Solid Citizens by David Wishart Page B

oil-soaked wood, the flames leapt up and smoke billowed, caught by a freshening breeze and shrouding the corpse.
    Once the fire had properly taken hold a fairly large chunk of the crowd began to drift off back in the direction of town, leaving a hard core mostly consisting of mantle-wearers. Me, I stuck around too: this is the point in the proceedings for socialising, while the corpse is burned and the chief mourners plus the undertakers’ men wait for the fire to die down so that they can cool the ashes with wine and collect the bones for burial. I looked for the lawyer, Publius Novius – after all, I’d have to talk to him before too long – but I couldn’t see him. That was understandable, sure: the day was turning cold, no weather for an old man to be out for long in, and he’d probably have packed it in as soon as it was decent. Nevertheless, most of the senators were still around, chatting in groups; I got a nod from Silius Nerva, although he didn’t come over. Also hanging on for the final rites – surprisingly, I thought, all things considered – was the nephew Mettius. Not Andromeda, though, who I’d noticed slipping away practically as soon as the pyre was lit – out of tact, probably, since the odds were that the high-profile mourners included some of her regular customers. But there again, maybe I was doing her an injustice. She’d come to the burning, after all, and she was a busy lady with a business to run.
    Mettius was standing on his own, looking at the flames and obviously lost in his own thoughts. I drifted across to him, and he glanced up when he saw me coming. He did a double-take, and his eyes widened slightly.
    I might’ve been wrong, but I had the distinct impression that the guy was steeling himself.
    ‘Hi,’ I said. ‘I’m—’
    ‘Marcus Corvinus,’ he said. ‘Yes, I know who you are. You’re down here from Rome, and you’re investigating the old man’s death, right?’
    Old man
. Not
my uncle
. Well, it made sense, I suppose, given the background and the fact that they’d had no contact for over ten years. ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Although there’s no actual connection between the two. So how did you know, exactly?’
    He shrugged; an elegant lifting of the shoulders. Ageing lad-about-town was right: the guy might dress and be barbered like a twenty-year-old dandy, but he was at least thirty-five, probably closer to forty, and he looked ten years older; it’s not the mileage that gets you, sometimes, it’s the booze, and I reckoned Mettius had sunk his fair share over the years. Not that I’m one to talk, of course.
    ‘Andromeda told me,’ he said.
    ‘Right. Right.’ I nodded. ‘I noticed you were together. You, uh, know her well?’
    ‘That all depends on what you mean. We’re on familiar terms, yes, of course we are, as no doubt you’ll’ve guessed from the fact that we came out here in one another’s company.’ His eyes were challenging. ‘Knowing her
well
, however – in the sense in which I suspect you used the word –
is something else entirely. I’m not married, Corvinus, but like a lot of other men in this town, married and single, I enjoy sex for its own sake and am willing to pay for it, so I’m a customer of hers. The big difference between me and a large number of her other regular clients is that I’m not ashamed to admit it.’
    ‘Fair enough,’ I said easily. ‘I’ve no problem with that.’ I glanced round at the pyre, still blazing away: the undertakers’ men were pouring on perfume and adding dried, sweet herbs, to mask the smell of cooking meat: Caesius would be almost gone now. ‘You didn’t get on with your uncle, so I’m told.’
    ‘You were told right.’ His mouth twisted. ‘But that’s putting it far too mildly. I hated the bastard’s guts.’ I blinked; not something you expect to hear, under these circumstances, with the man himself turning to ash just a few feet away. ‘So. Surprised that I’m here, are