Going Back, page 22
part #20 of Marcus Corvinus Series
Gods, I was losing the plot here, and no mistake. I glanced at Perilla for elucidation.
‘For goodness’ sake, Marcus!’ she said. ‘Homer! Either the “Iliad” or the “Odyssey”, he’s in both. Take your pick.’ She turned to Cornelia. ‘Go ahead, dear. Explain.’
‘He’s an old man who lives on his own in a shack near the beach. In the cove we told you about, the one where we were. Like I said, I’ve been going there for years, and he’s always around. He beach-combs.’ She looked at Perilla. ‘Is that the word? Phrase, rather.’
‘It’ll do.’ Perilla was smiling.
‘You’re sure?’ I said. ‘That this guy definitely saw you?
‘Yes. We talked to him. And he would remember Quintus, I’m certain, because that was the first time he and I had gone there together.’
‘Fair enough.’ It was something I could check up on, at least. ‘So where is this cove?’
‘About a mile south of town,’ Quintus said. ‘You can see it from the road. A couple of long sand-spits ending in rocks and enclosing a lagoon.’
‘Okay. I’ll take a trip out there tomorrow morning, talk to this Nestor guy myself.’
‘You want us to come with you?’
‘No, I’ll do that on my own, if you don’t mind.’
He shrugged; we were back, it seemed, to the throw-aways. ‘Suit yourself,’ he said.
‘Moving on. Cornelius Albus’s accident.’
‘That’s all it was, as far as I know. An accident.’
‘Maybe so, but it was pretty convenient as far as you were concerned, wasn’t it?’
‘Now you wait just one bloody minute!’ he snapped. Cornelia put a hand on his arm and he subsided. ‘All right. Sorry. Yes, I was there that morning, and up in Albus’s study what’s more. But I left a good hour before he died.’
‘What did you talk about?’
‘What do you think? I went to have it out with him about the filthy deal he’d made over the rape business, and tell him that whether he liked it or not Cornelia and I were engaged.’
‘And did he? Like it, I mean?’
His lips twisted. ‘Oh, he’d no objections. None at all. Apart from telling me straight that a marriage was completely impossible because my father would see us all in hell first and make damn sure we went there. He’d already called round – my father, I mean – to make that perfectly clear.’
‘You know how Albus had reacted to that?’
‘Naturally. He’d caved in straight off, like he always did.’ He paused, frowning. ‘Corvinus, don’t get me wrong here: I had infinite respect for Cornelius Albus as a scholar and a historian, I even loved the guy as a second father, right up to the time when I found out what he’d done to Cornelia, but he was a total coward with as much backbone as a slug.’ I glanced at Cornelia, but she sat impassive, her hand still resting on his arm. ‘I didn’t kill him, but by the gods in the course of that conversation I felt like doing it a dozen times over.’
‘So you left?’
‘I left. While I still had a hold of my temper.’
‘Did anyone see you?’
He shook his head. ‘Not that I know of. Chilo – that was the major-domo – wasn’t around when I came down, so I let myself out. And that was that.’
‘What did you do then?’
‘I honestly can’t remember. Not in any detail. Walked around for a while trying to calm down, ended up in some wineshop or other, don’t ask me which because I don’t know, and got totally plastered. Which is something, I should say, I don’t make a habit of.’ Probably true: he hadn’t touched his wine, although neither had I, come to that, and I couldn’t make that claim myself. ‘So no alibi there, and not a hope of finding one.’
I sat back. ‘Okay. Congratulations. Grilling over, for the moment at least.’
His relief was palpable, even through the hard shell look that was obviously his default image. ‘You believe me?’
‘Let’s say the jury’s out, at least where your father’s death is concerned. Until I’ve had a word with this Nestor character.’
‘And my father’s death?’ Cornelia said. ‘What about that?’
‘Yeah, well, that’s a bit more problematical.’ I was being tactful: it was, with bells on, because we had the modus operandi to consider, and that was a real bugger. Currently, in terms of that, as far as credible suspects went Quintus was the only game in town. ‘Unless it was pure accident after all.’
‘Of course it was!’ Quintus said. ‘Who’d want to kill Albus?’ He gave a mirthless half-smile. ‘Apart from me, that is.’
