dare say, if there had been children, other arrangements would have been made. He would have wanted children, to cement the connection with your family.'
`We were a devoted couple,' Vibia reiterated, churning out the same false-sounding claim she had presented to the vigiles and me the day her husband died.
I appraised her slim figure as we had done at her first interview. `No luck with a pregnancy though? Juno Matrona! I hope nobody tried interfering with nature here?'
`I don't deserve this!'
`Only you know the truth of that fine declaration…' As I continued to be openly insulting, she said nothing. `Devoted or not, you cannot enjoy having been purchased like a barrel of salt meat. Chrysippus treated his authors that way, but a woman prefers to be valued for her personality. I think, you were aware – or in time you became aware – of the reasons the Chrysippi all of them, including Lysa in the interests of her beloved son – had wanted your marriage.'
Vibia no longer disputed it: `An alliance for the improvement of all parties – such things happen frequently.'
`Discovering that Lysa had supported the idea must have been a shock though. Did you turn against your husband then? Enough, perhaps, to rid yourself of him?'
`It was not a shock. I always knew. It was no reason for me to kill my husband,' Vibia protested. `Anyway, Lysa had a shock herself – Chrysippus soon realised that he liked being married to me.'
`I bet that pleased her! Did she turn against him?'
`Enough to kill him?' queried Vibia sweetly. `Oh, I don't know – what do you think, Falco?'
I ignored the invitation to speculate. `Let's accept that you and your husband rubbed along together happily. When Chrysippus died unexpectedly, you were threatened with losing everything you had here. That made you harden your attitude. So you persuaded Lysa to let you have the family home. Marriage for the purposes of others will never happen to you again.'
`No, it won't.' It was a simple statement, impassively made. Not, I thought, a confession of murder.
The marriage was probably complex, as all marriages are. It had not necessarily been miserable. Vibia had possessed money and independence. As I saw her when we first met, and as Euschemon had described her, she was a wife whose domestic and social place was worth having. Chrysippus had doted on her, and he loved to show her off. Expecting only a marriage of convenience, Lysa had been genuinely angry at what had been sprung on her after so many years.
`Were you happy in bed?'
`Mind your own business.'
Vibia gave me a level stare. She was no virgin. That look was too confident – and too challenging. Nor did she carry the wounds, mental even more than physical, which would have resulted from three years of sexual abuse.
`Well, I don't think you suffered. But did you hunger for better, sweetheart?'
`What does that mean?'
`The staircase to your private apartment lies unguarded and, as I found today, it's deserted. Did a lover ever stroll upstairs to visit you?'
`Stop insulting me.'
`Oh, I am full of admiration – for your courage. If Chrysippus was often working in the library, you were taking quite a risk.'
`I would have been – if I had done it,' said Vibia harshly. `As it happens, I was a chaste and loyal wife.' I gazed at her and murmured gently, `Oh hard luck!'
Although she had, as they say, kept the keys of this house for three years (though in practice, I suspected Chrysippus was the kind of man who clung on to the keys), Vibia lacked experience. She was at a loss how to make me remove myself – or to summon up heavies to have me removed. She was trapped. Even when I was rude, she could only complain feebly.
`Tell me,' I challenged with a bright smile. `Diomedes used to see his father often; was he able to come and go freely?'
`Of course. He was born and brought up here.'
`Oh! So had the loving son been allocated a room here?'
`There was a room he had always had,' Vibia replied frigidly. `From childhood.'
`Oh how sweet! Near yours, was it?'
'No.'
`Proximity is such a fluid concept. I shall not test this with a measuring rule… When he visited so regularly, nobody would think much of it?'
`He was my husband's son. Of course not.'
`He could have been visiting you,' I pointed out.
`You have a dirty mind, Falco,' retorted Vibia, with that trace of coarseness that had always stopped her being entirely respectable. `Young stepmama and idle stepson of her own age it would not be the first time nature secretly held sway… Somebody told me, you wanted more to do with Diomedes than was proper.' `That person slandered me.'
I tipped my head on one side. `What – no secret hankering?' `No.'
These flat little negatives were starting to fascinate me. Every time she came out with one, I felt it hid a major secret. `You were quite rude about him when you were first interviewed.'
`I have no feelings either way,' said Vibia – with that deliberate neutrality that always means a lie. During all this part of my questioning, she had been looking at the oriental carpet evasively.
I changed the subject suddenly: `So how do you feel about Diomedes marrying your relative?'
For one brief moment that wide mouth pursed. `It is nothing to do with me.'
`Lysa said you helped arrange it.'
`Not quite.' She was scrambling to recover her composure. I sensed that Lysa had bullied her into something here. `When I was asked what I thought, I did not raise objections.'
`And was that failure to object,' I demanded, `so important to Lysa and Diomedes that they rewarded you with all this lovely property?'
At that, Vibia did look up. In fact, she became elated. `Lysa is so annoyed to lose it. That's the best part for me – she is furious to see me living in what used to be her house.'
`For a matchmaker's pay-off,' I told her bluntly, `the price is extortionate. As a banker by proxy, I am astonished that Lysa agreed.' No reaction. `Now that you are a lone woman living without masculine protection, what, may I ask, are you doing about your stepson's childhood room?'
Vibia was well ahead of me. `Obviously it is no longer respectable for him to come here. People might suggest something scandalous. This letter I am writing'- she produced the document she had been frowning over when I first walked in -' says Diomedes must remove his things – and not come here again.'
`Such concern for propriety. His bride will be grateful to you, Vibia!'
She was very anxious to distract me. By chance, it seemed, the young lady had lifted her arm onto the back of the reading couch and her richly beringed hand had lolled against my left shoulder. Was it chance, or was Fortune for once looking after me? Now, with a faint jingle from a delightful silver bracelet, her small fingers began slowly moving, caressing my shoulderbone as if she were unaware of doing it. Oh very nice. She was definitely moving in on me. Feminine wiles. As if I had not encountered enough of them in my career.
I leaned back my head, like a man who was perplexed, and fell silent. Then, just as the fingertips began exploring that sensitive, rather tingly area of my neck where the tunic edge met my hairline, Passus knocked on the door. I breathed a sigh of relief – or was it regret?
`I'm just off now, Falco.' He had a scroll bundle with him. `This is the stuff you wanted -'
`Thanks, Passus.' Both of us managed not to grin, as I jumped up from the couch and collected the scrolls from him. `I'm finished here.'
That was one way of putting it. `I'll walk along with you. Vibia Merulla, thank you for your help.'
I bade a rapid farewell to the widow, and safely fled.
