Foreign Bodies Read online

  ‘So the emperor told me,’ I said. ‘That’s a big deal, is it?’

  ‘It certainly is.’ Gabinius dabbed at his lips with his napkin. ‘The summit of any local man’s political career, in fact. The annual Gallic Assembly is the single most important event in all three provinces’ calendars.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Nerva said. ‘He was stabbed to death at his home a month and a half ago, the twenty-eighth of May, to be exact, while he was taking his afternoon nap.’

  ‘Inside the house itself, you mean?’

  ‘No. It happened in the garden. There’s a small summer house that he used as a sort of private den.’

  Uh-huh. ‘He was married with two grown-up sons and a daughter, right?’

  ‘Yes. His widow’s Diligenta. The sons are both in their teens. Elder Titus, younger Publius. They’re still living at home, as is the daughter, although she’s off on a visit at present, I think. That’s Claudilla; she’s a year or so younger than Publius. Diligenta was the one who found the body.’

  I took a sip of my wine: we had most of the meal to go, and with Perilla already crotchety I’d have to spin it out. It was good stuff, too, even watered to within an inch of its life.

  ‘This garden,’ I said. ‘You could get into it from outside?’

  ‘Oh, yes, easily. This isn’t Rome. We – or the locals, rather – don’t worry too much about security. There’s a wall, of course, with a gate at the bottom, but that was never locked.’

  ‘And no one saw anything suspicious?’

  ‘No. There is a gardener – only one, not a slave; you won’t find as many actual slaves as you’re used to here when you’re dealing with the locals, that’s another thing that’s different from Rome – but he was at lunch himself. He didn’t get back until late afternoon. By which time the body had been discovered.’

  ‘Did Cabirus have any enemies? Obvious ones, I mean?’

  Nerva hesitated. ‘Not really. Like I said, he was well-respected. And well-liked. He was a wine-shipper in private life, but that’s not a particularly cut-throat business around here.’ He frowned. ‘No pun intended.’

  I hadn’t missed the momentary hesitation. ‘People he didn’t quite get on with, then,’ I said.

  ‘Well’ – he glanced at the governor – ‘there was Julius Oppianus. But I’m sure he wouldn’t commit murder.’

  ‘Who’s Oppianus?’ I said.

  ‘One of the old aristocracy I mentioned,’ Gabinius said. ‘Family’s been around here for donkey’s years, since before Deucalion’s flood. He was in the running for Condate priest, as it happens, but Cabirus pipped him at the post and it obviously rankled. But Nerva’s right: Oppianus wouldn’t have done it. He’s not the type.’

  Even so, I made a mental note of the name. ‘Anyone else?’

  ‘Not that I know of,’ Nerva said. ‘But then, I haven’t really looked into it. Certainly not conducted anything approaching an investigation. You’d have to ask Diligenta.’

  Fair enough; and I’d rather start from scratch anyway. ‘What about the family?’ I said. ‘Anything there?’

  ‘Absolutely not. Cabirus and Diligenta were a very close couple, and the sons got on very well with their father, as far as I’m aware. They’re good lads.’

  ‘Titus is one of my best junior officers,’ Laco said. Oh, yeah: Laco being procurator, with all that entailed re having large amounts of tax-money in his charge, there’d be a force of militia assigned to him, particularly since the job would involve him and his reps travelling around the province much of the time. ‘He’s always been perfectly reliable.’

  ‘And Publius?’

  ‘He’s being trained up by his father to take over the business when Cabirus and his brother retire,’ Nerva said. ‘Was being, now, I suppose I should say.’

  ‘“Brother”?’

  ‘Oh, that’s Quintus. He’s the younger of the two. They ran the firm together. He’s not your man either, Corvinus; the two brothers got on very well, as far as I know, and Quintus is no killer.’

  Maybe not, but I added him to my mental list all the same. ‘Anything else you can tell me?’ I said. ‘Where the house is, for a start.’

  ‘It’s not far from here, one of the properties on Ocean Road, just before the Gate. I can arrange for someone to take you, if you like.’

