Illegally Dead by David Wishart Read Free Book Online Page A

gobsmacked as I was. ‘Uh...you said “he”. You’re sure the murderer was a man, then?’
    ‘Not absolutely sure, no, but that’s the likelihood. It would’ve taken real force to cause that much damage with this.’ He held up the gate-bolt. ‘She’d have to be a bloody strong woman. Also –’ He thought for a moment. ‘No. I’ll show you. Marilla, you want to help?’
    The Princess had been standing in the doorway, watching and listening. ‘What with?’ she said.
    ‘Just come over here. Stand in front of me.’ She did. Clarus lifted the gate-bolt and brought it down gently until it rested against the top of her head. My balls shrank. ‘You see, Corvinus?’
    ‘Uh, Clarus -’
    ‘Cosmus was about Marilla’s height, more or less. I’m three or four inches taller. Unless he was holding his head back’ - with his other hand, Clarus lifted Marilla’s chin while keeping the gate-bolt where it was - ‘or kneeling down, someone my height or shorter would’ve caused a wound further down towards the neck. And if he was kneeling’ - he pushed Marilla onto her knees - ‘then the wound would almost certainly’ve been further up, on the top of the head itself, not down and to the side.’
    Yeah; I saw what he was getting at now. Smart reasoning. Whoever had killed Cosmus must’ve been tall, certainly too tall for a woman, probably for most men. Tall as me, easy. Strong, too, which meant that they were in the prime of life, or at least kept themselves in decent shape. We were doing pretty well here. ‘So,’ I said. ‘We’ve got a valid scenario. Cosmus poisons Hostilius on the instructions of AN Other, refills the medicine bottle to defer suspicion, again maybe as instructed, pockets what he can get his hands on - maybe that was his own idea this time, but whatever - and lights out by prearrangement to his temporary bolthole. AN Other then - again by prearrangement - meets him here, ostensibly to pay him off and arrange his passage elsewhere but actually to get rid of a potential embarrassment. He kills him and throws his body down the well, where - he assumes - it won’t be found for quite some time, at least until things have a chance to blow over. That work?’
    ‘He can’t have been very clever,’ Marilla said. ‘Cosmus, I mean.’
    ‘I don’t think he was,’ Clarus said. ‘Not that I knew him myself.’
    ‘Well, at least the physical aspects of the murder let Veturina out. That’s one thing.’
    ‘Ah...no, Corvinus. No, I’m afraid that actually they don’t.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘You’ve never seen her before, have you? Veturina is...uh...quite big.’
    ‘Is she, indeed?’ I said.
    Bugger.

7
    I found out what he meant the next day, when I went round to Hostilius’s place and met the lady: Veturina looked like she could tie iron bars in knots, never mind use them to ventilate a kid’s head. That said, there was nothing particularly masculine about her, quite the reverse. She might be well on the wrong side of fifty, but she was still no bad looker, even in zero make-up and a mourning mantle. And I’d just bet she was the kind to keep stuffed toys in the bedroom. She put me in mind of a fluffy Amazon.
    ‘I’m sorry, Valerius Corvinus,’ she said. ‘This is...I’m going to find this very difficult. I knew Lucius was dying, he knew it himself, but first the suddenness of his death and now –’ She stopped and took a deep breath. ‘Forgive me. How can I help you? Where can I start?’
    Well-spoken and articulate, but with a strong low-class Bovillan accent; yeah, Marcia had said she was a Bovillan innkeeper’s daughter. Interesting, though, that after all the years she and Hostilius had been married - over thirty, hadn’t it been? - and she’d been moving in, presumably, higher social circles than she could’ve been used to she hadn’t gone to the bother of upgrading it. Maybe that said something about the woman.
    ‘With the death itself would be logical,’ I said.