Nemesis

‘Stay on the track,’ Justinus warned his bright-eyed batman. ‘If you get stuck in a deep sinkhole I’m not pulling you out, in case it brings a boggle-eyed sprite swirling to the surface.’ Now who was using too much imagination?

We all had the creeps. Long periods of silence descended on us. The invigorating effect of fresh air turned into sun-glaze and skin-burn. Eyes were dry. We started to itch, but when we slapped at imagined insects, they were never there.

Something about wild places brings misery to the surface. I began to be afflicted by griefs and guilts I thought I had left behind in Rome. Now that I had mastered the endless tasks involved in Pa’s estate, my brain found space to heal itself- which it did as spitefully as possible, by way of reliving moments of misery. Over and over, I went through again that long day of Helena’s labour and how we lost our baby son; over and over, I daydreamed that I was back at my father’s villa, while his gaggle of slaves informed me he had gone.

Avoiding the others, I lolled in the cart, thinking about life and death. Death, mostly.

When it was too late to get back to Satricum the same day and while we all tried to avoid raising the unwelcome subject of having to camp out for the night on this sodden ground, we came upon something.

We had been travelling an intermittently raised track through shoulder-high brushwood. Occasional clearings widened out in a ragged fashion. Somebody must use this route. In one part they had actually laid wicker hurdles where the track had sunk, though the hurdles had then been half submerged too. Quite suddenly we broached a bigger space. A tilting heap of trash grew out of the ground amongst a fungoid clutter that was definitely human in origin. It looked abandoned. It looked like the windblown rubbish that piles against bushes in forests. Not so, though. Someone had carefully collected this detritus, over a long period. There was a lopsided shack at the heart of the mess which appeared to be roofed and lived in.

‘This is it, boys!’ declared Rectus, as if he had knowingly led us to it.

‘Ooh, I don’t like it!’ crooned Lentullus, like someone listening to a ghost story around a winter fire.

We stood and looked. Nero the ox lowered his head and nuzzled around in clumps of reedy grass. His tail flicked manically, as he was tormented by flies. We were too tired and dispirited to advance on the hovel immediately. If a will-o’-the-wisp had wafted out in a swirl of mist and cried ‘Boo!’ we would have turned tail obediently.

One end of the building had a squashed look and slumped low, as if it was in the process of being swallowed by the swamp. This was a lean-to with nothing to lean against. At times over various decades, attempts had been made to patch up rotten parts. Items of hardware that may have been stolen from other people’s porticoes or looted from stationary vehicles on market day were attached like trophies: a Medusa-faced tile end, a metal knocker solidified with its own verdigris, half of a baker’s giant stone flour grinder. Around the shack were piles of old building materials, large-scale food containers that dribbled rancid waste, cartwheels, broken pieces of armour and incomplete fishing equipment. There was a table groaning under masses of machinery parts — rusty bits off pulleys, cranes and ploughs — ugly metalwork the purpose of which had been long forgotten and which would never be identified and reused. It all looked shabby. Most totters would have rejected it.

Parked between what must have been the door and a window that had been boarded-up was a row of heavy-duty spears and javelins. They were cruder than army issue, gross objects made for intimidation. No one in Rome could have such a vile armoury displayed against his house; decent folk just had a lantern they forgot to light most evenings and a tile saying cave canem to act as a cheap watchdog. Weapons were illegal in the city. In the country, anything was permissible. Out here in the wild, the hunting excuse let any small-time character who wanted to look big decorate his home with this all too obvious panoply. It didn’t mean he was able to use it properly, though even an amateur who wielded one of those wicked beasts would be capable of inflicting harm.

Petronius Longus reached into the ox cart and quietly buckled on his sword.

I would have followed suit, but just then a man appeared in the tumbledown abode. Above three snaggled wooden entrance steps, with rotten treads, it had a two-part stable door. Without warning, he looked out through the top_; Perhaps he had heard us coming. Obviously he had seen us now.

Petronius and I at once strode forward to speak to him. Wild barking announced that a vile-tempered dog was behind the lower section of the door, desperate to attack us. The man wore a filthy sleeveless tunic, a week-old beard and a scowl. No chance of a civilised traveller-host relationship here: he wasn’t going to ask us in for pastries in a mock-marble peristyle. When Petro said we had come from Rome — a pedigree that must have been obvious — without a word, the rude householder swung back the lower door so that a powerful, ragged mastiff came bounding down the steps in a slather of rabid froth and sheer blind rage.

Justinus and Lentullus rushed forward. As always in a crisis, Lentullus knew no fear; he acted before he thought, then he fainted with terror afterwards. That was how he had nearly lost his leg. Now he grabbed the ferocious, snarling dog with both hands around its neck as it leapt at us. He hung on, intent on saving his beloved master. The man from the shack loped after the dog and lunged for it feebly; more by luck than judgement, he looped a chain around its heavy neck and clapped on a padlock. ‘Good boy, Fangs! He’s just being friendly,’ he mumbled, in the manner of all lacklustre owners. He had no understanding of his dog’s capabilities and strength, no hope of controlling it. He would be lucky if he wasn’t found one day, savaged to death by his own animal.

We stepped away. The berserk Fangs was now straining to drag his chain free of the big tree to which its other end was fixed. He so much wanted to kill us, he seemed likely to strangle himself. We would have no qualms about letting him. Thwarted, he started hurling himself at the tree.

‘Sorry, I forgot he was there. We don’t see many people and he gets excitable. Quiet, boy!’

There was no way the dog could be silenced, until the owner lobbed half an old amphora at him. It missed. The weighty crock could well have cracked the canine skull. Fangs seemed to know about this wine-jar trick. Immediately he piped down and slunk to the base of the tree where he just sat, bored and whining.

We all stood in the clearing and went through introductory formalities.

‘I am Probus, one of the Claudii,’ said the man from the shack. ‘I expect you have heard of us.’ He folded his arms and stared, not openly hostile yet proud of their notoriety.

‘One of the brothers?’ asked Petronius, not denying we had been told about these people.

‘That I am.’

‘Are you the family spokesman?’

‘Can be.’

‘Do any of the rest live around here?’

‘Several’

‘Give me some names?’ Petro appeared quite patient, though I thought he wanted to kick this swamp slug in the throat. In Rome he would have had the bastard up against a wall; the problem here was lack of walls. Nobody wanted to go near the tree where Fangs was chained. Pushing a suspect hard up against the shack would most likely cause the whole wreck to keel over.

‘Names?’ Probus gave Petro a slow look, then wiped his nose on where his sleeve would be if he had sleeves. His arm was hairy enough, and muscular. He slouched like a wimp, but I bet he fought dirty. ‘Names, eh?’ He was medium height, well built in a slovenly way, with his belt drooping to groin level and a small paunch hanging over it. ‘Everyone around here knows who we are.’

‘I come from Rome,’ Petronius told him again in a mild tone. ‘SPQR. I’d like to hear some details.’

‘I’m very busy,’ Probus boasted. ‘No time to draw a family tree.’

‘And there are a lot of you, I gather.’ Petronius still sounded friendly. I was waiting for him to explode. A cloud of midges began to swirl in front of my face and I biffed at them in irritation. ‘Did I hear of twenty-siblings?’

‘Justus was the eldest —’ Probus counted on his filthy fingers. He had on a silly face, playing clever bastards. I felt my attitude harden. This could be the swine who had tortured a man for remonstrating about a trespass, beat him, cut off his extremities and left him to moulder. The gods only knew what had been done afterwards to the missing wife. That probably happened close to here.

‘Go on,’ Petro encouraged him, far too politely.

‘Justus dropped dead last year — according to you lot, he probably died of a bad conscience. Then two girls, me, Felix — Felix, the happy and fortunate — and a clever little sod too; well we lost him early, naturally. . another sister, the twins Virtus and Pius, and Era, then triplets who all died at birth, Providentia, Nobilis — he’s the one you people usually blame, every time an apple falls from a tree and the owner squeals, Those Claudii stole it! —

I had had enough. Probus continued his long list, but his sly, teasing attitude was more than I could take. Every name made me angrier. ‘Let’s stop messing about!’ Petronius snatched at my arm but I shook him off. ‘Probus, you know why we have come. A body was found; it was not pretty. Stop lying and admit that Modestus and his wife came here to complain.’

I strode forward. The thug stepped back in mock alarm. ‘Oh they came!’ he delighted in telling me. His black teeth showed in a gleeful grin. ‘And they’re not here now — however many of you cocky Romans barge about looking for them!’

That was all he said, because I socked him. I hit him low and hard, then as he doubled up, I struck again. If I had been alone with him, I would have carried on for half an hour. I felt so much aggression, I startled myself.

‘Falco!’

Petro and one of the others dragged me off. ‘Don’t make me wish I hadn’t let you come,’ muttered Lucius Petronius, eye to eye with me and speaking low.

I wrenched free and stumbled away from him. Then I left him to deal with it. I walked off stiffly into the forest by myself.

XX

I strode through the woods in a straight line. No point getting lost. When I came upon a path, I poked a stick in the ground, upright, to show me where to turn on my way back. I had no plan. I was not following the precept that sometimes on a bogged-down investigation, striking out blind can lead you to a clue. I was just overwrought.

I had calmed down by the time I came across more marsh-dwellers.

I walked into a similar campsite, just as poor as the last, just as untidy, just as unedifying. It had scenic advantages, however. It looked out on fields, for one thing. They were not bad fields either, my country background told me that, though their boundary fences were in a bad state.

Three horrible hutments, arranged in a rough triangle, formed a kind of shabby hamlet, not one to feature in a tourists’ guidebook. What distinguished these from Probus’ lair was that each had a couple of beaten-up chairs outside for admiring the view or making it easier to shout abuse at the sky. Each had a washing line. No man who cultivates a reputation as a dangerous long-term pest pegs out his smalls. So a couple of the Claudius women were in view, one slowly hanging up limp garments, another seated in a dispirited pose on the steps of what was probably her home. Her cowed demeanour suggested she was not allowed to use the chairs. On a nearby patch of ground, some tousled children were kicking a bucket about; I counted four though from the racket there could be others.

The girl with the laundry had the thin body of a child of fourteen and the face of someone two or three decades older. Pain lurked in her eyes. It would stay there. She had seen things she would never forget but she was never going to share them. Her drab dress was short, shapeless, frayed, a grey piece of rag that looked older than she was. Nonetheless, she wore a string of crude stone beads and even a bangle that could pass for gold for a pawnbroker who was ninety and shortsighted. Some man who wanted to signify she had a lot to be grateful for had given her those. She should have thrown them back and got free of him.

Surprisingly, the women did not take offence that I had stepped out of the undergrowth. It did not mean they would be helpful.

‘The name’s Falco. I’m looking for Nobilis.’ No surprise at that, it seemed. ‘I think I took a wrong turn. You’re. .?’

‘Plotia,’ said the one with laundry. ‘You want Nobilis?’ She nodded to the centre shack. I had the impression it was empty. ‘Gone away.’

‘Beach holiday at Baiae?’

‘Gone to visit his grandma.’

‘Is that a joke? I hear he’s a tough nut.’ Plotia just stared.

I walked closer. After the incident with Fangs, I looked around, in case there were other guard-dogs. Reading my thoughts, Plotia said, ‘We never have animals.’ Her gaze flickered; she stated sombrely, ‘Well not for long.’

I swallowed. Petronius once told me that pathological murderers tend to start their killing sprees while they are children. Find a man who takes prostitutes off the streets as a personal vocation, and he’ll probably have a set of neat jars with his childhood collection of dissected rats. I had suggested all boys are curious about dead animals. Petro said most just pick them out of the gutter; we don’t trap them on purpose and deconstruct them. Most of us don’t eviscerate our own pets.

‘What is your connection to the Claudii?’ I asked the women.

‘I’m married to Virtus.’ It was still Plotia answering. ‘Byrta belongs to Pius.’ Belongs to was a term that would have delighted our ancestors; my Helena would disdain it. [Note to scribe: delete that ‘my’. I don’t want my balls pickled.]

Before I could ask, Plotia added, ‘Both not here. Pius and Virtus work up in Rome.’

That was news. Petronius would be sure it was not good news.

‘I’m from Rome.’ I played friendly. ‘What do your men do there?’

Plotia just shrugged. A Roman wife may be her husband’s closest confidante in theory, but not around here. I guessed marriage was a one-sided contract among the Claudii. Wives had to take foul language, thrashing and forced sex, if I was any judge. Then they bore endless children, who were battered and buggered too. They would all learn to keep their heads down, to judge carefully from bad moods what it was safe to say or do, and never to ask questions. They were bound to have been ordered not to talk to strangers.

Many a slave knew that existence. Maybe it was how the Claudius men had learned to impose themselves on weaker souls.

‘Nobilis have a wife?’ I asked.

‘She left.’ At the mention of escape, Plotia looked jealous. Even Byrta perked up. From her perch she was listening to everything. ‘He never recovered.’

‘I bet there was all Hades of a row.’ Plotia laughed briefly. ‘Still, she got away from him?’ Neither woman reacted to the way I phrased it. ‘Where did she go?’

‘No idea.’ That meant not allowed to tell. ‘Nobilis knows. Antium, I think. She set up with someone else, so Nobilis stopped that — ’

‘Really! How?’

‘The usual way!’ Plotia said scornfully, ‘The girl took refuge with her father afterwards, I heard.’

‘What’s her father’s name — and her name?’

Plotia and Byrta glanced at each other. This information must be on the banned list. Nonetheless Plotia told me the father was a baker called Vexus. The wife was Demetria.

‘Does Nobilis now accept her going?’

‘Yes — if “accept” means constantly saying he’ll get the girl one day.’

I sighed. ‘When did they split?’

‘Three years ago.’ And it still rankled with the husband? Demetria must be a brave soul to break free of that control. Or was she so badly crushed that anything was better than life with Nobilis?

‘If that’s his house, can I have a look round?’

‘He won’t like it,’ Plotia said flatly. Strangely, she then made no objection. It might be part of the Claudian plan to appear helpful whenever they were directly confronted. I took my chance and went to the door. It was unlocked — almost a jeering invitation to search. Even at that point, entering the house Nobilis lived in sent a shiver down my spine.

I wondered if the posse from Antium had searched here. It must have done them no more good than it did me. The freedman’s house was crammed with stuff with an obsessive neatness. The collection of rubbish looked as if Nobilis had lined it up in rows, just waiting to upset enquirers by failing to provide clues.

Plotia came to the door behind me. She was gazing around as if she too had never stepped inside before. ‘He keeps everything. He’s got stuff that goes back decades.’

That was true, but if Nobilis killed Modestus, he had not kept the statue-seller’s lapis lazuli signet ring. There were no locks of hair from victims, no lovingly cared for boxes of different girls’ underwear. I found no old calendars with scored marks to signify killing days. No bloodstained weapons. No ropes with cut ends that could be matched to ligatures around dead men’s necks.

I had been an informer long enough to expect disappointment.

I searched until I had had enough, then I came back outside.

‘Find anything?’ called Plotia, now squatting alongside her sister-in-law, with the early evening sun on her face.

‘No. Does Nobilis have anywhere else he hangs out? Some special annexe, where he plays boys’ games alone?’

Both women merely gave me odd looks.

This place was a shack to me, but maybe it had a subsidiary hovel, some even more secret hideaway where Nobilis committed his worst deeds. If so, either he kept it from his relatives or they were playing dumb. ‘Just one last thing — did either of you see the quarrel with a neighbour called Modestus?’ Both Plotia and Byrta shook their heads, rather too quickly. ‘You know who I mean?’ I insisted. ‘He disappeared after a bust-up here, then his wife came to look for him and now she’s missing too.’ When the women continued to blank me, I said in a sombre voice, ‘Modestus is dead. Murdered — on a journey to petition the Emperor. This isn’t going away, so you may as well tell me. You still deny seeing the argument?’

‘Probus and Nobilis talked to the old man.’ For the first time Byrta found her voice. She had a common country accent and her attitude was the wrong side of aggressive. ‘It did get heated — Modestus was an idiot, and pushy with it. Our lads never did anything to him. He just went away.’

‘You sure of that?’ I don’t know why I bothered asking. I included Plotia in the question; she was keeping quiet now. She looked away and I knew she was not going to help me. ‘Nobilis and Probus were the ones Modestus argued with?’

‘They never touched him,’ repeated the pale, thin woman as if this was a religious chant and if she said a word wrong, some sacrifice would be invalidated.

‘That right? I’ll be off then.’

‘We’ll tell the boys you came!’ Plotia mocked my wasted effort.

‘Don’t do that, please. If there’s talking to do, I’d rather do it myself.’

Then, Plotia and I shared a brief glance. It was possible I had made a connection with at least one of these drear, isolated women — some bond that might help our investigation later.

More likely, she was just thinking I was an idiot.

XXI

I met my companions as I walked back through the woods. ‘Next time you want to play good officer/bad officer,’ Petro rebuked me mildly, ‘let’s agree it in advance, shall we? You know I hate always being the nice fellow. When is it my turn to put the boot in?’

I asked if his being sweet to Probus had achieved anything; he growled, ‘Guess!’

‘I wish I’d hit him harder, then.’

‘Yes, if it helped whatever’s eating you!’ He knew what that was. Petronius was a loyal, affectionate family man. He knew I had grief I had not yet dealt with, and I was guilty about leaving home.

He smacked me on the shoulder, then we walked side by side. The others watched us warily, letting Petro play nurse. I outlined what the women had told me, not that it moved us forward.

The others had been carrying out sweeps, searching the woods in wide circles, looking for bodies. We went back along the path, passing the three hutments. Justinus stayed there to search the two women’s homes with Auctus, one of the vigiles. The rest of us moved forward.

Looking for a good spot to camp because there was no chance we could return to Satricum that night, we were heading for what seemed to be more open country. Justinus and Auctus caught us up, having also had a fruitless search at the shacks. We.kept moving along the boundary fence, distancing ourselves from where the Claudii lived. We found a place where the fence had been broken down and rebuilt; a notice had been erected on the far side, warning off trespassers in the name of Julius Modestus. Despite its fierce semi-legal language, only a short way further on we came upon another boundary breach. A group of wild-looking cattle which probably belonged to the Claudii stood on the Modestus land, eyeing us inquisitively.

No one said anything, but we kept going, rather than pitch camp too close to the big-horned beef.

We had a tent, but the ground was too wet and spongy for pegs to grip so we just hung an awning off the side of Nero’s cart. As dusk drew in, I fetched out the ointment Helena had provided. This time there was no grumbling. As insects bothered us incessantly, we all dipped our fingers in the pot and slathered it on. Everyone tugged down their tunic cuffs and tightened their neck-scarves.

We lit a fire, which may have kept off some of the wildlife, though there was still plenty. We ate a nearly silent supper, not even discussing our plans for tomorrow, because we had none. Any chance of sleep was finished off by hundreds of croaking frogs. Then cattle turned up too, splashing, huffing and coughing, sounding enormous as they do in the dark. The vigiles jumped up from time to time, to shoo beasts away. Groaning, we tossed and turned all night, between bouts of miserable scratching.

