Going Back, page 24
part #20 of Marcus Corvinus Series
Bugger. Well, it had been worth a shot. Of course, the whole boiling might be complete coincidence and by all the signs probably was; after all, when they weren’t trying to stick knives into interfering Roman busybodies even would-be assassins had to have a regular daytime job. And from what Maenius was telling me there wasn’t the faintest whiff of bad fish about the transaction at all; quite the contrary.
Still...
‘Paperwork,’ I said. ‘You said that everything had been done nice and legal, yes?’
‘Of course.’
‘You happen to have your copy of the deed of sale handy, then? Could I have a look at that, do you think?’
‘It’s in the strongbox next to you. And you’re welcome to see it, certainly, provided you get it yourself. I’m not too mobile these days.’
‘Strongbox’ was a gross exaggeration: judging by the broken hinge on one side and the complete absence of a padlock the thing wouldn’t have qualified as a safe in anyone’s terms. Even the word ‘box’ was pushing things. I lifted the lid.
‘It’ll be at the top,’ Maenius said. ‘With the piece of red ribbon round it.’
I took the scrolled sheet out, carried it to the window, and unrolled it. Sure enough, it was a standard deed of sale and transfer of ownership, dated the Nones of July that year, with the names of buyer and seller written in. The only unusual thing about it was that Aponius Syrus was named only as the purchaser’s agent. The property’s new owner was Decimus Cestius.
Gods!
26.
Perilla was upstairs in the study when I got back, still methodically sorting through Albus’s notes. Yeah, well, each to his own, and at least now she’d cleared it with Cornelia her editing jag – or whatever you like to call it – was legit.
‘Oh, hello, Marcus,’ she said. ‘Did you manage to find–?’ Her eyes went to the slit in the lower side of my tunic, where Syrus’s knife had caught my left thigh. ‘That’s blood, isn’t it?’
Hell. ‘Uh...yeah,’ I said. ‘It is, as it happens. Nothing to–’
She wasn’t listening. She got up from behind the desk, pushed past me through the open door and leaned over the banister.
‘Bathyllus!’
I joined her. ‘Look, lady,’ I said. ‘It’s hardly more than a scratch, right? No problem whatsoever.’
She ignored me. Bathyllus had appeared at the base of the stairs and was looking up anxiously.
‘Yes, madam?’ he said.
‘Hot water, vinegar, sponge and towel please. And a bandage. Now.’
Jupiter! Talk about overreaction! ‘Come on, Perilla,’ I said. ‘I told you, it’s just a small cut, right? I’d forgotten it was even there.’
‘None the less.’ She went back in, and I followed her. ‘Now. What exactly happened?’
I told her. She frowned. ‘But this man Syrus has had nothing to do with anything so far,’ she said. ‘Why would he suddenly want to kill you?’
‘Yeah, well, I would’ve got round to explaining that side of it by now if you hadn’t gone off on your female Aesculapius binge, wouldn’t I? My bet – and it’s a good one – is that it has a lot to do with a property deal he made on behalf of Decimus Cestius just before he died.’ I gave her the rest of the story.
‘Hmm.’ She was twisting a lock of hair. ‘So what you’re saying is that this sale of a bakery is directly linked with Cestius’s murder, yes?’
‘That’s the theory, sure. It has to be. How it works out in practice, mind, is something else again.’
‘So where exactly is it? This bakery?’
‘Not all that far from here, actually. In an alleyway this side of the Byrsa, pretty close in but not on the slope itself.’ I grinned. ‘You’re wondering about a match with Albus’s House of Jirced, right?’
‘It would seem a reasonable possibility, yes. Even a probable one. And it would provide another definite link.’
‘Forget it, lady. I covered that angle with Maenius. The old guy’s grandfather built the place himself, and his family’s lived there ever since. Up to last July, at least, when Syrus bought it. But according to Maenius it’d been on the market for years, with no takers.’
‘You don’t find that significant?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, it’s just that–’ There was a knock at the door and Bathyllus came in with the lady’s medical kit. ‘Oh, thank you, Bathyllus. Just put everything down on the floor, please.’ She got up and came round the desk. ‘Let me have a look, dear.’