  ‘No, that’s OK, I’ll find it. I’ll go over there first thing tomorrow morning.’ I glanced at Gabinius. ‘If that’s all right with you, governor?’

  ‘My dear fellow, of course it’s all right! And you certainly don’t need my permission; in fact, as far as this business is concerned as the emperor’s personal representative you outrank me.’ He smiled. ‘Only as far as this business is concerned, naturally; I wouldn’t try interfering with the running of the province, if I were you. Don’t worry about authorization where anyone else is concerned, either. I know you have your letter from the emperor, but you won’t need it. Despite being the provincial capital, Lugdunum’s rather insular, more of a very large village, really, and you’ll find that anyone you talk to already knows perfectly well who you are and why you’re here. Now,’ – the slaves had come in with loaded trays – ‘that’s enough of the shop talk for the present, because you must both be starving.’

  True, certainly in my case; and from the look of what was on the plates they didn’t do themselves at all badly out here in the sticks. I had plenty to think about, what’s more, and a few names and ideas to be going on with. Plus there was my second cup of wine to look forward to. Ah, the joys.

  We’d have to see what tomorrow brought.

  FIVE

  I set out for the Cabirus house after breakfast the next morning.

  Getting myself orientated wasn’t too difficult. Lugdunum might be the provincial capital, singled out for special treatment by Rome’s imperial family, who’ve always been its particular patrons, but compared with Rome it’s no size at all. Technically, sure, it’s a city, but basically it’s only a large walled town, occupying the ground immediately to the west of where the Arar River joins the Rhone. Most of the centre – what you’d call the town proper, with all the government properties including the mint, the governor’s and procurator’s residences, the admin offices and the theatre – is fairly new and very Roman, built over the past fifty years or so and grouped around the usual arrangement of two main streets, the Hinge and Boundary Marker Street, where they meet just south of the Market Square. Because we’d come in the day before from the south, through the Narbonensian Gate, and travelled all the way up the Hinge to the Market Square at its end, we’d more or less gone its whole length. Oh, there were major bits we hadn’t seen yet, of course, particularly on the other side of the two rivers: Condate across the Arar to the north-east, the big religious complex in honour of the god Lug, with its pan-Gallic altar, and the main commercial sector, the Canabae – the name means ‘small huts’ – across the Rhone itself, but these could wait.

  Outside the formal centre it isn’t all that built up either, quite the reverse, unlike Rome, which is bursting at the seams. The part of town I was walking through now, west of the Market Square in the direction of what Nerva had said was the Ocean Gate, was mainly residential, sure, but it wasn’t what I was used to back home at all. Most of the houses were villa, rather than town-house style, two-storey, max, often with wooden or even wattle-and-daub upper floors, and pretty much scattered, with a bit of ground between or even in front of them enclosed by a low wall or thorn-bush fencing, which as far as the less up-market ones were concerned was home to a cow or a few goats, with maybe a flock of chickens where the little buggers hadn’t got loose and were pecking around on the street itself. I remembered what the governor had said, about the locals being country-dwellers at heart, even the townies. That fitted: provincial capital and Gaul’s chief city or not, the place had a village feel to it that you just wouldn’t get in Italy, even in a town half the size. It was quiet, too. This time of day, when most of the work gets done, Rome would be heav
ing, whichever part you were in. Beyond the centre, I was practically on my own.

  So. On the whole, by and large, pretty bucolic. Not that it was any the worse for that, mind: city boy to my bones or not, I was getting to quite like Lugdunum.

  I asked an old woman feeding her hens for directions, and was pointed to a walled villa, slightly off the main drag and fifty or so yards short of the Gate itself.

  There was no slave on duty outside, which again by Roman standards was unusual; but then I was beginning to get the measure of the place, and I wasn’t unduly surprised. I pushed open the gate – no livestock, although there were a few chickens, and the area inside was a proper garden, with ornamental bushes, flower beds, and even a couple of statues – and went in.

