cheap, too. That’s his thing, painting, he doesn’t touch this souvenir tat. Me and the wife, we was thinking of having him do a portrait of us. He does a lovely portrait, Hellenus. Tasteful, you know? Maybe for the wedding anniversary, something to hand on to the kids. Twenty-five years, that’ll be, come January.’

‘Congratulations.’ I picked up the spoon. ‘So where would I find him?’

‘Practically next door. Three or four doors down. He rents part of the old Luccius place.’

‘You know him well?’

‘He comes in now and again for a takeaway, like most of the locals. But no, except to exchange a few words with, even when he was doing the picture. Not that he’s standoffish; he’s friendly enough but he keeps to himself, does Hellenus. Ask me, he’s a nob that’s down on his luck. Or maybe he’s had a spat with his father and got himself thrown out.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Yeah, that’s likely enough.’ I spooned up the beans. They were not at all bad; not the usual anonymous mush but carefully cooked with oil and sage. ‘So you wouldn’t know anything about his friends? People he sees a lot?’

‘Nah. Like I say, he keeps himself to himself. There’s no one regular.’

‘Girlfriend? Singular or plural?’

‘I’ve seen a girl around the place from time to time, yeah. Nice looker. Whether she’s his actual girlfriend or not, though, I can’t say. She’s not a live-in, at any rate, and she’s not from around here.’

I’d’ve asked if he could give me a name, but I was getting suspicious looks already. Besides, I’d found the man himself. I ate my beans in silence, paid and left.

The Luccius place turned out to be one of these old revamped properties where most of the internal wall between the street-side shops and what was once completely separate domestic ground-floor living space has been taken away, leaving what is in effect living quarters with a commercial outlet in open plan. Me, I’d’ve felt that having your living room open out on to a public street was a pretty uncomfortable arrangement, but the two sections were divided off by a curtain that was currently drawn for privacy, so I supposed it worked well enough.

There was no one immediately in evidence, but judging from the artwork hanging up on the available wall space and propped against the counter itself, I’d come to the right place. I was idly looking it over — it was a mixture of still lifes, topography, mythological subjects and portraits, all painted on board, obviously displayed to give potential customers thinking of commissioning a work an idea of what was on offer — when the curtain was pulled back and a youngish guy in his mid to late twenties came out.

‘Morning, sir,’ he said. ‘Can I help you?’

Well-spoken, like the cookshop owner had said, and a very good looker. A bit under medium height, but well-built and even-featured, with tightly curling black hair. He radiated confidence, too; I was reminded of Tarquitia. Right; his mother had said he was personable. In looks and manner, he definitely had the edge over his elder brother, that was for sure.

‘If you’re Marcus Naevius Surdinus, yeah,’ I said.

He blinked. ‘That’s my name, yes, but I don’t use it. Call me Hellenus. Everyone does.’

‘Fine by me. I’m Marcus Corvinus.’

‘Was it about a commission?’

‘No. I’ve come about your father. You know he’s dead?’

‘Yes. I had a message from his lawyer to that effect two or three days ago.’ Interesting: there’d been the hint of a hesitation before the words ‘his lawyer’; no more than a smidgeon, but I wasn’t mistaken. ‘An accident on his estate, I understand. So?’

‘It wasn’t an accident. He was murdered.’

‘What?’

‘Your cousin Postuma asked me to look into it.’

That got me an incredulous stare, followed by a laugh.

‘Then you can forget it, Corvinus,’ he said. ‘The lady’s barking mad. She tell you where the idea came to her from? I’ll bet you a gold piece to a dud sesterce it was the spirits. Am I right?’

‘Someone climbed the tower where your father was found and pushed down the stone that killed him.’

‘You’re kidding.’ The laughter had gone from his voice.

‘Uh-uh. I checked it out for myself.’

‘Shit.’ He frowned. ‘You’d better come in, off the street.’

He led the way through the curtain. Sure enough, behind it was what had been part of the original house, not the atrium itself but one of the larger side rooms. Now it’d been fitted out as a live-in studio, dominated by a big table covered with pots of paint and brushes, the paraphernalia for grinding pigments and the like, and the remains of a meal. There was an easel with another still life on it — this one of a couple of dead partridges, plus fruit of various types — and a stack of unused canvas boards beside it. The walls were painted, but the work looked like it’d been part of the room’s original decoration; certainly it was nothing special, just a colour wash above false-wooden panels. Which made sense, of course: the guy was a jobbing artist, and he wouldn’t get paid for decorating his own living room. There was a bed and a clothes-chest in one corner — so presumably he only had this one room — but not much else. It looked more as if Surdinus’s younger son was camping out temporarily, rather than actually living there full time.

