Last Rites (Marcus Corvinus Book 6) Read online

  ‘Maybe another time,’ I said. ‘I’ve got dinner to think of.’

  Trite, sure, but I’d got her range. The girl laughed.

  ‘Just remember I’ve had practice and I’m a good cook,’ she said. ‘The best.’

  ‘Cut it out, Phoebe!’ the Hippo snapped. The sniggering stopped like magic and the girls got suddenly interested in their plates. A mound of blubber the guy might be, but he clearly had the edge on his staff.

  I turned away. Okay, fun over, time for business. ‘You know a woman called Myrrhine, Hippo?’ I said.

  It was like throwing a stone into a pool: I could feel the silence spreading. If the girls had been quiet before they were like mice now. Mice with large ears. You could’ve heard a pickle drop.

  ‘Who?’ the Hippo said finally.

  ‘Come off it.’ Lippillus hadn’t so much as looked up from his wine and his voice was quiet, but the fat guy flinched.

  ‘Yeah. Yeah, okay, I know Myrrhine,’ he said quickly. He picked up a cloth and ran it over the counter, just to show how calm he wasn’t. ‘So?’

  ‘Don’t get smart,’ Lippillus murmured. ‘Please. Now really is not the time.’

  The Hippo was beginning to sweat; not a pleasant sight. ‘That lady’s bad news, Commander,’ he said. ‘Crispa here’ll tell you.’

  The girl on the far end of the trio shook her long hair away from her face – if she was a natural blonde I’d eat my sandals – and lifted her top lip. Two front teeth were missing. ‘That was Myrrhine did that,’ she said. ‘The woman’s a maniac.’

  ‘She was only in here a couple of times.’ The Hippo put the cloth down. ‘First with a girl we don’t have any more, but there was no problem. The second was with Crispa.’

  ‘She wanted me to–’ Crispa explained in detail just exactly what Myrrhine’s requirements had been. Big Faustus, drinking quietly at the other end of the counter, choked on his wine. ‘I told her to fuck off, I wasn’t doing anything like that, not for nobody. So she hit me.’

  ‘We got her out of the room,’ the Hippo said. ‘Then she pulled a knife. Luckily we’d a couple of regulars in here drinking. I had them throw her out and told her not to come back.’

  ‘When was this?’ I asked.

  ‘Two months ago, maybe three.’

  Bugger. ‘And you haven’t seen her since, right?’

  The Hippo chuckled. It was like seeing a mound of jelly hit by an earthquake.

  ‘Sure I’ve seen her,’ he said. ‘Practically every day. She has a room in one of the tenements up the road.’

  Well, well, well.

  29.

  ‘I want her alive, okay?’ I said. ‘That isn’t negotiable.’

  Chilo, the smaller of the two squaddies – meaning he was only half a head taller than me and twice the width – hefted his watchman’s club. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘No problems.’

  ‘Don’t get cocky.’ Lippillus was looking across the street at the tenement building the Hippo had directed us to. ‘She’s armed, she’s dangerous, and woman or not she’s no pushover. Only just remember we end up with a stiff and you two will be eligible for the Great Mother’s priesthood yourselves. Right?’

  Chilo grinned. ‘Right, Commander,’ he said.

  ‘I’m not joking.’

  The grin disappeared. The other guy, Faustus, nodded quickly. ‘Got you, sir,’ he said.

  ‘Fine.’ Lippillus turned to me. ‘Okay, Corvinus. She’s your find. You have the shout. How do you want to play it?’

  I’d been wondering that myself. We knew the flat number – top floor, first door on the left – but not whether the lady was in or out. Or, if she was in, if she’d spotted us already from the window. There were too many dodgy factors to risk playing smart.

  ‘We go up and knock,’ I said. ‘Then we take it from there and play it as it comes.’

  Lippillus grinned. ‘Good plan, Scipio,’ he said.

  I gave him the finger. ‘Right. Let’s go.’

  It was the usual seedy tenement; in fact, seedier than most since the tenants didn’t seem even to have the energy to lug their garbage out into the street before they dumped it, so the smell on the staircase was something else. We got up to the top floor with no more excitement than a brush with a stray dog scavenging among the bones and vegetable peelings, and Faustus banged on the door. No answer. Three more bangs and the door opposite opened. A wizened old guy put his head out. If I’d seen him on the stairs I would’ve taken him for a less savoury piece of the garbage.

