Illegally Dead (22 page)

28

The girl who opened the door of the flat was thin as a whip, pinch-featured and, I’d guess, under her tunic, well-muscled. Yeah, he’d said she was a dancer.

‘Stratyllis?’ I said.

‘Yes.’ Suspicious as hell, and the hand on the door moved it forward an inch. ‘What do you want?’

A stage name, obviously: you could’ve cut the Bovillan accent with a knife. ‘My name’s Valerius Corvinus. I’ve come to see –’

If I hadn’t been quick and got my boot against it the door would’ve been slammed in my face. As it was, it bounced back hard against the wall and I shoved past the girl and in.

There was only the one room. Castor was sitting on the bed, a plate in his hand with some cheese, sliced sausage, bread and olives on it; the other, beside him, had mostly salad. Me, I’d’ve thought it was a bit early for lunch but maybe she had a gig that evening, and dancers don’t eat before they work.

He set the plate aside and stood up slowly. I thought he was going to go for me because his fists bunched, but then he relaxed, shrugged and turned away. The girl sat down on a stool against the wall - apart from a clothes chest it was the only other piece of furniture - and folded her arms tightly like she was hugging something.

‘So you found me,’ Castor said.

‘It wasn’t difficult, pal,’ I said quietly. I reached back and closed the door. ‘Oh, and by the way, those two heavies you sent after me? Red-head and his mate? We had a run-in earlier, and they tried to knife me. The second guy got away, but Red wasn’t so lucky. He’s with Agilleius Mundus now, charged with attempted murder and spilling his guts out on the rack.’

It was a shot in the dark, but I’d given it to him like it was hard, uncontrovertible fact, and it went home. Castor looked, suddenly, sick.

‘Corvinus, I swear!’ he whispered. ‘I only told them to frighten you, get you off my back! Not –!’

‘Like hell you did.’

‘It had nothing to do with Lucius’s death! I’m no killer! Believe me!’

‘No, you aren’t,’ I said. ‘Or at least not yet, anyway.’

He hadn’t expected that, and I’d kept my tone mild. He blinked and sat down again.

‘Well?’ he said. He was getting some of his bounce back fast, and there was an edge of truculence in his voice. I noticed he hadn’t picked me up on the qualification, if he’d spotted it, but we’d let that pass for the present.

‘You want to tell me about it?’ I said. ‘Or shall I tell you?’

Another shrug. ‘Go ahead.’

‘Your sister overheard a conversation between her husband and Quintus Acceius, the day after the attack in the street. Normally, she wouldn’t’ve bothered to listen in, but your name was mentioned and so she did.’ He said nothing. ‘Hostilius was talking about the Julian law on adultery. Under its terms, if a husband is conscious that his wife is having an adulterous affair then he’s legally obliged to divorce her and bring a formal prosecution. If he doesn’t, or refuses to, then it’s the right of a third party who knows of the affair to bring the prosecution himself. In which case the husband becomes technically a pander in collusion with the wife who has profited and is profiting, financially or otherwise, from the woman’s immorality. Yes?’

He’d gone pale. ‘Yes.’

‘How did Hostilius know about your affair with Seia Lucinda?’

Silence. The girl - Stratyllis - raised her eyes and shot him a hard look, but she didn’t say anything. Her arms still hugged her chest tightly.

‘It...wasn’t an affair,’ Castor said finally. ‘Not a proper one. And it was none of my doing. She was bored, she was lonely, she and Acceius hadn’t slept together for years. I tried to avoid her as much as I could, but she’s still a beautiful woman, and it just happened. She rode over here once - once! - about a month ago. Hostilius was at home - I didn’t know that at the time - and he must’ve seen her coming in to my part of the house. He...sneaked in and caught us kissing. Kissing! No more! I swear to you!’

Yeah, right. Well, I reckoned I’d got the seriously-edited version there, but it didn’t matter, that side of things wasn’t important. And I’d believe that Seia Lucinda had made the running, certainly: Castor might have playboy looks and be a lady’s man through and through, but he wasn’t a fool. If he started an affair it would be for what he could get out of it in other ways, and Seia Lucinda was just too damn dangerous to play around with. ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘So Hostilius caught you. There weren’t any witnesses, mind, or were there?’ Castor shook his head. ‘So if you’d been careful otherwise - and I’d bet you were - there wasn’t any legal danger. We’ll come back to that.’

