Last Rites (Marcus Corvinus Book 6) Read online

  ‘Uh-uh; I don’t necessarily mean sexual. Maybe just an acquaintance.’ I held his eyes. ‘Could be a purple-striper. One of your customers, perhaps.’

  The Hippo’s jowls wobbled. The guy definitely wasn’t smiling now. ‘Purple-striper?’ he said. ‘Myrrhine? Oh, no, sir! And what would a purple-striper with any sense be doing around here? Saving your presence, of course.’

  ‘Phoebe seemed to imply different. That she’d had a certain amount of purple-striper experience. I was just wondering whether her guy and mine could be the same person.’

  ‘Oh, you don’t want to pay any attention to Phoebe, sir.’ There was a bead of sweat on the Hippo’s forehead. ‘It was only a come-on. Believe me.’

  Yeah. And I was Cleopatra’s grandmother. Hell. This was going to be difficult…

  ‘If you’re asking about Myrrhine’s friend, squire, then maybe I can help you.’

  I glanced round. Antistius the Spitting Punter was looking at me in an expectant kind of way. He rattled his cup on the counter.

  ‘’Course, I’d need something to oil my throat with first,’ he added.

  Okay! And I can take a subtle hint when it’s given. Maybe I wouldn’t have to wait for Phoebe after all, which might be a good thing because I had the distinct impression from the Hippo’s general demeanour that he hadn’t liked the turn the conversation was taking one little bit. I pulled a coin from the purse. ‘Have a drink on me, pal?’ I said.

  ‘That’s uncommon decent of you, consul.’

  I grinned in spite of myself. For a parody of a plummy upper-class accent it wasn’t bad; overtones of my Uncle Cotta, in fact, when the old guy was pissed and putting it on.

  ‘What kind of friend would that be, now?’ I said.

  The Hippo took the coin this time and topped up the guy’s cup. He didn’t look too happy as Antistius left his two silent mates to their pie-eyed ruminations and came over to where I was standing. If looks could kill my new informant would’ve been hamburger.

  ‘Not a purple-striper,’ he said. ‘Plain mantle. You’re right about him being a customer, though. I’ve seen him in here quite a few times, in fact.’ He glanced at the Hippo, eyebrows raised like he was waiting for confirmation.

  If so it didn’t come. ‘Have you, indeed?’ the Hippo said. You could’ve used his tone for slicing beets.

  ‘Yeah.’ The guy swallowed half the cupful straight down and grinned at him. ‘Real gent. You know who I mean.’ No reaction. ‘Oh, come off it, Hippo, you know the fancy bugger as well as I do!’

  ‘How do you know he was a friend of Myrrhine’s, pal?’ I said to break the deadlock.

  He sank the rest of the wine, set the cup down and fixed me with his eye. Yeah, well. I reached into my purse again. I had the idea that when the Hippo poured this time he’d sooner the stuff was neat rat poison, but he didn’t interfere.

  ‘I live in the same tenement she did.’ Half that cup went the same way as the first. ‘Third floor. They passed me once on the stairs.’

  ‘Yeah?’ The hairs on my neck prickled. ‘When was this exactly?’

  ‘Maybe half a month back. Thereabouts, anyway. Can’t say I fancied her myself, but there’s no accounting for taste.’

  ‘That’s the last taste you get in here anyway, Titus Antistius.’ The Hippo was polishing the counter like his life depended on it. ‘I’ll tell you that now, boy!’

  ‘Come on, Hippo!’ Antistius didn’t seem too worried. ‘You don’t mind me talking, surely? Especially since you’re such a great pal of the Watch. Besides, the consul here’s putting money in your pocket.’ He drained the cup and set it down with exaggerated care like it was made of glass.

  Shit. The purse again. ‘Fill it up, Hippo,’ I said. Then to Antistius: ‘You like to describe the guy?’

  ‘Medium height, thin mouth, eyes close together. Smooth type, a real lady-killer, well-groomed. Looked like he kept himself in good shape.’ He winked at the Hippo. ‘He’d have to with Phoebe, isn’t that right?’

  The fat man grunted; a defeated sort of grunt.

  Yeah; that was Nomentanus, okay. To the life. The plain mantle didn’t make any odds, either. If the guy was slumming it he wouldn’t want to be too obvious. I turned back to the Hippo.