‘Will that be all, madam?’ Bathyllus said. I hadn’t missed the look the little guy had given my damaged tunic, or the way his lips pursed. Our major-domo might be perfectly okay with wounds, but coming home with a stained and damaged tunic was another matter.
‘Yeah, that’s fine, Bathyllus,’ I said. ‘Hippocrates here has it covered. Back in ten minutes for the basin, right?’
A sniff. ‘As you wish, sir.’
He left, I lifted the edge of the tunic, and Perilla began dabbing away with the wet sponge...
‘Ow!’
She stopped. ‘I’m only cleaning it, Marcus,’ she said. ‘I thought you said it didn’t hurt.’
‘It didn’t.’ Jupiter! Whatever the opposite of healing hands was, the lady had them in spades. ‘Fine, never mind. Carry on. So what were you going to say about the bakery sale?’
‘Hmm? Oh, yes. When did it happen, exactly?’
‘The Nones of July this year, according to the deed.’
‘Right. Six days before Cestius’s murder, in fact. And four before Albus’s accident. The property in question being, arguably if still subject to confirmation, on the site of a building marked as significant on a map drawn by Albus himself.’
‘Yeah, well, if you like to put it that way–’
‘I do. Grit your teeth. Vinegar.’
‘What?’
Jupiterfucking Bestand Greatestand alltheotherfucking immortalgods!
‘There. That should do you. No need for the bandage, I think. It was hardly more than a scratch after all.’ She stood up and dried her hands on the towel while I limped over to the reading couch and laid my shattered body down. ‘Actually, I came across something very interesting myself this morning that may fit in rather well.’
‘Yeah? And what’s that?’
She went back to her chair behind the desk and sat down. ‘A page of notes referring to Carthage’s last days. They are just that, of course, only random jottings, not a proper narrative, but the gist of them seems to be that before Aemilianus occupied the lower town and laid siege to the Byrsa Elissa – Hasdrubal’s wife, if you remember, who organised the final defence – took a large part of the family’s gold reserve from the treasury in the Temple of Baal and hid it elsewhere.’
‘Uh-huh. And you think she stashed it in this House of Jirced, yes?’
‘More or less. Why not? It would explain Albus’s singling it out in the first place. And if the site is identical with that of your bakery it would clear up a lot of awkward problems at a stroke.’
‘Such as what, lady? Look, it’s a good enough theory, no arguments; for all I know it may even be right. But at present there are holes in it you could drive a cart through.’
‘Namely?’
‘One. I said: the bakery building has only been there for about a century, and it was built on virgin ground. If–’
‘No.’
‘No what?’
‘Marcus, there is no such thing here as virgin ground! Not within the confines of the original city, at least, and certainly nowhere near the Byrsa. When Aemilianus destroyed Carthage on the senate’s orders he did just that. The whole city was flattened. Literally flattened; what few buildings were still standing after the final conflagration, before the Byrsa fell, were pulled down and covered over, and the new surface rammed flat. Modern Carthage, all of it, was built on top. Even if Maenius’s grandfather dug decent foundations, which presumably he did, they wouldn’t go deeper than the first layer of rubble. And if the Barcas’ gold was hidden in the house occupying the site originally the chances are that it lies much, much deeper than that.’
‘Okay,’ I said stubbornly. ‘Scratch that objection. Two–’
‘One.’
‘Whatever. You said yourself that up to now Aponius Syrus hasn’t figured in the investigation at all. So how and where does he fit into the scheme of things? And how the hell did he know where I’d be this morning to begin with?’
‘I can’t answer the second question, dear, except to say that he did. The first...well, you know the answer to that yourself, from the deed of sale. He was acting as Cestius’s agent. What that implies, and to what degree he was conscious of what was going on, I don’t know, but the link is there.’
‘Gods, Perilla, Decimus Cestius has been dead for months! He’s the fucking victim!’
‘Don’t swear.’