‘Corvinus, I swear -’

‘You want to take over?’ He shook his head again. ‘Fine. Hostilius tells Acceius that if he doesn’t divorce his wife and bring a prosecution against the pair of you then he’ll do it for him.’

‘But he’d’ve had no case! You said yourself if there were no witnesses - and there weren’t - it was only his word against mine and Lucinda’s. And the way my brother-in-law threw accusations around -’

‘I told you we’d come back to that.’ I leaned against the door. ‘He didn’t need a case, because he’d never have to bring one. Giving Quintus Acceius the chance to divorce his wife and prosecute her for adultery himself was the easy option, it was even generous, in its way. The alternative was for Hostilius to bring a charge against the two of them for murder, and that he could prove. Given time, which he wasn’t. Acceius made sure of that.’

Silence. Total silence. Then Castor said: ‘How did you know?’

‘Working it out wasn’t hard, once I knew about the second part of the Julian law. Oh, sure, having to divorce his wife would’ve hit Acceius badly, financially: if the charge had gone uncontested, which it’d have to have done under the terms of the bargain, he’d only be left with a sixth part of the original dowry, and the practice was built on Seia’s money. But he could’ve weathered that, and so might Seia, although she’d’ve been the harder hit. The problem was, Hostilius being Hostilius, they could never have trusted him to keep to the deal.’

Castor shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I meant the murder. How did you know that Acceius had killed his first wife?’

‘I didn’t. Oh, it was a possibility, sure, especially when I found out who the dead woman up at Caba was, but I didn’t know for absolute certain until Publius Novius told me about Acceius’s plans to bribe the jury in the Brabbius trial. That would’ve cost: it was an open-and-shut case, and he would’ve needed to buy at least half the jurors. The money had to come from somewhere, it sure as hell couldn’t’ve come from the Brabbii themselves, and Acceius didn’t have nearly that amount of gravy at the time even if he’d’ve wanted to spend it. It had to be Seia’s. Which meant that the two of them were in it together.’

‘Go on.’ Now he was off the hook - or that hook, anyway - Castor seemed genuinely interested. Well, the guy was a lawyer, after all, or at least a wannabe lawyer. I shouldn’t’ve been all that surprised. And he wouldn’t’ve known all the whys and wherefores. I hadn’t known them myself until that morning.

‘One stupid mistake,’ I said. ‘Me, I think that’s the phrase that sums everything up. My bet is that Seia Lucinda made the running, like she did with you, and Quintus Acceius made the one stupid mistake of his life by being tempted and giving in. On Seia’s prompting he made a bargain with Brabbia Habra. She’d provide him with the poison that’d kill his wife in childbirth, leaving him free to marry Seia, and in return he’d bribe the jury and see that her brothers were acquitted. Only it went wrong: one of the jurors blabbed to Novius, Novius stopped the bribery and the two Brabbii went down after all. Acceius had welched on the deal, and Habra - and her brother Senecio - never forgot it. So when Senecio had done his stint in the galleys and came back –’

‘Hold on, Corvinus.’ Castor was frowning. ‘You’re going to say that this Senecio wanted revenge for his brother’s death, right?’

‘Yeah. Yeah, of course.’

‘But why attack Hostilius? And what about Habra? She knew where Acceius lived, she’d known for twenty years. She’d’ve wanted revenge herself, surely?’

I shrugged. ‘Habra I don’t know about. Not yet. But Senecio thought that both the partners were in on the deal. He wanted both of them dead. If he went for Hostilius first, that was just chance.’

‘You mean Hostilius didn’t know at the time of the trial? About the bribery, at least?’

‘Uh-uh. Not a thing. That’s the whole point. If he had, he’d’ve blown the whistle himself. My guess is that Senecio said something, the day of the attack, just before he put the knife in, that gave the whole game away. Hostilius didn’t say anything at the time - he was a lawyer, after all, he’d watch his mouth until he’d thought it through, especially round other people - but it would’ve registered. And he was an honest man, at root. When Acceius came round the next day he’d’ve worked out how he was going to handle things. Hence the ultimatum. It was beautiful: if Acceius stuck it out, then he’d track down Habra, subpoena Novius, and put together a case that his partner and his wife would find it difficult to answer even after all this time. Even if Acceius did manage to get off somehow a lot of the dirt would’ve stuck, because it was true, and he’d be ruined professionally and socially. On the other hand, if the guy agreed to the divorce and prosecution angle both he and his wife would get the punishment they deserved anyway. Hostilius had them both ways.’