At first light, people made a move stiffly. Basic ablutions were tackled. Lentullus, a shy soul, went off by himself. Soon a frightened shout alerted us: the Claudius cattle had found him in mid-pee. Although he was country-born, he was no match for these mad-eyed, jittery bullocks and heifers, who were galloping around trying to herd him against the fence. His bad leg had stopped him escaping fast enough.

‘Typical Lentullus!’ muttered Justinus, as we all set off to rescue him. It took a while. We had to drive the cattle to the far side of the boundary fence, then we clambered over it and left them safely out of reach. Behind us, they lowed hoarsely in frustration.

When we made it back to camp, we found a disaster. Straight away we saw that our ox was missing.

‘Was he loose?’

‘He was not!’ Rectus was quick to clear himself of blame. ‘I had him hitched to the cart.’

The cart was still there, along with some of our kit, though it was strewn around. The vigiles’ two mules, who were almost uncatchable, stood under a tree looking on.

‘How could strangers get Nero to go with them?’

‘A bucket of feed would have him trotting off without a murmur.’

We searched around, following deep, water-filled hoofprints, but the trail lost itself in the maquis. Now we were stuck: miles from anywhere in a dangerous marsh that was inhabited by criminals of every type, knowing somebody must have been watching us — and they had stolen our ox.

XXII

We did keep searching as long as it was feasible. Several more days passed, but we lost heart now we were walking and carrying all our kit. We still had our mules, though once we lost Nero, Corex and Basiliscus had odd looks in their eyes as if they wished they had bolted; Corex had never been a group player anyway. We had to abandon the cart, another expensive loss for the Petronius brothers. Our task came to seem pointless. Nothing that bore any relation to a crime scene turned up. Looking for corpses in that sodden, scratchy, empty area was hopeless. The marshes were endless, horrible, ominous. Without a definite lead, we could wear ourselves out until the flies and disease finished us, yet achieve nothing. Depressed beyond bearing, we took a vote and agreed to give up. We had done our best. We had done more than anybody else had ever bothered to do.

The trip back took a long time and the first stage, heading back to Satricum, made us more sore-hearted than anything. When, still humping our packs, we passed the shack where Claudius Probus lived, he sniggered openly. He blamed the ox theft on the bandits who were supposed to have colonised the marshes. Curiously, we never saw any sign of such bandits. My guess was that the Claudii had seen off all the competition in these parts years ago. Most bandits are cowards, who avoid serious confrontation.

When we reached the good road and collapsed at the Satricum inn, the landlord expressed great surprise to see us. However, he was eager to hire us extra mounts, and very conveniently had some donkeys available; the two vigiles went with him to inspect them. Petronius sat set-faced, glaring as if he now thought the landlord was responsible for our loss of Nero.

Helena’s brother Justinus went indoors to talk to the waitress, Januaria; neither Petro nor I had the heart. He returned looking thoughtful. ‘She was talking about foreigners — that’s anyone they don’t count as local, I suppose. Some foreigners who take a road through the marshes don’t come back; well, not this way.’

‘That is because they have had their transport stolen!’ Petro snarled.

Quintus and I exchanged glances. If the girl had made him think what she said was significant, I trusted him.

Petronius continued to resist. ‘You head south, because you’re going south. When you get there, that’s where you want to be. So you stay there. In the south.’

‘Logical,’ I cracked. ‘For simpletons!’ I was feeling tetchy myself.

He carried on ranting. ‘It follows that miserable inn-folk to the north don’t see you again. They won’t see me again either, once I get back to Rome.’ Petro took a swig of wine from his beaker, spat, slammed down the cup in high disgust, then strode out, shouting to us all to move. He had had enough of the countryside. He was going home.

Petronius Longus and Petronius Rectus drove us all mad, maundering on at one another about the value of their stolen ox and abandoned cart. At least that ended when Rectus took his leave at the Via Appia. He returned to his farm in the Lepini hills. ‘He was my bloody ox as well!’ shouted Lucius Petronius after his departing brother.

I knew why he was so livid. The theft showed him up. He expected another ear-bashing from the cousins who owned part-shares in Nero. They were bound to suggest that an officer of the Roman vigiles ought to be able to hang on to his draught animal, especially when stuck in the middle of wetlands that were famous for criminal activities. ‘My barmy brother was in charge of him — I should have known what was coming!’

I was welcomed home quietly. Helena had a sniff at me to ensure I had been using the anti-insect ointment. Ever the thoughtful husband, I had made sure I rubbed in some more just before I turned my door key. Helena herself was still subdued. Once we would have rushed straight into bed together, but with the baby’s death so recent that would not happen.

I prowled around, checking the house. Things seemed well under control. Helena ran a good household and she had grown up in a senator’s house, full of staff. Slaves from Pa’s house were being tried out here a few at a time. I had never been able to buy good ones because I found the process so uncomfortable, but these seemed to know what was expected of them.

‘Just tell me which you want to keep,’ I told her, discussing slaves in order to avoid more painful subjects. Tired as I was, I raised a laugh. ‘I can’t believe I said that!’

‘All you need to decide,’ Helena answered drily, ‘is whether you intend to continue your old frugal life, or should I now plan domestic extravagance and show-off socialising? We need more style. I changed from pottery beakers on the breakfast table — Gaius found some flagrant gilded goblets at the warehouse that I think will pass as morning water cups, though they won’t do when we are entertaining consuls and international trade moguls.’

‘Oh I leave all that to you, fruit. Don’t skimp; just commission new from the most fashionable designer.’

Helena continued the joke. ‘I’m so glad you said that. I’ve found a man who does the most marvellous art glass. I think it is important, Marcus, that our girls grow up knowing the finer things in life — even if they promptly break it. .’

We tired of playing games. I flopped on a couch and Helena knelt to help pull my boots off. She was simply dressed for home in a long white tunic, with plaited hair just wound in a circle and secured with one long bone pin. My real wealth lay in the love in her eyes. I knew that.

Albia was still moping; she had stopped throwing perfume bottles at the wall, though she had taken to disappearing out of the house for long periods. Perhaps she went walking by the river, wafting along like a water sprite wronged by some heartless god. When she did come home, Helena suspected she was writing screeds of tragic poetry. ‘I blame myself, Marcus; I gave her the education. Is this to be the Empire’s heritage: putting barbarians at a social disadvantage — yet equipping them to complain?’

‘Any further visits from Aelianus to inflame things?’ ‘No; he’s busy. Father decided that now both Aulus and Quintus are married, it is make or break time to put them up for the Senate.’ That was all I needed: electioneering. Helena grimaced too. ‘I mentioned that it would be inconvenient for you, just when you are tied up with the legacy and need them to assist in your casework. But Papa is giving them one last chance to become respectable — he hopes to inveigle Minas of Karystos into a financial contribution.’

I scoffed. ‘We know Minas better than that, I think!’ ‘Yes, he is as much use to Aulus as an in-law as he was as a professor. I suppose it has struck you,’ Helena murmured warily, ‘that you are now in line to be badgered for money, Marcus.’

‘What? Everyone always supposed I wanted your father to pay my debts. Can the senator now be hoping to sponge off me?’

‘I believe he may try to talk to you,’ Helena admitted, smiling.

Thank you, Geminus. Now I was a plebeian-born, middle-class upstart who had to play banker to his aristocratic relatives. ‘Will it cause a family crisis if I say get lost?’

‘Not from me,’ said Helena. ‘Neither of my ridiculous brothers is fit to govern a beanfield, let alone the Empire.’

‘Then they will sail into the Senate. Perhaps I should make an investment, then demand political favours from them? If a bunch of ex-slaves living on frogspawn can have friends in high circles, why not me?’

‘You don’t need favours from anybody, Marcus.’

I kept my head down for a few days. Life ran its usual furrow in the Aventine, though his tribune was back, so Petronius Longus had too much work at the station house. Invigorated by the sea air of Positanum, Rubella started sniping because Petro kept nipping off to the Forum Boarium, the riverside cattle market, to scrutinise any animals that came in. ‘Just in case Nero turns up.’

‘Nero’s long gone,’ I snapped, for which I received a mouthful of bad language. Fine. I told the high-handed Petronius that I had plenty to do at the Saepta Julia. So I immersed myself in my own business. We were not estranged, just having one of those tussles that keep a good friendship fresh.

Without my restraining presence, Petronius Longus chalked up a ‘missing’ poster in the Forum. It gave Nero’s identifying features: answered to Spot, left-hander when yoked in a pair, dun coloured, four legs, tail, left-eye squint. Petro even drew a mug-shot. His depiction of Nero’s perpetual line of dribble was particularly sensitive, in my opinion. I saw two granary clerks almost wetting themselves as they guffawed over the artwork, but they took it more seriously when they saw what size reward my stubborn friend was offering.

He was presented with a lot of mangy animals by rustlers who had just ‘found’ oxen wandering, but never his own.

The day I saw the poster, I was at the Forum to meet my banker, that morose ledger-fixer, Nothokleptes. His fingers could fiddle an abacus like no other’s. He wanted to hire me a larger bankbox (for which there would be a larger fee) while I needed to explain that my sudden acquisition of large sums was not due to illegal money-lending scams or fraud on twittering old widows. Nothokleptes was quickly convinced I was legit; with a fine grasp of Roman nomenclature, he stopped referring to me as ‘Falco, you shameless bankrupt’ and now schmoosed, ‘Marcus Didius, my dear respected client’. He claimed he had always known I would come good, though I had no recollection of this astrological forecast in the long dark days when I was begging for credit. I still had to get used to my new position. I admit I was surprised when Nothokleptes seated me at a little bronze-legged table and sent out a lad to buy me a custard pastry. It was soggy, with not enough nutmeg topping, but I saw that my financial fortunes must have officially turned around. Thanks again, Pa!

Mellowed by egg custard, though with mild indigestion, I climbed up the Aventine to visit my mother. She was out, putting the world to rights. So I called at the house nearby where Petro and Maia now lived. She said he was sleeping. Then she backed me into a daybed on their sun terrace and forced a dish of salted almonds on me. I was beginning to see why men of wealth were also men of girth.

‘Lucius has come home from Latium in a foul mood, and it can’t just be losing that ridiculous ox. I blame you, Marcus!’ Maia tolerated me more than my other sisters did, but she followed the trend. Petro’s first wife, Arria Silvia, always thought I was a bad influence. That was even though, according to me, our worst adventures had always been his idea.

‘I never did anything!’ Why did a discussion with relatives always make me sound like a truculent five-year-old?

‘I suppose that’s what the low-lifes in the marshes all said too! Lucius keeps mum, but I can tell you got nowhere. You’ll have to buck up,’ Maia instructed me. She was a decent sort, when not being abrupt, hasty-tempered, condemnatory and unreasonable. That was her good side; her wild side was frightening. ‘Get this case moving, will you?’

‘It’s his case.’

‘He’s your responsibility.’

‘No — he’s thirty-six years old and a salaried officer. Besides, he wasn’t even my responsibility when we were young soldiers drinking our way across Britain while the tribes rampaged around us.’

‘I can’t live with him this grouchy,’ Maia insisted. ‘You’re supposed to be the investigator, so stop loafing and get sleuthing.’

I promised I would, but sloped off home. Helena was slightly more sympathetic — if only because she felt her role was to appear always more rational than my female relatives. Putting their noses out of joint with her blameless serenity was, according to Helena, in the noble tradition of Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, every wise matron’s heroine.

‘You are not going to send me out pavement-bashing with a flea in my ear, I hope, darling?’

‘Of course not.’ Helena paused. ‘Though I am very surprised, Marcus, that you have made no attempt to find those Claudii who work in Rome, or learn where Claudius Nobilis went off to!’

I knew when I was beaten. I crawled out of the house like a slug with a spade put halfway through him.

I had no intention of being bossed. Pa, who knew just how to live a worthwhile masculine life, had bequeathed me one thing of greater worth than its book-value: I now possessed his bolt-hole. As nonchalantly as possible, I took myself to the Saepta Julia.

Now I was so prosperous, I even had two bolt-holes. I was still paying rent on a cubbyhole Anacrites and I once hired, back when we were working on tax matters. I had affection for the place that had acquired me middle rank. I was using it now for the legacy paperwork, so it was stuffed with scrolls and piteous pleas for the inheritance tax clerks to give me time to pay. I didn’t need more time, but today Nothokleptes had impressed upon me the need to delay bills so he could invest the capital in short-term sure prospects. ‘The more you have, the more you can make, young Falco. You realise that, surely?’ I certainly realised the more I had, the more my banker could cream off for himself. ‘Only the destitute pay up prompt, for fear they won’t have any money later.’

I had told Nothokleptes I would have to get used to this principle — but that I was a fast learner.

I sat in the cubbyhole, thinking, until boredom took over. Then I sauntered along the Saepta’s upper gallery, enjoying the vibrant life going on at this level and below, just as Pa used to do. I could see why he loved this place. There was never a dull moment, as fat jewellers and paranoid goldsmiths swaggered around trying to bamboozle would-be customers, while pickpockets tailed the customers and guards wondered absently whether to tackle the pickpockets. There were constant cries from food-sellers who wandered the building with gigantic trays or weighed down by garlands of drink flagons. Wafts of grilled meat and suet patties vied with the reek of garlic and the stench of pomade. Every now and then some man of note — or a nobody who thought he was one — pressed through the throng with a train of arrogant slaves in livery, trailing sweaty secretaries and put-upon fan-danglers. Disdainful locals refused to be pushed around, resulting in loud altercations.

I enjoyed watching the gallery rage, then stepped over a vagrant and entered the office. My nephew Gaius, Galla’s second eldest, was loafing there. He looked me over. ‘You don’t want to waste your time here, Uncle Marcus. Why not give me a couple of thousand a week and I’ll run the place for you?’

He was at an indefinable point in his late teens, old enough to be useful, not old enough to trust. He looked like a tattooed barbarian, though with infected sores where the woad should be. He was a sweetie underneath; we sometimes used him for babysitting.

‘Thanks for the kind offer, Gaius. I don’t need help. We just put chipped old pots on show by the door and idiots rush in to pay huge sums for them.’

Gaius dropped into a stone throne, his favourite lounger, where he spread himself like a potentate. He was drinking Pa’s flagon of Campagnan red, supposedly kept for celebrating big auction gains or for numbing the pain of losses. He waved me to a cheery cup that advised me to drink now for I would die tomorrow; as I poured a tot, Gaius warned me in serious tone, ‘You want to take a lot of water with that, Uncle Marcus. It’s probably too strong for you.’

‘Yours is neat?’

‘But I am used to it,’ smiled Gaius. His brass-necked cheek came straight from my louche brother Festus, from Pa, and a long line of previous Didii. I made no attempt to remonstrate. Like Lucius Petronius, I was thirty-six and had learned when there was no point arguing.

We talked, with surprising sense from Gaius, about an auction held in my absence. ‘Things are looking up again, no question. People stayed away to begin with, thinking nothing would be the same without Grandpa, but customers are trickling back.’

‘They are learning you’re up to it. One or two may even have heard good things about me.’

‘Don’t bank on that, Uncle Marcus! Yet again, we failed to shift that two-handed urn with the centaurs battling, but that’s been around for over a year; the artwork’s crap and people are bored with the subject. I’m going to organise fake bidders next time. See if we can force some interest.’

‘Geminus didn’t really want to sell that pot,’ I said. ‘It hung on so long, he grew fond of it.’

Young Gaius shook his head like a Greek sage. ‘There’s no scope for sentiment in this business!’ Then, to my surprise, he asked shyly whether Helena and I were getting over the baby, and complimented me on my handling of Pa’s funeral and memorial dinner.

Business over, I called in a passing peddler, bought Gaius a flatbread stuffed with chickpeas, and left him to it.

I sauntered back towards the centre of town, passing the Theatre of Balbus and the Porticus of Octavia as if I had no clear idea where I was going. I had made up my mind, however. I turned away from the river, then climbed up to the Palatine via the Clivus Victoriae. I gained entrance by telling the guards I needed to see Claudius Laeta. But I was going to see Momus.

XXIII

Falco! You cack-handed, two-timing, pompous backstairs bastard — seems a century since I laid eyes on your ugly bum-crack!’ Momus represented the refined element of the Palatine.

He was sprawling on a bench like a big blob of sea anemone, one that had let itself go. Even his headlice were low-grade. He had a paper of nuts lying next to him, but was too lethargic to dip in and munch. ‘Torpor’ would have been his cognomen, had he been refined enough to want his entitlement to three names.

Thinking about imperial freedmen, as I was for the case, I asked him what family name he used. Momus gave me a wide shrug, astonished anybody asked that question. He was so informal he had never bothered to work out his nomen.

‘Who was on the throne when you got your cap of liberty?’

‘Some useless pervert.’

‘Sounds like Nero.’

‘Probably the Divine Claudius.’ Momus made ‘Divine’ sound like an obscenity, which in the case of that old duffer Claudius it traditionally was.

I leaned on a wall, as far away from his body odour as I could get without retreating into the corridor. There was nowhere to sit. Most people who came to see Momus were slaves he was brutalising. He didn’t offer them a stool for beatings and buggery. He might be as low as a palace officer could get, but he was one level up from them so he took the traditional seat of power while they cringed in whatever desperate position he chose for them and waited for their punishment.

‘So were you a contemporary of an obnoxious bunch of imperial freedmen called the Claudii? Most live in the Pontine Marshes, though I’m told they have connections with Rome.’

Momus took a long time rubbing his bleary eyes, then surprisingly he said no.

I said quietly, ‘I thought you were famous for knowing the entire familia?’

He pulled a face. He was not intending to help me. That was unusual. Normally our loathing of Anacrites and our distrust of Laeta made us allies.

‘Somebody knows them,’ I said. ‘Somebody is rumoured to protect them.’

‘Not me, Falco.’

‘No, I never saw you as the patron type!’ Even just talking to Momus always made me feel I had let down my own moral standards. I may be an informer but I do have some.

Momus laughed, but no ice was broken in his reception of my joke.

‘Half the towns in Latium are shit-scared of treading on their nasty toes,’ I told him. ‘And you claim you don’t know them? Leaving me no choice, old crony, but to suppose you must be shit-scared of this somebody who watches over them.’

Momus did not move a muscle.

I blew out my cheeks slowly, as if impressed by the scale of the problem. That was easy. I was genuinely marvelling. Momus liked to be outspoken. His silence was not part of his routine sea-anemone lolling. If he had had tentacles, he would have stopped waving them as soon as I mentioned the Claudii. Momus was taking a lot of trouble to show no reaction, but his grime-engrained skin acquired extra sheen. I could have wiped his greasy, sweating face and then oiled a wheel-axle with the rag.

Eventually he growled, ‘Don’t mess with this, Falco. You’re too young and sweet.’

