Food for the Fishes

13

‘Fadia. Her name was Fadia.’ Ligurius was eyeing me speculatively from the other side of the office counter. He put the set of bills he’d been working on to one side. ‘She’s been dead almost thirty years. Why would you be interested in her?’

I shrugged. ‘I’m interested in everything at the moment. Anything and everything that comes up.’

‘Things aren’t going too well?’

There it was again. I’d had it with Nerva, then Chlorus, now I was getting it from Ligurius: the too-casual question that hinted at more than just curiosity. I gave him the same answer I’d given the other two. ‘I’m plugging along. We’ll get there in the end.’

He grunted and flicked one of the abacus beads back to its starting point on the wire. ‘Fair enough. What do you want to know?’

‘She was an invalid, wasn’t she?’

‘An invalid?’ He looked at me sharply. ‘Who told you that?’ Then, when I didn’t respond: ‘Not that it matters, they’re all as bad as one another. My bet would be Chlorus. He’s always been the mealy-mouthed one of the family.’ He waited. I waited longer. ‘Well, Corvinus, “invalid” would be one description. Fadia was odd when Murena married her. Nothing extreme, just what you’d put down to fancies and obsessions; wouldn’t wear anything blue, wouldn’t step on the cracks between paving stones. Over time it got worse. Latterly she wasn’t exactly insane but she wasn’t all that far from it. She hadn’t been out of the house for years, never left alone for a minute. She even had a slave watching her at night while she slept in case she did something silly.’

‘What sort of silly?’

‘Any sort. Burned the house down. Or tried to harm herself. That was always a possibility.’

This was an angle I hadn’t thought of. ‘You mean she was suicidal?’

‘There were a couple of incidents. Like I say, it was possible.’

‘You think she did kill herself in the end?’

That got me a long, considering stare. Finally, he looked away: ‘No. No, her death was an accident, as far as I know. As far as anyone knows for certain.’ He paused, and I had the distinct feeling that he was going to say something more. If so, he changed his mind and turned back to me. ‘All the same, it was an accident waiting to happen, and maybe it was for the best. A release for everyone concerned, including her. You heard about the sleepwalking?’

‘Yeah. She fell downstairs, didn’t she?’

‘That’s right. Fell and broke her neck on the way down. She was dead before she reached the bottom.’

This was the tricky bit. ‘Uh…there seems to be a question over whether her husband was involved. As more than a witness, I mean.’

He glanced at me sharply, then looked away again. ‘So I’ve heard,’ he said.

‘You have any opinions on that score?’

‘No. I wasn’t there, and me, I can’t see that it matters now. Like I say, the death was a release for everyone concerned, including the woman herself. And whatever the truth it was a long time ago. Water under the bridge.’

Yeah, well, maybe. But I couldn’t leave it at that, no way. Evidently to get a reaction I had to spell this one out. ‘Penelope claims that her father was responsible. She believes she saw him push her. Or that’s what I was told.’

His eyes came back to me. ‘By Chlorus again?’ He turned away as if he was going to spit, but didn’t. ‘Chlorus is a shit-stirrer, Corvinus, and always has been. And he’s never liked his sister. Never liked anyone, much.’

‘You mean he’s lying?’

‘No. At least, not about the believing part. Chlorus doesn’t lie if telling the truth — or as much of it as will suit, anyway — will do his business for him. What actually happened that night’s another matter, and like I say I’m not qualified to give an opinion.’

‘What happened to the slave? The one who was supposed to be on watch?’

‘Murena had her flogged to death.’ He must’ve noticed my expression because his lips twisted. ‘Oh, yes. He ordered it there and then. He was within his rights, of course — technically, at any rate — and he was quite justified over the blame aspect, because if the woman had been doing her job properly the accident would never have happened.’

‘Even so, that’s what it was. An accident.’

He flicked another bead on the abacus back and forward before he answered. ‘You didn’t know the man, Corvinus,’ he said neutrally. ‘That wouldn’t matter to him; accident or deliberate, it’d come to the same thing. He could be cruel when he liked, very cruel. If you were wise you didn’t cross Licinius Murena, or if you did you learned to regret it.’