‘So he had to die.’

‘Right.’

He was quiet for a long time. Then he said: ‘What happens now?’

‘With you? Or with Acceius?’

He tried a smile that didn’t work. ‘With me, for a start.’

‘That’s up to Libanius. You’re an accessory after the fact. You and your sister.’

He glanced up sharply. ‘Veturina knew nothing about -!’

‘Sure she did, pal. She had to. Almost from the start.’

‘She thought I was responsible! She still does, even although I swore to her that I wasn’t. She was shielding me, not Acceius.’

‘Yeah. Yeah, I know.’ I sighed; this bit was going to be difficult. The guy had a rotten streak a yard wide, sure, but he wasn’t rotten in that way. ‘Your sister...loves you. And I don’t mean as a brother.’ He looked away. ‘There’s nothing she can do about it, if she’s admitted it to herself then she probably despises herself for it, and I’m not saying that you or she have taken things any further because I’m sure you haven’t and wouldn’t, ever. Still, it’s a fact. I’m right, yes?’

He nodded, then said quietly: ‘Yes. On her side, yes. She always has loved me.’

‘She must’ve suspected that her husband’s death wasn’t natural even when it happened. It was too convenient, and she’s a clever woman. She might even have thought of tasting the contents of the medicine bottle before Hyperion got to it.’ He said nothing. ‘Certainly she’s lied and covered up the truth as far as she could all the way. That business with the two Julian laws. She’s no lawyer, she couldn’t’ve invented the confusion with the one on inheritance tax, and she knew damn well which one her husband was talking about. That had to come from you. And she knew all about Cosmus and how he fitted into your dealings with Novius. She thought - she still thinks - that you used him to poison her husband, to save yourself from disgrace and exile. Yes?’

He nodded again. His head was still turned away. ‘I couldn’t convince her that I hadn’t done it,’ he said. ‘She said it didn’t matter, she didn’t mind, her husband was better off dead for his own sake anyway. What she couldn’t’ve stood was to lose us both.’

‘And maybe she had another reason for not believing you,’ I said quietly. ‘Because she knew just how much you were capable of, if it’d get you something you really wanted.’ His head came round, and over by the wall Stratyllis, who had been sitting unmoving through all this, looked up startled. ‘Fimus’s wife Faenia. You’re having an affair with her, aren’t you? A genuine affair.’

‘Why the hell should I –?’

‘Come on, pal! It’s not because of her looks, that’s for sure. Three million, isn’t the estate worth, potentially, if it’s kept whole and entire? As it would be if that missing will didn’t turn up. Oh, sure, Fimus’d never sell, but that’d be all to the good, wouldn’t it, because his widow might. If her new husband advised it. Of course, there is the kid, young Aulus, but if you left a decent interval after the accident to Fimus a couple more natural deaths wouldn’t –’

He was on his feet and going for my throat, but I was ready for that. Castor may’ve been big, but he was no fighter, especially a dirty one. I kneed him in the balls and he collapsed gasping.

Yeah, well, I’d finished anyway. I turned to the wide-eyed Stratyllis.

‘See that he gets that will to Quintus Libanius in Castrimoenium first thing in the morning, sister,’ I said. ‘No hassle, I promise you: I’ll square things before then. And keep him out of trouble in future. Better still, ditch the bastard and find another boyfriend.’

I left. Well, it was nice to prevent a murder or three for a change rather than pick up the pieces afterwards. And you never knew: the shock might’ve done him some good.

Back to Castrimoenium myself, and a last talk with Quintus Acceius.

29

I went straight over there when I arrived. The slave who opened the door - Carillus, it was, I remembered - looked frightened as hell.

‘Your master in?’ I said.

‘Yes, sir. In the study.’ He swallowed. ‘You’re to go straight through.’

Acceius, when I got there, was sitting on the chair beside the desk dressed in his formal mantle. His face was like a death mask, and on the desk beside him was a basin and a knife.

‘Hallo, Corvinus,’ he said. ‘You got my message at last, then?’

‘No.’ I closed the door behind me. ‘What message?’

He shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter, you’re here now in any case. But I’ve been expecting you since early this morning.’

