Last Rites (Marcus Corvinus Book 6) Page 23

  ‘Yeah. You could say so. A good million reasons, in fact. Marcus, Nomentanus is in the manure up to his eyebrows. He’s so far in hock he couldn’t dig himself out with a spade.’

  The prickle had grown to a definite itch, and Perilla was looking at me with wide eyes. Meanwhile, Furia Gemella had found the truffles.

  ‘Hang on, Gaius,’ I said. ‘Cut the jokes, okay? This is important. I got the impression from talking to the guy that a) he wasn’t in the loans scam business himself and b) he was loaded.’

  ‘No to both.’ Secundus took a swallow of wine. ‘I’m Treasury, remember? I get the inside edge. Nomentanus is one of the biggies; when the bill for repayments hits his mat it’ll have six figures. And after what he spent on running for city judge, not to mention Board of Fifteen member before that, he hasn’t got the price of a bath. And I’m not giving you privileged information here. Anyone else on Market Square would tell you the same.’

  My spine had gone very cold. Oh, gods; dear sweet gods! ‘Nomentanus is a Board of Fifteen member?’

  ‘Sure. He has been for the past three years.’

  I lay back, brain spinning. Shit! I’d got my link! The Board of Fifteen were responsible for watchdogging foreign cults in Rome. When Myrrhine had knifed the archigallus’s two acolytes a year back he’d naturally reported the incident – with, presumably, full details of name and description – to the Board of Fifteen officer who had Cybele as his particular patch. No prizes for guessing now which officer that had been, although I could check to make sure. And if Myrrhine was one of the temple’s foremost devotees, with two previous years of the job under his belt one got you ten that Nomentanus knew her already.

  Sextius Nomentanus, eh? Jupiter! It couldn’t be a coincidence; no way, nohow, never. Between the loans business and the religious officer angle I’d got the bugger six ways from nothing!

  ‘Marcus, what is this?’ Secundus had set down his wine cup. ‘What did I say?’

  ‘Nothing you need to worry about, pal,’ I said. I’d known Secundus for a long time and, nice guy though he was, he wasn’t Rome’s brightest. How the Treasury was running these days Juno the Warner herself only knew, but then the man at the top was only a figurehead anyway: the permanent staff did the real work. ‘It has to do with the case I’m on at the moment.’

  ‘The dead Vestal?’

  ‘Yeah. Yeah, that’s right.’

  ‘You don’t think Nomentanus killed her, do you?’ That was Gemella; quicker on the uptake than Gaius, but then that wouldn’t be difficult. Obviously the prospect of talking scandal had finally won over the truffles and she was looking at me with huge baby-brown eyes. ‘Oh, how dreadful!’

  ‘No, Gemella,’ I said carefully. ‘That was a runaway slave called Myrrhine. She shoved a knife through her throat yesterday in an Aventine tenement. I was there at the time, in fact, and my laundry maid’s still trying to get the bloodstains out of my third-best tunic.’

  ‘Really?’ Gemella blanched and patted her lips with her napkin. ‘Fascinating. Ah… if you’ll excuse me a moment.’ She got up quickly and made for the door, napkin pressed to her mouth, followed closely – after a sideways glare at me – by Perilla. The clepsydra basin would be nearest, but no doubt Perilla would handle things. I’d pay later, mind you, when the lady got me alone, but it’d be worth it all the same. Meanwhile I could do a little capitalising. I turned back to Secundus.

  ‘You wouldn’t know whether Nomentanus had a rich elderly aunt stashed away somewhere, would you, Gaius?’ I said. ‘A childless aunt. Or maybe an uncle.’

  Furia Gemella’s sudden exit hadn’t fazed him; in fact, he was looking a lot more relaxed than he had done up to then. I didn’t blame him: it would’ve had the same effect on me if I’d been married to the lady. ‘Uh-uh,’ he said. ‘Not that I’m aware of, anyway. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Because the guy wasn’t putting it on. He had no reason to, for a start, not with me; quite the reverse, in fact. He just couldn’t help crowing, that’s all. And if he really was loaded and could laugh off the prospect of a six-figure fine, not to mention a little expense like re-celebrating the rites of the Good Goddess, then the money must’ve come from somewhere. More than that, it must’ve come sudden and there must’ve been a hell of a lot of it. The only legal way for that to happen is a legacy. Some well-heeled relative with no other family dropping off the perch.’