‘True,’ I said drily. ‘You see my point.’
‘Well, Marcus,’ Perilla sniffed. ‘If you’ve quite finished throwing accusations about for the present perhaps we can begin to enjoy our afternoon as planned. If, that is, Quintus and Cornelia still feel up to it.’
Quintus smiled properly this time. It made him look a lot younger.
‘No harm done,’ he said. ‘At least, not much. And whatever else it’s achieved the air’s a bit clearer.’
‘Fine by me too, lady.’ I reached for my wine cup and took a decent swallow. ‘Oh. You wanted to ask Quintus something as well. Wearing his historian’s hat, I mean.’
‘Ah, yes. The map. I left it on the atrium table. Wait a moment and I’ll go and get it.’
She disappeared through the portico.
‘What map’s this?’ Quintus said.
‘Just something Perilla came across in the study when she was cataloguing Cornelius Albus’s–’ I stopped. Bugger! She hadn’t told Cornelia what she was up to yet, had she? Or even asked her permission to look through the stuff in the first place.
‘Cataloguing my father’s what?’ Cornelia said.
‘Ah...’ Damn! Now I knew what it felt like to be on the other side of a grilling, and it wasn’t pleasant. ‘Just some historical notes she found lying around.’ In the closed drawer of his desk, true, but I wasn’t going to bring out that little nugget unprompted. ‘She was putting them in some sort of order. You’d have to ask her for the exact details.’
When in doubt, fudge like mad and squirm out from under. Having lived with the lady herself for twenty-odd years I was a card-carrying moral escapologist.
‘Oh, those,’ Cornelia said.
Perilla reappeared clutching the map. She was looking pink about the ears, and guilty as hell; obviously in the time taken to collect the thing the same thought had occurred to her as had to me.
‘I found it upstairs, Cornelia,’ she said. ‘Along with a whole host of other historical jottings. I think your father must have been planning to put together some sort of history of the city.’
‘Yes,’ Cornelia said. ‘He was.’
‘Anyway.’ Perilla cleared her throat. ‘I’m afraid I let my interest run away with me a little and took to sorting them out. I’m sorry; I should have asked your permission before. You don’t mind, do you?’
‘Not at all.’ Cornelia smiled. ‘Anyway, that’s Quintus’s province now. I wouldn’t touch any of my father’s personal stuff without gloves on.’
Spoken quite calmly, which made the words all the more chilling. I’d forgotten that there was an oddness to the girl where talking about her father was concerned, and even now that I knew the reason for it it lifted the hairs on the back of my neck.
Quintus put out his hand. ‘Can I see?’ he said.
‘Of course.’ Perilla sat down again and passed the map over. ‘I asked Sextus Gratius about it but he said you would know more than he did.’
‘Then I’m afraid he was wrong.’ Quintus was examining it. ‘At least, if he meant that I’d know why Albus made the sketch in the first place. I don’t. No idea whatsoever.’
‘I thought it might be part of a sort of general map he was building up of the old city.’
‘Maybe. But that would be a huge undertaking, even if it were possible, which I doubt, and if he had any such plan in mind he never mentioned it to me.’ He grinned. ‘Mind you, that’d be nothing new; he could be a secretive old devil when he liked. Which was most of the time. Did you find anything similar when you were rooting through his private papers?’
Perilla coloured, and I had to suppress a snigger. ‘No. Actually, I didn’t,’ she said. ‘I haven’t so far, anyway.’
‘There you are, then. It’s probably a one-off.’ He passed the sketch back. ‘What the purpose of it was, though, as I say, I haven’t a clue. He did get certain very odd bees in his bonnet from time to time, so it’s probably one of these.’
Perilla took the map and laid it on the table. ‘Gratius recognised the allusion to the spice market and the Shrine of the Two Brothers,’ she said, ‘but not this “House of Jirced”. Any ideas about that?’
‘No again. Jirced was a fairly common Carthaginian name, although not a popular one with the upper classes. So whoever he was I doubt that, if he does appear in any surviving text, it’s with any prominence.’ He shrugged. ‘Which, I admit, makes it even more strange that Albus should single him out.’