‘I was in Bovillae.’ I sat down on the couch uninvited. There was something wrong here, very wrong, and the hairs were rising on the back of my neck. ‘You wanted to see me?’

‘Yes. Lucinda’s dead. Upstairs. I smothered her with a pillow last night.’ His voice was perfectly calm. I stared at him. ‘She didn’t suffer: she was drunk, as usual, and I’d crushed three of the sleeping pills Hyperion sent me into her wine. The slaves know, of course, but I told them not to report it until I’m dead myself’ - a twist of the lips - ‘which I will be shortly, now that you’ve arrived. I was only waiting to talk to you, to apologise, possibly to answer any questions you might have, before I slit my wrists and finish things.’

Gods! ‘You, uh, know that I know you killed Hostilius, then,’ I said cautiously.

‘And the others, yes. Or rather no, I didn’t know, not for certain. But you were getting very close, and my sympathies are with you rather than with me.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Corvinus, I’m not a natural killer, and yet I’ve killed four people. Five, counting Tascia.’ He glanced at the marble bust. ‘Do you realise how...sick that makes me of myself?’ I said nothing. ‘So I’ll be very, very glad, when your visit is over, to make what little reparation I can. If you’re good enough to grant me that licence.’

This was turning out all wrong. ‘You admit that you and Seia Lucinda poisoned your first wife, then?’ I said. ‘Using a poison you got from Brabbia Habra?’

‘Yes. It was the biggest, most stupid, most evil mistake of my life. Can I tell you about it now? Please?’

‘Yeah,’ I said quietly. ‘Yeah, if you like. Go ahead, pal. Take your time.’

He looked at the bust again, but this time his eyes didn’t shift. ‘I never loved her,’ he said. ‘Not as much as she loved me, certainly. I don’t think, at that stage, I was capable of genuinely loving anyone; certainly not Lucinda, that was a combination of lust, ambition and greed. Smugness, too, if that’s not too small a vice to put beside the others. Fifteen year old girl or not, she made it perfectly clear almost from the first that she wanted me, even knowing that I was married already, and that she’d do anything to have me. Her father was no hindrance, she could wind him round her finger, she was beautiful and she was rich. And I...well, I had ambitions. Serious ambitions. I knew that with her as a wife I could get out of Bovillae, set up a practice in Rome, and...oh, but you know yourself. The only obstacle was Tascia.’ He turned back. His cheeks were wet. ‘A complete and utter fool, you see. So when Lucinda suggested at the time of the Brabbius trial that the obstacle might be removed I gave in without a struggle.’

‘She knew about Habra, then?’

‘Oh, yes. She’d used her before. A...young male cousin, she told me it was, but I suspect the man might’ve been one of the family’s own slaves. Lucinda always was wild. She was certainly no virgin when we married, and she wouldn’t’ve had any compunctions in that direction. It wasn’t poison as such, just something to give Tascia when the time came that would...keep her bleeding, whatever the midwife did. Until she had no blood left. Then she died.’

I waited for a while, then I said: ‘She started blackmailing you? Habra? After you married Lucinda?’

He shook his head slowly. ‘No. Or not as such. Oh, she asked me for money, yes, but I gave it to her willingly, more than she asked, and I kept giving it. Call it a conscience payment, if you like. Lucinda never knew, I was careful of that, or that she’d settled in Castrimoenium, because it was part of my punishment of myself, nothing to do with her.’

‘And another part was that you gave up the idea of moving to Rome.’

‘Yes. Not immediately. It was no sudden conversion, don’t think that. I told you, Corvinus, at the time I was not a very nice person. Even less nice’ - another half-smile - ‘than I am today. I was ambitious, I’d got - or thought I’d got - all I wanted. Only gradually it became not so important any more. I felt I had to pay. Do you understand that?’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Yeah, I understand.’

‘So I stayed in Bovillae. And I...stopped sleeping with Lucinda. Then we moved to Castrimoenium and’ - he shrugged - ‘here we are. Still.’

Jupiter! Well, I had to admit the guy had paid, all right. Seia Lucinda, too. Twenty years! Gods! ‘Then Senecio came back,’ I said.

‘I thought he was dead. As he should’ve been, because who survives twenty years in the galleys? He must’ve found Habra first, there would’ve been people in Bovillae who knew where she’d gone. Then he found us. Lucius and me. He thought we were equally responsible and, unlike his sister, he wanted us dead.’