‘That’s a trait he passed on, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘I was told Chlorus had had one of his slaves beaten to death for breaking a wine-dipper.’

Ligurius nodded. ‘That’s so. It happened a year or so back, caused quite a stink locally; killing a slave for next to nothing might be acceptable behaviour in some quarters, but not around here. It’ll have been Brother Nerva told you this time, no doubt?’ I didn’t answer, but he grunted and half-smiled. ‘Right. Oh, they love putting their knives into each other, these two. They’re both bastards, and the old man was worse than either.’

Yeah, I’d go along with that. As far as Nerva and Chlorus were concerned, anyway, and I’d take his word for it on Murena.

‘So just out of interest why do you still work for them if you dislike them so much?’ I said. ‘You’re no slave, not even a freedman, you can do what you like and go where you like. Why not just up sticks and leave?’

Another long, slow look. ‘Because I enjoy my job and I’m good at it,’ he said. ‘Because, bastard or not, the old man knew that and he left me to it. Because my father managed the farm and his father before him. And because I’m not particularly ambitious.’

‘You’ll stay on? Even now Murena’s dead and you’ll be working for the sons?’

‘Why shouldn’t I? I despised him as much as I despise them, more so, but that didn’t affect things any. Why should it now? And they’ve got more sense than to make any changes where they don’t need to.’

Fair enough. It was just a question, anyway. Which reminded me: ‘Ah…one more thing. While we’re talking about Chlorus, and while I remember. The night of the murder he said he was round at your house. That right?’

Ligurius’s mouth twisted, and he nodded again. ‘Discussing a slow-paying customer. A retailer in Pompeii we’ve had trouble with before. Yes, that’s right enough, Corvinus. He came round just after the lamps were lit.’

Not so much as a pause for thought, and if he didn’t like the guy — which he clearly didn’t — he’d have no reason to fib. Shit. ‘Was that usual? I mean, he could’ve seen you during the day anytime.’

‘No, he couldn’t. Not as easily, anyway. He isn’t out here very often, or even up at the villa, and we both live in the same part of town, the other side, near the Neapolis Gate. I’m not married, I don’t socialise, and so he’s not putting me out much. Not that that aspect of things would worry Chlorus. Yes, it’s usual.’

Bugger. It was still possible, sure, but if Chlorus had been discussing business with Ligurius the other side of town at sunset the chances of him having rushed off, covered the distance to the farm and murdered his father in the time available were up in the flying pigs bracket. It let Ligurius out, too. Ah, well. ‘To get back to Fadia — ’ I began.

One of the farm slaves came up behind me. ‘Sorry to disturb you, boss,’ he said to Ligurius.

‘Yes, Nestor, what is it?’

They were speaking Greek, which didn’t surprise me much: there’s a strong Greek influence in Campania, of course, and most native Campanians — whether they’re echt-Greeks themselves or not, which the slave evidently was — are bilingual. Take a walk down any town street on market day and at times you can almost make yourself believe you’re east of the Adriatic.

‘The tunny in Tank Five,’ the guy said. ‘I pulled a couple of them out to see how they were doing and they’re crawling with oistroi. You want to come and look?’

My guts had gone cold. Ligurius didn’t seem to notice anything. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Give me five minutes.’ He turned back to me and shifted into Latin. ‘I’m sorry, Corvinus. You were saying?’

‘Uh…oistroi,’ I said. ‘That’s Greek for “gadflies”, right?’

Ligurius smiled. ‘Right. But in fish terms an oistros is also the name for a sort of parasite. You get them sometimes, on tunny especially. Nasty, persistent little buggers, worse than leeches in a way and more difficult to get rid of once they’ve got a hold. I’ll have to see to it.’ The smile died. ‘What’s wrong? You feeling all right?’

Holy Jupiter Best and Greatest! ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just…ah…I thought the word just meant gadfly, that’s all.’

I must’ve looked as stupid as I felt, because Ligurius was looking at me peculiarly.