‘It’s a mystery, then.’
‘That it is. And, I’m afraid, liable to remain one.’ He picked up his wine cup and turned to me. ‘So, then. Cornelia tells me you’ve just got back from Utica. You have any other reason for going there, besides the sights?’
‘Uh-uh,’ I said blandly: the whereabouts of Marcus Virrius weren’t my secret to tell. Quirinius might have guessed, of course, and I was pretty much sure that he had, but that was another matter. The last thing Marcus Virrius would want when he was in town dickering for fodder would be to bump into the girl he was supposed to have raped and the brother of the guy who’d actually done it. ‘Perilla wanted to see the place while we were out here, and I thought I might just take a few days off to indulge her.’
‘Worth the trip?’
‘It had its points.’ I reached over for the wine flask and topped up my cup.
‘Oh, but, Marcus,’ Perilla said, ‘that’s quite unfair! It was fascinating!’
Bugger. We talked temples. Or rather, Perilla did, and at length. You do not want to know.
‘I think that went rather well in the end,’ Perilla said when they’d gone.
‘Yeah.’ I emptied the remaining wine in the flask into my cup. ‘Apart from your glowing and protracted encomium on the artistic and historical delights of downtown Utica, of course.’
‘But what did you expect, dear? I told you, Cornelia dropped by expressly for the purpose of hearing about them. And considering that despite having promised to keep off the subject you used the occasion virtually to accuse Quintus of murder the fact that things did go well eventually is nothing short of a miracle.’
‘Fair enough. So supposing when they do get hitched the happy couple decide to go there for the honeymoon, see the sights for themselves, meet a few of the locals, hmm?’
‘I don’t see why that should–’ She stopped. ‘Ah.’
‘Ah is right. Mind you, from the glazed look on their faces when they left I don’t think that’s very likely. Well done, lady. Good job jobbed.’
She ducked her head and came up smiling. ‘Marcus, you really are a complete toad. You know that, don’t you?’
‘Uh-huh.’ I took a swallow of the wine.
‘At least we know now that Quintus is innocent. I don’t mind admitting that that’s a huge relief.’
‘What gave you that idea?’
The smile disappeared. ‘Oh, Marcus!’
‘Never mind the “Oh, Marcus”. Even if this Nestor business does check out – and it probably will – that doesn’t let him off the hook. Far from it.’
‘Why ever not? As Cornelia said, he couldn’t possibly have killed his father. He was miles away at the time.’
‘True. But that doesn’t affect the other part of the theory, does it? That it was a murder by proxy, with him putting his pal Medar up to it in advance. And if he knew the business was in train then going off for the day with Cornelia in completely the other direction would be a very smart move insurance-wise.’
‘I thought you said he’d have to warn Medar that his father would be coming? Plus, if he did have a corroborated alibi pre-prepared then why didn’t he tell you about Nestor in the first place?’
I shook my head. ‘Warning Medar wouldn’t be necessary, not if they’d agreed he’d kill Cestius the first chance he got. All Quintus needed to know – which he would’ve done – is that his father would be riding out that way that morning, because if so he’d be sure to check up on Medar’s gang in any case. At which point he could go round to Cornelia’s, or use whatever stratagem they had for getting in touch, and arrange the trip out to her cove. And as far as not telling me about Nestor to begin with goes, it’d be a lot more convincing an alibi if he only happened to remember it after he was accused. After all, it was true, or probably will turn out to be, so he’d have no worries on that score.’
‘You make him sound very devious.’
‘Yeah, well, I think there’s at least a fair chance that he is. Like I say, I never did trust squeaky-clean, and underneath the love-struck innocent exterior that guy is razor-sharp and hard as nails. Besides, if we are thinking in terms of a linked double murder – Cestius’s and Albus’s – he’s got far and away the best motive around. In fact, he’s the only person who has a motive at all, apart from Cornelia, and the two of them are an item.’
‘If Albus’s death was murder. Don’t you think, dear, that you’re making a rather large assumption on that score?’