  The house was the same two-storey variety as the ones I’d passed, although a tad up-market from the average: stone-built at bottom with a wooden-frameworked upper level and an open porch running its length. Halfway up the gravel path that led to it, to one side, was a small summer house with the shutters up. Yeah, that would be where the guy had been killed. I stopped and looked around me. A good dozen yards to the gate I’d come through, and about the same to the house itself. Twice that, either side, to the boundary walls. No real cover anywhere, barring a few low bushes and the occasional fruit tree, and although the boundary wall was just too high to see over from the road it’d be virtually impossible, once you were inside the gate, to make your way to the summer house and back without being seen. If anyone had happened to glance down from one of the second-storey windows above the porch, then—

  ‘Can I help you?’

  I turned. A woman was coming round the side of the house, carrying a basket of roses: mid-forties, small, dumpy, by her fairish-ginger hair done up in braids and her general colouring obviously a Gaul. Smart, good-quality over-tunic and light cloak fastened with an expensive-looking cloak-pin, though, so despite the basket not one of the help.

  ‘Ah … yeah,’ I said. ‘My name’s Corvinus. Valerius Corvinus. I’m here to—’

  ‘I know why you’re here. You’d best come inside.’

  She led the way towards the porch without another word, and I followed, through a small vestibule and into the living room. There was a youngish girl there, obviously from her rough woollen tunic a servant this time. The woman gave her the basket.

  ‘Put these in a vase with water, Cotuinda,’ she said. ‘They go in the dining room.’

  ‘Yes, madam.’ The girl, with a quick, curious glance at me, took the roses and left.

  ‘Diligenta?’ I said.

  ‘That’s right.’ The woman unpinned her cloak. ‘Have a seat, Valerius Corvinus. We’ve been expecting you. The emperor’s well?’

  ‘Hale and hearty, when I left,’ I said. Interesting; she’d asked after him like he was an old friend, or an acquaintance, at least. But I suppose that was fair enough: Claudius was no stranger to Lugdunum, and before he’d been made emperor, member of the imperial family or not, he’d been nothing particularly special.

  ‘I’m glad.’ She hung the cloak on the back of one of the wicker chairs – there were no couches in the room, just chairs – and sat down. I took the chair opposite. ‘So. You’re investigating Tiberius’s death. What can I tell you?’

  Straight in, matter-of-fact; clearly a no-nonsense lady, Cabirus’s widow.

  ‘More or less everything,’ I said.

  ‘Fair enough. You’ll want a clear, orderly account. Give me a moment, then, to organize the facts in my head.’ She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again. ‘It happened about a month and a half ago. We’d just eaten, the family, I mean, and we all went for a lie-down; I don’t know about in Rome, but a short rest after lunch is customary here. Tiberius went out to his den as usual – that’s what he called the summer house in the garden, by the way. You saw it?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said.

  ‘I went upstairs to our bedroom, Publius did the same, to his.’

  ‘Publius is your son, right?’

  ‘My younger son, yes. He’s sixteen. The elder is Titus. He lives with us as well, but he’d had lunch out as he usually does. He’s an officer in the procurator’s guard, and he generally has duties in the morning and afternoon.’

  ‘Your bedrooms would be where, exactly?’

  She frowned. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Overlooking the garden, or at the back of the house?’

  ‘Oh, I see. Ours – Tiberius’s and mine – is at the back; Titus’s and Publius’s are above the porch, either side of the front door.’

  ‘You have a daughter, too living at home, I understand? Claudilla?’

  ‘Yes, indeed. But Claudilla was away at the time, as she still is. An extended stay with an older childhood friend of hers in Arausio who was married last year and is about to have a baby.’

  Yeah, I’d forgotten; Nerva had said she was away. ‘And your son Publius didn’t happen to see anything suspicious?’

  ‘No. Hardly surprising, because there would have been no reason for him to look out of the window. But you can ask him that for yourself, naturally. He’s upstairs at present. I can have him called, if you like.’