‘Of course it does,’ he said. ‘Nothing wrong with your Greek. But there’s no reason why you should know the other meaning. Even a born Greek wouldn’t, necessarily, unless he was in the fish trade himself. Now if you’ve finished with me for the present and you don’t mind I’ll just go and check up on those tunny. We’ve quite a few orders pending, and the customers won’t be too happy if we send them sick fish.’

‘Uh…right. Right.’

My brain felt numb. So an oistrus was a kind of parasite, was it?

Shit.

I left Ligurius de-fleaing his tunny, or whatever the hell you did to the brutes under these circumstances, and headed along the beach for home. Or rather, in the first instance, in the direction of Zethus’s wineshop. I hadn’t been there for three days, not since the day after the murder when Alcis and his pals had bagged Trebbio, and I reckoned I owed myself a celebratory cup of wine.

I’d still to work out the details, but it was pretty certain that Murena’s partner Tattius was a wrong-’un; more, it was obvious what the guy’s game had been. You don’t nickname anyone ‘Parasite’ without a reason, and I’d bet my boots to a mouldy olive that Murena had done it deliberately. Whether Tattius himself appreciated the full implication, though, was a moot point. Sure, on first assumptions he ought to do, but that wasn’t necessarily the case: Ligurius had said that unless you were up on fish-trade terminology you’d probably never have heard of that particular meaning, and by his own admission Tattius knew next to nothing about the business. My bet — and I’d’ve risked a pretty hefty one — was that it was Murena’s private joke. Certainly calling his partner Oistrus to his face for over twenty years and knowing that the guy didn’t understand the insult fitted with what I knew of the old bastard’s character. And his nasty sense of humour.

Ligurius must’ve known, though; and that was interesting, because Ligurius, in addition to having been Murena’s — and Tattius’s — manager from the outset, was a smart, smart cookie. Yet he hadn’t batted an eyelid. Curious; but then Murena’s farm manager was rather a strange guy. I’d risk another bet that there was more going on inside his head than I knew about. He hadn’t liked his boss, either, that was clear enough. But then I’d’ve been surprised if he had, because on present showing that would’ve put him in a minority of one.

So; what had we got here? The ‘parasite’ side of things explained a lot. It explained the unequal partnership, the fact that it had happened in the first place and how it could carry on despite the fact that Murena was pulling far more than his weight. And it explained, I supposed, the fact that Tattius was married to Murena’s daughter.

What it didn’t explain was why.

Oh, sure, the implication would’ve been obvious to a congenital idiot: Tattius had — and had had for years — some sort of a hold over Murena and he was bleeding him for it like an oistros bleeds a tunny: worse than leeches and more difficult to get rid of, once they’ve got a hold, Ligurius had said. So what we had was good, honest, old-fashioned blackmail. But what could the hold have been?

Something to do with the death of Murena’s first wife.

It had to be that, sure it did, unless the old bugger had other skeletons in the closet that I didn’t know about. Which was possible, of course, but Fadia’s death was a natural front runner. So. What if Penelope was right? What if Murena had pushed the woman downstairs, Tattius knew he had and — which was crucial — could prove it, even after all these years?

I stopped. Shit: Penelope. If I was right then Penelope knew she was part of the price. And, being married to Tattius, where would that leave her?

Hating her father’s guts even harder, and a prime suspect for killing him, that’s where…

Only, if Penelope was so convinced that her father had killed her mother, why hadn’t she said so, publicly, at the time, as presumably she hadn’t? Or had she? And why, knowing as she must’ve done, that she was part of the payoff, did she agree to the marriage?

My head was spinning. We were getting into deep water here. Oh, yeah, I was on to something, I knew that in my bones, but there were far more questions than there were answers. Like what did all this have to do with Murena’s murder? Granted, Penelope was shaping up nicely as a suspect, but I couldn’t see a middle-aged matron tiptoeing down to the fish farm and pushing her father into the eel tank. Although, on second thoughts, why not? She’d hated him bad enough, that was clear, and if I was right she’d had good reason, better than most. But why now? Why not any other time this twenty-odd years, when she was younger, slimmer and fitter?

