I turned. ‘Ah…sorry, pal. It’s the dog.’ Well, at least I’d already paid the bill, and Atratinus could always come back in after we’d gone. If I hadn’t got the poor bastard barred for life, that was. Upmarket chichi places are pretty sensitive about these things.
I dragged the offending brute towards the exit before she could reach second-strike mode.
Once we were out in the open air I turned to Atratinus. ‘Thanks, pal. You’ve been very helpful.’
‘Don’t mention it.’ He was still looking fazed. ‘Any time.’
I took a good grip on the leash in case of ballistic cats and…
‘Uh…Corvinus?’
I looked back. ‘Yeah?’
‘We talked about Sextus’s gambling debts. He, uh, took out a loan from a money-lender to clear them. Quite a big one, I think. The man’s name was Vestorius, Publius Vestorius. He has an office in Julian Square.’
I nodded; he hadn’t been going to tell me that — dealings with money-lenders were another definite no-go subject where lad-about-town solidarity was concerned — but he’d obviously thought better of it. A nice kid, Atratinus. Sextus Papinius had been lucky with one of his friends, anyway.
‘Thanks, pal,’ I said. ‘Much appreciated.’
The rain that had been threatening all day — October’s always a very unsettled month — had started down in earnest. I threw the hood of my cloak over my head and let Placida pull me back along Iugarius towards Saturn’s temple. Julian Square’s just off Market Square itself, and I was going there in any case to lodge Natalis’s draft with my banker. I might as well drop in on this Vestorius now, and get it over with.
Shit; a money-lender, eh? And ‘quite a big’ loan. That gave the affair a pretty ominous slant, as if it hadn’t already had one: you don’t put yourself in these guys’ hands, not if you’re a nineteen-year-old kid on a slim allowance, because the interest will be crippling, they collect on the nail every month or add what’s missing to the principal, and that’s a vicious spiral that only ever gets worse.
If I wanted a reason for young Papinius’s suicide, trying to service a sizeable loan from a money-lender would provide it in spades. Bugger. I felt depressed as hell. It looked as though Minicius Natalis wasn’t going to have to wait all that long for an answer to his question after all.
5
I was out of luck: when I found it, Vestorius’s office was closed. Too early to shut up shop for the afternoon, so this looked bad. Damn. I shoved my head round the door of the silversmith’s next booth along where a little bald-headed guy was doing delicate things to a bracelet with a pair of pliers.
‘Excuse me, pal,’ I said.
The guy glanced up. When he saw Placida the pliers slipped and he winced.
‘Uh…I was looking for Publius Vestorius,’ I said.
He was staring at the dog and sucking the back of his hand where the pliers had caught him. ‘Then you’ve just missed him. He left half an hour ago.’
Bugger. ‘You happen to know when he’ll be back?’
‘Not today. He said he had business in Ostia. You could try again tomorrow, but I can’t guarantee it.’ He was still staring. ‘What is that thing?’
‘Gallic boarhound.’ Shakeshakeshake. Splattersplattersplatter. ‘Ah…sorry, friend. She forgets herself sometimes.’
‘That so, now?’ He reached for a piece of rag and wiped himself off, glaring. I beat a hasty retreat.
Hell. Well, for what it was worth — not a lot, to tell the truth — I’d got plenty to be going on with, and Vestorius, like Balbus at the aediles’ office, could wait for another time. In any case, the rain had slackened off and I might just make it back to the Caelian before Jupiter decided on another cloudburst. I called in at my banker’s to lodge Natalis’s draft, feeling guilty as hell in the process — the case, if you can call it that, was practically stitched up already, and it had been money for jam — and then headed for home.
Perilla was in her study indexing her book collection, and the place looked like the Pollio library on a bad hair day. Me, I can’t see the point in filling your study up with books — these things only sit there sneering at you — but the lady has some queer ideas about what constitutes comfort and entertainment. Ah, well. It takes all sorts.
‘Oh, hello, Marcus,’ she said, turning round. ‘You’re back. Where’s Placida?’
‘In the garden moored to the fountain. Unless she’s half way to Ostia dragging it behind her.’
‘Did you have a nice walk?’
I threw myself onto the couch. ‘Lady, watch my lips. That is the last time I take that fucking brute anywhere.’
‘Nonsense, dear.’ She kissed me, tasting of ink and gum. ‘She just needs a little getting used to, that’s all.’
‘Believe it.’ I took a slug of the wine Bathyllus had given me.
She finished tying a tag to a book’s roller, made a note on the sheet of paper on the desk, and slipped the book itself into a cubby. ‘So. How’s the case coming? Do you know yet why Papinius killed himself?’
‘No. But I’d guess the usual. Money, or lack of it, rather. Gambling debts. He’d got himself mixed up with Mucius Soranus.’
‘Oh, Marcus!’ Perilla looked at me with wide eyes. She’d heard of Soranus too: we don’t go in for gossip, Perilla and me, but you pick up the occasional nugget here and there, and Mucius Soranus was one of the nastier lumps.
‘According to his friend Atratinus he’d borrowed from a loans shark to pay Soranus off.’
‘How much?’
I shrugged. ‘Exactly, I don’t know, but Atratinus said it was a lot. Too much for him, that’s for sure.’
‘He hadn’t told his parents?’
‘They’re divorced. There’s just the mother, practically speaking, and although she seems okay financially I get the impression that actual cash is pretty tight. Certainly she knew nothing about the loan, or she’d’ve mentioned it when we talked. Natalis neither. My guess is Papinius was too embarrassed to tell anyone at the time and just let the thing get on top of him. You know how kids’ minds work at that age.’
Perilla bit her lip. ‘The silly, silly boy!’ She sat down. ‘He didn’t leave a note? A suicide note, I mean.’
‘No; not that I’m aware of. But again if he had Rupilia — that’s the mother — would’ve mentioned it. Her or Natalis.’
‘Don’t you think that’s strange?’
‘Not necessarily. He didn’t kill himself at home, so it could’ve been a snap decision.’
‘What was he doing in an Aventine tenement in the first place?’
‘Interviewing the factor. At least, I assume that was the reason. He worked with the fire commission investigating damage claims, remember.’
‘So he’d probably have had a set of tablets and a stylus with him. To take notes if necessary.’
‘Uh…yeah.’ I hadn’t thought of that. ‘Yeah, I suppose he would.’
‘How about the work aspect of things? As a reason for suicide?’
I shifted on the couch. ‘That seems okay. Atratinus was a colleague as well as a friend, and he says Papinius was well up to the job. I’ve still to talk to the aedile in charge, but there don’t seem to be any problems there.’
‘So it comes down to money, pure and simple.’
‘Uh-huh. He had a girlfriend, too. Not a real gold-digger, according to Atratinus, but a pretty fast model all the same. Paying her running costs can’t’ve helped.’ Shit; this was depressing. I’d seen it before, a thousand times: kid from a good family gets into a fast lifestyle, finds he can’t afford to pick up all the tabs and gets into debt, then before he knows where he is he’s out of his depth and struggling to keep his head above water. In most cases, when things get really bad he forgets his pride and bawls for help; at which point daddy steps in, pays the creditors and tears enough strips off the son and heir to make him think twice, if he has any sense, about making the same mistake again. It’s a lesson in life nine-tenths of the blue bloods in Rome go through, and have been doing since Romulus ploughed the first furrow. Only with Papinius it hadn’t happened that way, had it?