‘He said something, didn’t he, when he attacked you?’

‘Yes.’ Acceius closed his eyes briefly. ‘I can’t remember exactly, but it was suitably explicit and damning: something about us having gone back on the deal with Habra over getting rid of Tascia. Lucius guessed at once who he was and what he meant, of course - however ill he was in other ways, he never lost his lawyer’s sharpness - and that was that. I panicked. I...wrested the knife from Senecio and stabbed him. It was quite deliberate, and I’m sorry about that now. It would’ve been far better if I’d allowed him to stab me and finish things before they started.’

‘Then, the next day, you went to confront Hostilius, and he gave you his ultimatum.’

‘He was generous; very generous.’ Acceius took a deep breath. ‘But then Lucius always was, all the years I knew him. He offered me a simple choice. I would divorce Lucinda for adultery with Castor, which she would admit to, and prosecute her under the terms of the Julian law; you know, of course, that they’d been meeting secretly for the past seven or eight months in an empty house she owned in Bovillae?’ - I said nothing - ‘or he’d formally accuse the two of us of murder and start putting the case together. He gave me six days to decide.’

‘How did you work things out with Cosmus?’

Another shrug. ‘Oh, that was easy. A little judicious blackmail on my own account, plus the promise of a large sum in cash and help to disappear. I’d known for some time that he was acting with Castor in collusion with Publius Novius but...well, for various reasons I was reluctant to tell Lucius because - and I don’t expect you to understand this, Corvinus, but it’s the truth - I felt sorry for Castor himself, and it would’ve destroyed him, too.’

‘You felt sorry for Castor,’ I said neutrally. ‘Even though you knew he was having an affair with your wife.’

He smiled. ‘I said you wouldn’t understand. Yes. Yes, I did. The affair was nothing. Lucinda wasn’t a happy woman, no more than - for the past twenty years - I’ve been a happy man, and as I say we hadn’t been properly husband and wife since Bovillae. Think of it, if you will, as another part of my punishment, and of hers. Besides, destroying Castor would’ve hurt Veturina very badly indeed. I didn’t want that; I’ve never wanted that. Veturina has been hurt enough.’ He paused. ‘Arranging things wasn’t difficult. Cosmus spent a lot of his time in the stables, so we were hardly strangers: I saw him practically every time I visited the house. I knew about Lucius’s morning routine, of course, and about the medicine. I threatened Cosmus with exposure to Lucius - he would’ve sold him like a shot, and into a life that would’ve been far less pleasant than the one he had - and, as I say, added certain promises. Fortunately Cosmus wasn’t the most intelligent of slaves, nor the most moral: he agreed almost at once. As to the actual killing...well, I won’t defend that, I can’t, but at least I tried to make it as merciful as I could.’

‘Did Lucinda know?’

‘Not immediately. But yes, I told her, shortly afterwards.’ He frowned. ‘She...again I don’t expect you to believe this but I meant to play fair by Cosmus, originally. Lucinda persuaded me that perhaps it...was not a good idea.’

‘So you killed him.’

‘Yes. I went to the Bavius farm where we’d arranged he should hide with that intention in mind, and hit him with an iron bar while his back was turned.’ He looked at me bleakly. ‘It was a proper murder, for which I have no defence. There were no extenuating circumstances for Cosmus’s death, none at all. I can’t pretty it up by ascribing it to panic, like Senecio’s, nor can I claim that the death in itself was a mercy from which other people benefited, as Lucius’s was. I killed Cosmus out of purely selfish motives, and it was done intentionally, for Lucinda’s sake and my own. I told you, Corvinus, we’re not nice people. We’re both better off dead.’

‘What about Habra?’

‘That happened exactly as I said it did. At least, I don’t think I deliberately intended to kill her, although she certainly wanted to kill me. Understandably so. I’m sorry about Habra.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry about it all.’

‘Yeah. Right.’ I stood up. I felt sick, and empty.

‘That’s all?’ He was watching me. ‘You’ve no more questions?’ Again, that half smile.

‘No. I’ve no more questions.’

‘Good. Then I won’t keep you any longer.’ He hesitated. Then he said, formally: ‘Thank you for coming, Valerius Corvinus. Thank you for everything.’

I left him sitting. The marble bust’s eyes were on me all the way to the door. I still felt them on my back as I closed it behind me.