In at the Death

3

Trust me: there’re more pleasant situations to be in than attached to a hundred-and-twenty pound Gallic boarhound by three feet of rope and with your major-domo poised to open the door. Especially if the brute knows that in about ten seconds flat it’s just you, her and the wide-open spaces and is really, really looking forward to it.

‘You, uh, absolutely sure about this, Perilla?’ I said.

‘Of course.’ She gave me another dazzling smile. ‘You will take care of her, won’t you? She’s very delicate, and… Down, Placida! Your Uncle Bathyllus doesn’t want his head licked!’

Never a truer word was spoken. From the look on his face where the little guy’s what-I-want-for-the-Winter-Festival list was concerned having his head licked by a Gallic boarhound wouldn’t make even the top five hundred.

The ‘uncle’ didn’t go down a bomb, either.

‘Okay, Bathyllus.’ I gave the rope another turn round my wrist. ‘Fun’s over. Stop messing about.’

Bathyllus glared at me and opened the door.

I’d forgotten about the steps.

‘Oh shiiiit!’

‘Marcus, don’t pull on her lead like that! You’ll strangle her!’

If only. If only. I tried digging my heels in, but you can’t do that on marble, especially if it’s been polished by Bathyllus. I hoped the slavering brute had licked his follicles off. We hit the last step at a run and kept going.

‘Heel, Placida! Heel!’

‘Ow-oo-oo-oo!’

Oh, bugger! Not a good start, and the fact that the brute evidently didn’t understand Latin didn’t help either. Luckily the house next door had a pillared porch at street level. I stretched out an arm and had it nearly wrenched from its socket. We didn’t stop exactly, but at least it slowed us down enough for me to get a bit of purchase on the cobbles underfoot and do some hauling of my own. Jupiter! This was worse than driving a four-horse chariot in the Games. At least chariot drivers got fitted with a crash-helmet.

Time to exercise a little authority. I braced myself, pulled back on the rope as hard as I could, wound in another foot or so and gave what was left a firm jerk. ‘Okay, sunshine, that’s enough!’ I said. ‘Walk. Walk!’

Evidently the concept didn’t exist in dog-speak, or maybe the word meant something else in Gallic because she bunched her shoulders and heaved. We compromised on a sprint. Shit; if she kept this up I’d be knackered before we were half way to the Palatine. Plus being able to tie my sandal straps without bending down.

Even so, we were doing pretty well until the cat.

‘Ow-ooo! Owwowow-ooo!’

‘For fuck’s sake!’

One piece of advice. If you’re walking a Gallic boarhound never, ever wrap the lead round your wrist. When we hit the woman pastry-seller on the corner I was practically flying. And you ain’t never heard language like a pastry-seller’s who’s just been torpedoed by a hundred and twenty pounds of rampant, howling boarhound plus a hundred and eighty of screaming purple-striper.

‘Uh…I’m sorry, lady,’ I said when we’d picked ourselves up and I could get a word in edgeways. ‘Learner dog-walker.’

‘XXXX your “sorry”! Look at my XXXX pastries! All over the XXXX street! Why the XXXX don’t you XXXX look where you’re XXXX going?’

Or words to that effect.

Jupiter! ‘Ah…right. Right,’ I said. ‘Fair point, sister.’ I reached for my purse and took out a gold piece. ‘Maybe this’ll help.’

She snatched it from my hand, pocketed it, then turned to Placida who was doing her best to gulp down the spoiled stock. Her expression went gooey.

‘Ahh! XXXX me!’ she said. ‘Isn’t it a XXXX diddums, though! Boy or girl?’

‘She’s a bitch.’

The woman glared at me. ‘Oh, you shouldn’t call her that, sir, it’s not nice. What’s her name?’

‘Uh…Placida.’

‘Is that right, now? Well, you’ve got to laugh.’ She made cooing noises. ‘There’s a lovely girl! Come and let me see you, then!’ Placida finished off the last pastry and ambled over, grinning. ‘My XXXX brother had one of them things. Rest his soul. Lucky, her name was.’

‘Ah…yeah. Yeah.’ Gods! I tugged on the rope. ‘Well, it’s been nice chatting to you, sister. Sorry about the accident.’

‘I remember once she had three of my XXXX chickens in as many XXXX days. And next door’s XXXX goat, bless her.’

I gave the rope a second tug, but Placida had found another pastry and it was like trying to shift the Capitol.

‘Lovely nature she had, though, and so good with children. My youngest used to swing on her XXXX ears and she never batted a XXXX eyelid.’

‘Really? That’s — ’ I glanced down again. What the brute was eating wasn’t a pastry after all; in fact it looked more like…

Like…

Oh, gods!

Shlapshlapshlap

The pastry-seller gave the bent head a final affectionate pat. ‘Funny they’re such XXXX devils for horsedung, isn’t it? Lucky was just the same.’

I made Octavian Porch in good time and — if you didn’t count the upset litter and the irate senator with the interesting crotch — relatively unscathed.

