‘Who’re you?’ he said.
Lucius, obviously, and I could see why Secundus had thought my description could go both ways. He was slightly older and more broadly built, but he had the same features.
‘A friend of your brother’s,’ I said. ‘We’d arranged to meet today for a cup or two of wine, but he didn’t show. I thought I’d drop round, see what the problem was. What happened, exactly?’
The guy was more than half-cut, but apart from a poached-egg-eyed stare he was holding it well. He shrugged and looked away, and I drew a small breath of relief.
‘He was out riding on Mars Field,’ he said. His voice was dull, mechanical. ‘His horse shied at something and threw him; he landed on his head and broke his neck. That’s all I know.’
‘He was on his own?’
If he’d thought about it, it was a pretty odd question to ask, but I reckoned that Lucius here wasn’t exactly in thinking mode at present. In the event, he didn’t even blink.
‘No. Bassus was with him,’ he said. ‘He was the one who brought him back.’
‘Bassus?’
‘His quaestor friend. Titus Bassus.’ This time I did get an oddish look; maybe Lucius wasn’t as drunk as he appeared. ‘You say you’re a friend of Sextus’s, and you don’t know Bassus?’
‘Yeah, well …’
‘They were practically inseparable, been friendly since they were kids. Bassus is more like an older brother to him than a friend.’ Now his expression was definitely suspicious, and there was something else there as well; a spark in the eyes that looked very like incipient panic. ‘Just who are you, exactly? What’s your name?’
Shit. ‘It’s not important, pal,’ I said, turning to go. ‘I’m sorry for your loss, and I’m intruding. You’ll have things to see to, and I won’t take up any more of your time.’
‘Fuck that! You’re going nowhere!’ His hand grasped my shoulder. I shook him off, maybe with more force than I’d intended, because he stumbled and fell heavily against the couch. Before he could recover himself, I was out and away.
Jupiter!
TWENTY
So. That had been illuminating, if you like.
Accident, nothing; that was obvious. Sextus Papinius had been rumbled and his mouth shut before he could blab. I remembered that, when he’d talked to me on the Sacred Way, he’d not only been scared out of his wits, but he’d also been constantly looking over his shoulder like he suspected he was being watched. Which the odds were he had been, and it had effectively done for him. The modus operandi was interesting, too: where had a broken neck figured already in this case?
Right.
I really had to talk to Bassus. He’d be needed, naturally, to provide the circumstantial evidence of an eyewitness, but the corollary of that was that, once you knew damn well it was murder, he had to be lying through his teeth. And that meant he was involved in the plot himself. What got me — sickened me, to tell you the truth — was that there was a better than good chance that Lucius Papinius was in it as well, maybe even to the extent of collusion over his brother’s death. He had to be — why else would he spend the hour after the body was delivered to the front door in getting systematically smashed? Plus there had been the dead-voiced account of events, like he’d been told exactly what to say when someone asked for them, and that weird business at the end: the guy had finally put two and two together, realized who I was, panicked, and lost the plot completely.
Gods, the more you went into this thing, the worse it got, like some sort of hydra sprouting extra heads. And Lucius, like his brother, was a military tribune, with all the implications that brought with it. I had the horrible feeling that we’d only just scratched the surface.
So how did I find Bassus? I couldn’t go knocking on Secundus’s door again, that wouldn’t be fair. I’d twisted the poor guy’s arm right up his back once already in the name of friendship, and unless I absolutely had to, I wouldn’t be doing that again in a hurry. The same, in a way, went for Crispus: he wasn’t exactly a friend, but I reckoned I’d pretty well shot my bolt in that direction for the time being. Anyway, there was no need: Lucius Papinius had told me that he was one of the quaestors, and a visit to the Public Finance Office would net the information, no problem. After all, as far as they’d know, there was no skulduggery involved, just an innocent request for information.
So that’s where I went.
Like every organization in a position to allocate and monitor their own expenditure, the Public Finance Office had done themselves proud. Oh, sure, the quaestorship is the lowest rung of the senatorial magistracies’ ladder, and the quaestors only serve for a year, but the faceless administrators who staff the offices — mostly freedmen — do most of the work, and hold their young masters by the hand as they guide them through the maze of contract legislation, building regulations, fire-prevention requirements and the like. They are a permanent fixture, and they do like things to be nice. Especially the décor.
At least it’d been tastefully done, with the mural in the entrance hall showing a neutral lake scene complete with an architecturally complex villa rather than the rampant crowd of topless maenads that the clerks who had to sit there all day would probably have preferred, but that’s government thinking for you.
I went up to the freedman on the nearest desk.
‘Excuse me,’ I said. ‘You have a Titus Bassus as one of your officers?’
‘Certainly, sir. Titus Herennius Bassus, that would be. I don’t know if he’s around at present, though. If you’d like to wait, I’ll go and check for you. Your name and business?’
I had my mouth open to answer when a young guy in a smart mantle with a senatorial stripe came down the stairs. He must’ve caught the freedman’s last few words, because he said, ‘What is it? Anything I can do?’
‘The gentleman’s looking for Herennius Bassus, sir.’
He turned to me. ‘Oh, gods, it’s not about the bloody replacement finials for the Temple of Jupiter Stayer-of-the Host, is it?’ he said.
‘No, I’m-’ I began.
‘Thank the gods for that. Titus isn’t in today; he’s out riding in Mars Field, the lucky beggar.’
‘Yeah, I know,’ I said. ‘Only, ah, something came up and he had to cut it short. You happen to know where I’d find him now?’
‘Not a clue. He isn’t back on duty until tomorrow morning. Was it urgent?’
‘Pretty urgent, yeah.’
‘Damn.’ The young man frowned. ‘You could try his father.’
‘His father?’
‘Up at the imperial offices on the Palatine.’ I must’ve looked blank, because he said: ‘Herennius Capito. He’s one of the imperial procurators-fiscal. He might know.’
‘Thanks, pal, I’ll do that,’ I said, and left.
Interesting; so Bassus’s father was in government admin on the imperial side of the fence, was he? And pretty highly placed at that. Some procurators are freedmen — the name, of course, means nothing more than agent — but the imperial procurators-fiscal have the direct management of the emperor’s personal income and private estates, and they tend to be much bigger fish — knights, not senators, but no less important or influential for the thinner stripe. Quite the reverse, because it’s on the imperial side of the fence that the real governmental power lies, direct or indirect. And ‘fence’ it is: ever since old Augustus divided the government and everything connected with it between himself and the senate, the two sides have been as separate as the two faces of a coin. Oh, sure, they come into contact now and again where and when necessary — the empire couldn’t function if they didn’t — but essentially they’re two distinct worlds operating in parallel. Which was very relevant indeed. Granted, I might be leaping to unwarranted conclusions; just because young Bassus was implicated in the plot didn’t mean that his father had to be. But if he was then we had a third strand here: first the senate, represented by Cassius Longinus and his pals; then the military, by the two Papinii; now the imperial household itself.