He was being ironic, but the warning had a note of real concern. I thanked him for the advice and took myself to see Laeta.

I knew he would be there. In the first place, he enjoyed pretending his burden of work was terrible — and in the second, he really was the most important scroll-bug in the imperial bureaux. At this time in the summer, the betting was that all three of his masters, Vespasian and both his sons, were taking their ease at some family villa, perhaps out in the Sabine hills where they originated. When that happened, Claudius Laeta was left at the Palatine to run the Empire smoothly. Few people ever noticed that-power was temporarily in his hands.

As an informal gesture to the fact that it was after business hours, Laeta had a singer intoning an epode. The musician was heavily emphasising the iambic trimesters and dimeters in a long, slow, lugubrious piece that used the style aficionados call affected archaism. It was music you could never dance to, nor would it lull you to sleep, raise your spirits or encourage a fine-featured woman to sleep with you. Laeta had one finger placed against his brow to indicate subconscious delight. I wondered why men who listen to such torture always think themselves so superior.

The Dorian dirge subsided. Laeta had made an almost imperceptible gesture, so the singer left. Going voluntarily saved him having me drag him outside and bind him by his tasselled wristbands to a fast-moving cart.

‘I’m glad you dropped by, Falco.’ Always a bad start.

Laeta then told me that Anacrites was back from whatever mission the Emperor had let him loose to ruin. Instead of waiting for more orders, the Chief Spy had taken it upon himself to follow up the Modestus case. ‘I have informed Marcus Rubella he can drop the investigation,’ said Laeta, barely looking up from his deskful of documents.

‘That stinks!’

‘It’s a done deal, Falco.’

‘You think Anacrites is fit for this?’ I demanded.

‘Of course not.’ At this point, Laeta did look up and meet my eyes. His were clear, cynical and unlikely to be swayed by protests. ‘Think yourself lucky, Falco. Tell your vigiles friend too. This case may go very mouldy before it’s over. If the spy thinks he wants the job, that’s typical of his misjudgement — but let him go ahead and bungle it. We can all watch Anacrites get nasty black squid ink down one of those barley-coloured tunics he insists on wearing.’

Laeta always wore white. Classic. Expensive and aristocratic. By implication incorruptible — though I had always assumed he was very corrupt indeed.

I dropped my voice. ‘What’s going on, Laeta?’

He laid down his pen and leaned his chin on his hands. ‘Nothing, Falco.’

I folded my arms. ‘I can spot official lying. You can tell me the truth. I have the Emperor’s confidence. I thought you and I worked from the same order sheet.’

‘I am sure we do.’ Claudius Laeta gave me the look some bureaucrats use. It made no denial of a cover-up and seemed to assume I knew everything he did. I felt I could see distaste for whatever game Anacrites was playing.

‘I thought this was a confidential enquiry. How did Anacrites even find out about it?’

‘Your crony Petronius put in a claim for a replacement ox and cart. An auditor strolled up the corridor and mentioned it to the spy.’

‘Oh no! I wonder what that was worth? I do see the Treasury will quibble — but the adjudicators are perfectly capable of turning down expenses without bringing in Anacrites. It’s nothing to do with him.’

Laeta for once allowed himself to be rude about another official: ‘You know how he works. He spends most of his time spying on his colleagues rather than enemies of the state.’

‘Shall I challenge him on this?’ I asked.

‘I advise against.’

‘Why?’

Laeta’s eyes were keen and oddly sympathetic. ‘Take a steer from a friend. Anacrites is always dangerous. If he really feels he wants this work, stand back.’

‘That’s not my style.’

Laeta leaned back with the palms of his hands on the edge of his table. ‘I know it’s not, Falco. That’s why I am taking the trouble, out of respect for your qualities, to say, just let this one go.’

I thanked him for his concern, though I did not understand it. Then I left his office wondering what exactly the Chief Spy could find fascinating in a bunch of belligerent marshfrogs killing a neighbour in a feud about a boundary fence.

My style was, as Laeta may have realised, to march straight up the corridor to Anacrites’ office, intending to ask him.

Once again he was absent.

Two of his men were there this time, eating folded flatbreads. I had seen them before. I reckoned they were brothers, and for no logical reason I had placed them as Melitans. Anacrites had had these idiots watching my house last December. I was looking after a state prisoner temporarily and, in his own tiresome style, he tried muscling in. Just like this, really. If he thought I was being noticed by the Palace, he could never leave me alone.

The legmen had taken over his room as if this was their base, where they were allowed to eat their supper before they were sent out on their next assignment. One was actually sitting in the seat Anacrites normally used. Even spies have to eat. That included the unfortunates Anacrites employed. Any over-familiarity was his problem.

When I looked in, the pair straightened up slightly; they rearranged their foreign-looking features so they seemed helpful, though neither bothered to ask what I wanted. They made vague attempts to hide their vegetable turnovers until they saw I didn’t give a damn.

‘He’s out?’

They nodded. One raised his bread two inches as an affirmative. I didn’t ask where he had gone, so they did not need to tell me. They knew who I was. I wondered whether they guessed why I wanted to talk to Anacrites.

He was obsessively secretive, too close to make a good commander. His men probably had no idea what he was up to. That was the problem with him: half the time he didn’t know what he was doing himself.

XXIV

For some reason, when I left the Palace, the night seemed full of threats and unhappiness. Rome had its seamy side. I seemed more aware of it tonight. I noticed caterwauling and unhappy cries, both near and distant; there seemed to be a bad smell everywhere, as if while I was in the Palace some major disaster with the drains had occurred. Darkness insinuated lower areas, creating pools of menace where there ought to be streets. Monuments that stood amidst a few lights looked cold and forbidding instead of familiar.

Back at my house, however, there was peace. The children were in bed, perhaps even asleep. Albia was in her room, plotting against Aelianus. The lamplight was mellow, there was food and drink on a side table, a sleepy Nux thumped her tail at my appearance then went straight back to snoring in her happy doggy dreams.

I sat sideways on a reading-couch with a cup of wine in one fist, not even drinking yet. Helena curled up beside me. She was sweet-scented from the baths and now wearing an old, comfortable red gown, no jewellery, with her hair loose. She put a light rug over her bare feet for comfort, wriggling her toes. I looked for signs that her grief for the baby was diminishing; she allowed my scrutiny, though with pinched lips as though she would flare up if I asked the wrong question. But then she took my hand; she was judging my progress back to normality just as I assessed hers. I too concealed my feelings, as I rubbed my thumb over the silver ring on her third finger.

Once we both relaxed, I told her about being pushed to and fro at the Palace. Sharing news was our habit, always had been. I passed on what Laeta and Momus had said, while Helena at first listened. When I ran out of details and sipped my wine slowly, she spoke up.

‘Anacrites has commandeered the job because he is jealous, perennially jealous of you — and of your friendship with Petronius. He thinks you have a better life than him. He is afraid you may jostle him aside and gain favours from the Emperor. He wants what you have.’

‘I don’t see it.’ I put down the winecup; Helena reached over and sipped thoughtfully, before replacing the cup. I half smiled but kept talking. ‘Sweetheart, he has status; from what I hear, he has money too. Jupiter knows how he got there, but he’s top man in intelligence. Even that time he took out of action with his head wound never seemed to affect his position. He has a secure career, salaried and pensioned, very close to Vespasian and Titus — whereas I’m a luckless freelance.’

‘He envies your freedom,’ Helena disagreed. ‘It may be why he tries to sabotage your cases. He realises your talent, hates how you can choose to accept or refuse work. Most of all, Marcus, he longs for you to be his friend. He loved working with you on the Census —’ He drove me mad on it. ‘But he’s like an angry young brother, jumping up and down to get your attention.’ She had two younger brothers. ‘He has done this before to you and Petro. So, treat him like a tiresome brother; just ignore it.’

I went with the simile. ‘I don’t want the nasty little menace to have a fit and smash my toys!’

‘Well, keep your toys on a high shelf, Marcus.’

It was late. We were tired, not exhausted but not yet ready to go up to bed. In a family household, this was a rare moment of quiet. We stayed hand in hand, savouring the situation, re-establishing our strong partnership after a period of upset and absence. Helena caressed my cheek with her free hand; I bent and gently kissed her wrist. We were a man and his wife, at home in private, enjoying one another’s presence. Nothing really intimate was occurring — or not yet — but the last thing we wanted was an interruption. So that was when the bastard came, of course.

I mean, Anacrites.

I was dimly aware of noises downstairs — not urgent, no cause for us to involve ourselves. Then a slave I did not remember owning knocked and came in. This was what it meant to be wealthy: total strangers were living in my house, knew who I was, addressed me humbly as their master.

‘Sir, will you receive a visitor?’

The visitor must have had a suspicion what my answer would be. He followed the lad and rudely pushed in after him. ‘I do apologise for calling so late — I just heard about your father, Marcus. I came immediately!’

Helena murmured, ‘Thank you,’ to the young slave, so he would know we saw it was not his fault. He slipped away. She and I remained in position just long enough to let anyone less crass than the spy see he was intruding. He had probably come from the office; he even looked around as if hoping for a titbit tray. Failing a guest went against our idea of hospitality, but like stoics we refused to offer him refreshments.

I stood up, sighing openly. A mistake, because it allowed Anacrites to bound right up, grasping my hands in his. I wanted to snatch back my paws, apply them round his beautifully barbered neck and strangle him; but we were standing on an attractive rag rug, and I was reluctant to defile it with his corpse.

‘Ah, Marcus, I am so sorry for your loss!’ He let go of me and turned to Helena who had stayed on the couch out of his reach. ‘How is this poor fellow doing?’ His voice was doleful with sympathy.

Helena sighed glumly. ‘He is managing. The money helps.’

Anacrites took a second to catch on. ‘You two! You joke about absolutely everything.’

‘Graveyard humour,’ I assured him, resuming my place beside Helena. ‘A grimace in the teeth of Fate, to hide our desolation. Though as my smart wife says — Geminus left me a stupefying legacy.’ I bet Anacrites had made sure he knew that before he came. ‘Apart from the inconvenience of probate, rummaging through his coffers does assuage the grief.’

Anacrites took a seat opposite, though we had not invited him to do so. He leaned forwards, elbows on his knees. He was still addressing me with the unbearable earnestness people ladle like sweet sauce over the bereaved. ‘I am afraid I never really knew your father.’

‘He kept out of the way of people like you.’ This was not always true. Once, Pa had thought Anacrites was sniffing too closely around my mother like a gigolo — an idea so unbelievable we had all believed it at the time. My outraged father, taking it personally, rushed to the Palace and took a swipe at the spy. I was there and witnessed the crazy fist-swinging. Anacrites seemed to have forgotten. Perhaps the bad head wound a few years ago excused selective memory loss. It did not, however, excuse anything else he did.

‘And how is your dear mother?’ He had been Ma’s lodger for a time. Though she was so shrewd in many things, she thought he was wonderful. He in turn spoke of her with veneration. He knew it made me sick.

‘Junilla Tacita bears her loss with fortitude,’ Helena interposed gravely. Anacrites looked at her, grateful to encounter a normal platitude. ‘She only gloats in the afternoon; she says in the mornings she’s too busy around the house to taunt his ghost.’

I smiled gently at the spy’s discomfiture.

He wore an umber-coloured tunic, his idea of sophisticated camouflage. His skin looked strangely plump and smooth; he must have come from the baths. With that oiled hair and a straight bearing, he could be called personable; well, by a woman of the night, with time on her hands and bills to pay. I doubted that any decent woman ever looked at him, not that I had seen him seeking female company since Maia dumped him. I was convinced he had no friends.

He was a strange mixture of competence and ineptitude. Undoubtedly intelligent, he was an able public speaker; I had heard him spout excuses like any clerk covering up his failures. There was no need for him to endure a tiny office and low-grade agents; his was a high public position, attached to the Praetorians; he could have conjured up a decent budget if he had applied himself.

His next foray was to say to Helena, ‘I hear your brother is back from Athens — and married! Wasn’t that unexpected?’

This was typical. Laeta had said Anacrites only returned to Rome three days ago, yet he had already discovered private facts about my family and me. He pressed too close. If I complained it would sound paranoid, yet I knew Helena saw why I loathed him.

‘Who told you that?’ She sat up abruptly.

‘Oh it’s my job to know everything,’ Anacrites boasted, giving her a significant smile.

‘Surely you should only watch the Emperor’s enemies?’ Helena retaliated.

‘Helena Justina, you were pregnant!’ Anacrites exclaimed, wide-eyed, as if it had only just struck him. ‘Has the happy event occurred?’

‘Our baby died.’ I bet the bastard knew that too.

‘Oh my dears! Again, I am so sorry. . Was it a boy?’

Helena bridled visibly. ‘What does that matter? Any healthy child would have pleased us; any lost child is our tragedy.’

‘Such a waste —’

‘Don’t upset yourself over our private troubles,’ Helena said coldly. He had pushed her too far. ‘I suppose,’ she jibed, ‘a man in your position does not know what it is to have family? You must always have looked intelligent. When some unknown slave girl bore you, were you taken up as soon as that was spotted, to be regimented in a soulless stylus-school?’

Anacrites relied on pretending we were all best friends; otherwise, I fancied there might have been real venom in his expression. ‘As you say, they could spot potential. I was indeed favoured with government training from a young age,’ he replied in a quiet voice. Helena refused to show shame. ‘I knew my alphabet at three, Helena — both in Latin and Greek.’

Though she did not remark on it, Helena had already taught our Julia both alphabets, plus how to write her name in rulered lines. Perhaps she relaxed slightly, however. For one thing, Helena always enjoyed sparring. ‘And what else did they teach you?’

‘Self-reliance and perseverance.’

‘Is that enough for the work you do now?’

‘It goes a long way.’

‘Do you have a conscience, Anacrites?’

‘Does Falco?’ he countered.

‘Oh yes,’ replied Helena Justina sternly. ‘He leaves home with it daily, along with his boots and his notebook. That is why,’ she said, fixing him with a steady gaze, ‘Marcus was so interested in working on the Julius Modestus case.’

‘Modestus?’ Anacrites’ bafflement seemed genuine.

‘Compulsory letter-writer,’ I put in. ‘Dealer from Antium. Found stone dead in a tomb — hands cut off and hideous rites committed — after a squabble with some marsh-waders known as the Claudii.’

I thought Anacrites twitched. ‘Oh you were involved with that?’ It was disingenuous; he knew it, and looked shifty. ‘I pulled back the case from Laeta. He should never have been involved. In fact, I’m glad I’ve seen you tonight, Falco. I need a handover review. Shall we say mid-morning tomorrow at my office? Bring your vigiles friend.’

So not only was he pinching our case from Petro and me, the unmitigated bastard wanted to pick our brains to help him solve it.

‘Petronius Longus works the night shift,’ I said curtly. ‘He needs his mornings for sleep. You can have us at the start of the evening, Anacrites, or go begging.’

That would give us two time to liaise first.

‘As you wish,’ responded the spy; he managed to make out I was surly and unreasonable, while he was all sweetness and toleration.

I was burning with frustration, but just then the door of the room crashed open and in flew Albia. ‘I heard there was a visitor. Oh!’ She must have been hoping for Aelianus.

‘This is Tiberius Claudius Anacrites, the Emperor’s chief of intelligence,’ Helena told her, using over-formality to rile him. ‘You met him at Saturnalia.’

‘Oh yes.’ A friend of her parents: Albia lost interest.

‘Why Falco,’ the spy then exclaimed. ‘Your foster-daughter is growing into a fine young lady!’ This was the kind of indefinable threat he had taken to throwing at me. If I ever caught him so much as saying good morning to Albia unsupervised, I would truss him with poultry string and pay to have him cooked in a baker’s oven. By the slow-roast method.

‘Flavia Albia has led a sheltered life and is extremely shy.’ Helena always supported the girl, though sometimes gently teased her. ‘But she will be a delicate ornament to womanhood any day now.’

‘Well,’ Anacrites answered silkily, ‘you must bring Flavia Albia with you — oh how silly; I didn’t mention this — we have so much catching up to do! I absolutely insist you come to my house for dinner. The formal invitation will be here the minute I can make arrangements.’

I did not bother to decline. But King Mithridates of Pontus had the right idea: the only way I would eat at the spy’s house was if I had first spent three months taking antidotes against all known poisons.

‘I thought I might lash out on a Trojan hog,’ Anacrites confided in Albia, as if they had been close friends for years. He was a man with poor social skills trying to sound big in front of a young girl he thought would be easily impressed; she of course stared at him as if he was crazy. Then she flounced off, slamming the door behind her so hard the pantiles on our roof must be in danger.

As soon as Anacrites had gone, Albia reappeared. ‘What is a Trojan hog?’

Helena was dousing lamps as we made our way to bed. ‘Exhibit cookery. Only a show-off would serve it. On the principle of the Trojan horse, it carries a secret cargo. A whole pig is cooked then slashed open suddenly at table, so the contents spew out everywhere; the guests think they are being bombarded with raw entrails. The innards are usually sausages.’

Albia considered. ‘Sounds brilliant. We had better go to that!’

I groaned.

XXV

Petronius and I walked into the Palace next evening side by side. We were silent, our tread measured, both outwardly impassive. Anacrites had played this trick on us before. It didn’t work then — trust him to repeat the same manoeuvre.

As we neared his office, one of the pair I called the Melitan Brothers came out. When the man drew level, we made space for him to pass us. Afterwards we both stopped, pivoted on our boot heels and stared after him. He managed to keep looking ahead all the way to the end of the corridor, but could not help glancing back from the corner. Petro and I just stood there, watching him. He nipped away out of sight, ducking his head anxiously.

We strode into Anacrites’ room without knocking. As Petronius opened the door, he said loudly, ‘Standards are slacker than ever. He looks too foreign to be scuttling about like a rat, so near the Emperor — if I had a Palatine remit, I’d make him prove citizenship — or he’d find himself in a neck-collar.’

‘Who’s your runt?’ I demanded of Anacrites. He had been lounging in his usual pose, with his boots — a rather fine pair of russet calfskins — on his desk. He swung rapidly upright, knocking over an inkwell, while his clerk sniggered.

‘One of my men — ’ Petronius guffawed at that, while I winced, miming pity. Anacrites mopped ink, thoroughly flustered. ‘Thank you, Phileros!’ That was a hint for the clerk, a puffy, overweight Delian slave, to make himself scarce so the spy could talk to us confidentially.

I pretended to think it was an order to fetch refreshments. ‘Mine’s an almond tart, Petronius likes raisin cakes. No cinnamon.’

Petro smacked his chops. ‘I’m ready for that! I’ll just have mulsum with it, not warmed too much, double honey. Falco takes wine and water, served in two beakers if they run to it.’

‘Hold the spice.’ I steered Phileros on his way as if the rest of us needed to get on. The clerk left, and Petronius made a point of closing the door.