Like Natalis had said, Rupilia’s house was one of the older properties you get in and around the centre, dating back long before Augustus and Agrippa’s public buildings jag and looking as out of place among the surrounding marble as a Samian pot in a Corinthian dinner service: a front door that looked like it hadn’t been changed since Cato was in rompers, with a greengrocer’s on one side, a cobbler’s on the other and a big walled garden attached. There were cypress branches fixed to the pediment and the doorposts, but at least the funeral itself would be over now so I wouldn’t be intruding too obviously. I wasn’t looking forward to the interview, mind: two days after a death isn’t the time for a stranger to come calling, and like Perilla keeps telling me tact’s not my strongest suit. However, under the circumstances I didn’t have much option.

I moored Placida to one of the doorposts, knocked and waited. Finally, the door-slave opened up: a middle-aged guy in a mourning-tunic with his forelock shaved to the scalp. He looked down at Placida, his eyes widened and he stepped back.

‘It’s okay, pal,’ I said quickly. ‘No hassle, she’s friendly. And if she starts howling just throw her a goat.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Stiff as hell; but there again I didn’t blame him. Opening the door and finding something like Placida sitting grinning at you and breathing horse dung doesn’t exactly merit spreading out the welcome mat. ‘How can I help you?’

‘I was wondering if I could possibly have a word with the mistress.’

‘She’s in mourning for her son, sir,’ he said. ‘I don’t think — ’

‘Yeah. Yeah, I know. Look, I’m sorry, friend, but Minicius Natalis up at the Greens’ stables sent me round. The name’s Corvinus, Valerius Corvinus. If the lady can see me just for a few minutes I’d appreciate it.’

At least the mention of Natalis seemed to register, and it evidently made a difference. The guy stopped frowning and opened the door completely. ‘Would you care to come inside, sir? I’ll tell the mistress you’re here.’ He padded off.

‘Stay,’ I said to Placida. Yeah, well, it was worth a try. On the other hand, you never knew your luck. While I was talking to Rupilia the brute might decide to slip her collar and leg it for the Alps.

The lobby was plain, but it had a good floor mosaic in the old style and a mural that looked like it’d been freshened up recently. I wondered if the place had been in the Papinius family before the divorce, or whether Rupilia had bought it after the split. In any case, it was typical of a lot of top-five-hundred property: no modern flash, old stuff that’d been pricey when it was first bought and was kept up on an income that may’ve been pretty hefty a hundred years back but hadn’t changed much since. Natalis had said that Rupilia was reasonably well-off, and that was fair enough; but my guess was that she couldn’t afford to splash it around.

The slave came back. ‘The mistress will see you, sir. This way, please.’

The atrium matched the lobby: good quality furnishings and fittings, well cared for, but not much that looked like it belonged in the last twenty-odd years. The lady herself was sitting in a chair by the central pool. If Natalis was smitten it didn’t surprise me: she must’ve been a real looker in her time, and she wasn’t bad now, even with the mourning-mantle and the puffy eyes; I’d reckon late thirties, very early forties, which given her son’s age and the fact that her ex had just had his consulship was about right. And mourning or not, she’d evidently made sure her hair was carefully braided and her make-up well-applied.

‘Callon says you’ve come from Titus Natalis,’ she said. ‘It’ll be about Sextus, no doubt.’

Tact, Corvinus. I didn’t answer, just nodded.

She looked down at her hands, bunched in the lap of her mantle — she was holding something that I couldn’t see — then back up at me. ‘Oh, it’s all right.’ She smiled slightly. ‘I was expecting you. Titus said at the funeral that he wanted you to…look into the circumstances of my son’s death. We discussed the matter, of course, and I finally gave my permission. I don’t say that I was totally in favour of the idea, still less that I find the prospect pleasant, but he’s absolutely right. Nothing can bring Sextus back, but it would help if I could just understand why he — ’ She stopped, and her hands clenched on whatever was between them: not a handkerchief, something small and hard. ‘Yes. Well, then.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Now, no doubt you have questions. Please pull up a chair and I’ll do my best to answer them.’

I looked around. There was a chair by the wall under a mural of some battle or other; whoever had owned the house before, the Papinii or another family, seemed to have gone in for battles, judging by the rest of the artwork. I lifted it over — it was a real antique, with ivory inlay — set it down and sat.

‘I’ve only one that really matters,’ I said gently. ‘Do you have any idea — any idea — why your son should want to kill himself?’

She shook her head. ‘No. No, I don’t, none at all.’ Her eyes went back to whatever her fingers were clutching. ‘Don’t misunderstand me, Valerius Corvinus, I’m not pretending everything in Sextus’s life was sweetness and light. It wasn’t, by any means. We had our disagreements.’ She cleared her throat. ‘Quite acrimonious ones, especially over money. He was always complaining that I kept him short, that his friends’ allowances were much more generous than his was. But he understood that I was doing my best for him and he had all I could afford. Sextus was a good boy at heart. Good and sensible. Spoilt, yes, I admit it — I’ve no illusions on that score, and the fault is mine — but when all was said and done he accepted things as they were.’