  ‘What…?’ he said.

  Which was as far as he got before Chilo snarled ‘Watch!’ at him and he ducked back in.

  I reached past Faustus and tried the handle. Locked. So. The lady was out.

  ‘Okay,’ I said to Lippillus. ‘You’re the expert here, pal. What do we do now? Go down again and hang around till she gets back?’

  But Lippillus was fumbling in his belt-pouch. He brought out a lock-pick. About five seconds later the door was open.

  ‘Uh-uh,’ he said. ‘We wait for her in comfort. Except for Faustus.’

  I was happy to go along: I might have the shout, but Lippillus and the other guys obviously knew what they were doing and they’d done it before. Faustus went downstairs to keep watch across the street. If Myrrhine showed up he’d give us a wave when she was safely inside the building then follow her up to cut off the only possible escape route.

  The operative word was if. I hoped that the woman wasn’t staking out Harmodia’s flat after all, because if she was then we were in for a hell of a long wait.

  Lippillus relocked the door with his pick while I took a look round. Which didn’t involve much more than what the phrase literally means. As far as Lippillus’s waiting in comfort went, you could forget it. There was only the one room, and that was standard for an under-the-tiles let in this part of town, i.e. poky as hell, cold as an Aventine landlord’s heart and with about as many amenities as a rabbit hutch minus the straw. It was neat, though: not a speck of dust. A house-proud killer, right? The thin mattress on the floor had a clean blanket lying on top, carefully folded, and beside the window was an old clothes chest that might’ve been only a prayer’s length away from kindling but actually showed signs of having been polished. That was all. Except, of course, for the lady’s collection of knives.

  They lay on top of the chest, five of them with space for a sixth, arranged in a tidy row from big to small along with a well-used whetstone, a cup of water and a leather strop. I picked one up and tested it with my thumb. Cheap quality, with a plain wood and leather grip like the knife that’d killed Cornelia; only, like the murder weapon, it had an edge you could’ve split a hair on.

  The missing sixth was the one we’d have to worry about.

  ‘Nice hobby.’ Lippillus was standing behind me.

  ‘Yeah.’ I put the knife down. ‘Well, that puts the lid on it. If there was any doubt, which there wasn’t. She’s our killer.’

  Chilo had settled his big shoulders against the wall that formed an angle with the window, just far enough back to keep an eye on the street below without being seen himself. The top of his head brushed the beam that supported the tiles above us. He looked like he could stand there for ever. I just hoped he wouldn’t have to.

  ‘Okay, Marcus.’ Lippillus sat down on the mattress with his back to the wall. ‘While we’re waiting for your girlfriend to show you can tell me just what the hell’s going on. After that, we’re down to swapping jokes.’

  It was more than halfway through the afternoon before Chilo, still watching, made a quick sideways movement with his hand and we knew we were in business.

  The party walls in these places are pretty thin: we could hear the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs clearly, long before the rattle of the key in the lock. In that room, there was nowhere to hide; we’d just have to rely on the element of surprise. Chilo flattened himself against the wall next to the door jamb on the opening side while Lippillus and me took the front, in full
view. With any luck, Myrrhine would be so busy worrying about us that she wouldn’t see the guy who really mattered until it was too late.

  There was a pause, a long one. Then the door opened slowly.

  Too slowly.

  Maybe it was a sixth sense; it had to be, because I’d take my oath that none of the three of us had so much as breathed with the bitch outside, let alone made any kind of noise. Whatever the reason, when Chilo went for her round the jamb she stepped back quickly like she was expecting it and punched him once, hard, in the chest. He gave a sort of grunt, dropped his club and slipped to his knees. I could see the woman’s hand clearly now, the one she’d punched him with, and it had something that wasn’t a key in it. There was blood there, too. Shit.

  I yelled and jumped for her, but Chilo was in the way, sprawled across the threshold, and my foot caught against his leg, spinning me round. The woman drew her hand back and Lippillus shouted a warning, but there wasn’t a lot I could do except grab for her knife arm and hope my fingers connected.

  I missed and went sprawling on my back with Myrrhine standing over me.