  ‘Right, sunshine,’ I said. ‘Forget the fan-dance. Just for the sake of completeness I need a name. You can tell me or the Watch commander when he drops by again. Which will be about an hour after I leave. Only I guarantee he won’t be asking so nicely. Get me?’

  ‘Sextus.’ The Hippo’s face was grey. ‘That’s the only name the bugger ever gave me. What he tells Phoebe I don’t know and I don’t care.’

  That put the lid on. Sextus – first name – for Sextius, middle; not very imaginative, my pal Nomentanus. But then there wasn’t really any need. I took out a silver piece and laid it on the counter.

  ‘Thanks, friend,’ I said to Antistius. ‘A present from the Senate and People of Rome. You’ve been a great help. Buy yourself the jug.’

  I left.

  Okay; so we had a viable scenario here. Nomentanus had known Myrrhine at the temple and had been the man the archigallus had called in when she knifed two of his staff. Some time over the next twelve months, he’d seen and recognised her outside the Crocodile; a coincidence, sure, but not a huge one given the guy’s obvious propensity for low-life sex and a desire on both their parts to keep away from the more popular areas of the city. On his side that was as natural as it was on hers: tomcatting isn’t illegal, but some of these selection committees are pretty strait-laced, and for a religious officer and city judge with his eyes on the consulship to be seen brothel-crawling doesn’t do his career chances much good. Which explained why he hadn’t shopped the woman, too: giving the authorities the goods on Myrrhine would’ve raised some nasty questions, like what a paragon of the establishment was doing down at the Raudusculan in the first place. And he’d be blowing his own cover at the same time. The game just wasn’t worth the candle.

  Then of course the Cornelia business had come up…

  That was the bit I stuck at. Sure, the mechanics of it were clear enough thanks to my drinking pal: Nomentanus had made himself known to Myrrhine and they’d arranged things between them. But I still didn’t know how he’d got the commission, who had given him it and why. Getting the answers to these questions would be a long hard slog. Even with Camillus on the team putting the screws on the bastard from above, with the woman herself dead I’d only got circumstantial evidence and Antistius’s word that the two had been in league. Like I say, tomcatting’s no crime and so long as he paid his bill the guy’s sex life was his own concern. If I simply faced him with what I’d got at the moment he’d throw me out on my ear and laugh while he did it. I had to have more.

  Like, for example, a link with Aemilius Lepidus. That guy was involved; he had to be because he was the only one who fitted. But he and Nomentanus were chalk and cheese, character-wise. Lepidus – on the face of it, anyway – was one of the oldest and most highly respected senators in Rome, whereas Nomentanus was a brash young pusher. Sure, like I’d said to Perilla, Lepidus would have his finger on the pulse, he’d know that Nomentanus was on the make, potentially anyway; but that’s a hell of a long way from having the nerve to approach the guy cold re zeroing a Vestal. If it had been the daughter, now…

  I stopped. I’d been walking up Ostia Incline towards the Circus. There’s a lot of traffic that way, tunics rather than mantles, and one of them – a big, beefy guy carrying half a cartload of onions on a string like they were a party garland – slammed into my back. I picked myself up and apologised. He went off muttering.

  Hang on, now. I’d dismissed Lepida because, like I said, she wouldn’t have the financial clout to sub Nomentanus over the loans business. On the other hand, put that to one side temporarily and she was perfect. She was Nomentanus’s type, for a start: young, a go-getter and without a moral bone in her body. More important, if they were working together then boyfriend-p
oaching aside it would explain her sudden interest in Aemilia – for which read the layout of the Galba household – and why she’d dropped that lady like a hot brick after she’d got what she wanted. And there was one last thing. Alexis’s girlfriend Melissa had said that Lepida had a broad-striper steady she was keeping on a string. If the guy turned out to be Nomentanus then we were laughing.

  Okay; assume he did. How would it work?

  The father and the daughter were in it together; they had to be, for the financial angle to fit. Same scenario as before, or maybe with the variation that it was Lepida who’d stepped out of line rather than the old man. Yeah; that would make a lot more sense: that lady was wild, and whatever the reason behind this business was it had to be major. Exile, at best. Leave that for the present. Fine. So.