Then again, if Tattius was the killer then where was his motive? Blackmailers don’t murder their victims: it happens the other way about. If the worm suddenly turns then things may be different, sure, but Murena was no worm and if he’d paid up happily for — again — twenty-odd years then why should he suddenly balk now?

None the less, whoever had done the pushing Murena had ended up in the tank, and five got you ten the reason had something to do with his dead wife. If not directly, then indirectly. It all made sense somewhere along the line, yeah, no argument; the biggest question of the lot was where?

I got to Zethus’s with my tongue hanging out. There was a fair scattering of punters round the bar but luckily no Alcis; luckily, because after a hard day’s sleuthing I don’t think I could’ve taken that acid-mouthed bugger. I went straight for the counter like a duck to water. Which, subsequently, was to prove a mistake.

‘Afternoon, Corvinus.’ Zethus detached himself from a conversation with two of the locals. ‘Haven’t seen you in here for a while. How’s it going?’

‘Okay.’ I pulled out one of the bar stools and sat on it. ‘Make it a half jug of the usual, pal.’

He filled the jug and poured the first cup. It went down without touching the sides and I gave myself a refill.

‘How’s the big murder investigation? I hear you’ve been busy.’

‘So-so.’ He probably knew more about it than I did — wineshop owners usually do — but the other barflies had their ears at full stretch and after my last little run-in with Zethus’s clientele I wasn’t going to satisfy anyone’s curiosity.

Zethus turned to put the wine jar into its rack. ‘Trebbio’s getting on okay, incidentally,’ he said as it thudded home into its cradle. ‘I sent him a couple of jugfuls and a few odds and ends from the kitchen.’

‘That was good of you.’ It was, and I felt vaguely guilty: they’d be holding Trebbio, of course, until the praetor’s rep arrived, and although he’d be fed it wouldn’t be much. Not that the old soak would be too worried about food, I’d guess, but the wine would’ve been more than welcome. Zethus was a nice guy. ‘Uh…you’re a local, pal. Or the next thing to it. Just out of interest and while I’m here, you happen to know of a man by the name of Philippus? Licinius Philippus?’

Pause; long pause. Finally, Zethus turned round. ‘I’ve heard of him,’ he said, his voice carefully neutral.

‘He’s Licinius Murena’s freedman.’

‘I know who he is.’ His face was expressionless, and he was looking at something over my right shoulder. ‘Turned out nice again. We may get a bit of thunder later, though.’

‘Only I was wondering.’ I took another swallow of wine. ‘How did he get to be a freedman? Someone must know.’ I glanced sideways at the other punters at the bar. ‘Any ideas, anyone?’

No answer, and the punters had suddenly decided that staring at the wall in front of them was the in thing this season. Odd.

Zethus hadn’t moved. He was still looking over my shoulder. ‘Listen, Corvinus,’ he said quietly, ‘maybe you should just drink your wine and — ’

He never finished. Somewhere among the tables behind me a chair shifted and a voice said: ‘Maybe you should just let the man dig a fucking hole for himself and climb down into it, Zethus. If he wants to that bad.’

I turned, slowly.

Oh, shit. Oh, thank you, gods.

Yeah, well; even heavies have to have some quality time. It was just my bad luck that one of the ones I’d last seen trailing their knuckles behind me along the corridor of Philippus’s gambling hall happened to have decided to spend it here.

‘Ah…afternoon, pal,’ I said. Bugger, he was big: half my size again and straining the seams of his extra-large tunic. He didn’t look like he was much of a one for the social niceties, either.

The barflies on both sides of me edged away like I’d suddenly contracted a bad case of plague.

‘I don’t want no trouble,’ Zethus said. With my back to the bar I couldn’t see him, but I heard the scrape of the weighted Punter Pacifier he kept under the counter. A brave man, Zethus.

‘Pity. Shut up.’ Happy Horace’s eyes were fixed on mine. His right hand moved towards his belt-pouch. ‘Corvinus, isn’t it?’