  Footsteps hammered on the stairs. She paused, glanced sideways, then at Lippillus, and her eyes widened. I swear she shrugged. Reversing the knife, she put the point beneath her own throat and shoved…

  Suddenly there was blood everywhere.

  Faustus and Lippillus got to her at the same moment, pinning her against the door, but I could see she was a dead weight already and the knife-hilt, with no hand to support it now and no blade visible, was sticking out from under her chin. Jupiter, that thing had been sharp! I pulled myself to my feet and slumped against the jamb.

  ‘You okay, Corvinus?’ Lippillus said over his shoulder.

  ‘Yeah.’ All I felt was sick. That and grateful that Myrrhine hadn’t had time for herself and me both. ‘Check up on Chilo.’

  Lippillus left Faustus holding the body and bent over the fallen Watchman. He was down there for a long time before he shook his head.

  Well, I’d got my fourth corpse after all. And a complimentary fifth. The bitch had gone out with a bang.

  She’d taken what she knew with her, too.

  30.

  I left Lippillus to clear up the mess. ‘Mess’ was what it was: another guy dead, Myrrhine dead and the case shot to hell. Not that it was anyone’s fault, we couldn’t’ve played it any more carefully than we did, but that only made things worse. I still felt guilty; about Chilo, especially. The guy had a wife and a young son. I asked.

  I’d nowhere else to go now, either: with no Myrrhine to question, the trail to whoever was backing her – if anyone was – wasn’t just cold, it didn’t exist. Any theories I might have had were either disproved or didn’t admit of proof one way or the other. I didn’t even have the ghost of a suspect any more, not one with any sort of credible motive anyway, real or theoretical. In short, we were five-star, no-nonsense, totally and irrevocably buggered.

  I don’t think I’ve ever felt so miserable.

  I broke the bad news to Perilla and we had a quiet post-mortem dinner while she tried to cheer me up. At the dessert stage Bathyllus made some sniffy comment about cathouses and I snarled at him, really snarled, which is something I never do: baiting the little guy is one thing, but he and I both know it’s a game and we’re happy just to score points off each other with no real blood spilled on either side. He apologised, which is a thing he never does, and that made me feel worse.

  The next morning I went round to Camillus’s to give him what might well amount to the final update, but he was out of Rome on business and wouldn’t be back for two days. So much for reporting in; Jupiter, I even missed when I was throwing in the sponge! I spent the afternoon getting quietly stewed in one of my favourite wineshops off Market Square, racking my brains – or what passed for them – trying to think of some avenue I hadn’t been down or some alley that I’d ignored. There weren’t any. Nothing, zero, zilch all the way; what you saw was what you’d got.

  The day was as far gone as I was before I called quits and staggered off home pissed as a newt. Or at least half pissed as a half newt…

  Perilla was in the atrium, and furious. Oddly enough, she was furious wearing her best mantle and an uncustomary pair of earrings. That ought to have given me a hint, but it didn’t.

  ‘Corvinus, where on earth have you been?’ she snapped. ‘Secundus and Furia Gemella will be here in half an hour!’

  I goggled at her. Then the penny dropped. Shit! The dinner party! I’d forgotten about it completely! ‘Uh, yeah,’ I said. ‘Yeah, right…’

  Bathyllus materialised from nowhere, like he does. ‘The baths are hot, sir,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you’d care to bathe while I lay out a fresh tunic and mantle?’ Stiff as hell; the little guy hadn’t got over his chewing yet. But at least he was talking to me. And being helpful.

  ‘Yeah, okay, Bathyllus,’ I said. ‘Great. Thanks, sunshine.’

  ‘Don’t mention it, sir.’

  I padded off towards the bath suite, shaking my head to clear it. The walk from Market Square to the Caelian had used up some of the wine, sure, but I was still a good jug short of cold sober; no way to start a dinner party, especially not with Gaius Secundus who could sink them as fast as I could. And not with that wife of his, either, for different reasons: I’d only met Furia Gemella once, and that years ago for about two minutes, but even on that short acquaintance I’d guess the lady wouldn’t take kindly to her host being boneless before the evening even got started.

  The bath worked wonders, especially the cold plunge at the end, and by the time I was dried off and freshly mantled I could’ve said ‘Livillan Lanuvium’ with the best of them. I was feeling a lot brighter, too. Dinner parties – Mother’s excepted, of course – I enjoy.