‘Okay. But all I’m saying is that the only tie-in we have for Syrus is Cestius himself. If he’s been acting off his own bat since the murder, which seems unlikely, then you need to explain how he’s got to know everything about this business that he’d need to know before he could get anywhere. And how he’s managed to get anywhere at all in the first place.’
‘Very lucidly put, dear.’
‘Come on, lady, don’t fudge! You know what I mean well enough. The guy may have been involved up to the eyeballs from the very beginning in whatever is going on, but there isn’t a chance in hell that he’s our principal perp.’
‘Agreed. I never said he was.’
‘Well, then.’
Impasse, and a long silence. Finally, Perilla sighed.
‘Look,’ she said. ‘We’re getting tied up in knots here. Maybe we should just lay out everything we already have or think we have, facts and possibilities, and see where that takes us.’
‘Fair enough, go ahead. You start.’
‘Very well. Whoever our principal is, their target is to recover the Barca family’s gold, which Cornelius Albus, in the course of his historical research, has discovered was moved for safe keeping by Elissa to somewhere called the House of Jirced. Yes? Reasonable assumption?’
‘Fine by me. Carry on.’
‘Albus then sets about finding where exactly that was, in terms of the modern city. He–’
‘Hang on. Point of order. Albus may have had his faults, but I’d bet he was no crook. Not even a potential one. Our perp self-evidently is.’
‘True. So?’
‘So maybe, in the light of what happened later, that was the point when chummie becomes involved. After all, if you are a crook, or a potential one, at least, and some egghead historian tells you he’s discovered the existence of a local treasure trove you’ll damn well want to know where it is. Yes?’
‘I suppose so, dear. In any case, Albus matches the site to a patch of ground now occupied by the Maenius bakery. At which point our perpetrator–’
‘Call him X. It’s simpler, and it’s traditional.’
‘All right. X, then, takes matters into his own hands. He–’ She stopped. ‘This next part makes no sense at all.’
‘Just lay it out. We’ll work on the sense later.’
‘X arranges through an agent, Aponius Syrus, to buy the property in due legal form. Then, immediately afterwards, to ensure that the secret of the gold goes no further, he kills Albus and disguises the murder as an accident.’ She shook her head. ‘Marcus, that cannot possibly be right! It would mean our X was Cestius, which would be stupid!’
‘True. Leave it and move on.’
‘I can’t. It just gets worse, because Cestius himself is murdered two days later. Unless–’ She stopped again. ‘Oh.’
‘Right. Unless, despite what the bill of sale says, the purchaser – and so our X – was someone else. If Syrus was the front guy who actually negotiated the deal and paid over the money then he could put down whatever name he liked.’
‘But surely eventually–’ I could see the penny drop. ‘Ah. Only of course there wouldn’t be an “eventually”, would there? Two days later, Cestius would be dead as well.’
‘Correct.’ I was watching her closely. The next stage was going to prove sticky, and Perilla was much too smart not to make the logical jump.
‘Except,’ she said slowly, ‘the death of the legal owner, the stated legal owner, wouldn’t make much difference, would it? The property would simply go to his heir.’ There she went. I didn’t comment, just waited. ‘Which would be Publius. But Publius had no connection at all with Cornelius Albus, so he couldn’t possibly have known about the gold, or where it had been hidden; plus if he were intending to recover it then he wouldn’t be so eager to go back to Rome. In which case the only other possibility for X is–’ She was staring at me. ‘Oh, Marcus! No! He couldn’t! He wouldn’t!’
‘You have the ball, lady,’ I said gently. ‘So you have to run with it. I’m sorry, but these are the rules.’
She’s a tough proposition, Perilla, far tougher than me when the chips are down, but I could see this was costing her. She cleared her throat.
‘Very well,’ she said. ‘Congratulations, dear. Our villain was Quintus after all.’