It was a small room, and now there were three of us filling it. Petro and I took over. He was a large character, with substantial thighs and shoulders; Anacrites began to feel cramped. If he looked directly at one of us, the other went out of eyeshot, probably making rude hand gestures. I seized the clerk’s stool, shoving all his work aside, none too gently.

Then we sat still, with our hands clasped, like ten-year-old girls waiting for a story. ‘You first!’ ordered Petronius.

Anacrites was beaten. He abandoned any attempt to follow his own agenda. We were all supposed to be colleagues; he could not force us to play straight with him.

‘I have read the scrolls — ’ he started. Petro and I glanced at each other, grimacing as if only a maniac ever read the case papers, let alone relied on them. ‘Now I need you to sum up your findings.’

‘Findings!’ said Petronius to me. ‘That’s a sophisticated new concept.’

Anacrites was almost pleading with us to settle down.

Abruptly, we became fully professional. We had agreed in advance we would give him no excuse to say we had been uncooperative. I briskly set out that I had encountered Modestus’ disappearance through his business deal with my father. I did not mention his nephew, Silanus. Why should I? He was neither a victim nor a suspect.

Petro described the discovery of the corpse and its identification from the letter Modestus was carrying. He spoke in a crisp voice, using vigiles vocabulary. He gave an account of our visit to the Claudii; how we had interviewed Probus; searched the area; found nothing.

‘What were you planning next?’ asked Anacrites.

‘Since the next move is all yours, what do you think?’ snapped Petro tetchily.

Anacrites ignored the question. ‘Do you have any other leads?’

Petronius shrugged. ‘No. We have to sit back and wait until another corpse turns up.’

Anacrites applied a sombre expression, which we dutifully mirrored.

‘Look, you can leave this all to me now. I can handle it.’ Time would show if that was right. He closed the meeting. ‘I hope you two stalwarts don’t feel I took your case away.’ We refused to look sore.

‘Oh, I have plenty to do chasing tunic-thieves at the baths,’ sneered Petronius.

‘Well, this isn’t quite on that level. .’

‘Isn’t it?’

Anacrites then brought in the ploy he’d tried on me last night: he mentioned his plans for a dinner party, inviting Petronius too. ‘I had such a wonderful time when Falco and Helena entertained me at Saturnalia — ’ Saturnalia may be a time for patching up feuds, but believe me, I was pushed into that hideous arrangement. ‘Such a glorious family atmosphere. . Have you eaten with them at their house, Lucius Petronius?’ Of course he had! He was my best friend, living with my best sister. ‘I feel it’s time I issued some invitations in return. .’

Previously noncommittal, Petronius Longus straightened up. He looked the spy directly in his weird eyes, which were almost two-toned, one shifty grey, one browner — and neither to be trusted. He stood up, placed both fists on the spy’s table and leaned across, full of menace. ‘I live with Maia Favonia,’ my pal declared heavily. ‘I know what you did to her. So no thanks!’

He strode out.

‘Oh dear! I was hoping to smooth over any unpleasantness, Falco!’ Anacrites was ghastly when he whined.

‘Not possible,’ I told him with a sneer, then I followed Petro from the room.

Outside, Phileros was hanging about nervously with such an enormous tray of confectionery his stretched arms could hardly hold it. Petronius cared about the poor, since he so often had cause to arrest them. He had ascertained it was all paid for out of the spy’s petty cash, not the shabby clerk’s own pocket. So we swept up as many cakes as we could carry, and took them away with us.

We gave them to a tramp, of course. Even if they were not dosed with aconite, to eat anything provided by Anacrites would have choked us.

There was no chance we would allow Anacrites to have our case. Earlier in the day Petronius and I had agreed on the same system as the last time he tried muscling in. We would proceed as normal. We would simply keep out of the spy’s view. Once we solved the case, we would report to Laeta.

According to Petro, he had Rubella’s support. I did not press for details.

Although we had implied to Anacrites we had reached a dead end, we had plenty of ideas. Petronius had issued an all-cohorts notice to look out for the runaway slave called Syrus, the one who had worked for Modestus and Primula then was passed on to the butcher by their nephew. Petro’s men visited the other cohorts to inspect any slaves they had found roaming. There was another alert too: for the missing woman, Livia Primilla, or more likely her body.

It was too risky to have official warrants for Nobilis or any other Claudii; Anacrites was liable to hear about it. Nonetheless, efforts were being made to trace the couple who were supposed to work in Rome, using word of mouth among the vigiles. There was also a port watch for Nobilis, arranged through the Customs service and the vigiles out-station at Ostia. Meanwhile Petronius was having his clerk go through the official records of undesirables, looking for members of the family listed in Rome. If the two called Pius and Virtus had become astrologers or joined a weird religious cult, that could turn them up.

Rubella would not permit Petronius to leave Rome again, so I was going back to Antium: I would be looking for the estranged wife of Claudius Nobilis, hoping to hear about life on the inside with the Pontine freedmen.

First, came an assignment close to home. When I returned, Helena met me at the door.

‘Marcus, you have to do something and it must be now, while Petronius is at the station house. Your sister sent a message; she sounds upset — ’

‘What’s up?’

‘Maia needs to see you. She doesn’t want Lucius told, because he will be too angry. Maia had an unwelcome visitor. Anacrites went to see her.’

Never mind Lucius Petronius. I was damned angry myself.

XXVI

My sister Maia Favonia had more locks on her door than most people. She had never recovered from coming home one day a couple of years ago to find everything in her home destroyed and a child’s doll nailed up where the knocker had been. Anacrites left no calling card. But he had been haunting her neighbourhood after she split from him; she knew who had given her the warning.

I had moved her out the same night. I took her away with us on a trip to Britain and by the time she came back, she and Petronius Longus were lovers; her children, a bright bunch, had democratically elected that friendly vagabond as their stepfather. Maia took a new apartment, closer to Ma’s building. Petro moved in. The children preened. Everything settled down. Even so, Maia installed a tumbler lock and a set of large bolts, and she never opened the door after dark unless she knew who was outside. She had been fearless, happy and sociable. Terror left its marks. Maia would never get over what the spy had done.

Petronius and I had sworn an oath together. One day we would exact retribution.

They lived, as most city people did, in a modest apartment. One floor up, a communal well in the courtyard, a small set of rooms to arrange as they liked. Petro, who was handy with a hammer, had fixed the place up in shipshape style. Maia had always had her own casual glamour and, given her work for Pa at the Saepta, she furnished it with dash. Our mother’s house centred on its kitchen and a table where onions were always being chopped; Helena and I liked to relax in private in a room where we read together. Any house where Maia lived had a balcony as its heart. There she kept a trough of plants that could survive breezes and offhand treatment, plus battered lounging chairs with mounds of well-squashed cushions, between which was the bronze tripod where she served a constant supply of nuts and raisin cake.

I wondered if Anacrites had been allowed into that insiders’ sanctum this time. He knew how things worked. The damage to Maia’s previous much-loved sun terrace, when he trashed her place, had been particularly vile.

Helena had come with me tonight. Maia greeted her with a sniff. ‘Oh he’s brought a woman to worm out all the secrets, has he? You think I’ll be softened up by girls’ chat?’

Helena gave an easy-going laugh. ‘I’ll sit with the children.’ We had glimpsed them, doing schoolwork in subdued silence: Maia’s four, who ranged from six to thirteen, plus Petronilla, Petro’s girl, who lived here most of the time now because her mother had a new boyfriend. Petronilla had condemned Silvia’s latest conquest as ‘a lump of mouldy dough’. She was eleven and already scathing. So far, Petro was still her hero, though he expected daddy’s little girl to begin disparaging him any day now.

A shadow darkened Maia’s face. ‘Yes,’ she said urgently. ‘Yes, Helena. Do that.’ So the children knew Anacrites had been here, and they needed comfort.

I was shepherded to the balcony. Maia closed the folding doors behind us. We sat together, in our usual positions.

‘Right. You had a visitation. Tell me.’

Now we were private, I could see how badly Maia was shaken. ‘I don’t know what he wanted. Why now, Marcus?’

‘What did he say he wanted?’

‘Explaining is not his style, brother.’

I lay back and breathed slowly. Around us were the noises of a domestic district at nightfall. Here on the Aventine, there was always a sense of being high above the city and slightly aside of the centre. Occasional sounds of traffic and trumpets came from a very great distance. Closer to, owls hooted from the gilded roof trees of very old temples. There were all the normal wafts of grilled fish and panfried garlic, the rumpus of angry women berating tipsy men, the weary wails of sick or unhappy children. But this was our hill, the hill where Maia and I grew up. It was a place of augury, foliage gods and slaves’ liberation. It was where Cacus the hideous caveman once lived and where the poets’ association traipsed about singing silly odes. For us the flavours were subtly distinct from every other Rome region.

‘Better start at the beginning,’ I told Maia in a quiet voice.

‘He came this morning.’

‘If I am to evaluate what this bastard is really up to,’ I said quietly, ‘then start right at the beginning.’

Maia was silent. I gazed across at her. Normally you think of your sister as she was at eighteen. Tonight, by the flicker of a pottery lamp, every year was etched on her. I was thirty-six; Maia was two years younger. She had survived a wearisome marriage, births, the death of one daughter, a cruel widowhood and ensuing financial hardship, then a couple of crazy dalliances. There were at least a couple; I was her brother, what would I know? Her worst mistake was when she let Anacrites home in on her.

‘You never really told us: was it serious?’

‘Not for me.’ For once Maia was so unnerved she opened up. ‘I met him, you know, after he was hurt and you took him to Mother’s to recuperate.’ Maia was the kind of daughter who was always popping into Ma’s house to share a cabbage — keeping an eye on the old tyrant. ‘After Famia died, Anacrites turned up one day. He treated me respectfully — that was a change after Famia using me as a boot scraper for all those years. .’

‘You liked him?’

‘Why not? He was well dressed, well spoken, well set up in an official position —’

‘Did he tell you about his work?’

‘He told me what it was. He never discussed details… I was ready,’ Maia admitted. ‘Ready for a fling.’

I could not resist my next question. Be honest, legate, you would have begged to know too: ‘Good lover?’ Maia merely stared at me. I cleared my throat and played responsible. ‘You made it clear all along that you wanted nothing permanent?’

‘At first it could have gone anywhere.’ I controlled a shudder. ‘But I soon felt he was pressing too close. There was something about him,’ Maia mused. ‘Something just not right.’

‘He’s a creep. You felt it.’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Instinct.’

‘I certainly see him as a creep now.’

‘I don’t understand. I never understood why you had anything to do with him, Maia.’

‘I told you. He comes over well when he wants. The man had had a terrible head injury, so I thought any oddness was because of the damage.’

‘Well, I like to be fair — only I knew Anacrites long before he had his skull bashed in by some bent Spanish oil producers. He was sinister from the start. I’ve always thought,’ I told Maia, ‘the head wound only made his character more visible. He’s a snake. Untrustworthy, obnoxious, poisonous.’

Maia said nothing. I did not insist. I never wanted to push her into admitting she had been fooled.

‘We had nothing in common,’ she said in a depressed voice. ‘As soon as I told him there was no future, I felt so relieved it was over — ’ So true. Women are not sentimentalists. I remembered how she had immediately begun flirting with Petronius, who happened to be available. ‘Anacrites would not believe that we were finished — then he turned vindictive. You know the rest, Marcus. Don’t make me go over it.’

‘No, no,’ I reassured her. He had hung about, morosely stalking her, until the fateful day he had her home destroyed. I could see my sister growing tense as she tried to avoid those memories. ‘Just tell me, what happened today, Maia?’

‘For some reason, I opened the door — I don’t know why. He hadn’t knocked. There he was — standing in the passage, right outside. I was completely shocked. How long had he been out there? He got inside before I caught my breath.’

‘Then what?’

‘He kept pretending everything was normal. It was just a social call.’

‘Was he unpleasant?’

‘No. Marcus, I hadn’t seen him, not to talk to, since I gave him his marching orders.’

‘Were you scared?’

‘I was worried Lucius would come home. There would have been a horrendous row. Anyway, I pretended he was there, asleep indoors, so I shooed the spy away. You know Anacrites — I thought he probably realised I was lying.’

‘So what did he say?’

‘That was the funny thing.’ Maia frowned. ‘He tried small talk — not that he knows how to do it. His conversation is zero. That was one reason I couldn’t continue with him. After Famia, I needed a man who would respond if I talked to him.’

I laughed. ‘Oh, you get banter from Lucius Petronius?’

‘He has his hidden side; don’t all of you!’ scoffed Maia. ‘I was about to mention the incident, when Anacrites actually brought the subject up himself. Apologised. According to him it was “an administrative mistake”. Then he pleaded his injury, said he couldn’t remember properly. He tried to make me sorry for him by telling me how tired he had been, how he had to cover that up so he didn’t lose his job, how he had lost years of his life through being bludgeoned. . Anyway — and this is what I wanted to tell you, Marcus — Anacrites seemed mainly interested in that case he’s taken off you,’ said Maia. ‘The warty melon kept trying to extract from me just what you and Lucius have found out.’

‘And you said. .?’

‘I had nothing to tell him. You know Lucius.’

Petronius never believed in discussing his work with his womenfolk. Anacrites should have approached Helena instead — she knew everything; not that she would break my confidence. He was too scared of her to attempt it, of course.

Anacrites had upset my sister for nothing. He had angered me too — and if Petro heard about this, he would be livid.

Maia and I agreed that Petronius had better not be told.

XXVII

With Petronius stuck in Rome, grounded by his tribune, I made another trip to the coast.

This time Helena came with me. I took her to see Pa’s maritime villa. I brought Nux as well, since my household was completely ruled by the dog. Luckily tearing through the pinewoods and racing along the beach suited her just fine. Nux was prepared to allow us to keep this wonderful place.

Helena also approved, so we spent several days discussing how to arrange things to suit us, turning the house into a seaside family home rather than a businessman’s retreat. While we were working, some of the slaves reported a man hanging around in the woods. He was a stranger to them, but from their description, I wondered if it was one of Anacrites’ agents.

We knew a woman who lived with the priestesses at a temple in Ardea. Driving off with a deal of commotion, Helena went to visit her. I stayed at the villa; I made myself visible shifting furniture and artwork to outbuildings, then spent time loafing on a daybed on the shore while the dog brought driftwood to me. The mysterious sightings stopped. I hoped the agent had gone back to Rome to report that I was at the coast for domestic reasons.

It would be typical of Anacrites to waste time and resources. He should have been pursuing the Claudii. Instead he was obsessed with Petro and me. He knew us well; he knew we would try to pip him on the case. But that cut both ways. We understood him too.

On Helena’s return we went down to Antium. We — were enjoying our break from the children, and we did love to be out and about on enquiries. She was right: I must never stop doing this work — and when it was feasible I must always let her join in.

Helena was charmed by Antium, with its shabby, outdated grandeur. As always happens, there was nothing we wanted to see at the theatre, though old posters told us annoyingly that the week before Davos, our old contact who was Thalia’s lover, had presented a play here. I would really have liked the chance for a chat with Davos!

Exploring more successfully than I had had time to do with Albia, Helena and I managed to find decent local baths then a cluster of fish restaurants. We lingered over a fine meal, eaten out of doors with grand sea views from the lofty precipice where Antium stood. This was always an hour when we liked to come together, to relax, review the day and reassert our partnership. With just the two of us tonight, it was like old times — that elusive condition married people should seek more often.

As we savoured the last of our wine, I took her hand and said, ‘Everything will be all right.’

‘The case, Marcus?’

‘No, not that.’

Helena knew what I meant.

We enjoyed the evening a little longer, then I went to pay the bill and ask the restaurant-keeper where he bought his bread. His baker was not Vexus, Demetria’s father; still, the man gave me suggestions where to start looking next day.

I went on my own, leaving Helena to take Nux around the forum.

It took me some tramping of narrow streets. Vexus worked at the edge of the city, with one small oven and not even his own grindstone. It was a rough, depressed quarter with dusty streets where half-starved dogs lay on doorsteps like corpses. There were better shops, with a better clientele, in the smarter areas. This man, a short, thickset ugly-faced fellow, baked heavy dark ryebread for the poor. He looked as if he had been miserable for the past thirty years. I began to understand how his daughter, growing up here without a future, might have settled for one of the Claudii. Even so, there seemed nothing basically wrong with the home she came from. Unless she had only one eye in the middle of her forehead yet failed to attract men with her novelty value, there was no reason for Claudius Nobilis to assume she was so desperate he could treat her badly.

I bought a bread roll to start the conversation; it never works. As soon as I said what I wanted, Vexus turned unhelpful. He had not overflowed with customer care to start with. I introduced myself and I might have been trying to sell him a silver-boxed ten-scroll set of Greek encyclopaedias. Used ones.

‘Get lost.’

‘I want to help your daughter.’

‘Leave my daughter alone. She’s not here and she’s had enough trouble.’

‘Can I see her?’

‘No.’

‘I don’t blame you — but my enquiry won’t harm her. Maybe I can get the Claudii off her back.’

‘I’d like to see that!’ Vexus implied I wasn’t up to it.

‘Will you at least tell me about Nobilis?’

‘Mind your own business.’

‘I’d like to — but those wastrels on the marsh have become the Emperor’s business. I’m stuck with investigating. So let me guess: your girl married Nobilis when she was too young to know what she was doing — against your advice, no doubt? It went sour. He beat her.’ I wondered if the father was violent too. He looked strong, but controlled. Still, men from boot-menders up to the consulship have been known to conceal their domestic brutality. ‘Did they have any children?’

‘No, thank Jove!’

‘So Demetria decided to leave, but Nobilis would not let her go. She came home; he hated it. She found someone else, and he put a stop to that. . Right?’

‘Nothing to say.’

‘Is she still with her new man?’

‘No.’

‘Nobilis put the scares on?’

‘Half killed him.’

‘In front of her?’

‘That was the point, Falco!’

‘So the new man caved in?’

‘He got rid of her,’ agreed her father bitterly.

A ghastly thought struck me. ‘Don’t say she went back to Nobilis?’

Vexus pressed his lips together in a thin line. ‘Thankfully, I put a stop to that.’

‘But she was so frightened, doing what Nobilis said became a possibility?’

‘No,’ said the baker, with heavy emphasis. ‘She was so frightened it was never a possibility.’

That was all he would tell me. I left details for Demetria to contact me, if she would. No chance. I heard the tablet with my name on it thump into a trash bucket before I got back outside to the street.

I asked about Demetria around the neighbourhood. I met nothing but hostility. The atmosphere felt dangerous. I left before a riot could start.

XXVII

I had another lead to follow: Petronius and I had been told by the waitress at Satricum that Claudius Nobilis worked for a corn dealer called Thamyris. He lived outside town. I took Nux and Helena and drove out to his place, a scattered set of barns and workshops off the coast road that went south.