  ‘If Gaius Nomentanus had had a rich aunt, Marcus, then we’d all have heard of her long ago.’ Secundus grinned. ‘Believe me. He’s that kind of bastard.’

  ‘Yeah. I thought that might be the case.’ I hefted the wine jug and filled Secundus’s cup. ‘Drink up, pal. The night’s young and there’s plenty more.’

  So; that was that; scratch legal. Still, we weren’t home and dry yet, not by a long chalk. Nomentanus might be our man, but the problem was if he hadn’t come by the money legally then where had he got it? Why he’d got it, sure, that was obvious: the guy had been paid for services rendered. Like recruiting Myrrhine, for example. Only that left the question of who had done the paying. And, again, why. Like I’d said to Secundus, we were talking a hell of a lot of gravy here: a million sesterces, which was what Secundus had implied that Nomentanus would owe the Treasury at minimum, was enough to qualify someone for the broad stripe. Parting with a sum like that would’ve made a serious dent in anyone’s bank balance, yet Nomentanus could shrug it off. So what he was getting – and consequently what his employer was paying – was obviously a lot more.

  And the mirror-image of that was what the employer was getting was worth the fee. At least to him.

  What the hell was going on?

  31.

  Secundus and Gemella left early. Gemella made the excuse that their youngest kid had colic, but she’d been pretty tight-lipped the rest of the meal and Secundus looked sheepish, so I took that with a pinch of salt. We saw them to their carriage and went back to the dining-room to finish off the fruit and nuts.

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘if you’re expecting a return invitation don’t hold your breath.’

  ‘Marcus, sometimes I despair of you.’ Perilla settled down on the couch beside me. ‘Your behaviour was dreadful, and quite deliberate.’

  I grinned; she wasn’t angry, not really. I could tell by the lack of snap. ‘Come on, lady!’ I said. ‘That bit of vicarious seaminess made the woman’s evening. She’ll have great fun for the next month slagging me off to her pals at the honey-wine klatsch.’

  ‘That is beside the point.’

  I filled my wine cup: Secundus had knocked as decent a hole in the Falernian as he dared with his wife’s beady eye on him, but there was still a lot left. More than there should’ve been. I felt sorry as hell for Gaius Secundus. ‘She make it to the plumbing, by the way?’

  Perilla’s lip was trembling. ‘Just,’ she said.

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘She also asked me how I could stay married to you.’

  ‘Yeah? And?’

  ‘I told her we all had our little crosses to bear. She seemed to like that.’

  I laughed and kissed her. ‘You can take those earrings off now,’ I said.

  She did. Things got interesting for a moment, then she drew back.

  ‘What was that business about Nomentanus?’ she said.

  I gave her a blow-by-blow account of our barber’s-chair chat, plus what Secundus had told me while she’d been out watching Gemella lose her starters. ‘He’s our link. As a religious officer he’d know Myrrhine and the kind of woman she was through the temple. When the time came for Cornelia’s murder she’d be the perfect person to recruit.’

  ‘But if Myrrhine was on the run then how did he know where to find her?’

  ‘Yeah.’ I frowned. ‘That’s the bugger. We’ve got one end of the tie-in but not the other. Still, it must’ve happened somehow. And the loans bail-out is a clincher.’

  Perilla bit thoughtfully into one of Meton’s cinnamon tartlets. There weren’t all that ma
ny of them left: righteous indignation hadn’t taken the edge off Furia Gemella’s appetite any. ‘A million sesterces is a great deal of money,’ she said. ‘Who could afford an amount like that?’

  ‘Any one of the real fat-cat families. The Crassi. The Luculli.’ I paused. ‘The Lepidi.’

  She put the tartlet down and stared at me. ‘Oh, no! Not Aemilius Lepidus again! Marcus, I thought we’d been through that!’

  ‘He’s becoming a better bet by the minute, lady.’ I took a swallow of wine. ‘The guy is seriously loaded, which is the sine qua non here. Parting with a million would make him wince, sure, but it wouldn’t break him, not by a long way. And if you discount the probity factor, which could be pure whitewash and probably is where these senatorial bastards are concerned, he’s the only one who comes close to fitting the bill in other respects.’

  ‘What about the daughter?’

