Exposed under the mattress was a beautiful cotton tunic, brand new by the looks of it, in the most stunning shade of apple green. He let his breath out in a whistle.
‘Well, well, well.’
He had a feeling it sounded smug, but who cared? Smug was definitely how he felt. Glancing up, he saw the expression on Claudia’s face was one of sheer incredulity.
‘She had Crassus’s obsidian brooch, you know.’ Orbilio straightened up, feeling for all the world like a dog with two tails. ‘Had the gall to wear it in the street, brazen as anything.’ He clucked his tongue. ‘Greed’s what tripped her up, she was trying to sell it when the silversmith recognized it and sent for the police. In the confusion she gave them the slip.’
Once the search was complete, he rolled up the tunic, whistling as he worked. Claudia had gone.
*
‘I thought you’d be here,’ he said gently.
The house was too brightly lit, she could take refuge in the darkness of the garden. Heady floral scents drifted in the night air, although the sibilant hiss of the fountain failed to drown the sound of her sobs. He eased himself on to the seat beside her, tossing up whether to chance his arm by slipping it round her shoulders on the pretext of offering her comfort. Maybe later…
‘I didn’t realize it would upset you so much, this Melissa business, but look on the bright side-’
‘A sixteen-year-old girl slashes her wrists and you think there’s a bright side?’
Yes, Claudia, yes I do. Orbilio could barely contain his joy. It means you are in the clear. Completely and utterly exonerated! He wanted to sing to the heavens, dance till he dropped.
‘You can see what happened, can’t you? Oh, I’m not suggesting she deliberately set out to impersonate you, I’m sure she saw you as a role model.’
‘Orbilio, you don’t seriously expect me to believe Melissa murdered four high-ranking officials?’
In the dark he reached out, snapped off a spring of lavender and ran it through his fingers. ‘No.’ It was a grudging admission, but it was the truth.
‘Huh! After seven months I’d have thought you’d be delighted to have your scapegoat.’
‘My interest lies in the guilty, not the innocent. And no, it wasn’t Melissa.’
Orbilio began stripping the lavender of its florets, one by one.
‘For a start, this is a man’s crime. A woman might be capable of driving a blade into a bloke’s heart with that degree of force and accuracy, but…’
Together they watched the tiny blue specks blow away into the night.
‘But what?’
‘In my opinion, precious few women are equal to gouging out the eyes of their victims while they’re still warm. There’s an awful lot of blood and stringy bits and…’ The denuded stalk dropped to the ground. ‘Precious few men, come to that.’
‘So where does Melissa fit in?’
Orbilio chewed his lip. He couldn’t confide in her, it wouldn’t be fair. ‘I’ll tell you that,’ he replied, ‘when I find where she’s hidden the money.’
‘What money?’
He leaned forward and lowered his voice. ‘Claudia, there’s something I need to-’
He was interrupted by a small head which poked itself round the pillar behind him.
‘Wotcha! Heard about Publius?’
‘Rufus, this isn’t the time. Publius who?’
‘Publius Caldus the banker. Dead as a herring, he is.’ The boy made a gleeful gagging sound in his throat. ‘Dagger through the heart and his eyes dug out, same as the rest of ’em.’
XVII
‘Were someone to ask me to write it down, I honestly wouldn’t know where to start,’ Claudia told Drusilla.
She’d barricaded herself in her room, it was the only sure way to get peace and quiet these days.
‘The House of Seferius has turned into Pandora’s Box and had the very gates of hell been thrown wide, I swear Jupiter wouldn’t have more turmoil to contend with than I have.’
‘Ffffrow.’
‘Yes! As for you, you little hussy!’ Claudia’s fingernails raked up and down the cat’s backbone. ‘Don’t think I’m fooled by this extra podge.’ She gave Drusilla’s tummy a gentle prod. ‘I know you’re carrying kittens in there.’
Not one to miss an opportunity, the cat flopped over, squirming from side to side as Claudia’s fingertips tickled her soft cream underbelly. Her front claws began kneading the air. This was the time of day she liked best, when she’d had her supper and the light was failing. Moths would come out, and although she was particularly partial to moths nothing could beat cuddles with Claudia, because once she, Claudia and a jug of wine got together Drusilla knew she was in for a session and a half. Her blue squinty eyes closed in excruciating ecstasy.
‘Broop.’
‘The trouble is, poppet, everything’s spiralling out of hand. The minute I think I’ve got one aspect licked, another horror pops up. Look at this.’ Claudia’s hand reached out for the letter on the table. ‘From Lucan, waiting for me when I got home. Very polite, he is. Requests five hundred sesterces before Wednesday. What am I supposed to do, eh?’
She crumpled the parchment into a ball and lobbed it neatly out of the window.
‘I fobbed him off, of course. Sent him an equally polite letter back, enclosing fifty with the possibility of another fifty next week. I mean, you can’t say fairer than that, can you?’
Sneaking fifty out of the banqueting fund was a doddle.
‘I had such grand plans for raising the whole wretched sum, until Gaius scuppered it.’ Claudia changed hands, her fingers were aching. Drusilla continued to knead bread in the air. ‘It was that line I fed him about the galley captain which inspired me. I thought, why not put the trick into practice? Heaven knows, there are enough gullible bods in this city, I felt sure we could milk a handful without pushing our luck. And what did Gaius do?’
‘Brrrr.’
‘Gaius, the man who plays everything so close to his chest it gives him blisters? He blabs to the entire contingent at that bloody banquet last night how he, Gaius Seferius, wine merchant of repute, had been conned out of three hundred sesterces!’
‘Brup, brup.’
Bloody banquet. A veritable farce if ever there was one. Claudia’s eyes rolled at the memory. Melissa’s suicide left all manner of nightmares in its wake, not least the fact that she’d left no notes of the arrangements she had made. Or, to be more precise, the lack of! Consequently, of the dancers only six Syrian girls bothered to turn up, forcing Claudia to put them through their paces so many times their ankles buckled under the strain. The tumblers didn’t arrive until midnight, the fire eater didn’t arrive at all, nor did the poet or the comedian or the snake charmer. The acrobats were atrocious, and Claudia had had no qualms in docking their money and putting it towards paying off Lucan, but the musicians, to give them credit, excelled themselves. It was just a pity no singers turned up to accompany them.
A lesser woman would have spent the evening squirming with embarrassment. Not Claudia. The minute she realized the banquet would be a fiasco, at least from the point of view of entertainers, she announced to the assembled party this was to be a night of comedy. Imagine, if they pleased, the type of revelry they could expect if the hoi polloi were left to organize it. She congratulated herself, because appealing to their obscene snobbery was an instant success. The worst thing imaginable was for their cosy patrician/equestrian world to be invaded by the Great Unwashed, and so to watch the same old dance troupe perform endlessly, hear music without song or poetry and not even having the satisfaction of a bawdy female impersonator went a long way towards bolstering their own superiority. And the supreme irony of it was, she reflected happily, none of the arrogant sods was even remotely aware they’d been sent up!
Had it not been for Verres’s genius with the feast, of course, she’d never have got away with it, but there you are, that’s life for you. Some you win, some you lose, and that boar stuffed with live thrushes took their gluttonous breath away. As did the peacocks and cranes, the lampreys and oysters. Tomorrow, being Saturday and the Wine Festival, she could afford to give him a day off as a reward.