‘Uh…yeah.’ Trying not to make it too obvious, I leaned back and put my elbows on the bar-top. If he rushed me — which was an odds-on bet — I could lever myself up and kick him in the balls. Not the most stylish or gentlemanly tactic, but I reckoned getting in first and hard was the only way I was going to come out the other side of this in reasonable shape. ‘Listen, I don’t think your boss would approve of this.’

He grinned. I’d thought Philippus’s teeth were bad, but this guy’s had them beaten six ways from nothing. I’d just bet he didn’t chew mint leaves, either. ‘Oh, he would. The boss don’t like people asking questions about him behind his back. He don’t like it at all. Sooner you understand that the better. And just in case you don’t — ’

I’d been expecting it, sure, but the rush still caught me off-guard. I only just had time to lift myself and drive my right foot at his groin when he was on me. Only I missed because he swerved at the last moment and punched me hard in the ribs.

It hurt far worse than any normal punch should’ve done, like being hit with a sledgehammer. I grunted with pain, doubled up round the punch and folded at the knees.

Then there was a dull thud. I didn’t know what the hell that was; I was too busy trying to get a grip on the bugger, pull him down to my level and stop him slugging me again. I’d just about managed it when I realised that he was a dead weight.

‘You all right, Corvinus?’ Zethus said. His voice sounded fuzzy, but that was just me.

I shoved my head out from under a sweaty armpit, tried to breathe and managed a chest expansion of about half an inch before the pain hit me and I decided any attempt at breathing with my back and ribs caught between the jaws of an invisible vice wasn’t a smart move. ‘Jupiter fucking god almighty!’ I whispered, then coughed and really wished I hadn’t.

Someone — one of the barflies — pulled the guy off me. He slumped to the floor and I noticed the set of iron knuckles clenched in his right fist. Yeah, that explained that one. Well, I was lucky: it could’ve been a knife.

‘I’ll take that as a no, then,’ Zethus said.

I felt myself beginning to laugh — reaction, sure, it wasn’t all that funny — and doubled up again clutching my side. ‘Bastard’s broken one of my ribs,’ I mumbled.

‘That so, now?’ Zethus was putting the weighted stick back behind the counter like attacks on his customers by rampant gorillas were an everyday occurrence. Maybe they were. ‘It’s your own fault. I tried to warn you. Lucius here’s got his cart outside, he’ll get you away before your friend wakes up. You know any doctors?’

Did I know any doctors? Bugger. Still, it might be a good idea at that. He might be on the suspect list, but that didn’t affect his medical qualifications any, and I hurt.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘One, as it happens.’ Through sheer effort of will I got a hand round my winecup — luckily it was still pretty full, because in my present state I couldn’t’ve hefted the jug — and swigged the lot. Not that it did much good, mind. ‘Guy called Diodotus. Mean anything?’

‘Fancy,’ Lucius murmured, standing up and emptying his own winecup. ‘Yeah, Corvinus, I know where Diodotus lives. Come on, you brainless bastard, if you’re really hurt I’ll drive you over there. Not that you’re going to enjoy the ride.’

‘Wait a minute.’ Zethus came out from behind the counter and tied a bar towel tight round my chest. ‘Not perfect, but it’s better than nothing.’

‘Yeah,’ I said; the pain was still there, sure, but better than nothing was a fair assessment. Now it was only agonising. ‘Thanks, Zethus. And for belting Horace here. I owe you one.’

‘Don’t mention it. He was warned. No one messes with my customers, even if they are idiots.’

Fair point. I grinned, and winced as whoever was operating the vice gave the screw another turn. ‘Uh-huh. Well, thanks anyway. Okay, Lucius, pal. Any time you’re ready.’

Clutching my chest and gritting my teeth, I staggered to the door.

Lucius was right. I didn’t enjoy the cart ride into town at all. Still, even the state I was in, being jolted for a couple of miles on the front seat of a cart was better than facing Perilla. I’d have to, of course, eventually, but that was one encounter I wasn’t looking forward to: Perilla gets really intense about me arriving home beaten up.