  ‘Not with that amount of money involved. She’s family, yes, but a million plus is big gravy. Raising that kind of cash would mean selling property. Even if Lepida had her own private fortune – which she might – old Lepidus is the legal head of the house. She’d have to go through him for a signature because he holds the purse-strings. And indulgent father or not he’s going to be pretty suspicious if she tells him she’s a million or two short on the housekeeping this month and can she please sell a few tenements to take up the slack.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Perilla rested her chin on her hands. ‘Very well. Why Lepidus?’

  ‘The same reasons I gave you before. Theory, rather. The guy’s stepped out of line somewhere in a big way and his son finds out. Young Marcus confides in Cornelia and Lepidus has her zeroed for the sake of safety.’

  ‘Through the agency of Sextius Nomentanus. How?’

  ‘How what?’

  ‘How does Aemilius Lepidus pick on Nomentanus to act as go-between? He can’t know, surely, that Nomentanus has the perfect contact in Myrrhine. Nor indeed that he would be sufficiently venal to consider becoming involved in the murder of a Vestal.’

  I sank a mouthful of Falernian. ‘Jupiter, Perilla, I don’t know. The venal bit, sure, no hassle: Lepidus is a leading member of the Senate; he’d have his finger on the pulse, so he’d be aware of the guy’s circumstances. Also he’s no slouch when it comes to assessing character. But as far as the rest goes you’ve got me.’

  ‘There you are, then.’

  ‘There I am nothing. The circumstantial evidence adds up. He admits – because he couldn’t do otherwise – that he wrote the note that got Niobe killed, and he has the nerve and the brains to risk a double bluff. Also if he’s the guy ultimately responsible for Cornelia’s death then it explains his son’s message to me.’

  ‘“There are worse crimes than murder.”’

  ‘Right. Cornelia was practically the guy’s daughter. Or at least she’d been his ward. Killing her – even at second hand – would go beyond simple murder. Certainly in young Lepidus’s book.’

  ‘But, Marcus, it was Lepidus himself who told you what his son had said.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Don’t be intentionally obtuse, dear. If Lepidus were responsible he wouldn’t have done that, surely. In fact, it would be an extremely foolish thing to do.’

  ‘Double bluff again, lady. We don’t know who else knew about the message. If Lepidus hadn’t delivered it and it’d come out later I might’ve smelled a rat. This way he comes across clean.’

  Perilla sighed. ‘That’s all very well, but there’s nothing you can prove, is there?’

  ‘Sure there is. There’s the money. If Nomentanus has suddenly come into a fortune then he has to be able to account for it. Even if Lepidus didn’t pay him directly – which would be stupid, and Lepidus, at least, isn’t stupid – then the transfer has to have left a trail. It’s only a question of backtracking.’

  ‘So in the first instance you go to Nomentanus, accuse him of being a paid assassin, and ask to see his accounts.’

  ‘Gods, Perilla!’

  ‘But Marcus, what alternative do you have?’

  ‘We do this officially. I go to Camillus, explain the situation and ask him to set up an investigation of the guy’s finances. Under the circumstances he’ll do it, sure he will: at other times a phoney inheritance might slip past the board with no more than a raised eyebrow or two, but if there’s a good chance it’s payment for the murder of a Vestal the authorities will take the bastard’s accounts apart with tweezers and a scalpel.’

  ‘Aemilius Lepidus is a very influential man. If he were involved then he’d have any investigation stopped, surely. Or at least compromised from its inception.’

  ‘He wouldn’t dare. Any attempted monkey business would be an automatic admission of guilt. And if I ask Camillus to use imperial auditors instead of senatorial he’ll have even less of a chance. These boys are sharp, they’re mean as rabid ferrets, and because they’re only responsible to the Wart they can tell any interfering broad-striper, including Aemilius Lepidus, to go and play in the sandpit.’

  ‘Well, I must admit it does sound promising.’ Perilla kissed me gravely. ‘Let’s leave it for the night. Now. Do you really want any of these tartlets or shall we get Meton to shelve them for tomorrow?’

  Uh-huh; a proposition, if I ever heard one. I grinned. ‘Shelve them, lady. Shelve them by all means.’

  ‘Good.’ She kissed me again and got off the couch. ‘In that case I think we should just go to bed.’

  Fine by me. Absolutely fine. I finished the wine at a gulp and followed her upstairs.

