I wasn’t alone. A punter behind me had obviously had the same idea, and we both reached it together. Once inside, I took off my waterlogged cloak to shake it out.
‘Lucky this place was here, pal, right?’ I said to the guy. ‘Another couple of minutes and-’
Which was as far as I got before he went for me. I just managed to bring my cloak round before the knife he was holding drove at my stomach and the hood fell back from his face.
Nigrinus.
There was no time for niceties. It was a heavy cloak, made heavier by a couple of gallons of rainwater. When the knife went through it I threw myself to one side and let it fall over his arm, tangling round it in a sodden bundle, then piled in hard with my full weight while he was off-balance. We went over together, with me on top, and things got pretty busy for a while, mostly where I was concerned involving a desperate effort to keep the bastard’s knife-arm immobile with my left hand while I tried to force his windpipe through the back of his neck with my right.
Not that I was having much success either way. The guy had muscles like rocks held together with steel cables, and he plainly wanted me dead. It was only a matter of time …
‘Hey! What’s going on there?’
I glanced up and round. A couple of seriously beefy guys – obviously the proprietor himself and one of his slaves – were coming towards us from further in in the yard. They were carrying hammers, and they didn’t look happy. With a sudden effort, Nigrinus heaved me off and stood up. I thought he’d try to knife me again – I could see him thinking of it – but his hand and arm were still tangled with the cloak, and the guys with the hammers had broken into a run. He took to his heels.
‘You all right, mate?’ the proprietor said to me as I picked myself up.
‘Sure. No permanent damage.’ I looked towards the road, but Nigrinus was long gone. ‘Thanks, pal. Things were getting pretty bad there for a minute.’
‘What the hell happened?’
‘Robber. After my purse. I caught him at it and he turned nasty.’
‘A robber? In broad daylight?’
‘Yeah, well. Maybe they work shifts.’
He gave me a nervous look. ‘Uh … right. Right. Well, so long as you’re OK that’s all that matters. We’ll be getting back to work.’
‘Thanks again,’ I said.
‘Don’t mention it,’ the stonemason said.
They left, quickly.
Lippillus was at his desk, writing what was presumably a report. There was a stack of note tablets at his elbow. Yeah, well, he’d said he was snowed under at present. The joys of being a Watch Commander in the modern Watch.
‘Oh, hello, Marcus,’ he said absently. ‘Be with you in a minute. How do you spell “concupiscent”?’
‘I don’t.’
‘Fair enough. Pull up a stool.’ He wrote on for another couple of minutes, then looked up.
His eyes widened.
‘What the hell happened to you?’ he said.
‘A brush with a guy by the name of Sextus Nigrinus. Long story.’
‘Part of the current case?’
‘Yeah. Very much so, although how he fits in I don’t know yet. He’s an Ostian. At least, that’s where he’s based.’
‘Is he, now?’ Lippillus put the pen down. ‘Interesting.’
‘More interesting than you know, pal. It turns out that your Marcus Correllius was the person shipping the amphoras that nearly fell on top of my victim at the Ostia docks, three days before he was actually murdered.’
‘What?’
I told him the story; at least, the relevant bits. ‘You got any more information from your side?’
‘Yeah, actually. I was going to send you it,’ he said, ‘but I thought there wasn’t any real hurry. We’ve a witness to the stabbing after all, at least we probably have; a lady’s maid by the name of Picentina. Mistress was occupied in the Danaid Porch, seemingly, and she’d sent the girl out into the garden while she got on with things.’ Right; no prizes for guessing what the ‘things’ would entaiclass="underline" the Danaid Porch next to the Pollio is one of Rome’s principal pick-up points, where your better class of would-be adulterers and adulteresses troll for prospective soul-mates. ‘We got her through a complete fluke. The mistress had lost an earring in the Porch and she’d sent the girl to ask at the library desk if it’d been handed in. The freedman on duty was smart enough to check with her on our behalf whether she’d seen anything, and that was that. Not that I’ve had time to interview the girl properly yet.’ He indicated the pile of note tablets. ‘As you can see.’
‘That’s OK. I can do it for you, if you like. You got an address?’
‘The mistress’s name is Publilia Clementa. Married to a Turius Gratus, with a house not all that far from your place. On the edge of the Carinae, just past the Head of Africa junction with the Sacred Way.’
‘Perfect,’ I said. ‘How about Correllius’s address in Ostia?’
‘You’re going back over there?’
‘Seems I’ll have to now, doesn’t it?’ And for much longer, this time. Which meant bunking down for the duration on Agron’s floor. Bugger!
‘Fine. Like I said, the family property’s on the Hinge, about halfway between the Market Square and the Laurentian Gate.’
‘Got you,’ I said. ‘Family, you say?’
‘According to Mercurius – that’s the slave Correllius had with him, if you remember – he has a wife called Mamilia. That’s all I’ve got, I’m afraid.’
‘No problem. It’ll do to be going on with, anyway.’ I stood up. ‘In the meantime, anything else and you know where to find me.’
‘Sure,’ Lippillus said. ‘Good luck, Marcus.’
At least when I went back outside the weather had improved. Not that it mattered much: what with one thing and another, both my cloak and my tunic were pretty well sodden, and caked with mud into the bargain. Before I did anything else a complete change of clothes was called for.
I set off back to the Caelian.
THIRTEEN
‘But how did he know?’ Perilla asked when I told her about Nigrinus and we’d gone through the usual Oh-Marcus-you-could’ve-been-killed routine. Me, so long as I come out the other end of things with all my bits still in working order, I’m pretty good about being attacked. It shows I’m doing something right somewhere. Not that it’s too pleasant at the time, mind. ‘How to find you, I mean,’ she added.
I’d changed out of the soaking, mud-stained tunic and was stretched out on the couch with a restorative cup of the Special. When he’d seen the condition my cloak was in – Nigrinus had dropped it when he ran, and it’d been lying in the gutter further up the street – Bathyllus had sniffed and consigned it to the rag-bag. A pity: I’d liked that cloak.
‘Yeah, good question,’ I said. I’d wondered about that myself. Seriously wondered. ‘Oh, sure, the Ostia side of things could’ve been accidental. The guy works at the docks there, so it’s just possible that he could’ve got wind of a nosey purple-striper from Rome asking awkward questions and trailed me to the wineshop. The business in Ardeatina Gate Street, though, that’s a different thing altogether. He couldn’t’ve tracked me there from Ostia off his own bat, no way.’
‘You mean he was acting on instructions from someone in Rome.’
‘And on information received. Yeah. It’s the only logical explanation. It’d still be tricky, mind, and it’d involve some fancy footwork, but it’s feasible. X in Rome – could be Annia, could be the brother, could be Poetelius, or a combination – knows I’m going to Ostia, and that the chances are I’ll stumble across the connection with the Porpoise, which for reasons unknown they really, really don’t want me to do. So they-’