Yeah. Sensible was right; certainly as sensible as you’re likely to get at that age. Most nineteen-year-old kids don’t think much past their street-cred, and for youngsters like Papinius good street-cred doesn’t come cheap.

‘Tell me about his friends,’ I said.

‘He didn’t have all that many. Oh, he was very outgoing, he did the things a young man of his station usually does — parties, drinking and so on — but luckily he never got in with any of the really fast sets. Or at least if he did I don’t know about it.’ She looked down at her hands again. ‘In fact I must admit that I don’t know much at all about Sextus’s private life. Or at least only what he chose to tell me, which wasn’t a great deal.’

Yeah, well, par for the course again; show me the parent who ever does. Me, I hadn’t told my own parents half of it. ‘Could you give me any names?’

‘Oh, yes. One, certainly. His best friend was a boy — a young man, rather — called Marcus Atratinus. Marcus Sempronius Atratinus. His father and my ex-husband were close colleagues from the first, and our two families have been on dinner-party terms for years. He and Sextus were the same age. They worked together on the Aventine fire damage commission.’

‘You know where I’d find him?’

‘At the commission itself, of course; it’s attached to the aediles’office. Or if you prefer, at his parents’ house on the Quirinal.’

‘Your son was a junior investigating officer, right?’

‘Yes. He was responsible — with others, naturally — for collecting and validating claims made by property owners who’d suffered losses in the fire.’

‘Had he been there long?’

‘Since the commission was set up three months ago.’

‘How did he get the job, just as a matter of interest? He applied directly?’

For the first time, Rupilia hesitated. Then she said: ‘No, actually, he didn’t. My ex-husband put his name forward to the senatorial committee responsible for staffing.’

Right. That, of course, was how things usually worked: one of a father’s chief responsibilities is to see his son’s political career duly launched, and as an ex-consul Papinius Allenius would have serious clout. Still, given what Natalis had said about the family relationships, or lack of them, it was odd. ‘Ah…I’m sorry, Rupilia, but Natalis told me your husband and Sextus were estranged.’

‘Yes. They were. Titus — that’s my ex-husband — and I have been divorced since…well, for a very long time. We’ve hardly seen each other in years, not even to talk to. But Titus was never one to shirk his duties. He suggested it himself, and both Sextus and I were very grateful.’

‘Your son enjoyed the job?’

She smiled. ‘Very much so. He was good at it, too, as far as I know, although again you’d have to ask Marcus Atratinus or Sextus’s immediate superior. Once again, I can’t provide you with much information. Sextus wasn’t very communicative on that subject either.’

‘His superior being who?’

‘One of the aediles. A man called Laelius Balbus.’

Uh-huh. So at least I’d got a pair of names to follow up: his best friend Atratinus and his boss. They’d do for starters. ‘One last thing, Rupilia, and then I’ll go. Titus Natalis said he had the impression your son had been…he used the word preoccupied over the last month. Did you notice anything yourself?’

Again, she took a long time answering. Then she said slowly: ‘He was quieter than usual, certainly. But as I told you we didn’t talk much; he didn’t volunteer information and I’d learned from past experience that any prying on my part was counter-productive. So your answer is yes, although I can’t help you with reasons.’

Well, that was about as far as I could manage at present. I got up. ‘Thanks for your help, lady. I won’t take up any more of your time, and believe me — however this turns out — I’m very sorry.’

‘Yes.’ Her eyes went down to whatever was in her lap. This time her fingers unclenched, and I could see what it was: one of these small ivory portrait-miniatures. She saw me looking and passed it over. ‘That’s Sextus there. I had it done for his eighteenth birthday.’

It was good work, obviously taken from life rather than idealised the way these things sometimes are: portrait artists know the importance of flattery, the same as everyone else. Red hair, like his mother’s, a nice face, slightly heavy in the jowls; he must’ve got that from his father, because Rupilia’s face narrowed to a sharp chin. And he was smiling, quite content with life.

‘He was a lovely boy,’ Rupilia said. ‘Even now, I can’t believe he’s dead, and especially that he chose to kill himself. If you can tell me why, Valerius Corvinus, I’ll be eternally grateful.’

‘Yeah. Right.’ I handed the miniature back and stood up. ‘I can’t promise anything, but I’ll do my best.’

Placida was still moored to the doorpost; disappointing, sure, but at least the surrounding countryside seemed intact, apart from a chewed cypress branch, and I actually got a few wags of the tail. Maybe I should push my luck a bit further: there was still a fair chunk of the afternoon in hand, plenty of time to go over to Market Square and see if I could catch young Papinius’s best pal Atratinus, talk to his aedile boss if he was available. That, though, I reckoned, would do me for the day. I wasn’t feeling too cheerful. Murder’s bad enough, but suicide is a real downer, especially where a kid’s involved.

On the way Placida discovered a very dead rat in the gutter and rolled on it. Ah, the joys.