  Afterwards I lay awake with Perilla asleep in the crook of my arm. The link between Myrrhine and Nomentanus was still bugging me. Perilla had been right, of course: knowing that the woman would make the perfect killer was only the half of it. By the time Cornelia’s murder was on the cards, Myrrhine had been gone a year, squirrelled away on the Aventine. So how the hell had Nomentanus known where to find her, especially at what must’ve been short notice? An intermediary was possible, sure; but I doubted that Myrrhine had any friends at the temple, certainly not anyone she’d let into the secret of where she was holed up. Proculus’s house was out for the same reason: sure, she could’ve had friends there, but a killing and a theft were pretty big disincentives for any of her fellow slaves to keep up what could turn out to be a dangerous acquaintance if she was ever caught. Besides, she’d struck me as a loner: withdrawn, the archigallus had said, even before she did her runner. For anyone in her past life to have known about the Aventine tenement would’ve meant she’d made overtures herself, and that just didn’t sit right: I couldn’t envisage Myrrhine, having made her break for freedom, putting herself in the power of any former acquaintance, friend or not, who might choose to cash in by splitting on her. Also, how would Nomentanus have known who to approach?

  Okay. So that horse wouldn’t run and we were left with Nomentanus himself. Could the guy have caught sight of her by accident, maybe, any time in that intervening year and recognised her? But surely, if he had, he would’ve blown the whistle. And she would’ve been careful to keep away from the better parts of town where there was more of a chance that she’d be spotted. Which was why, no doubt, she’d chosen the part of the Aventine down by the Raudusculan Gate. That wasn’t exactly an area where you saw many–

  Shit. I stopped. It was possible; sure it was. It had to be something like that, anyway, and checking wouldn’t be too difficult. Furthermore, if I was right then we’d got the guy by the balls and all we had to do was pull.

  Enough for the night; more than enough. I eased Perilla off my arm, turned over and went to sleep.

  32.

  I got to the Crocodile about mid-morning. The same punters who’d sloped off when I’d walked in with Lippillus and the Watchmen two days before were drinking at the counter, but this time all the reaction I got was a long hard stare from the nearest. Yeah, well; it was nice to think you weren’t a threat to anyone’s simple pleasures.

  ‘Hi, Hippo,’ I said. ‘Rememb
er me?’

  ‘The wine buff.’ The fat man beamed. ‘Of course, sir. What can I get you?’

  ‘Another cup of that Sulmonian would do nicely, pal. And a word with your girl Phoebe if she’s around.’

  The beam broadened. ‘Phoebe’s with a customer at present, sir, but if you’d care to wait I’m sure she’d be delighted to accommodate you.’

  ‘Fine. Fine.’ I reached for my belt-purse.

  ‘No, that’s not necessary, sir.’ The Hippo put the full wine cup in front of me. ‘On the house. As I told the Watch commander, any friend of his is welcome at the Crocodile.’

  The punter with the stare hawked loudly and spat. It could’ve been coincidence, sure, but it sounded like a comment to me. Still, I’d had worse; I gave him the benefit of the doubt, my best smile and a friendly nod. Just then the door opened and another customer came in, a heavy-shouldered, youngish guy with an unshaven chin and a workman’s tunic. He ordered his wine with a grunt, paid for it and took it over to one of the far tables without giving me or the other punters so much as a glance. Yeah, well: it’s a friendly place, the Raudusculan, full of happy smiling faces. Maybe it was my aftershave.

  The Hippo picked up a cloth and wiped the counter in front of me.

  ‘Terrible thing, sir,’ he said. ‘That Watchman being knifed. Gives the place a bad name.’

  ‘Yeah.’ I sipped my wine. ‘Lippillus was telling me what a nice, orderly, law-abiding part of the city this is.’

  My pal the punter sniggered into his cup. The Hippo gave him a glare. ‘Shut it, Antistius!’ he said, then turned back to me. ‘I told you Myrrhine was a bad one, sir. The street’s better off without her.’

  ‘She been here long?’

  ‘A year, give or take. Kept herself to herself most of the time. But then most people around here do.’

  Yeah; I’d believe that. Half this part of the district was probably keeping a low profile in case it got noticed. ‘No visitors? Men friends?’

  A pause. ‘You saw, sir. With Crispa. And the other girl I told you about. She wasn’t that way inclined.’