Bleak as hell. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said again. I was, too; bitterly, on my own account as well as hers. He’d been okay, young Quintus, within his limits. Still, it wouldn’t be the first time that I’d had more sympathy with the perp than I had for the victim, and in those circumstances you just have to grit your teeth and get on with things. ‘But he ticks all the boxes, the only person who does. He was Albus’s closest confidant, a historian in his own right. He was the only person we can be absolutely certain was with the old guy on the morning he died, and we only have his word for it that he left before it happened. He had valid reasons, independent of the gold, for engineering the two deaths. He was the only one of the family to be staying behind when they moved back to Rome, and I doubt if he’d’ve had any difficulties in getting Publius to include the Maenius place in his inheritance package. And, finally, he was the only person, barring Cornelia, who knew I’d be heading down the Tunes road this morning bound for open country. Because he’d sent me there himself.’
‘Yes, I know all that, and I agree. He has to be guilty, no arguments, none at all. All the same–’
There was a knock at the door, and Bathyllus came in with a tray.
‘The basin, sir, if you’ve finished with it,’ he said. ‘And I’ve brought you up some wine and a juice for the mistress.’
‘Thanks, sunshine,’ I said. ‘Things are a bit fraught at present. Just leave the tray on the desk and we’ll help ourselves.’
‘Of course.’
I turned back to Perilla. ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘You still have the ball, and I’m listening. All the same what?’
She took a deep breath. ‘All the same, Marcus, I can not believe that he could commit a murder. Certainly not if it entailed coldly and deliberately pushing an old man down a flight of steps. I’m sorry, but it is just totally incredible.’
The gods save me from stubborn women who can’t put logic and common sense before their knee-jerk maternal instincts! ‘Jupiter, lady!’ I said. ‘Give me a break here! We’ve been through this a dozen times!’
‘Don’t exaggerate.’
‘Okay. Fine. So it wasn’t him; he’d already left the house like he claimed. But if you can explain to me how someone else could’ve sneaked in from outside and got up here without anyone noticing, done the job, and sneaked out again ditto, then–’
‘By means of the back stairs, sir,’ Bathyllus said.
I stopped. ‘What?’
‘He could have used the other set of stairs, sir. The servants’ ones.’
Holy gods! ‘Bathyllus,’ I said slowly, ‘just let me get this straight, pal. You are telling me that there’s another way up here? Another staircase?’
‘Of course.’
‘Then where the fuck is it?’
‘Marcus!’
‘At the other end of the corridor.’
Bloody hell!
‘Show me,’ I said. Then, when he dithered: ‘Just put the bloody basin down and do it!’
We followed him outside and turned left. I’d never been this way before, because there’d been no need: the main staircase was immediately next to the study, our bedroom was directly opposite, and although there were other doors beyond they were, presumably, bedrooms in their own right, Cornelia’s for one. And as far as I could see the corridor itself finished in a dead end.
Only it didn’t. Look to your left when you reached the far wall and there was another set of stairs, much narrower and steeper than the front ones.
‘Lead on, little guy,’ I said.
I made my way down after him, with Perilla close behind me. The stairs ended in an open door giving out onto a back courtyard, evidently used for storing rubbish destined for the local dump and adjacent to the kitchen and servants’ quarters.
‘This door always kept open, sunshine?’ I said.
‘Only during the day, sir. It’s always locked at night, as are the others.’
I went over to the gate in the courtyard wall. That was open, too, the difference being that it showed every sign of staying that way. No bolt, and the hinges didn’t look like they’d put up with too much extended use. Mind you, if the communicating doors to the house were all locked after dark there wouldn’t be much to attract a would-be thief in any case. Old wine jars and vegetable peelings have a pretty low resale value.
Gods alive! Granted that they knew the layout of the house once they were inside, and did their visiting during the hours of daylight, anyone could’ve slipped up to Albus’s study the day he died. Anyone at all.
Provided, as I say, they knew where they were going in the first place. And that they knew enough about the daily routine and the master’s habits to be confident that they wouldn’t be seen, either on the inward or the outward trip...
So, pace all the evidence to the contrary and going exclusively on Perilla’s gut feeling and, I had to admit, my own, if Albus’s killer, our X, hadn’t been squeaky-clean young Quintus, then who was left? Who, in other words, ticked the necessary boxes? Or ticked the most important ones, at least, including above all the ones to do with Albus and the location of the gold?
