I found the place with a bit of help from a passing bag-lady trudging home with her string bag loaded down with assorted root vegetables, and tried the front door. Locked, of course — it was far too early for customers — and knocking on it didn’t produce an answer, either.
Bugger.
Well, I hadn’t come all this way to give up that easily. There was an alleyway at the side, and investigating it revealed a small courtyard full of empty wine jars and a back door to the place through which a guy was carrying a couple of fresh jars to add to the pile.
‘Hi.’ I waited until he’d dumped them and straightened up. ‘Could I have a word, do you think?’
‘Sorry, mate,’ he said. ‘I’m busy and we’re closed. Open an hour before sunset. Come back then, OK?’ He turned to go back inside.
‘It’s about Tarquitia.’
He stopped and turned back, and I saw his eye catch the purple stripe on my tunic beneath the cloak.
Rapid reassessment. Yeah, well, rank does have its privileges.
‘Ah … right, sir,’ he said. ‘What about her?’
‘She used to work here, yes?’
He was still looking at me suspiciously, which was understandable: you wouldn’t get many purple-stripers hanging around area like this, and even fewer would be interested in the staff of a third-rate nightclub like the Five Poppies. Not interested enough to have a name to hand, certainly.
‘Yeah, she did,’ he said at last. Then he shrugged. ‘What the hell? You’d best come inside.’
I followed him in. The place — it was just one room, and not a big one, at that — was pretty basic, with a few plain wooden tables and stools, a bar counter with its wine rack behind and a low stage at one end. Someone had decorated the walls, though, with murals, and they were surprisingly good: Silenus on his donkey, hung with grapes and holding up a wine cup; what looked like a rout of Bacchanals; and a woodland scene with a satyr sitting beneath a tree playing the double-flute while a couple of deer and a set of birds in the lower branches listened.
‘You the owner?’ I said.
‘Nah. Barman and general dogsbody, me.’ He pulled up a stool at one of the tables and indicated another. I sat. ‘Name’s Vulpis.’
The name fitted him, or more likely it was a nickname: he was small, wiry, sharp-featured, red-haired and generously freckled. Definitely fox-like. Probably, like Tarquitia, a north Italian with Gallic blood. They might even be related.
‘Marcus Corvinus,’ I said.
He nodded. We had, at least, contact. ‘Well, then, Marcus Corvinus,’ he said. ‘If you want to talk to the boss, you’ll have to come back when we’re open. He’s generally in just before sunset, but it varies.’
‘No, that’s OK,’ I said. ‘At least I think it is. If you can help me yourself, that’d be great.’
‘I’ll do my best. Tarquitia, you said.’
‘Yeah.’
‘She hasn’t worked here for nigh on a year now. Took up with some old nob she met at a dinner party. At least, he was a guest and she was part of the entertainment.’
‘Yeah, I know,’ I said. ‘His name was Naevius Surdinus. He’s been murdered.’
He stared at me and gave a low whistle. ‘And Tarquitia’s involved?’ he said. ‘Directly, as it were?’
‘Not necessarily. Why would you say that?’
‘No particular reason. But you wouldn’t be round here asking questions about her if she wasn’t, right?’
Fair enough. ‘You knew her well?’
‘Sure. She was on most nights. Not a bad voice, good little dancer, very fair juggler and acrobat. The punters we get in here don’t expect too much, but they recognize talent when they see it. She had it and she was popular. Easily the best of the bunch. The boss was sorry to lose her.’
‘You know anything about her background?’
‘Not a lot. She’s from Padua originally, like me, although that’s just coincidence. Worked there for a year or so before coming to Rome. That’d be four or five years back. She did an audition for the boss and he took her on straight away. That’s about all I know. Anything else, you’d have to ask her husband.’
‘Her husband?’
‘Sure. Titus Otillius.’ He frowned. ‘You didn’t know about him?’
Jupiter! ‘No, I didn’t. They been married long?’
‘Two or three years. He works as a porter in the market, and he was one of our regulars. That’s how they met.’
Two or three years. So she’d been well and truly spliced when she took up with Surdinus. Yet another thing that the lady hadn’t told me.
Also very relevant, where the terms of the will were concerned. Interesting …
‘He know about Surdinus?’ I said.
‘Naturally.’
‘And he didn’t mind?’
Vulpis laughed. ‘Yeah, well, that’s something I can’t tell you,’ he said. ‘Me, I’d mind like hell, particularly since Tarquitia wasn’t that sort of girl. A prostitute, I mean. Oh, sure, a lot of the talent we have here go with men for money — most of them, in fact, that’s par for the course in our business, and there’s nothing wrong with it. But Tarquitia didn’t. Oh, she was no blushing virgin, she slept with some of the customers off and on, but only by her choice, and money didn’t always feature. But after she married Otillius, all that stopped. He’d’ve half-killed her if it hadn’t.’
‘But taking up with Surdinus was different?’ I said.
He shrugged. ‘Seemingly. Can’t say for sure, myself.’
‘You know where I can find him? This Otillius?’
‘Oh, yes. Nothing easier. But you don’t want anything to do with Otillius, sir. He’s a total head-banger.’
‘Come again?’
‘Known for it. Why a girl like Tarquitia should take up with someone like that, let alone marry him, I can’t fathom. Still, who knows how women’s minds work, eh? He punched her around now and again, but she seemed happy enough.’
‘They still an item?’
‘Again, that I can’t tell you. Like I say, I haven’t seen her around for almost a year. Otillius drops in sometimes, but it’s not a subject I’d risk raising with him, and he doesn’t volunteer.’
‘So where can I find him?’
Another shrug. ‘Well, sir, it’s your funeral,’ he said. ‘Don’t come back and say you weren’t warned. Your best bet’s the market. Any of the porters’ll be able to point him out to you. And there’re plenty of people around in case he does decide to get nasty.’
Shit. Still, it had to be done.
Things were getting complicated. And I was rapidly beginning to revise my opinion of sweet little Tarquitia.
NINE
As a matter of fact, the market was pretty quiet. Unsurprisingly so, really: we were halfway through the afternoon, the morning rush was long over, most of the stalls were tenantless and clear of produce, and there was only a scattering of both stallholders and customers. I couldn’t see any porters in evidence, either, so the chances of Otillius still being around were pretty slim. Even so, it was worth asking rather than putting it off and having to take the long hike back here another day.
I tried a couple of the remaining stallholders first with no result, before an old woman selling eggs pointed me towards the edge of the square.
‘You might find him over there, dear,’ she said. ‘It’s where a lot of the men go when they’ve finished for the day.’
I looked. Sure enough, there were some tables and benches with people sitting at them.