  It’s the lady who makes the running. She’s in a jam, her brother’s found out somehow, he’s gone crying to Cornelia and he makes the mistake of telling his sister. Or she finds out some other way that the secret’s out; that aspect of things didn’t really matter. The brother she can handle – he’s family, he won’t split – but Cornelia’s an unknown quantity. They’ve never liked each other and Cornelia’s too much the goody-goody to be trusted. Lepida talks it over with her boyfriend Nomentanus, maybe makes a few promises, like for example she’ll marry him if he does what she wants. Nomentanus is no fool: sure, he’ll help – he’s got the perfect plan all lined up and waiting to go in any case – but he wants more. The guy’s broke, and in a few months he’s going to be hit with a bill that would make anyone’s eyes water. So he says, Fine; you go to Daddy, explain the situation – maybe not in detail, just that you need a million or two in cash to get you out of a hole. Call it a dowry.

  Lepidus jumps at it; well, maybe not jumps exactly, but the guy’s killing two birds with one stone here: he saves the family honour and at the same time he gets his hell-cat of a daughter off his hands. He doesn’t, of course, know about the Vestal until it’s too late. By that time, naturally, he’s in it himself up to his aristocratic ears. He can’t blow the whistle on Nomentanus and his daughter, even if he wants to, because he’s an accomplice before the fact; after, as well, because to save his own neck he’s had to connive towards Niobe’s death into the bargain…

  There are worse crimes than murder. His son had known, sure he had, even though he stopped short of accusing his father to his face. Why Lepidus had passed that on to me – barring the explanation I’d given Perilla – I didn’t know. Conscience, maybe. Lepidus couldn’t tell me the truth, sure, but at bottom he was an honest man, I’d bet on that. Not that it made him any the less guilty.

  It all fitted; subject to the tie-in between Nomentanus and Lepida existing, of course. And proving that – or, if I was unlucky, disproving it – all depended on Alexis.

  33.

  I despatched the guy on his secret mission straight away, together with his Winter Festival outfit, a snazzy gilt brooch for Melissa and a few quiet words of advice. We were halfway through a late breakfast before he showed up the next morning.

  ‘Hey, Alexis!’ I said. ‘How did it go, pal?’

  Not that I needed to ask: he looked dead on his feet and totally happy. Mission accomplished; at least on Alexis’s side. And, I suspected, on Melissa’s.

  ‘Marvellous, sir,’ he said. Beamed.

  ‘Yeah, well, apart from that.’ I glanced at Perilla, who was grinning. ‘You don’t want to hear this, lady. Bribery, seduction, abuse of privilege, suborning of the household staff...’

  ‘I’m sure it was in a good cause, Marcus.’

  ‘The best. So.’ I turned back to Alexis. ‘Your girlfriend have time to give you the guy’s name, sunshine?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  I kept my fingers crossed. ‘Sextius Nomentanus?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Bullseye! I gave a whoop. Jupiter, I’d got the bastard! In fact, I’d got all three of them together. There were still the whys and wherefores, mind, but these could wait. Now I was sure of my ground I could make my report to Furius Camillus and let him take it from here. Which reminded me: Camillus might well be back now, or at least his head slave would know when he was expected.

  ‘You feel up to another walk across town?’ I asked Alexis.

  ‘Oh, yes.’ He was still beaming. Walk, nothing: I’d’ve bet the guy could’ve floated. ‘Where to?’

  ‘The King’s House. Fix me up a meeting with the acting chief priest asap.’

  ‘Right away, sir.’ He left as if Cupid were twanging away at his heels. Well, if nothing else I’d brightened up one small life.

  ‘You’ve really solved it, Marcus?’ Perilla said, honeying a sesame bun.

  ‘Yeah.’ I stretched out. ‘Two days before the Festival, too. Perfect timing.’

  ‘So what will happen now?’

  ‘That’s up to Camillus. Or rather, the Senate; maybe even the emperor. One thing we can be sure of: they won’t sweep it under the carpet, not with a Vestal dead.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Perilla bit into her bun. ‘I can understand Nomentanus and Lepida, but not the father. You’re sure about Aemilius Lepidus? Absolutely certain?’

  ‘Sure I am. Like I said, the money’s a clincher. With gravy like that involved, Lepidus had to be part of it.’