Thamyris was a wide, squat, shabby typical countryman, in his sixties, wearing the usual rough tunic and a battered hat which he kept on even though when we arrived it was the lunch break. He and his men were gathered on benches, a peaceful group. They had mastered the art of making their working day revolve around the time they took off. Some were eating, some whittling. There was easy-going chat. Nux jumped from our cart and went to sit with them. She guessed correctly they would pet her and feed her titbits.

Nobody showed any curiosity about us. If we had wanted to buy grain we would have had to wait. The men stayed where they were and carried on enjoying their break; Thamyris stayed put and talked to us. Helena was allowed to sit on one of the benches, which a lad willingly swept of straw first, using the back of a fairly clean hand.

I explained what I wanted. Thamyris replied slowly and thoughtfully, as if he had answered these questions before. I asked him; he said he was always being consulted these days about Claudius Nobilis. For years the man had worked in this labour gang unremarked, but now the local authorities had a definite eye on him. It might have been awkward, had he not already taken himself off somewhere.

‘Do you know where he’s gone?’

‘He said something about the family. Knowing what they are like, I kept my nose out of that.’

‘So who else has been asking about him?’

‘Men from Antium. A man from Rome.’

‘I’m supposed to be the man from Rome — who was the other bastard?’

‘Someone like you!’ The grain dealer enjoyed the joke. I pressed him for details and came to the conclusion he had been visited by one of Anacrites’ runners.

While I brooded on that, Helena changed the subject pleasantly: ‘What was your impression of Nobilis when he worked for you?’

Thamyris summed up like an employer who noticed things: ‘He did the work, though he didn’t push himself.’

‘Did he fit in? Was he one of the lads?’ I asked.

‘Yes and no. He never said much. If we were all sitting around like this, he would be with us. If we went out for a drink together in the evening, he would tag along. But he always tended to move off a little distance from the group.’

‘Did he strike you as at all odd?’ Helena then wondered.

‘He had his obsessions. He liked talking about weapons. He collected spears and knives — nasty big ones. He seemed a bit too interested, if you understand me.’

I nodded. ‘Trouble?’

‘He never gave me any.’

‘But he came with a reputation?’

‘That I don’t deny. People said he had been accused of thieving as a child, and I did hear that years ago a woman said he had raped her.’ Thamyris seemed unconcerned. On the scale of country crime, rape tended to rank with shouting boo at chickens.

‘So why do you think he left?’ asked Helena. ‘We heard he was “going to see his grandmother”, whatever that means. What’s the mystery?’

‘A classic excuse.’ Thamyris gave a laugh. It was the irritating kind that suggests someone knows a lot more than you do and intends to take a very long while revealing it. ‘When people want time off.’

Helena asked, ‘So what was up with him? Was he upset? Did he have a quarrel?’

‘Better ask Costus.’ Hearing his name, a corn cockle on another bench looked over. ‘Nobilis!’ called his boss in explanation.

‘Oh him!’ The younger man exclaimed dismissively; then he just went back to whittling.

I raised my eyebrows. Thamyris dropped his voice. ‘Had a fling.’ I showed that I still didn’t get it. ‘Costus.’ The voice lowered even further. ‘With Demetria!’

I left Helena to draw out anything else she could from the dealer, and strolled across to Costus. He was a handsome chunk, who looked none too bright — in fact, if he had moved in on the wife of the violent Nobilis, he couldn’t be. ‘You’re brave!’

‘Stupid,’ he conceded.

‘I’m looking for your war wounds.’ I could see no recent bruises, though his nose and one ear had a squashed look. Without a word, he pulled up the lower edge of his tunic to reveal a ferocious, fairly new knife scar running from below his hip to his belly-button. It was healed, but he must have been laid up and in some danger for a long time. I whistled through my teeth. ‘Very brave — and no wonder you seem subdued.’ The Claudius women had told me it was three years since Demetria had left Nobilis. She must have already known Costus, through his working with her husband; were they lovers before, or was it only after she left that this young man had provided a consoling shoulder? ‘Did Nobilis stop working here because his wife left him for you?’

Costus shook his head. ‘She just left him. Then he went to pieces. He couldn’t accept it.’

‘You took her over afterwards?’ A couple of his workmates were now watching us quietly. ‘Do you know where she is now?’

‘Nope.’

I bet he did.

Costus lied to me, and his comrades impassively watched him do it. They were all in the cover-up. But I had seen that his lunch consisted of a variety of items, which had been folded up for him in a very clean napkin. The package was not bought from a food-seller. Unless Costus was living with his doting old mother, he had other female company. He was a duffer, in my view, but a woman might find him good-looking.

I thumped him on the back in a rueful gesture. Just as I had with the baker, I wrote my name and other details on the back of an old bill from my pocket, which I placed on the wooden table. ‘Better be off. We’re heading back to Rome tonight. Probably stop over at Satricum to admire the scenery. .’

Helena and I thanked everyone for their helpfulness, then we left. We took the road that went across the marshes, stopping at the inn for a night in Satricum as I had mentioned.

We hired a room, and took our time settling in. Easier said than done; the rooms here might be tolerable to men on tough missions where each needed to show the others he was hard. As a husband and wife we would need to hug together very tightly, to keep the bedbugs out. We stuck it in the room as long as possible then went to find a meal.

I hid a smile when Helena told Januaria, ‘I hear you made friends with Camillus Justinus!’

‘He’s a bit of all right!’ agreed the waitress admiringly.

‘My brother.’

Januaria was taken aback, but briefly. ‘Is he married?’

‘Oh yes. He has two little boys.’

The girl sniggered. ‘I bet his wife curses him!’

How true.

We ate, then sat behind empty bowls regretting it. Night fell. We had almost given up when the gods smiled. Nux growled a warning in the back of her throat. Costus with the straight nose and biceps from the corn-supplies place sidled up out of nowhere. After shy negotiations, promises of confidentiality, and a small inducement in coinage, he wriggled back into the darkness, then reappeared, leading by the hand a woman we knew would be Demetria.

The baker’s daughter was bolder than I expected. That probably meant her relationship with Nobilis had been tempestuous. Sometimes it works that way. Demetria had an ugly air of defiance, probably not caused by her past history. She came with it from the egg; her truculence was a symptom of social ineptitude. Had she ever gone to school, which I doubted, she would have been the awkward one on the back bench.

She was in her twenties, plain-faced with a snub nose, loose, flyaway hair and a faint sour smell as if somebody spilled milk on her several days ago. She wore a drab brown dress with one sleeve rolled and one to the cuff. It wasn’t a fashion statement. She was too lazy to notice it. Her girdle was a rope that would have doubled as a bullock halter. She wore no jewellery. I guessed she had never worked, so had no money herself, and the men she chose were never generous.

It was all a waste of time, of course. Demetria admitted she still lived with Costus, pretty well in hiding. He had dragged her along tonight to see us hoping there would be money in it. She might have had enough spirit to run away from Nobilis, but on the whole Demetria’s instincts were to do as she was told.

She would not talk about her marriage to Nobilis. She did not accuse him of violence against her, nor of battering her lover. Whatever pressures to keep quiet had been embedded in her by Claudius Nobilis, they were still firmly in place.

She had no idea what Nobilis got up to nowadays or where he had gone off to; she had no contact with the family — though when I said I had spoken to the other two women, she asked after Plotia and Byrta. She swore she knew nothing about what happened with Modestus and Primilla and since she hadn’t lived with Nobilis then, it seemed reasonable. When I asked if she had ever had reason to suspect visitors were vanishing at the compound, she denied it.

‘So why did you come to find me?’ I demanded in exasperation.

That was when she came straight out and said Costus wanted her to beg for money. I could hardly complain. As Helena sniggered afterwards, offering facts for a cash reward was what I did as an informer.

I replied that when I made the offer, facts did exist.

There was one outcome. I asked Costus if he had been there when the man from Rome that Thamyris mentioned had turned up. According to Costus, it was a couple of days before. The description he gave of peculiar eyes, greased hair and smooth-talking sounded suspiciously familiar; it could almost be Anacrites himself.

‘Did you hear what was said?’

‘He took Thamyris out of earshot.’

‘So you’ve no idea what he wanted?’

‘Oh yes!’ Costus seemed surprised anyone should think his employer would keep a city man’s secret. ‘He ordered the boss that if anyone came asking about Nobilis or the other Claudii, he was to say nothing.’

‘Did he reinforce that order?’

Costus laughed bitterly. ‘One or two suggestions. Just in case we forgot. Like — he’d close down the business, crucify Thamyris, sell his wife into a brothel, send us as slaves to the galleys and cut off our goolies first. Do you think he can do it?’

‘Oh yes. It’s the regular tactic used by the Praetorian Guards.’

XXIX

On the journey home, Helena and I discussed the situation. Costus’ story confirmed all the rumours about the Claudii having protection. Whoever was looking after their interests must be powerful, if they used the intelligence network to do their dirty work. Anacrites had not dared threaten Petro and me; even he was not that stupid. But he had no scruples about intimidating members of the public. He assumed we would never find out. For us, this signalled ulterior motives. He would know that if we once became intrigued, we would latch on to him like rat-dogs.

He had slipped up. I for one would not rest now until I uncovered his real interest — and Petronius was the same. I was all set to tear into the spy’s office and threaten him with the same punishments he offered Thamyris — especially the part about castration. Maia must have the old veterinarian tools her dead husband used when he looked after the Greens’ chariot horses; she would happily loan me his equine nut-crusher.

Helena urged me to play clever. ‘Don’t alert him, Marcus. Let’s carry on as normal, pretend his agent wasn’t spotted. I suggest when we get home, we see if he has invited us to dinner as he threatened. If he has, we should go along to his house, and sniff the air before you tackle him outright.’

‘I would rather sniff a heifer’s bum, after a week’s diarrhoea.’

‘Your rhetoric is so refined!. . Listen to your wife’s good advice.’ Helena shook her finger warningly: ‘Find out just whose fixer Anacrites is. Who wants him to protect these marsh-men’s interests?’

‘You are right, as ever.’ It was time to address the point. ‘It must all be to do with these Claudii having an imperial background,’ I told Helena. ‘I sensed that Laeta and Momus know what’s going on. Some old influence has carried over. . I don’t believe it’s the Emperor.’ Vespasian had a few close cronies; his cabinet of private advisers were men like Helena’s own father who had known him for years, long before he counted. He had never been regarded as someone who protected favourites.

‘Nor Titus,’ Helena decided. She and Titus viewed each other with admiration — more admiration than I liked. Still that just meant Titus Caesar was a fine judge of womanhood. Like his father, he was basically straight.

Helena was still ticking off candidates: ‘Domitian’s more questionable.’ I had a feud with Domitian. He didn’t scare me, but if he was in on this it was best to know. ‘Of the great and powerful at the Palace,’ Helena concluded, ‘there would only be Claudius Laeta. He would not have invited you and Petro to investigate Modestus, if his interests lay in a cover-up.’

‘Give the man credit — he knows we’re too good!’ I grinned at her.

‘Laeta does not take stupid risks,’ she corrected me coolly. Helena had a wonderful sense of humour, though little tolerance for silly beggars’ backchat. ‘He doesn’t play with knives for a cheap thrill. He sees his role as protecting the administration, so the Empire can run smoothly.’

‘So what do you think?’

‘It could be some consul or ex-consul who has never crossed our path.’

‘Most of them!’ We kept out of general politics.

‘I can ask my father. Not that he tends to know strong-arm thugs. His friends in the Curia are benign. Men who read Plato over their lunch, philanthropists who think a commission should look into health issues among the urban poor.’

I said the Claudii were a health threat in Latium.

Helena was still considering the argument. While I ducked out if there were too many alternatives, she liked to be thorough, with no feeble ‘decide that later’ topics; she worked through every point. She would say I was a typical man; I thought her a highly unusual woman.

‘We ought to consider, Marcus, not just who this person of influence is, but why he supports the freedmen. It’s been a long while since mighty men in Rome aligned themselves with criminal gangs.’

‘People like Clodius and his terrorists? He provided himself with brutal enforcers; everyone was scared of them and together with his very patrician name, it gave him enormous power. . Nothing like that happens in the city now.’

‘It cannot be about anything the Claudii offer to their protector,’ Helena said. ‘He may be ambitious, but he must be able to manage his career without their help. So why does he bother? What hold do they have over him?’

She was right and I agreed: ‘What’s he scared of? A bunch of second-rate ex-slaves, living out in a marsh, miles from civilisation, selling scrap and beating up their wives? I can’t see how they have any influence with anyone who carries serious weight in Rome. And he must have weight. It takes a real someone to make Anacrites jump.’

‘Could it be simpler?’ Helena suggested. ‘Could they be under the protection of Anacrites himself?’

We both laughed and agreed that was totally unlikely.

Back in Rome, it emerged that the visitor who had threatened Thamyris could not have been Anacrites. The man who went to Antium must have been an agent. Petronius confirmed that the spy had been in Rome. The vigiles had seen him.

Things had moved on. While Helena and I were away, the Seventh Cohort had been called out to the necropolis on the Via Triumphalis. This burial ground was across the river, north of the city, unlike where Modestus was discovered. Passers-by had alerted a caretaker to what looked like a shallow grave, dug without permission close to the road. In it was a fresh, mutilated corpse.

XXX

Julia and Favonia had been playing quietly on the floor with their pottery animals. As soon as we walked in, they remembered they had been abandoned by us, their callous parents. They jumped up, grew red in the face and ran away screaming loudly, real tears streaming down their faces. It was a classic scam.

Helena Justina gave me a quizzical look. ‘Maybe two is enough?’

‘Agreed!’

Albia, too, refused to welcome our return but stalked off like an offended dog. That gave Nux the same idea, even though she had been on the trip with us.

The message from Petronius about the new murder was irresistible. I changed my tunic and boots, then washed my face. I thought about a comb-through but settled for the windswept look. Being back in Rome had fired me up enough; being neat would be too much excitement. Sometimes I needed to remember when I lived in Fountain Court and was a rough rascal.

At mid-morning I set out from home, with a knife down my boot and just enough money in my purse to cover emergencies. My mind was clear and my step spry. However, I had the faint edgy feeling of a man who needs to re-impose himself on his customary surroundings. Adultery and cart-crashes could have occurred without me knowing it. I might have missed the crucial capture of that balcony thief from the Street of the Armilustrium. Old Lupus could have gone on his long-promised cruise of the Mediterranean — for all I knew, taking that pudgy waitress from the Venus Scallop, instead of his miserable wife, the one with pigtails who was always cadging off Brutus from the fish stall. Once I reached Maia’s, she would fill me in on these essentials, but first my way took me to the Fourth Cohort’s station house.

Petronius had finished the night shift and gone home. Fusculus was there and gave me the story.

‘Same modus as before?’

‘Apparently. Body found at the necropolis — though not in a tomb this time. There’s a difference from the Appia and Latina sites, where you find patrician surnames and bloody big mausoleums. The Via Triumphalis is a big burial ground with a mixed clientele, slaves to middle rank. Its burials are mixed, everything from old skeletons popping out of shallow graves to grey stone urns with nice pointy lids or half a broken amphora lying on its side to hold the deceased’s ashes.’

‘About our level!’ I said, grinning.

‘Not as fancy as that inscription your papa fixed up for himself, Falco! No This is my memorial which may never be sold, with a frontage of a thousand feet; no pretty Etruscan funeral altar, with dear little wings on it.’

I was not yet ready for jokes. I could satirise losing Pa, but thinking about my tiny son demanded respect. ‘Fusculus — that’s a large cemetery with a litter of confusing graves. Why did this corpse attract attention?’

‘You know some crazy killers want to yell out, Look at me; I’ve done what I wanted and you can’t catch me! Petronius reckons the dead man was placed near the road specially, so someone would notice.’

‘Did you see the body?’

‘That was indeed my privilege.’

‘Modestus was middle-aged. Someone similar?’

‘No, this one’s young. Slight build — easy to overcome.’

‘How was he set out?’

‘Obviously ritual. Face down, arms outstretched sideways like a crucified slave. Well, when I say full length, Falco, that is excluding both his hands which, having been hacked off, were placed very neatly either side of his head. Same groundplan as Modestus. And like Modestus, when the Seventh rolled him over, they found him sawn open from his gullet to his privates.’

‘Any other mutilation?’

‘That was enough!’

‘As vindictive as the Modestus killing?’

Fusculus gave that thought. ‘Maybe not. He had been thumped, but probably during initial attempts to subdue him.’

‘Then apart from the fact he lost his hopes in life, you could say he did not suffer?’

‘So nicely put! His clothes were there. Shoes, neckerchief — and bright new wedding ring still on his severed hand. Mind, I don’t think anyone would try selling what was left of his tunic in the flea market — not after he was slit open.’

‘Ring left behind — so theft not a motive?’

‘No money on him, so maybe. His donkey’s missing, but anyone could have pinched that from the roadside if the killer left it.’

‘And do we know who he is?’

‘We do, in fact!’ Fusculus left me waiting. It was the end of the night and he soon lost interest in teasing. ‘. . A carter reported his courier missing. Young fellow. Just got married, so the bride started jumping as soon as he failed to report for his dinner. Her very first attempt at seafood patties — now he’ll never know how terrible they were. . He’d been sent out with a parcel — the Seventh haven’t found the parcel, but it was in his donkey pannier. That caring citizen, his master, reported him gone because he thought the lad had simply scarpered with the goods.’

‘So this parcel-boy was heading out of Rome, not coming into town? And not on the Pontine Marshes side?’

‘No. So the Seventh were assuming it’s the same killer, because of the method, but those on high say different.’

‘Not the Claudii? That’s the Anacrites verdict?’ I was angry. ‘Tiberius, my lad — this points us in the other direction much too obviously!’

‘Funny thing,’ murmured Fusculus. ‘That’s what Petronius Longus decided.’ He pretended to look impressed that we two could so swiftly come up with the same suggestion. ‘Mind you, he always likes to be a wild man over theories. If seven people say a cabbage-seller did it, the mighty Longus will arrest the baker. He’ll be right too. Clever bastard.’

Going on my way, when I reached the door I whipped back with a sudden last question. This was a trick to reserve for suspects, really, but Tiberius Fusculus was one person in the vigiles who appreciated stagecraft. ‘Have you discounted a copycat?’

‘Ah, Falco, there’s always that delight to cause confusion!’

Petro had been going to bed when I arrived, but he stayed up to gossip. We went out to the balcony. He closed the folding door. That was how he did things. Through the slats I could see Maia waggling her fingers at us and sticking out her tongue. Ma would have listened secretly. Helena would have dragged the door straight open again and brought a stool for herself.