‘Uh-uh, no way; the two deaths so close together are too much of a coincidence to swallow. And coming when they did, just as the shit re the Quintus/Cornelia liaison was about to hit the fan, makes the chances that one of them was an accident even more unlikely. Which brings us to opportunity. Quintus may have a clear alibi for the time of his own father’s death, but he sure as hell doesn’t for Albus’s, quite the contrary. And if it wasn’t him that did it, whoever it was would’ve had to get through a bolted front door, up to the study, commit the killing and get himself clear without anyone noticing. You tell me how he did all of that, plus provide a name and a valid reason, and I’ll apologise to Quintus personally. Deal?’
‘Hmm.’ She was twisting her lock of hair. ‘Very well, Marcus. I admit, I can’t argue with any of that. But I still can’t believe the boy is guilty.’
Boy. Right; that choice of word said it all. ‘I’m not saying he is. But you can’t ignore the facts, lady, and so far they’re pretty much stacked that side of the balance.’ I reached for the wine cup. ‘Still, we’ll see what tomorrow and this guy Nestor bring.’
24.
I was up and out just after dawn the next morning, headed for the road that led south-west to Tunes a bit further down the coast. I’d originally meant to pick up a horse at one of the hiring stables in town – to get to the Tunes road I’d have had to go through the centre in any case – but the day was cool and fresh, and in any case I always prefer walking to riding. Especially since I was likely to get stuck with some geriatric candidate for the local glue factory or, worse, an evil-minded brute that would do its best to throw me off first chance it got. Hiring a horse from a public stable is as much a lottery as putting up at a wayside inn: you may be lucky, sure, but it’s far more likely that the hand of fate will land you a sucker-punch to the gonads. Especially since where provincial service-providers are concerned rooking know-nothing visitors from Rome is a matter of honour.
So on foot it was.
After I’d got beyond the town limits the road was pretty clear; certainly there wasn’t much in the way of vehicle traffic. By the time what was obviously the cove came in sight – like Quintus had said, it was only a mile outside town, and a scant one, at that – I’d met no more than two or three other punters, and when I glanced behind me just to check that there was no upcoming threat from some speed-merchant with a fancy two-wheeler and matched greys I could only see one other bod travelling the way I was, and he was a good hundred yards off.
There was a path leading down the steep slope to the cove, and I took it. I could see what was presumably Cornelia’s pal Nestor’s shack now, tucked away under the shelter of a small cliff to my right, well away from the beach itself. There was a lone figure standing at the water’s edge, pulling on what I assumed was a fishing line.
It was. As I came closer he drew the rest of it out, along with a respectable-sized mullet at the business end.
‘Hi,’ I said. ‘You must be Nestor.’
He turned. Nestor was right – he must’ve been seventy, if he was a day – assuming that Homer’s king of Pylos was into straggly beards and a tunic that, if he ever washed it, would probably come to bits in the process. Nothing wrong with his sang-froid, mind: he straightened up – he must’ve been a big guy in his time – and gave me a hard stare. Then he chuckled and shook his head.
‘Friend of the young lady’s, are you?’ he said.
‘Uh...yeah. Cornelia. Cornelia Alba.’
‘That’s the one. She took to calling me that, and it wasn’t worth fixing. I never asked her why, or who the original bugger was, neither.’ He unhooked the mullet and laid it down on the sand, where it kicked its way to gasping immobility. ‘Titus Papinius, that’s me by rights. But you can please yourself which name you use.’
‘Valerius Corvinus.’
He reached out a hand, and we shook. I noticed that he kept a sling tied to his wrist, and he noticed me noticing.
‘For hares,’ he said. ‘Or anything else that happens along. Practically the only thing I’ve kept from the old days, and I’m still a fair shot.’ He patted the pouch of sling-stones at his belt. ‘Fish are okay, but there’s not a lot of eating on them. A bit of meat or some bird-flesh makes a welcome change.’
‘You live here all the time?’ I said.
He grinned, showing a perfect set of teeth. ‘That what she told you? Nah, got a place up there, about a quarter of a mile off. A wife, too. Or wife of a sort, if you get my meaning.’ He winked. ‘But here’s where I am most days, when the weather’s good. I like my peace. ’Sides, we never really got on, the old woman and me, and it suits us both. You fancy a spot of wine?’
