‘Fucking right it’s the official version.’ Battus again. ‘And it’s a lie from start to finish, because old Garganius never touched a drop in his life when he was on duty. If you want to hear the true story you talk to him, pal. Sextus Garganius. Lives over by the fucking meat market.’
‘Battus, I warned you! Out!’
‘Yeah, yeah.’ The punter set his cup down. ‘It’s OK. Keep your hair on, Scaptius, I was just going anyway. See you later, guys. Enjoy the festival.’ There was a chorus of grunts, whistles and cat-calls. He lurched towards the door, and — finally — through it.
‘Prat!’ Scaptius muttered and reached for a cloth to wipe the counter.
‘Just out of interest,’ I said to him, ‘do you happen to know where I can find Caesius’s brother?’
‘Lucius?’ He gave me a sharp look and put the cloth down. ‘What do you want with him?’
‘I just need a quick word, that’s all. For the sake of completeness.’
‘To do with the death?’ I said nothing. ‘Well, it’s no business of mine, sir, and no skin off my nose. Sure I know. Far as I remember, he rents a room in the first street to the right of the square, above Cammius’s bakery.’ He turned to the other punters. ‘That so, lads?’ There were a few affirmative grunts. ‘You might see him at the funeral, but I wouldn’t count on it. He and his brother weren’t exactly on friendly terms.’
‘So I’m told,’ I said. Rents a room, right? So the guy was obviously seriously strapped for cash. Something that was probably just going to change, and pretty drastically, from what I’d seen of the Caesius ménage; if he was the dead man’s only heir, he’d be worth quite a bit, shortly. I sank the remaining wine in my cup and stood up. ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Catch you later.’
‘Have a good festival if we don’t see you before,’ Scaptius said.
‘You too, pal.’
Right. Back to the job in hand. Or at least to the victim’s funeral.
FIVE
The market square was beginning to fill up, with crowds starting to form in the porticoes which surrounded it. They’d erected a temporary dais in the centre, wreathed along its edges with cypress, and there were a few curule stools on top for the dignitaries and the actors that’d be playing the dead man’s magistrate ancestors. I found a place with a good view, next to a pillar, and leaned my back against it to wait.
‘Down from Rome, are you, sir?’ the guy beside me said. He was chewing on a sausage.
‘Yeah. Just through for the festival.’
‘That’s it,’ he said smugly. ‘I could tell straight away from the haircut. Me, I’m a barber by trade. That’s a Big City haircut you’ve got there, right?’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘It is.’
‘Thought so. Easy to spot, when you know the trick of it.’ He nodded in the direction of the dais and took another bite of his takeaway lunch. ‘They’re giving him a good send-off, at any rate, the randy old devil. Visiting brothels at his time of life, eh? Who would’ve thought it, a respectable man like Caesius, too. You live and learn, don’t you, sir?’
‘Yeah. You certainly do.’
‘Still, good on him, whatever anyone else says. Showed he was human after all, with a bit of red blood in his veins. That’s what a lot of these cold bastards need, a bit of good red blood. Too much thinking — well, it isn’t good for you, is it?’
I grunted vague agreement and looked away. The facts of the case had got around fast enough, that was for sure. Not that it was surprising, mind: Bovillae’s a small place, and nothing spreads quicker than scandal. Plus the guy was a barber, after all. Gossip — particularly salacious gossip — is part of a barber’s stock in trade. Forget the Daily Register: if you want to keep up with the breaking news anywhere in the empire the way to do it is to go down to the local market square every morning for a shave and trim.
We were about ready for the off: I could hear the wailing of flutes and the clashing of cymbals from the direction of the Arician Gate, and a couple of minutes later the funeral procession itself appeared. They were giving him a good send-off, right enough; the Bovillan Senate, bless their little cotton socks, had pulled out all the stops. The musicians and professional mourners came first, then the bier with the dead man on it. Behind were his magistrate ‘ancestors’ in mourning mantles, the actors wearing the original death-masks. Scaptius the barman had been right; there were only half a dozen of them, quite a poor showing. Finally, the senate themselves, the town’s greatest and best, led by the two current aediles with their attendant rod men. Among the follow-ons, I recognized Nerva and the fugitive from an Egyptian tomb that was old Publius Novius, Bovillae’s sharp-as-a-knife lawyer.
The procession filled the centre of the square. The death-couch was set down, and the ‘ancestors’ plus the chief magistrates and top town officials took their places on the dais. One of the aediles raised his hand for silence. The music stopped. He took a scroll out of his mantle-pouch and unrolled it. So. They hadn’t asked Brother Lucius as next-of-kin to read the eulogy, which would’ve been the normal way of doing things. Or — and I guessed it was the more likely explanation — he hadn’t offered. Interesting.
‘Who’s giving the speech?’ I said to my barber pal.
He spat a piece of gristle from the sausage into his palm and threw it away. ‘Marcus Manlius,’ he said.
The guy involved in the wool-store scam. If it was a scam. Yeah, Scaptius had said he was one of the aediles. I took a more careful look. A bit younger than Caesius had been, mid-fifties, maybe, with that sleek, plump, self-satisfied look you often get with rich political types: the fat-cat who’s swallowed the canary and then gone on to lick up whatever cream’s going before complaining that they’ve been short-changed, and besides, who had been responsible for providing the cream in the first place?
Manlius was definitely someone else I had to talk to.
‘How about Canidius?’ I said to the informative barber. ‘He here?’
‘The quaestor?’ He pointed. ‘That’s him, behind Manlius’s shoulder. The long drink of water.’
I followed the pointing finger with my eye, and grinned: ‘long drink of water’ summed the guy up perfectly. Tall, thin as a rake, early- to mid-forties, pasty-faced, looked like his nose had a permanent drip, and that there was something nasty under it. A prime candidate, obviously, for a pint or two of my barber pal’s good red blood.
Manlius was getting into his stride. As eulogies went, it was standard, off-the-peg, ten-sesterces-the-yard stuff, delivered in the po-faced, self-consciously pious manner common to politicians and priests everywhere: pillar of the community, honest, reliable, honourable, life devoted to the service of the people of Bovillae, tragic loss, never see his like again. Pick-and-mix, like I say, all pretty general, but with the noticeable omission of the usual bits concerning sterling moral rectitude and the closeness of the dead man’s family ties. Either Manlius — if he’d written the speech himself, which was possible, judging by its banality — wasn’t a total hypocrite, or more likely he just wasn’t risking catcalls from the less respectful members of the crowd. That sort you always get, at politicos’ funerals, and if their comments aren’t always exactly PC at least they inject a bit of honesty into the proceedings.
Which reminded me … I turned to my chatty neighbour.
‘Any sign of the dead man’s brother here, pal?’ I said. ‘Lucius Caesius? Or his nephew Mettius? You know either of them by sight?’
‘Sure.’ The barber scanned the crowd, taking his time and chewing on the last of his sausage. ‘I can’t see the brother,’ he said finally. ‘Although that’s not surprising. The two couldn’t stand each other, no secret about it. But there’ — he pointed again, over to the far left — ‘that’s your Mettius. Standing over there by the shrine of the Goddess Rome, next to the fat woman with the chickens.’