‘I wouldn’t say that Sullana seemed a very likely possibility, dear. I mean, what possible reason would she have for wanting her ex-husband dead? Not a desire for revenge because he’d divorced her and taken a mistress, surely. From what you told me, they’d been virtually estranged for years, and she knew all about Tarquitia long before the divorce happened.’
I shrugged. ‘She’d no reason that I know of. But then nobody does have one, not an obvious one, as far as I can see — barring your front-runner, Tarquitia. I’ll just have to dig around, see what comes up. There’s the other son, too. Marcus. Hellenus, whatever. That’s another possible angle. Oh, sure, Postuma said he hadn’t had any contact with his father for years, but if he wasn’t formally disinherited he’ll have a share of the estate. We don’t know his circumstances, and maybe he suddenly needed a large amount of cash urgently enough to tempt him to cut corners.’
‘That is pure speculation, dear.’
‘Sure it is, no arguments. But I have to start somewhere.’
‘What about the actual killer? The freedman?’
‘Lady, Rome is full of freedmen, and whoever used the guy as the perp isn’t exactly going to advertise their relationship, particularly if he owes his cap to them, which would point the finger pretty effectively. Me, if he was one of my dependants and the fact meant I could be traced through him, I’d make damn sure he got himself well and truly lost for the duration. Get him out of the city altogether, for preference, certainly put the bugger in strict quarantine. Oh, I’ll ask around for a shortish forty-plus-year-old freedman with a mark on his cheek, sure, but I don’t think I’ll get any joy.’ Sad but true: most of the time, unless of course they come specifically to his attention for some reason, to your average middle- or upper-class Roman another man’s (or woman’s) freedmen dependants, like their slaves, are non-people, featureless nonentities. They just don’t get noticed, because they’re of no importance. Ask any three-namer to describe his next-door neighbour’s major-domo to you and the chances are you’ll just get a blank look. Ask some of the more pukkah-sahib types to describe their own and four times out of five you’ll get the same.
‘You might be lucky,’ Perilla said.
‘Yeah, well, just don’t hold your breath, that’s all.’ I finished off the custard. ‘You don’t want yours?’
She shuddered. ‘No. Definitely not.’
I reached over and swapped the plates. Not wholly greed: Meton can take it really personally if the empties tray comes back with an untouched dish on it, and risking Meton’s displeasure is not something you do lightly.
‘What about Surdinus’s relationships outwith the family?’ Perilla said. ‘I mean, in terms of enemies?’
I shrugged again. ‘From the looks of things, there isn’t much mileage there. Not if you believe Tarquitia, and if she were the guilty party, the chances are she’d be only too glad to bring out the dirty linen. He wasn’t involved with politics, which is the main area for a guy of his class where making enemies is concerned.’
‘Business relationships?’
‘Possibly. That’s one side of things I’ll have to check with his ex-wife. But the impression I got was that his mind didn’t run that way. He was a stay-at-home, for a start, and an interest in philosophy and astrology doesn’t chime too well with hard-headed business sense.’
‘You said he was a Stoic, dear. Stoics aren’t ivory-tower philosophers by any means, and they’re positively expected to involve themselves in business and politics. So if Surdinus kept clear of these areas he’s an anomaly rather than otherwise. And personally I think for a businessman a certain facility in making predictions about the future might prove a very useful skill.’
I laughed and ducked my head. ‘Yeah. Yeah, fair enough. So when push came to shove, maybe he wasn’t a proper card-carrying Stoic after all. But I’m only repeating what I was told by his estate manager and his mistress: he didn’t go out much from choice, and he seems to have picked his friends and acquaintances for their ability to talk philosophy rather than business or politics. And they were exclusively that — friends. There were no enemies that anyone’s mentioned, either Manager Leonidas or Tarquitia. Oh, sure, again it’s something to check — I’ve got a few names for his regular dinner guests, so talking to them may open up an angle or two — but I’m not too hopeful on that side of things.’
‘So where are you hopeful?’
‘The gods know, lady. Nowhere, at present. Tarquitia … well, I take your point, all of your points, but I can’t really believe in Tarquitia being behind the murder. Like I said, all I can do is dig around and see what comes up, see what feels promising.’
‘Starting tomorrow?’
‘As ever.’
SEVEN
I started, though, with Surdinus’s ex: mornings aren’t the best time to go visiting clubs, so I’d put that off until later in the day.
Cornelia Sullana had a house up on the Pincian, between the Gardens of Pompey and those of Lucullus; prime hillside property, in other words, although not in the Vatican league. From the looks of the place — old, detached, rambling, in its own grounds and with a well-established garden around it — I’d guess it was part of the family estates, going back at least to her ancestor the dictator’s time. Which, of course, made complete sense: belonging, as she did, to a long-established patrician family like the Cornelii, she’d have property in her own right spread throughout the city and far beyond. Rome’s ultra-pukkah patrician families have always been a hard-headed bunch where making and keeping money’s concerned, and being banned from trade they’ve put all their efforts over the past five hundred years or so into land, stone and mortar. Or rather, in most cases, into the cheap lath, rubble and cement that the city’s tenements were built from, that bring a huge return in rents for a very modest outlay, and keep on bringing it year after year. Particularly if the expense of minor concerns like repairs and renovation is kept to a minimum, which it usually is. Even though she was no longer part of the Naevius ménage, Surdinus’s widow, or whatever you liked to call her, wouldn’t exactly be short of a sesterce or two.
I gave my name to the door slave, and after half an hour or so spent kicking my heels in the vestibule, I was shown into the atrium, where the lady herself was waiting to grant me an audience.
Cornelia Sullana was comfortably into her fifties and dolled up like a woman twenty years younger. Not that it had much effect on her basic appearance, mind: she was bony and angularly ugly, with an expression on her sharp-featured face like she’d just swallowed a pint of neat vinegar. An image of a discontented parrot in moult eyeing up a particularly recalcitrant nut came to mind. I could see, given their avian similarities, where Surdinus Junior had got his looks from.
‘Valerius Corvinus,’ she said. ‘I assume, from the communi-cation I received from Naevia Postuma, that you are here in connection with the death of my former husband.’
‘Yeah. Yeah, that’s right,’ I said. I glanced at the couch opposite her — she was sitting on a chair — but if I was expecting an invitation to use it, I didn’t get one.