  ‘He just seems most unlikely, that’s all. In terms of character.’

  ‘Come on, Perilla! I took you through the theory. The guy needn’t have known what he was getting himself into at the start. And by the time he did know there wasn’t anything he could do about it.’

  ‘Yes. I understand that.’ She was frowning. ‘On the other hand, you did say that during your first interview with him he was prepared to swear that he knew nothing about the secret his son had shared with Cornelia. Surely by the time he spoke to you that had to be untrue. If he didn’t yet know for certain, he must at least have had an inkling of what was going on, and I just don’t think, being the man he is, that he would have volunteered to perjure himself simply for the sake of putting you off the scent.’

  ‘He didn’t offer to swear he knew nothing of the secret; he said he’d take his oath that his son hadn’t told him anything about it at their final interview. Which may have been the case, because both father and son already knew where they stood.’

  ‘Very well.’ Perilla was still looking doubtful. ‘You’re probably right. Still, it strikes me as mean. And I cannot, honestly, see a man like Aemilius Lepidus descending to a piece of sophistic trickery.’

  Yeah; that aspect of it had been worrying me, too, and not just that: Lepidus had felt real. Still, he was a clever guy, and I couldn’t forget that Augustus had tipped him as emperor material. You didn’t get to be emperor without being capable of wearing two faces at once when necessary. Look at the Wart.

  Well, the case was over and I’d done my best. Now it was up to Camillus and the lawyers. Besides, the Festival was in two days, and even sleuths need a break.

  Alexis came floating back to say Camillus was home and he’d be delighted to see me whenever. I headed off for the King’s House.

  The Jupiter look-alike showed me through to the study. Camillus was on his own – no Junia Torquata this time – working at his desk, but he waved me to the reading couch, put the book-rolls in their boxes and sat back down in his chair.

  ‘So, Corvinus,’ he said. ‘How are things going? Any further forward?’

  ‘The case is solved.’

  Camillus’s eyebrows went up. ‘Really?’

  ‘The actual killer was a woman called Myrrhine. She–’

  ‘A woman?’ The eyebrows went up another notch. ‘But the last time we talked you were very certain that the fluteplayer was a man in disguise.’

  ‘Yeah.’ I swallowed. ‘Yeah, I know I was. I made a mistake. I’m, uh, sorry about that.’

  ‘I’m sure you are.’ He was looking at me with definite amusement. ‘Will you tell the chief Vestal or shall I?’

  ‘Uh… maybe it would be better coming
from you, sir.’

  ‘Indeed,’ he said drily. ‘And perhaps the news ought to be broken gently to Sextius Nomentanus as well, under the circumstances.’

  ‘That’s not such a problem.’ I kept my voice neutral. ‘I think Nomentanus knows already.’

  ‘Does he, now? Well, it certainly saves me a rather awkward–’

  ‘Nomentanus knows because he was behind the murders. Or at least he was one of three people responsible.’

  Camillus sat back. ‘He was what?’ he said.

  ‘There’s no doubt. None whatsoever. He has definite links with Myrrhine going back two years or more. Also, he seems to have come into a great deal of money recently.’ I explained about the loans business, and Camillus’s face grew graver.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, that certainly makes a lot of sense. Well done; well done indeed. Your friend Secundus was perfectly correct: Nomentanus’s financial circumstances are extremely straitened, or should be. I told you that before, or implied it at any rate, when the question of paying for the re-celebration of the rites came up.’ Hell; so he had; I’d forgotten that. ‘Also, he is as his colleague told you one of the worst offenders under the terms of the new law. You will of course have your investigative commission. An imperial one, as you suggest. That I guarantee.’ He frowned. ‘Not that I’m totally happy with your findings. I don’t personally like the man and never have, but he is one of our most senior magistrates. You can prove the accusation?’

  ‘Sure. Like I say, he had connections with the killer and he was actually seen with her. It all fits, right down the line.’

  ‘Then there’s no more to be said. It’s a matter for the senior city judge.’ Camillus paused. ‘You mentioned that he was one of three.’

  ‘Yeah.’ I hesitated: this was going to be the really tough part. ‘The other two are Aemilius Lepidus and his daughter.’

  I thought the guy was going to stand up, but he didn’t. His mouth formed a hard line. The silence lengthened.