‘I’m sorry about the mess.’ Hellenus cleared a couple of stools. ‘I wasn’t expecting visitors. Sit down, please. You want a cup of wine? There’ll be some somewhere.’

‘No, that’s OK.’ I sat. ‘So your father’s lawyer has been in touch?’

‘Venullius?’ I filed the name away for future reference. ‘Yes. Four days ago. Two days after my father died.’

‘He knew where to find you?’

‘Certainly. I’ve never been lost.’ A half-smile. ‘Not in those terms, anyway. He came himself, as a matter of fact. Since he knew I wouldn’t go to him, or have anything else directly to do with the family or its adjuncts.’

‘But you’re, ah, still your father’s son, as it were?’

‘Meaning he hasn’t disinherited me?’ Hellenus shrugged. ‘No, seemingly not. That was the reason for Venullius coming at all. To say that I was still included in the will.’ He gave me a direct look. ‘That’s your reason for asking, is it? Considering it transpires that my father was murdered.’

I could be straight, too. ‘More or less,’ I said.

He grunted. ‘Well, then, you’d probably like to know that I come in for a third share of the estate. That’s about three million, by Venullius’s estimate. Not a bad return for killing the old bastard.’

‘Did you? Kill him?’

Again, the long stare. Then he looked away. ‘I could’ve done,’ he said finally. ‘I felt like it often enough, before I left. But no, I didn’t.’

‘Even so, you’ll take the money?’ I kept my voice neutral.

He turned back. ‘Even so, I will. Oh, yes, you can bet your sweet life I will, particularly if it means Lucius doesn’t get his well-manicured hands on it. You’ve met my brother, Lucius?’

‘Yeah. Yeah, I’ve met him.’

‘There you are, then. I’d take it even if it meant dropping the whole load of it in specie into the Tiber. As it is’ — he smiled — ‘things are a bit hand-to-mouth, even if I am living like this out of choice. I could use a bit of cash. To travel. The Greek cities, Athens, Pergamum, Alexandria, where all the good artwork is. At least, what there is of it that we Romans haven’t looted.’

‘You’ve never been there before?’ In wealthy families — particularly when they’re political ones — the sons finish their education by being packed off east for a year or so, usually to Athens, to study the art of public speaking and, incidentally, to soak up a bit of badly needed culture before they take up their tribuneship in one of the legions and get their foot on the first rung of the political and social ladder. Me, I’d spent my gap year boozing, gambling and chasing the local talent, which explains a lot, really.

‘No. My father — and my mother — thought I’d absorbed too many Greek ideas already for my own good. They wanted to send me to a teacher of rhetoric in Surrentum. Surrentum, for Hermes’ sake! They said Campania was quite Greek enough to be going on with.’ He chuckled. ‘So I told them where to stick it and left. I haven’t been back since.’

‘You’ve no contact with the family? None at all?’ I knew this already, from the other side, but it was just as well to get confirmation.

‘No. None. So I’m afraid I can’t help you in any way.’

I shrugged and got up. ‘That’s that, then. I’ll be going.’

‘Fine. I’ll see you out.’ He followed me back through the curtain. I stopped at the counter outside, where the sample artwork was displayed, and took a proper look.

‘This is pretty good,’ I said. ‘Especially the portraits. You self-taught?’

‘There was an old man in my father’s household. One of the slaves. He taught me the basics, and I took it from there. Now, Corvinus, I’m afraid I’ll have to rush you off. I’ve got work to do.’

‘On a commission?’

‘On a commission. Which, as you know, is my bread and butter.’

‘Not for much longer, though, pal.’ I gave him my best smile. ‘After your father’s will goes through probate, you’ll be pretty well-off, right?’

‘Yes, I suppose I will. Nonetheless, it’s a commitment, and I promised the customer it’d be finished by the end of the month.’

‘Fair enough.’ I turned, then turned back again. ‘Oh, one more thing. An address for the lawyer, can you let me have that? Venullius, wasn’t it?’

‘Titus Venullius. That’s right.’ He frowned. ‘He has an office next to the Aemilian Hall.’

Just beyond Market Square itself. Yeah, well, checking with him would be easy-peasy, although I didn’t expect any surprises from that angle. ‘That’s great,’ I said. ‘I’ll see you around.’

I left, but with my brain buzzing. There’d been a reason for that sudden rush, and for Hellenus’s obvious nervousness, sure there had: the guy had wanted me gone, and quickly. Gone, specifically, from the neighbourhood of the artwork that was on display. Which wasn’t surprising, really, because when you looked at it closely, it was clear one of the portraits was of Tarquitia.

Interesting.