  Well, it had been worth checking, although I hadn’t really expected any other answer: spot someone creeping around the garden the afternoon your father gets himself murdered and you tend to remember it. Besides, if he had seen anything he’d’ve said so at the time, and Nerva would’ve told me. ‘No, that’s OK,’ I said. ‘Later, sure, if he’s at home; I’d appreciate it. So. There was no one up and around who might’ve seen something? House or garden slaves, that sort of thing?’

  ‘No one at all. We have very few servants, inside the house or out of it; you’ll find that’s quite normal here. There’s the kitchen staff, the cook and two helpers. They would be clearing up, then having their own meal in the kitchen, which again is at the back of the house. Cotuinda you saw; her father Quadrus is our major-domo and his wife Potita is the housekeeper. We have another maid-of-all-work, Escenga. Rather a simple girl, I’m afraid. All of them would be busy with their duties, or resting if they’d finished them. The gardener is Nantonus. He’s getting on a bit now, poor man, and he goes home for lunch and a sleep in the afternoons. He lives quite locally, just on the other side of the Gate.’

  Uh-huh. Bugger; I’d have to get used to these Gallic names. What was wrong with the good old bought-help tags like Felix and Tertia? ‘So what happened then?’ I said.

  ‘I came down as usual about the ninth hour; Tiberius normally put in an appearance shortly afterwards, when he went to his study to deal with business matters. You know he was a wine-shipper?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Yes, I knew that.’

  ‘On this occasion, though, he’d arranged to meet a business associate in the centre of town, so he needed to be up and around earlier. Certainly before mid-afternoon. When I came down there was no sign of him. I assumed, of course, that he’d overslept. I went straight to the den and …’ She stopped. ‘I’m sorry. I thought I was well over this, but it seems I’m not, after all.’

  ‘That’s OK,’ I said. ‘In your own time.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I went to the den and found him lying on the couch, stabbed through the heart. That’s all I can tell you, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Did he have any enemies? Anyone who’d want him dead?’

  ‘Absolutely not, as far as I know. Why should he? Tiberius was no one special, just an ordinary person, and he was well liked locally.’

  ‘The governor’s aide mentioned a Julius Oppianus.’

  She shook her head decisively. ‘Oppianus would never have murdered Tiberius. They didn’t get on, of course, they never had done, but Julius Oppianus is no murderer.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s what the governor said. None the less. You care to tell me about him?’

  ‘His family’s one of the oldest in Lugdunum. They were chieftains of the Segusiavi – that’s the local tribe – long before the R
omans came, perhaps even before the Greeks settled Massilia. He’s rather come down in the world these past twenty years. More or less since the time Tiberius and I moved down here.’

  ‘You’re not from Lugdunum originally?’ I said.

  ‘No. From Augusta, up north near the border.’ Yes, of course; Claudius had mentioned something of the kind when he’d told me the story about his father and the bulls. ‘Tiberius’s family were wine-merchants there, mine, too, as it happens. Four generations in both cases. Only he decided that he’d do better further south, between Massilia and the big northern markets, especially the military bases on the Rhine. Control things from first to last, production to point of sale. Lugdunum was the obvious choice.’

  ‘You go back often?’

  ‘To Augusta? No, there’s no point now. Both sets of parents are long dead.’

  ‘You’ve no other family? Either of you?’

  ‘I have a sister and a brother, but we lost touch after my marriage, and they’ve gone their own ways long since. We – the company, I should say – still have a warehouse outlet in the town that used to belong to Tiberius’s father, and Quintus is up and down regularly on business, so the family connection still holds.’

  ‘Quintus is your husband’s business partner, isn’t he?’ I said.

  ‘That’s right. And only surviving brother. There was a third, but he died. They split responsibility for the route between them. Tiberius managed things at the Massilia end, the buying and so on, and arranged delivery to Lugdunum, Quintus organized transportation from here to Augusta and beyond. Plus, of course, he handled the incoming cash side of things in the shape of customer deposits and final payments. It worked out quite well.’ She half-smiled, for the first time. It changed her expression completely, and I realized that this dumpy, middle-aged Gallic matron must have been quite a looker twenty years back. ‘But we’ve become side-tracked. You were asking about Julius Oppianus.’