  Secundus and his wife had already arrived. Perilla had got them into the dining-room and settled with their pre-dinner drinks, and Bathyllus had served the less complicated hors d’oeuvres.

  ‘Hey, Gaius,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry I’m late. How’s the boy?’

  I saw Furia Gemella wince. She was still the same curvy little half-pint I remembered, although the curves had filled out drastically over the years and she’d added an extra chin. I’d been right about the earrings, too. The archigallus could’ve used the ones she was wearing for rattles.

  ‘You’ve met Gemella, Marcus, haven’t you?’ Secundus said.

  ‘Yeah.’ I stretched out beside Perilla: there being only the four of us we were only using two of the couches. It was cosier that way, anyway. ‘Last time I saw her she was carrying a bowl of soup.’

  That got me a glare from the lady, although Secundus grinned. There was a long and painful silence. We were off to a bad start here; maybe I wasn’t going to enjoy this particular dinner party after all.

  Bathyllus came round with the top-ups and filled my cup. We were having Falernian: Secundus liked a good wine, and I had the impression Furia Gemella’s tastes would run to the traditional.

  Well, maybe not altogether. ‘That is a simply marvellous clepsydra you have in the atrium, Perilla dear,’ she said brightly. ‘Is it from Amphytrio’s?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Perilla gave her a smile; her company smile, I noticed. Perilla was finding Furia Gemella wearing too. ‘We’ve only had it since the beginning of the month but it’s become almost one of the family already. Hasn’t it, Marcus?’

  Like the fucking family dog that pisses all over the furniture, I thought, but I didn’t say anything, just nodded.

  ‘Really? How nice!’ Gemella beamed. ‘I’ve been trying to persuade Gaius to buy us one for ages. They are so chic! And of course beautifully made. I don’t know why every house doesn’t have one. I love the little titan with the hammer, don’t you?’

  Oh, Jupiter! And we were in for at least three hours of this! I sighed and signalled to Bathyllus to bring on the starters proper.

  At least Meton had done us proud: besides the usual eggs, olives, raw vegetables and fish pickle
dip we’d got chicken-liver and onion patties, small Lucanian sausages, seafood dumplings and truffles in a coriander wine sauce. Furia Gemella’s eyes lit up. Yeah; I could see where these curves had gone now. And where the double chin came from.

  ‘Oh, lovely!’ she said, and dug in.

  Well, that was her out of it hopefully for the next ten or fifteen minutes. I turned to Secundus. ‘So,’ I said, ‘how’s the new job going, pal?’

  ‘The Treasury?’ He helped himself to a sausage. ‘It’s okay. Boring, but someone’s got to do it. And at least I don’t have to move much. With this leg of mine I’d find it hard to get around.’

  ‘Don’t complain, Gaius.’ That was Gemella, between mouthfuls. ‘If it hadn’t been for your leg we’d never have met.’

  ‘Nor we would, dear.’ Was that a wince? Maybe there was hope for the poor bastard after all. I stifled a grin. ‘I never thought, though, Marcus, that I’d end up pushing a pen. Especially when I got to be a city judge. With soldiering out, the law would’ve been a good second-best. At least you’re dealing with people rather than figures. Or you get a commission like Gracchus’s that gives you something really useful to do that you can enjoy at the same time.’

  I shelled an egg and reached for the fish pickle. ‘Who’s Gracchus?’

  ‘Jupiter!’ Secundus laughed. ‘You never go near Market Square, pal? The emperor’s commission on loans. Gracchus is one of the other city judges. He’s heading it. Rubbing these broad-striper bastards’ noses in their own’ – he caught Furia Gemella’s sharply applied eye and paused – ‘greed.’

  ‘Oh, yeah.’ I dipped the egg. ‘Your colleague Nomentanus told me about that.’

  ‘With his teeth clenched, no doubt.’ Secundus was still chuckling.

  ‘No. Not at all. He seemed pretty cheerful about it, as a matter of fact.’

  Secundus was staring at me. ‘Nomentanus? Cheerful?’

  ‘Sure.’ The back of my neck prickled slightly. ‘There any reason he shouldn’t be?’