He gave me further details. The Seventh Cohort, all halfwits in Petro’s opinion, had been first on the scene. The Via Triumphalis, which runs out of the city on the north-east side, was the Seventh’s beat; they had jurisdiction over the Ninth and Fourteenth districts, including any burial ground just outside the boundary. They consulted the Fourth Cohort. They knew Petronius had the Modestus case, though they had been unaware of the Anacrites complication. The Fourth’s tribune wanted to be a Praetorian Guard and spies were a Praetorian subdivision, so as it had a bearing on his own position Rubella stuck by the rules. He notified Anacrites of the new linked case so fast the hot wax seal burned the spy’s fingers. Anacrites had allowed the Seventh to continue with routine enquiries. Either they lacked the taint of association with Petronius and me, or he just thought they were too stupid to get in his way.

‘As they are,’ said Petro.

‘You’re tired.’

‘I’m right.’

‘Of course. So what do you think? Fusculus says the new official view is that the Triumphalis death indicates random killings on any road near Rome. It’s supposed to tell us the Modestus death was just a traveller’s unlucky accident.’

‘Yes, apparently that is a luminous truth.’

‘Modestus getting topped on his way into Rome has no relation to the Claudii but is pure coincidence?’

‘Wrong road, wrong time.’ Petro paused, as Maia came out with a dish of stuffed vine leaves, checking up that we were not enjoying ourselves too much without her.

‘He needs his rest, Marcus.’

‘We’ve nearly finished.’

‘I know you; you haven’t even started.’

‘Buzz off and let us get on then.’ Petro’s tone was affectionate. My sister put up with it.

I chomped a vine leaf. Home made. Wheatgrain and pine nut filling in a slightly tart dressing. Mint. Good, but I stayed gloomy. ‘Spill, sunshine.’

Petro took a snack between one thumb and finger, but merely waved it as he talked. ‘Marcus, here is my personal list of anomalies. First, why did the Modestus killers cut off his hands? I still think for revenge: those hands had repeatedly written angry letters to complain about the Claudii. Someone must have heard about Cicero — murdered for railing against Mark Antony. Cicero’s hands, which wrote his polemics, were removed and stuck on spikes either side of the head up on the rostrum where he had made his speeches.’

‘One hand.’

‘Pedant.’

‘The allusion seems too literary.’

‘No, it’s not. Everyone knows what happened to Cicero. Even I know!’ boasted Petro. He had been to school, but whereas my adult hobbies were drinking and reading, his were drinking and drinking some more. ‘Besides, what do you think Nobilis and Probus do all day at their miserable shacks? They sit down with a learned scroll to improve their minds, don’t they?’

‘Show me proof! But I go with revenge against the petitioner’s hands. Next anomaly?’

‘I had had our doctor, Scythax, take a look at the remains before we got Modestus cremated. Scythax thought he was probably still alive when his hands were removed. Nobilis may know about the death of Cicero; he intended Modestus would appreciate his fate.’

‘Meanwhile, the courier’s boy never wrote poison pen letters.’

‘No, he couldn’t read or write.’ Trust Petro to have asked the question. ‘His body may have been stretched out like Modestus, but his slashed belly is different. Scythax tends to be cautious forensically, but he reckons the Modestus killer cut open the corpse after death. I mean, he probably came back and did it several days later.’

I cringed. ‘What was that for?’

‘Who knows why? Reinforcing his power, maybe.’ Petro munched his snack now, thinking about perversion and frowning. ‘Anyway, the courier was opened up the same day he died. We can be sure, because he set off in the afternoon and was found at first light next day. He was practically warm.’

‘The murder sounds hurried — that’s untypical of repeat killers.’ I could tell from the way Petronius had paced his narrative, there must be at least one more discrepancy. ‘What else?’

‘Whoever killed Modestus, from the detritus left nearby, I suspect more than one man was there. And they stayed around the crime scene for several days. After the killing, I mean. Possibly someone came back to slash Modestus open — but I say, the bastards never went away.’

‘Jupiter! This happens?’

‘With perverts. Of course, people who hold other theories will argue that around the Via Appia tombs there are plenty of comers and goers, squatters and campers, so how can we tell?’

‘And how can you?’

‘As well as the post mortem filleting job, we found seats that had been moved out of the tomb; discarded amphorae; obvious food evidence. There was human shit and it was the right vintage.’

I winced. ‘Your job is charming.’

‘My job is to get it right and not let bastards bamboozle me.’

‘If the Modestus killers had wanted to play with the courier’s boy like that, all they had to do was take him away from the road out of sight. Instead they placed him right beside the road-edge ditch, where he was bound to be spotted immediately.’

‘Funny, that!’ observed Petro. ‘The whole thing stinks — though a stupid spy might fall for it.’

He did need his rest and while he brooded, Petronius Longus fell asleep. I did not disturb him. I sat on there, letting him snore on the other daybed, while I continued thinking.

Maia looked out once. She brought me some warmed honey mulsum, silently curling my fingers around the beaker, then roughing up my curls. After these sisterly attentions, she left us to it.

XXXI

It was time to look harder at Anacrites. Helena was right about how we could do that. Escorting my womenfolk to a soiree at his old-style Palatine mansion would not have been my choice, but his invitation had arrived and Rome is a city of civilised dining. Commerce and corruption of all kinds are furthered by social evenings of this type. I wanted to get close enough to him to work out why he wanted to be close to me.

At my members-only gym, Glaucus’ at the back of the Temple of Castor and Pollux, I bathed and put myself in the safe hands of the sneery barber. First, I had Glaucus give me a fierce weapons practice, followed by a session with his most brutal masseur. When Glaucus asked if all this preparation meant I was off on another dangerous mission overseas, I told him where I was going that evening. His advice was to watch my footwork, watch what I was given to eat, but above all watch my back. He had met Anacrites. When the spy had applied to join the gym as a regular, Glaucus found he was so over-subscribed he could only put Anacrites on the very competitive waiting list. . Anacrites was still there.

‘Say no when he passes you the mushrooms,’ Glaucus hinted. An old Roman allusion to poison. ‘Better still, here’s an idea. You got plenty of slaves off your old man when he died, didn’t you? Take one along as your taster. Be sensible, Falco. You’re paid up here until the end of the year — you don’t want to waste part of your subscription.’

‘I regard my slaves as family,’ I protested with a righteous air.

‘All the more reason to bump a few off!’ replied Glaucus. Nobody would know he had a good-looking wife he doted on and an athlete son who was his pride and joy.

According to Helena it was more trying for a woman to get dressed when she wanted to look as if she had gone to no trouble than when she was trying to show vast respect to some possible patron in order to advance her husband (never applicable in my case) or to impress a man she was sizing up for passionate adultery (not applicable in Helena’s, I hoped — though if that was her intention there was not much I could do about it; she was far too devious). I lay on the bed watching proceedings, naked and hoping the scent of the masseur’s crocus oils would evaporate. His goo was useless for attracting women. Helena Justina had just wrinkled her nose in mild curiosity, as if I had come home with an arm missing and she was subconsciously wondering what was different about me. The hour which we could have filled with lovemaking went to trying on gowns, searching for girdles and picking through her jewel casket. When she was halfway through applying face paint, she rushed off to supervise Albia, who had decided that since her parents never took her anywhere, she would wear all the sparkle she possessed while there was an opportunity.

‘We need to look as though we know it’s not just borage tea and a pickled egg,’ I heard Helena telling her. Two room doors had been left open, to facilitate the shrieks as the only good gown in the chest was found to have had honey spilled down it and the clasp on each chosen necklace broke under frantic fingers. ‘But that we don’t think enough of Anacrites to bring out our best.’

‘And why is it we hate him?’ Albia asked with her fastidious curiosity. She tended to act as if all things done in Rome were crazy beyond belief to anyone born in the provinces.

‘No hatred. We treat him cautiously,’ Helena reproved her. ‘We find his jealousy of Falco a touch unhealthy.’

‘Oh — as in, he tried to have Falco splayed on a rock for carrion birds in Nabataea?’

‘Quite. Trying to arrange a long-distance execution was not acceptable etiquette.’

‘So will the spy try short-distance Falco-killing this evening?’ Albia sounded far too interested.

‘No, darling. Anacrites is too shrewd to try anything with you and me there. I’d poke his eyes out, while you rushed for a lawyer.’

That was reassuring. I hauled myself upright and sorted out a tunic I was willing to wear.

‘Oh Marcus! You’re not going in that disaster. Wear your russet.’

‘Too smart.’

I had always loathed the russet, which made me look like some praetor’s pimpled equerry. Naturally, that was what my stylists made me wear.

At the Anacrites establishment, which he must have acquired with his Census earnings, the murderous watchdog had been sluiced with scented water and told to bark more quietly. That would be a bonus for the wealthy neighbours who were usually too scared to complain. The formidable gates had been oiled so they could be forced wide enough; Pa’s old six-bearer litter sailed us through. We were cleared by the bestubbled porter and passed into the custody of liveried greeting slaves.

They were slick. So slick, Helena guessed Anacrites had hired professional party-planners. His house was busy with Lusitanians in matching snowy tunics. There were garlands in themed colours. A young lady facilitator in platform soles and a faux fur bustband picked out bijou little guest-gifts for us (I got dice, that would only land on three). At the spy’s back door must be a train of carts bringing the accoutrements of outside caterers — bronze buckets of fancy seafood from specialist suppliers, slightly worn table linen, and their own griddles. For Anacrites, this evening clearly meant much more than a comfortable supper among friends.

I pinched Albia cheerfully. ‘Assume the Trojan hog is on!’

The greeters whipped away our outer garments and shoes. A rumpus at the door announced further visitors. Since one of the voices was that of Camillus Aelianus — sounding a little weary perhaps — that boded ill. We had hardly reached the atrium and Albia already looked surly. Then I heard the hideous baritone of Minas of Karystos. He must have stiffened his resolve with cocktails before the party set out.

Helena and I shuffled past the atrium pool, towing Albia. Tiny lamps like fireflies, the kind designers think sophisticated, twittered around the pool, many already going out. While the newcomers were shovelled into their dining sandals, we found our way through the murk and came upon our host reclining on a reading-couch, like a man who was trying to calm his nerves.

He jumped up, wearing one of his slimfit tunics (great gods, the vain fool must have darts put in, to make him look trim). I was very put out that his was a brown shade rather close to mine. I’d half expected him to have a torc around his neck, but he had confined himself to matched gold cuffs on his upper arms. He exercised. He had enough muscle to show off, though his arms were oddly smooth, as if he had the hairs individually plucked.

‘You invited my brother!’ Helena barked at him. Anacrites had changed her from peacemaker to firebrand in one move. Even he looked startled.

‘Dear Helena Justina — ’ Oh it was formal names tonight! ‘Since Lucius Petronius and Maia Favonia unfortunately had other commitments, I invited both your brothers.’ He made it sound as though he was doing her a favour, as if the noble Camilli were incapable of arranging a family party for themselves. What it really meant was that he only knew us. I was right: he had no friends. ‘I hoped you would approve,’ he whined.

Fortunately the band struck up.

He had three lyres and a light hand-drummer. They accompanied a short troupe of fairly good tumblers in almost new costumes, followed by a girl who sang brief Cretan shepherd songs after long explanations from a man in a shaggy goatskin cape. Ignoring this, we waved cheerily to Justinus and his wife Claudia, less cheerily to Aelianus, his new wife Hosidia and his tottering father-in-law. ‘Cretan was the best I could get at short notice to compliment Greeks,’ Anacrites whispered as he went to welcome the Camilli. As a host he seemed anxious, a new and surreal side to him.

We watched Anacrites wonder whether he could — or should — kiss Claudia and Hosidia, or if he should, or could, embrace Helena’s brothers. (He had not hugged me. I’d like to see him try.) Minas, the bearded, exuberant law professor, threw himself upon Anacrites, whom he had never met, as if they had rowed the same oar in a galley for at least twenty years. Hosidia shrank against Aelianus, who nearly stepped back into the atrium pool. Claudia was too tall for the spy to kiss and she just shook hands with him briskly; the hem of her gown fell victim to the sting of the firefly lights but Hosidia considerately flapped out the sparks. Aulus and Quintus Camillus as one stayed at arm’s length from Anacrites. I noticed they both wore heavy new chalk-white togas, ready for electioneering. They introduced their womenfolk, who then clustered with my two so they could all admire each other’s outfits. Claudia, who had a warm heart, greeted Albia very fondly. Hosidia stood about looking supercilious. It was her natural expression, as far as I could tell.

‘Would you like us to speak Greek?’ Anacrites asked helpfully, in fluent administrative Greek.

‘Naturally I speak Latin,’ Hosidia answered — though she said it in Greek. That failed to solve anything; so we were headed for a bilingual evening — feasible, but distancing.

Two pale, flat-chested girls in long white uniforms arrived with snack trays. The snacks were small but tasty; there was no obvious sign that house-slaves had nibbled them. Young boys with their hair oiled into silly points brought the first drinks, in garish decorated cups that the caterers probably supplied. Minas, who needed no cheering up, cheered up loudly. The women guests then demanded that Anacrites give them a tour of his house. Looking worried, he let himself be swept off; he had the expression of a man who knew he had left a pile of dirty loincloths on his bedroom floor and failed to close the cupboard containing his winged phallus lamps.

This left Minas, the Camilli and me standing in a square, each holding a crayfish tail and asking one another what in Hades we were doing there.

Justinus reminded me that we knew from a previous visit Anacrites kept obscene statues in a secret room. Minas brightened, hoping for a private view. ‘This should be a good night, Falco!’ he boomed. I saw Aulus, who had a keen idea of Minas’ liquid capacity, smile fixedly. ‘I am so looking forward to it!’ Minas confided to me, leaning close in a hideous aura of lunchtime wine and garlic. ‘This man must have very great influence, I think? He knows important people? The Emperor, perhaps? Anacrites can do us favours?’

I nodded gravely. ‘Tiberius Claudius Anacrites would be proud to know you believe that, Minas.’

XXXII

We were called to dine. The old dining room was indoors and a touch cosy. The hired hands had decorated its three crushed-together stone couches with coverlets in some shiny fabric the colour of pomegranate juice. They must have misjudged what kind of bachelor Anacrites was. A single rose, suspended from the centre of the ceiling, made the traditional statement that anything we said would be in confidence.

‘Surely,’ Albia piped up, all wide-eyed innocence, ‘only an idiot would mention any secrets in a spy’s house?’

‘Now I remember your daughter!’ cried Minas, clapping me around the shoulders so hard I nearly lost my footing (he had only just remembered me, I reckoned). ‘This minx is too astute!’

‘Oh these days intrigue is the only game in town, Minas.’ Thanks to the bagginess of the russet tunic, a good wriggle helped me slide free of the Greek’s grip. ‘Anacrites loves people to come here and commit treason. He gets a thrill thinking they are his guests so he can’t arrest them.’

Anacrites looked disorientated.

We were nine at dinner, naturally. To break convention would be too daring for our host. He must have given much thought to his placements, but when the rest of us arrived in the triclinium, Helena was shifting people around to avert awkward situations: making sure I could grill Anacrites; putting Albia and Aelianus apart; not imposing the bombastic Minas on anyone shy. .

Minas thought he should take precedence, but this was Rome and he was foreign; he stood no chance. ‘Both brothers Camilli are standing for the Senate — ’ Anacrites said, as he tried to guide them into his chosen places. They were talking about the races and failed to notice him.

‘They’ll be voted out,’ snapped their sister.

‘Oh thank you!’ they chorused half-heartedly. She just grabbed each one and shoved him where she wanted him. For would-be empire-governors, the duo submitted like wimps. Albia was chortling at this, until she was frogmarched to the end of the inferior couch. ‘Young girl’s prerogative,’ Helena soothed her. ‘You get the easy exit to the lavatory and you can reach the food trays for seconds.’

Minas still took too much interest in which was the seat of honour. ‘The one on the right-hand corner of the middle couch, I think. .?’ Fired up by some tourist guide to Roman etiquette, he was aiming his big belly in that direction.

Helena shepherded me there. She pushed Minas to the other end. ‘With the best views of the garden and statuary if we were out of doors — ’ Due to the deficiencies of Anacrites’ house, we were facing a dowdy corridor. ‘Marcus is the only person who has held a significant public post, Minas; he was Procurator of Juno’s Sacred Geese.’ If I was top man, and by virtue of supervising a flock of birds, that showed this dinner’s low status.

Minas pouted. I grinned and to distract him I explained, ‘It’s a sad story, Minas. Government short-sightedness. I lost the job ignominiously, in a round of treasury cutbacks.’ I always wondered if Anacrites had had something to do with it. ‘Juno’s Geese and the Augurs’ Sacred Chickens were heartbroken to lose me. Their loyalty is touching, in fact. I go up on the Capitol regularly to see the clucks for old times’ sake; I shall never lose my sense of responsibility.’

‘You are fooling?’ Minas was only half right.

‘Forget convention. I think the best places are the centre of the couches —’ Still struggling to seat everyone, Helena steered Anacrites between Minas and me. Aelianus had to go at the top of the left-hand couch, talking across the corner to Minas, with Hosidia behind him; Justinus was opposite Hosidia with Claudia above him, adjacent to me across the other top corner. Albia was below Justinus. He was a good lad and would talk to her; she would probably hope to upset Aelianus by being friendly with his brother. At the far end of the left-hand couch, Helena was stuck with Hosidia. Good manners would have placed Helena next to me, but she had demoted herself in order to put the spy in my range. At least I could wink down the room at her.

During the appetisers, our host led the conversation — as much as he could do, with Minas tipsily interrupting. We had seen him in action; as a symposium-crawler no one could touch him, even in Athens’ exhausting party whirl.

The wine was better than good; Anacrites discussed it fluently. Perhaps he had taken himself to wine-buffery classes. At any rate, he served palatable mulsum with the appetisers, not too sweet, then a very fine Caecubian. One of the best wines in the Empire, that must have cost a packet. He also introduced us to an unfamiliar variety he had just acquired, from Pucinum; he was dying for us to ask where Pucinum was so he could show off, but nobody bothered. ‘What do you think, Falco? The Empress Livia always drank Pucinum wines, ascribing her long life to their medicinal qualities.’

‘Very nice — though the phrase “medicinal qualities” slightly puts me off!’

‘Well, it kept her going to eighty-three, outliving her contemporaries —’

‘I thought that was because she had poisoned them all. .’

I asked for a separate water cup and drank the wine sparingly. Anacrites knew me well enough to have seen me do it before. I had a curious sense that tonight he wanted to relax for once — yet now he was torn, in case loosening up gave me some advantage.

While he continued to hold forth on vintages, I chatted to my other neighbour, Claudia Rufina. The three Camillus siblings were all lofty but Justinus had married a woman tall enough to look him in the eye; this Claudia now saw as necessary since he could be a rogue, an edgy character who needed constant watching. On a dining couch designed for our stumpy republican ancestors, she was having problems twisting herself to fit. But once she settled, Claudia gossiped with me on the current situation in the senator’s house. ‘Things are tense, Marcus.’

