Solid Citizens by David Wishart Page A

‘You want the other half?’
    ‘No. Just the answer to a quick question, pal, if you will. Four nights ago. Was Lucius in here at all, do you remember?’
    He shot me a look. ‘The night of his brother’s murder?’
    ‘Yeah, that’s right.’
    ‘Sure. Same as he always is, from the time we open right up until closing time. He was where you’re sitting now, talking to Roscius.’
    I stared at him. ‘
Roscius
? You mean Quintus Roscius?’
    ‘Yeah. Farms just outside town on the Castrimoenium road.’
    Shit! ‘He a regular?’
    ‘He comes in now and again.’
    ‘Pally with Lucius?’
    ‘Not especially, but it was a quiet night, what with the weather being so bad. They were the only two in the place.’
    ‘Until closing time, you said. Sunset, would that be?’
    ‘About an hour after.’
    ‘That late?’
    ‘I wasn’t in any hurry. Lucius is a good customer, and I didn’t have the heart to throw him out. My brother has an olive farm, and he lets me have the oil cheap. It’s not the best stuff, third pressing standard if that, but it’s good enough for the punters I get from around here. And keeping open the extra hour sometimes is good for business. These days, you have to make use of every edge you can get.’
    ‘They leave together?’
    ‘Yeah. When I closed up.’
    ‘Thanks, pal.’ I went back to my seat. Bugger! There went straight-as-a-die Roscius’s alibi! When the bastard had told me he’d been at home the evening of the murder he’d been lying through his teeth!
    Lucius came back in and sat down with a sigh. ‘That’s better,’ he said. He topped up his cup from my jug. ‘Now where were we? Oh, right. Your investigation. You’ve just started, you say.’
    ‘Yeah.’ No harm in putting out a few feelers and seeing if they produced any result. ‘I was round at Publius Novius’s earlier. The lawyer.’
    ‘I know who Novius is. Scumbag.’
    ‘He tells me that you were disinherited in your father’s will, ten or so years back. That so?’
    Lucius scowled. ‘My father never made that will, Corvinus. Oh, sure, we’d had nothing to do with each other for twenty-odd years before that, but he wasn’t the bastard that Quintus was. He wouldn’t’ve done that to me, disinherited his own son.’
    ‘Hang on,’ I said carefully. ‘You’re saying the will was a fake?’
    ‘Of course it was. It must’ve been. I’m telling you, my father would never have cut me off without a penny. Quintus and that slimy lawyer pal of his cooked the will up between them. Did Novius tell you I challenged it?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘No, he wouldn’t, the canny bastard. Certainly I did. In open court. For all the good it did me.’ He emptied his cup again; at this rate I’d have to get the other half jug after all, but at least it didn’t seem to be having much effect. If anything, the old guy seemed to be sobering. Mind you, it was only halfway through the morning, and he was used to it. ‘Novius and Quintus and their like lead the senate by the nose. They
are
the senate. And the senate provide the aediles, and the aediles do the judging. Two solid citizens and a jury stacked with their pals against a drunk with a grudge? What do you think the verdict’d be?’
    Yeah, well, that was true enough, whatever the ins and outs of the rest of it: you couldn’t buck the Old Boy network, whether it was in Bovillae or Rome, once they’d made their minds up about something. I took a sip of my own wine. ‘Still,’ I said, ‘your brother carried on paying your allowance.’
    ‘Novius told you about that as well, did he?’ Lucius said sardonically. ‘Talkative little shit, isn’t he? Oh, yes, I got that regularly enough every month, for what it was worth. Then, at least. But did he mention that Quintus had stopped it recently?’
    ‘No. No, he didn’t.’
    ‘Fact. A couple of months ago, it was, just after Vatinia died. You know who Vatinia was?’
    ‘Your brother’s wife. Sure.’
    ‘My brother’s, as