Minas had emptied the Camillus wine cellar in about five days. The amiable senator declined to restock, so Minas got huffy. Then Camillus senior hit on the idea that Aelianus and his bride should live next door; he owned the adjacent house, where his brother had once lived. It was decreed that Minas must stay with the couple. ‘Julia Justa said, So nice for him to see a lot of his daughter, before he goes back to Greece … I don’t think the professor intends going back, Marcus!’

‘No; he is determined to be a big rissole in Rome.’

‘I would have thought,’ said Claudia, who was a kind-hearted girl, ‘the newly-weds might be given some time to themselves — especially as they don’t seem to have had much opportunity yet to get to know each other.’ That was ironic. Claudia and Quintus would probably stick out their marriage (she had an excellent olive oil fortune which encouraged him mightily), but they were experts at communication failure.

‘You presuppose, my dear, that either of them wants familiarity.’

‘You cynic!’

‘I’ve lived. Still, we must be hopeful. . How are the lovebirds getting on?’

Claudia lowered her voice. ‘They have separate bedrooms!’

‘How fashionable! Though not much fun.’

‘They will never have children.’ Claudia and Quintus had produced two small sons very quickly; she assumed everyone wanted the same. At home we joked that Quintus could get his wife pregnant just by kicking his boots, under the bed.

Babies were still a painful subject with Helena and me. To stop Claudia detailing the wonders of their newest son, I turned back to Anacrites. Forcing Aulus to endure a bout of Minas, I grabbed our host’s attention. ‘So! Tell us all about the big secret mission. Where did you go? How long did you stay? How many barbarians tried to garrotte you? Do tell me some at least tried. And what were you doing abroad in the first place, acting as the Emperor’s messenger-boy?’

‘You’re just jealous,’ Anacrites replied coyly.

‘Cobnuts! Now, I don’t mind you playfully pretending it’s a state secret — just so long as you confess all.’

‘It was nothing.’ Everyone was now listening, so Anacrites had to answer. ‘It seems that when his mistress Antonia Caenis was alive, Vespasian managed to discover for her that her ancestors came from Istria.’ Minas looked puzzled yet again, so Anacrites explained that our affable old Emperor had lived much of his life with an influential freedwoman who filled a wife’s place. ‘Senators are forbidden to marry freedwomen. Apparently Caenis had not known her origins and I suppose it bothered her. Once Vespasian assumed power, he had access to the records. Someone finally looked up answers.’

‘That’s a romantic story,’ Claudia said.

‘It was true love.’ Helena supplied the fact that Caenis had managed to visit her homeland for nostalgic reasons before she died. ‘I met her; I liked her enormously. Did you know her, Anacrites?’

‘I knew who she was, of course,’ he said, in that careful way of his. From what I had seen, in a couple of meetings while she was alive, Antonia Caenis had more sense than to cosy up to the spy.

‘I wondered if your backgrounds were similar?’ Helena pressed. The spy, not deft with a spoon, concentrated on chasing a langoustine nibble around his foodbowl. I admired my sweetheart for many fine qualities, not least her ability to denude a silver comport of its most succulent seafood while seemingly engaged in chat. Helena served herself to three from the central table while he fumbled. If we had been seated together she might have passed one to me. ‘So what were your duties in Istria, Anacrites?’ Nobody else will have noticed, but Helena was aware of the way I was smiling down the room at her.

‘Merely ceremonial. Falco would have been impatient with it. .’I leaned on my elbow and glared at him sternly. Anacrites was just too good to show it made him uncomfortable. ‘Vespasian endowed various public buildings, in honour of Caenis. An amphitheatre at Pola, for instance, needed restoration —’

‘He paid for it?’

‘He loved her, Marcus,’ Helena called reprovingly. ‘Go on, Anacrites.’

‘I was sent to represent him at the inauguration. So, Falco, it was nothing sinister!’

I laughed off this weak attempt to make me appear paranoid. ‘My dear fellow, any time you have the chance to cut civic ribbons in a two-bit foreign town, you do it. I am surprised you could be spared for such matters.’

He flushed slightly. ‘Pola is a major city, Colonia Pietas Iulia Pola Pollentia Herculanea. I was owed leave. I was honoured to go. It suited me too,’ he let slip.

‘Oh?’ I was on it at once.

‘I have connections there.’

‘Connections?’ I patted his shoulder. ‘Can we be learning personal secrets?’

Anacrites shifted. ‘It is very beautiful along the coast.’

‘Full of pirates, lurking in the rocky creeks, according to my Uncle Fulvius. He watched their movements for the fleet,’ I told the spy, trying to make him think this undercover work had been for some mysterious higher agency. Fulvius was in Egypt now, or I would never have mentioned it. No rose suspended from a ceiling was protection enough; had Fulvius still been engaged as a ‘military corn factor’ (a ridiculous myth, because no corn factor is ever what he seems) he would not have thanked me for interesting Anacrites. ‘So what was the real draw, Anacrites?’

‘Oh… an opportunity to get my hands on some Pucinum wine!’ The man was indefatigably slippery.

To his obvious relief the servers cleared the starter tables and brought in the main course. While this was organised, the tumblers tumbled off for a break and a professional singer swanned up to delight us. He must be all the rage; I recognised this caroller from Laeta’s office. Immediately I wondered if he was Laeta’s plant, observing Anacrites at play. The thought kept me happy until the new foodbowls were laid.

Time for business. (Anything to avoid listening to this singer.) ‘So Anacrites, how are you getting on with the Modestus killing?’

‘Don’t ask, Falco!’

‘I just did. Now listen, happy host, I am your guest of honour. While I stretch out on my elbow here in the best place, the consul’s spot, my every whim is yours to fulfil — so come clean! What’s the situation?’

‘There has been another death.’ The spy had a wide-eyed honest look that made me want to screw bits off my bread roll and stuff him like a trigon ball. ‘It bears similarities to the Modestus killing. .’

‘But?’

‘Either it’s some sad mimic — plenty of people knew what happened to Modestus; the vigiles may have said too much in public — ’ Oh yes, blame them, you bastard! ‘Or I think it is a ploy, Falco — falsely implying that the killer works from Rome. Of course, I am not fooled so easily. Modestus had been tailed on his journey; he was deliberately targeted. This was different.’

‘Interesting!’ I was shocked. Was Anacrites really so shrewd? I almost wondered if he had a nark in the vigiles’ patrol house who had eavesdropped on Petronius and me.

Aware of my surprise, he applied fake humility. ‘What do you say, Falco? I’d like to hear your professional evaluation.’

‘Oh you seem on top of things.’

‘Thanks. Did you know about the second killing? Have you discussed it with Petronius?’ He really wanted to know whether we were still monitoring his case.

‘Yes, we heard about it.’

‘And what was his verdict?’

‘We think a crazed copycat killer knifed the poor courier… So are you still looking for those Claudii?’

‘Of course.’ It was the right thing to say. He was smooth as a wet rat sliding down a drain. Still, I never expected Anacrites to be totally incompetent, let alone appear corrupt. He was too good to show what he was up to.

He turned away, readjusting a pomegranate silk cushion so he could converse again with Minas. ‘We don’t want to talk about a murder over dinner, Falco.’

You could tell he rarely entertained. He had no idea that far from being squeamish, guests would be eager to hear about gore.

When the main course arrived, he had overdone things. There was no need. His caterers were first class; we would have been flattered by anything they cooked. A couple of roasts, a simple platter with a fine fish, a vegetable melange with one or two unusual ingredients, would have sufficed. But he had to over-impress. Although he had complimented Helena and me on the warm atmosphere of our Saturnalia gathering last December, Anacrites had failed to analyse it: good food, fresh ingredients not overcooked, a few carefully chosen herbs and spices, all served in a relaxed style with everybody mucking in.

Instead we had tired old Lucullan oysters — ‘I’m sorry, Falco; I know you were in Britain, but I could not get Rutupian!’ After flamingo tongues and lobster in double sauces came the ridiculous climax. Albia squeaked and sat up on her couch in happy expectation: a major-domo clinked an amphora to call for attention, spare servers stood back expectantly, the tumblers’ harpists (who must have finished their boozing break) rattled off dramatic arpeggios accompanying a drum roll. A pair of sweating waiters dragged in the Trojan hog. Though young, it was a big brute, presented on a trolley upright on its feet, wearing its hair and tusks. From the glaze on its cheeks and the delectable odours, it had slow-roasted most of the day. Fake grass, full of pastry rabbits, nestled around its trotters. A crown of gilded laurel topped it, wired on between the piggy’s shining ears.

A master carver approached, perhaps the chef himself, wielding a vicious meat sabre. I wouldn’t trust him on a dark night round the back of a seedy posca bar. His blade flashed in the lamplight. With one mighty sweep he cut open the boar’s belly. Glistening innards tumbled out towards us, like raw guts. As Helena had said, they were sausages. While we still believed they were hot viscera, he tossed a quick-fire barrage into all our foodbowls. There were screams. Someone clapped briefly. Minas took a moment to grasp what was happening, then exploded with delight. ‘Excellent, excellent!’ He was so thrilled, he had to beckon a server to fill up his wine goblet. A hum of appreciative voices congratulated Anacrites, while Helena and I looked on patiently.

It was a shock — though not if you knew what was coming. The trouble with the tired old Trojan hog trick is it only works once. Was I jaded? I made an effort to look excited — well, mildly — though even Claudia forgot her natural generosity and muttered to me, ‘Those Lucanian sausages look very undercooked! I don’t think I’ll eat them.’

The crackling was good, though full of bristles.

XXXIII

Some time while everyone was gnawing tough pork, then picking their teeth discreetly, I noticed that Albia had slipped away from the table. Her absence went unremarked by others. As the main course ended, people were behaving informally. One by one they went out for a natural break, on their return taking the opportunity to move around and talk to different guests. Justinus was now alongside his brother. Helena abandoned Hosidia and crossed the room for a chat with Claudia.

I was bored with Anacrites’ well-clad back as he listened to Minas. Luckily the gloopy singer reappeared; he had picked up the Cretan shepherds’ habit of explaining everything long-windedly — so often, of course, lamenting young sailors lured to their doom by sinister sea-nymphs or brides who had died on their wedding day. When he announced, ‘The next song is a very sad one’, I went to find a lavatory.

I explored in a desultory fashion, but I had been in the house before and seen all I wanted of the layout, decor and cold living arrangements. I found the kitchen, with the caterers engaged in washing bowls — most of them, anyway; I had passed a couple sidling about, probably pinching Anacrites’ fancy curios.

The services were, as I expected, next to the kitchen — functional, but with the faint unscrubbed odour you expect in a male establishment. (I was well trained; in a strange house it is a man’s duty to report to his wife what the facilities are like.) Emerging, I took a wrong turn somehow.

I ended up in servants’ quarters, a series of undecorated small rooms that served routine purposes. There were sacks of onions, buckets and besoms. Even a spy has to endure the domestic — though I bet Anacrites put his onion-seller through an oral security test. That would explain why he had been sold mouldy, sprouting ones.

I spotted a figure ahead of me, slipping down a passageway. He did not hear me call out for directions, but he had left a door open and I heard voices. In one of the rooms, Anacrites’ two legmen were sitting with a draughtsboard. I was surprised; I would expect him to keep work and home separate. Instead, the Melitans, as I called them, gave the impression this was a regular haunt. Their room had a sour smell that hinted of long-term use.

The duo were not playing, just talking. They could be arguing about whose turn it was to remove their food tray (there was a large jumble of used crockery and utensils piled ready to go back to the kitchen). They barely troubled to react to my appearance.

‘Lost my way.’

Neither spoke. One waved an arm. I turned out of the room, pointed myself in the direction he indicated, and departed. After I walked off, their voices stopped abruptly, however.

They might not be Melitan, but they definitely were brothers. They had the same facial looks, the same dress code (dingy tunics; open-strapped shin boots), the same movements and accents (I had noticed they talked Latin). Most of all, the way they behaved together was the way Festus and I used to be: that blend of spats and tolerance only brothers have.

Back on familiar ground, curiosity drew me to a colonnaded peristyle, formally planted around a statue of three half-size nymphs. This was where the dining room really ought to be situated. I wondered if there was in fact a better triclinium than Anacrites had assigned to us.

I was looking for Albia. Sure enough, she was there on a low wall, looking in at the courtyard. She was just sitting, so I paused. Albia had gone out for a break from watching Aelianus being polite to his wife. It would be best if she could work through her heartache privately.

Someone else interrupted her reverie: Anacrites strolled through the colonnade opposite. Crossing a corner of the garden, he went straight over to Albia. He sat on the wall beside her, not so near as to make her nervous, though near enough to worry me.

‘There you are!’ he said easily, as though she had been missed, not perhaps by the company but by him. To reinforce his position as a careful host, he added, ‘I am glad I saw you hiding here. Helena Justina told me all about your unhappiness.’

‘Really!’ He would have his work cut out with Albia. He played it well, saying nothing more until she asked in her blunt way, ‘What are you doing away from your guests?’

Anacrites rubbed the tips of two fingers against his right temple. ‘Sometimes commotion disturbs me.’

‘Oh yes,’ Albia, the unfeeling adolescent, answered. ‘I heard you had your head smashed in.’

He managed to sound rueful. ‘I don’t remember much about it.’

‘Does it affect your work?’

‘Not often. The effects are random. Days may be good or bad. It’s very frustrating.’

‘So what happens?’

‘I think I have partly lost my powers of concentration.’ It must be three years since his head wound; he had had time to learn how to cope.

‘That’s awkward. You might lose your job. Do you have to conceal it from everyone?’

‘Whoa!’ In the teeth of Albia’s relentless attack, Anacrites made it jocular: ‘I’m the spy. I’m supposed to ask the heavy questions.’

‘Ask one then!’

Anacrites leaned back his head against a pillar. He was savouring the peace and quiet, resting. ‘Do you like my little garden?’

Oil lamps had been dotted around the rest of the house, though there were none out here, probably to avoid attracting insects. In the last light of evening, only outlines of climbers and topiary showed, though there were pleasant scents and a faint splash from some informal water feature. A boy grotesque, pouring from a vase, maybe. I did not see Anacrites as a two-doves-on-a-scallop-shell man.

‘It’s not bad.’

‘I have it looked after by professional horticulturalists. They claim they need to visit every day to keep things trim. It costs a fortune.’

‘Are you rich?’

‘Of course not; I work for the government.’

‘Spies don’t do gardening?’

‘No idea how to.’

‘Falco can dig and prune.’

‘Unlike your father, I never had a country background. Do you call Falco your father, by the way?’

‘Of course.’

‘I was not sure what kind of arrangement Falco and Helena had about you.’ Anacrites was obviously hinting there was something irregular he could use against us.

‘I have my citizen’s certificate!’ Albia slapped him down.

Anacrites jumped on it: ‘Was that after appearing before an Arbitration Board?’

‘Not necessary in a foreign province,’ Albia sneered. ‘The governor has full jurisdiction. Frontinus approved it. Didius Falco and Helena Justina adopted me.’

‘So formal?’ So necessary, with people like him out to get us.

‘Well, there you are, Anacrites. You don’t know everything about Falco!’

Though I grinned at the way she attacked him, I kept absolutely still. I was standing in shadow, by a great tangle of foliage supported on some kind of obelisk. Anacrites’ eyes wandered one way and another. I reckoned he suspected I was somewhere watching and listening.

‘You talk as if you think I am pursuing Falco! He and I are colleagues, Albia. We have worked together many times. In the year of the Census, we worked very hard in a perfectly good partnership; the Emperor congratulated us. I remember that as a happy experience. I feel very affectionate towards Marcus Didius.’

‘Oh he loves you too!’ Albia chopped the subject off. ‘Tell me about Antonia Caenis and Istria. Why did she care so much about where she came from? Was she hoping to find her ancestors?’

‘That I don’t know. Perhaps she was. We all have a yearning to discover our background, don’t we?’ Anacrites’ question was incongruous from him.

‘I think what matters is the person we are now.’

‘That sounds like Helena Justina talking.’

‘She speaks good sense.’

‘Oh yes; I too admire her immensely.’

‘Are you jealous of Falco for having Helena?’

‘Certainly not. It would be inappropriate.’

‘Why are you not married?’

‘Never seemed to find the time.’

‘Don’t you like women? Do you prefer men?’

‘I like women. My work tends to mean keeping very much to myself.’

‘Not many friends then? Or no friends at all? You were a slave too — like Caenis. Do you know about your own family?’

‘I have some idea.’

‘Really? Did you ever meet them?’

‘My earliest memory is being among the palace scribes.’

‘So you must have been taken away from your parents very young? Was that hard?’

‘I never knew anything different. Where I found myself, we were all the same. I enjoyed my training. It seemed normal.’

‘So — I always want to ask people this — don’t you want to try to find your relatives? If anyone could do it, a spy should be able to.’

‘I suppose you ask this question because you feel a driving need to find your own people?’

‘Oh I shall never discover who I first belonged to. I accept that. I was orphaned in the British Rebellion. I’d like to think I am a mysterious British princess — that would be so romantic, wouldn’t it? But I don’t have red hair and the poor people I grew up with firmly believed I was a Roman trader’s child. I suppose there were circumstances that suggested it, back when they found me. Because of the terrible events and confusion, that will be all I ever know. I am realistic. The uncertainties can never be cleared up, so some avenues in society are closed to me.’

‘Is that why you are unhappy, Albia?’

‘No, it’s because men are deceitful pigs who use people for convenience then look after their own interests.’

‘Camillus Aelianus?’

‘Oh, not just him!’

‘It is sad to hear a young girl speak so bitterly.’

‘Now who is being romantic?’

‘I suppose your anger is because Aelianus betrayed your hopes and married Hosidia. . Hosidia what? Does she only have one name?’

‘Her family know her as Meline, but “Hosidia Meline” — a Roman name then a Greek one — would sound like a freed slave. She is not one, of course. Some people despise professors, but it goes without saying, they wouldn’t have got to be professors if they were poor. Minas must have a prosperous family if he went to Athens to learn law. Still “Meline” wouldn’t do, not among senators. Vespasian may have got away with his mistress, but he is an unusual character. The Camilli have to look respectable.’

‘I am very impressed, Albia. How did you dig all this out?’

‘That’s my secret. I’ve watched Falco. I could do his work. I could do yours.’

‘I would be charmed to have you — but, unfortunately, we don’t use women in the intelligence service.’

‘Yes you do. I’ve heard of Perella, the dancer. There was a lot of talk about Perella in Britain. You gave her an assignment to eliminate a corrupt official.’

‘Oh really?’

‘Anacrites, don’t bluff.’

‘I know Perella, certainly. She is a superb dancer.’

‘She cut a man’s throat. To get rid of him and avert a public scandal. Everyone knew you sent her.’

‘I heartily deny that rumour! What a slur on the integrity of our beloved Emperor and the high ethos of his staff. Don’t spread this story, please, or I shall be forced to impose a gagging order. . Anyway, you are much too sweet to want to do work like that.’

‘I would not want to do it, but I would like to know how. Skills give you confidence and power.’

‘I would say you have quite enough confidence, young lady. And you had better be kept away from power!’

‘Spoilsport.’

‘There you sit, looking neat, thoughtful and demure. That, I am sure, is how your adoptive parents are bringing you up. Falco and Helena would be shocked to hear the way you have talked to me.’

‘Regretful, maybe — but not surprised.’ She was only half right; I was startled by the way she took the spy on.

‘Well, I am shocked, Albia.’

‘You’re easily shocked then. Why? You do filthy work. You are a spy and you co-operate with the Praetorian Guards. That means unfair arrests, torture, intimidation. Nothing I have said is so very outrageous, just honest. Life made me hard. Harder than the average Roman maiden of my new father’s rank, or some pampered girl brought up in higher circles. I’m harder even than the daughters of poor craftsmen, who have to work in the family business, but who are free to chatter away their days until some dumb husband claims them. I come from the streets. I am sure you poked about and learned that about me.’

‘Why ever would I investigate you, my dear?’

‘It’s what you do. To put pressure on Didius Falco.’

‘That’s a myth — and libel.’

‘Better hire an informer then, to make your case in court… So you say you are above jealousy? Why then, Anacrites, do you do stupid things like stealing that case Falco and Petronius worked so hard on? They had their teeth into it, and are perfectly capable.’

Anacrites jumped up in a spurt of irascibility. ‘Olympus! If the Modestus enquiry means so much to them, that ridiculous pair can have it back. There was nothing underhand; it just seems a suitable case for my own organisation! A normal redistribution of the workload, once I was available to supervise.’

‘So the terrible Claudii don’t have some hold over you?’

‘Who thinks that? Don’t be ridiculous!’ The spy was pacing about in the courtyard. Albia, my dogged, darling fosterling, stayed where she was. Briefly, Anacrites put both hands on either side of his forehead, as if troubled again mentally. ‘Falco asked me just now how the case was going. He was satisfied with my answer.’

‘I doubt that.’

Anacrites stopped. ‘Did Falco put you up to this?’

‘Rubbish. He would be frothing at the mouth if he realised you were talking to me. What — out here in the dark, away from the company, a young girl who has only just begun to go to adult parties and a man in a position of public authority, her host, maybe thirty years her senior?’

‘Quite right!’ Anacrites’ voice was clipped. He held out an arm formally. ‘I have enjoyed our talk, but I should return you to our fellow guests. Come!’

It was Albia’s turn to stand up, swishing her skirts to put them back in order. She kept out of reach. ‘I shall return myself, thank you. If we went back together, after so long away from the couches, my parents would be bound to think you had been making dreadful overtures.’

‘Your father makes his own crazy decisions about me — though I would hate Helena Justina to suppose I harbour guilty thoughts.’

‘You don’t?’

‘I do not.’

‘You mean, because you respect Falco too much?’

‘No, Albia,’ replied Anacrites, returning to his insidious smoothness. ‘Because I respect you.’

It was the perfect answer — if it was honest. Albia should be flattered, impressed and charmed. Producing that smooth reply just proved what I had always thought: Anacrites was deadly dangerous.

As he led her away, he looked back and his pale eyes swept the colonnades again. He was wavering, no longer certain whether I was hidden there. Knowing me, he just thought it must be likely.

Albia had kept him hopping. But much of what he said must have been aimed at me.

XXXIV

I let Anacrites and Albia go ahead. A tall, slim figure separated off from near another corner of the garden. A woman called in a low voice, ‘Marcus! Is that you?’

‘Helena!’ We met along one of the colonnades. My hand found hers. ‘So how long were you lurking there? Did you hear all of that?’

‘Most of it.’

‘I didn’t put her up to it — so did you?’

I felt Helena bridle. ‘I would never put her in such danger! I came to find her.’

‘Did you really tell Anacrites about her yen for Aulus?’

‘Of course not. Anacrites was lying, and I shall make sure she knows that. For one thing, whatever occurred between her and my brother — or whatever Albia thought at the time — she really has not talked about it. Besides, give me credit; I have more loyalty to her. Marcus, she’s just a girl. He frightens me.’

‘I was impressed by how she handled that.’

‘It’s not safe for her.’

‘We’ll have to see she never comes within his orbit.’

‘Too late! He knows about her,’ Helena told me morosely. ‘He knows he can hurt you — us — through her. And I’m afraid she, too, will be hurt in the process.’

As we went around a really dark corner, I pulled her close to kiss her and take her mind off her fears. It failed to work on Helena, though it cheered me up.

Temporarily.

We ran into Aulus and Quintus, chortling in a corridor. They admitted they had nipped off so Quintus could show his brother the cabinet of obscene statues. ‘How did you monkeys get in there?’

‘We asked ourselves what you would do, Marcus — then we broke the lock.’ Justinus spoke as if he had brought along a crowbar specially. ‘The spy can blame his fancy caterers. They are crawling everywhere.’ That fitted my fancy that Laeta was paying them to observe.

‘And was the “art” collection revolting?’ Helena asked. The lads assured her they were shocked. However, Justinus reckoned there were fewer pieces than when he stayed here last winter; Anacrites may have felt alarmed that other people knew about his filthy gallery so he had sold the most sinister pieces. A spy needs to avoid scandal. Besides, as I knew from Pa’s business, he would have made a killing from any of the private pornography collectors.

We returned to the dining room, all in a jolly foursome, so Anacrites might think we had been together all the time. I had not yet decided whether to tell Albia about us eavesdropping. She was now staring at the tumblers’ pratfalls, as if planning to run away to join them.

Claudia looked weary after being left alone to cope with Hosidia. I thought Hosidia brightened, as she watched Justinus sprawl back on his couch opposite her. Could his easy manners and good looks be attracting yet another young woman who really belonged to his stodgier brother? Claudia had once been betrothed to Aulus, but she dumped him — which her new sister-in-law had probably realised. . But Hosidia would need some nerve to flirt with Quintus. If threatened, the once-shy Claudia Rufina fought for her rights with Hispanic bravura. In fact, being the senior bride in the Camillus family seemed to have fired up her confidence. Helena and I liked her; she was tougher than she looked.

Hey ho, I had convinced myself the Camillus family were about to enact a Greek tragedy. .

Anacrites’ evening was starting to deteriorate. Dessert was the least impressive course he provided. It consisted of browned fruit and lacklustre pastries. I reckoned Anacrites had got this far in the caterer’s estimate then drew a line through any extras. He had a frugal streak. When I worked with him, it had always been me who went out for honeycakes to break the monotony.

While we toyed with grapes, Minas reappeared. He boomed that he had seen one of the chefs stealing a picture. Anacrites now seemed too deflated to deal with it. I jerked my head at the Camillus brothers. He was a host to avoid, but we were guests with manners. The lads needed no further telling. We three, tailed by the dispirited spy, marched to the kitchen to investigate.

We found the hired caterers packing up. Observed dully by Anacrites, Aulus, Quintus and I lined up the Lusitanian workers, pushed them about, searched them, insulted them, then went through their equipment. They had not been too greedy — just one or two small but good artworks that the spy might not have missed for weeks, a painted miniature pulled from a nail in a wall panel (that was what Minas had seen them taking), then a pitiful assortment of nick-nack bowls and cutlery. The two female servers were the worst offenders; they each had dainty reticules that doubled up as swag-bags.

One very suspicious item was a jewel, which Quintus found rolled up in a used napkin in the laundry hamper. ‘This yours?’ he asked Anacrites in some surprise. The spy shook his head initially; it was hardly his taste.

Suddenly he changed his mind. ‘Oh — a girlfriend must have left it. Give it me, will you — ’

‘What girlfriend is this?’ Aelianus joshed him.

‘Oh you know. .’

‘Ooh! Anacrites has had a home masseuse!’

‘Sent out for special services!’ Justinus joined in.

‘You dirty dog!’ I said. ‘I hope she’s registered with the vigiles and you had her credentials checked. This could be a serious breach of security -

Anacrites looked embarrassed. He was so close about his habits, assuming he had any, that being teased made him red-faced and uneasy. He was holding out his hand for the jewel but Quintus moved away, still inspecting it closely. Aulus stopped the spy, slapped him on the back, spun him around and clapped his cheeks as if he was a youth we had all taken to be ‘made a man’ by a sought-after courtesan in a luxury brothel. If that was the kind of woman he had summoned here, he would have paid through the nose for the house call.

We gave the caterers a stiff lecture. They were shameless, but we were drunk, so we kept at it with pedantic gusto. Minas loomed up and threatened to prosecute them, but it was not the kind of big law-work that would gain him notice; he wandered off again to search for more of the spy’s fine wine.

Minas should have stayed: once he sent the caterers on their way, Anacrites brought out a small flagon of exquisite Faustus Falernian to thank us. We four sipped it together in the kitchen, though socially it was a stiff moment. This had never been a party that would extend to the small hours so I tossed back my tot, followed by the two Camilli. We were accompanied by mothers of young children, a girl, a newly married bride — all good excuses to disperse. Most of us felt weary too. The dinner had been hard going. Minas would have dallied, but when we returned to the triclinium, he was persuaded to tag along home with the Camilli.

We all thanked Anacrites who, frankly, looked done in. He made weak protestations that it was far too early for us to leave — then thanked us rather too fervently for coming. As he led us to our transport, which had already materialised at his entrance porch, he said he had had a wonderful evening. Compared with his normal lonely nights, it probably had been.

‘I hope we have mended some fences, Falco.’

I kept my face neutral, watching Helena as she kissed Quintus Camillus goodbye, undeniably her favourite of the brothers, as he was mine.

Aulus came up to me. Briefly he clasped hands. It was an unlikely formality, especially as I was being chilly with him over Albia. I met his eyes properly, for the first time since the news of his sudden marriage; amazingly, he winked. Something small and cold passed into my hand from his.

I curled my fingers on it. In the darkness of the lurching litter going home I opened my grip but could not tell what I had been given.

At our own house, oil lamps in our familiar hallway greeted our late return. I looked again. Upon my open hand lay the special cameo we had retrieved from among the soiled linen. The Camillus brothers must have done a swift lift-and-pass, neat as Forum pickpockets.

‘Oh I like that!’ exclaimed Helena.

It was oval, and looked like a pendant from a necklace; it had a granulated gold loop on top, though the chain was absent. The workmanship was fine, the design aristocratic, the cutting of two-tone agate quite remarkable. While a really expensive whore might afford such a thing, it was serious quality. That must have alerted Quintus when he handled it. He was not renowned as a connoisseur — or had not been before he married; Claudia came with her own overflowing necklace boxes, so why should he learn? Yet Quintus moved in society; he had seen plenty of custom gems, hanging from the crкpey necks and scrawny lobes of wealthy high-class women.

I understood exactly why Quintus and Aulus had palmed it. This bauble required investigation.

XXXV

Anacrites was a sad case. Nobody else would turn up before breakfast to ask if last night’s guests had enjoyed his dinner. That was his excuse anyway.

‘I have mislaid that jewellery.’ He had already trekked to the Capena Gate to enquire after the cameo. The two Camilli denied all knowledge, so he came to me. Anacrites still pretended this loss could make life awkward with the item’s owner, though he did not want to give more details about which floozy that was supposed to be.

‘What’s her name, your bird of expensive plumage?’

‘You don’t need to know. .’

He was in a dilemma, drawing attention to the piece, when he clearly wished we knew nothing about it.

I was determined to investigate that cameo’s history. I lied, therefore, and said I did not have it. ‘I’d forgotten all about it. Maybe those light-fingered caterers of yours saw somebody drop it and picked it up a second time. .’ No; he had been to ask them, he said. Jupiter! He must have been busy. ‘Who were they anyway?’ I asked. ‘You’d have to lock up the family silver if you hired them, but that chef was wonderful.’

Briefly, Anacrites glowed under my praise. ‘The organiser is called Heracleides, sign of the Dogstar by the Caelimontan Gate. Laeta put me on to them.’

‘Laeta?’ I smiled gently. ‘Taking a risk, weren’t you?’

‘I checked their credentials. They provide imperial banquets, Marcus.’ Anacrites sounded stiff. ‘Gladiators’ last meals before a fight. Buffets for seedy theatre impresarios who are trying to seduce young actresses. All very much in the public eye. The proprietor has too much good name to risk losing it — Besides, the thefts were carried out by minions, mere opportunism. And I was protected. I had my own security — ’

‘I saw your house guests!’

‘Who did you see?’ Anacrites demanded.

‘Your dilatory agents, playing board games in a back-corridor hole. .’ Some flicker disturbed his carefully cultivated, steady gaze. If I understood that half-hidden reaction, the Melitans were in for a nasty half hour when he next saw them. He could be vindictive. If they didn’t know that already, they were about to find out. ‘I meant, was a suggestion from Laeta safe for you, dear boy?’ I gazed at him and shook my head slowly. ‘Given his well-known wish to winkle you out of office?’

The spy’s eyes widened.

‘No, he wouldn’t!’ I cried. ‘I’m being ridiculous. Laeta is a man of honour, he is above conspiracy. Forget I spoke.’ Although Anacrites had imposed iron control on his face muscles, I could see he now realised Laeta might have wrong-footed him.

He changed tack quickly. Gazing around the salon where I had been forced to entertain him, he noted the profusion of new bronze statuettes, polished expanding brazier tripods, fancy lamps suspended from branched candelabra. ‘Such lovely things, Falco! You’re very prosperous, since your father died. I wonder — does it affect your future?’

‘Will I give up informing?’ I laughed gaily. ‘No chance. You’ll never be rid of me.’

Anacrites smirked. All last night’s affability had dissolved with his hangover and he went on to the attack: ‘I’d say your new wealth exceeds due proportion. When a man receives more from Fortune than he should, winged Nemesis will come along and right the balance.’

‘Nemesis is a sweetie. She and I are old friends. . Why don’t you come out straight and say you think I don’t deserve it?’

‘Not for me to judge. You don’t bother me, Falco. Compared with you, I’m fireproof

He had to have the last word. I could have allowed it because it meant so much to him — but we were in my house, so I patted back the ball. ‘Your confidence sounds dangerously close to hubris! You just said it, Anacrites: presumption offends the gods.’

He left. I went off to breakfast with a lighter step.

Helena and I amused ourselves over the bread rolls discussing reasons why Anacrites could be so worked up about the jewel. After all, he had money nowadays. If some night-moth complained she had lost part of her necklace during their frolics, he could afford to buy her a new one to shut her up.

Some wrangles are meaningless and soon forgotten. Anacrites and I often exchanged insults; we meant them to bite and we meant every word, though it never stuck for long. But the clash we had that morning insidiously stayed with me. I continued to believe that cameo was significant — and I wanted to know why Anacrites had panicked.

XXXVI

The Heracleides company was run by one man who lived over a stable block. It was a large stable. Up in his elegant apartment he certainly did not tread on hay. His personalised loft had been floored with highly polished boards; a team of slaves must skate around with dusters on their feet each morning. Instead of mangers, there were sumptuous cushioned couches with dramatic flared legs like whole elephant tusks. He went in for ivory — always the snobbish side of flash. And the flared leg is much beloved by stagy folk (I was thinking like Pa.)

Heracleides ran his outfit from a line of stabled wagons that contained his staffs cooking and serving equipment. Where these staff lurked by day was not immediately obvious. Heracleides, I already knew, believed in distance supervision. He flattered clients with promises of individual attention, yet stayed away from their big night. According to him, his highly trained personnel had been with him for decades; they were safe to leave alone and his presence was unnecessary. At a venue, he would not so much as place a violet in a vase. I guessed his only interest was in counting the profits.

Younger than I expected, he was a pampered specimen — too much time at the baths, probably baths which offered stodgy saffron cakes and erotic massage. His tunic had a fringed hem; a narrow gold fillet bound his suntanned brow. You know the type: all high-stepping insincerity. Not safe to buy a rock oyster from, let alone a three-course dinner with entertainment and flowers.

Trying to impress me, he paraded his business ethic: love of fine detail, competitive rates and a long list of very famous customers. I wasn’t fooled. I understood him straight away. He was a chancer.

I took a flared-leg chair, which needless to say had its back at the — wrong angle for the average spine. One of the fancy legs was loose too.

I mentioned to Heracleides that sadly the staff he spoke of so highly had been involved in an incident last night. At once the operatives who had supposedly been with him for years became temporaries who must have come to him with false references, bad people whom he said he would never use again. I asked to see them. Hardly to my surprise, that was impossible. I stated calmly I would come back with the vigiles that evening and if the person I was looking for was not then present, Heracleides would be in trouble.

I spelled out the trouble: ‘Got a function tonight, have you? Lucky you don’t supervise in person or you’d be forced to cancel. Looks like you’ll be stuck here answering five hundred questions about the status of your boy and girl helpers until the moon comes out. Any of them got form? Past arrests for pinching clients’ pretty manicure boxes? Your women ever been on the vigiles’ prostitute lists?’ In the service industry that was inevitable. Waitresses were there to sleep with. ‘And what about you, Heracleides — what’s your citizen status? Did you answer your summons for the Census? Got any imported artwork you never paid port duty on? Where did all this charming ivory come from — would it be African?’

He tried to play tough. ‘What do you want, Falco?’

‘I want whichever of your staff picked up a fine cameo pendant at the spy’s house. If they talk to me today, I can promise no comeback.’

‘I wish I’d never taken that brief

‘Think of this as structured learning. Now, show me your managerial expertise: kindly produce my witness.’

He liked the jargon. He disappeared to ask the group which of them was guilty. He wasn’t long coming back. His minions must be curled up in the stable stalls downstairs.

‘It’s my chef. He’s not available. I sent him on a meat-carving course. Sorry — you’ve had a wasted journey.’

‘He slashed the Trojan hog with panache last night. He doesn’t need extra training. You’re lying. Let’s make a little trip downstairs, shall we?’

We made the trip. I walked at my favourite pace, steady but purposeful. Heracleides stumbled more jerkily. That was because I was holding him up by the back of his tunic, so he had to walk on tiptoe. Draught mules watched thoughtfully as we appeared together in the stable.

‘Call your chef

‘He’s not here, Falco.’

‘Call him!’

‘Nymphidias. .’

‘Too quiet.’ I reinforced the request painfully. Heracleides yelled Nymphidias’ name with much more urgency and the chef crawled out from behind a barrel. He was the man who stole the miniature painting yesterday, I knew. In view of his expertise with knives, I kept my distance.

I let go of the party-planner, shaking my fingers fastidiously. Heracleides fell headlong into some dirty straw, though of course I had not pushed him. I squared up to the chef. Not having his big carver with him, his bravado crumbled.

I extracted the facts fast. Yes, Nymphidias stole the cameo. He had found it in one of the small rooms down the corridor where I got lost earlier in the evening. In the room had been a narrow bed, a man’s spare clothes, and a luggage pack. The jewel was in the pack, wrapped carefully in cloth. Everything else there had looked masculine.

I described the Melitans. The chef knew who I meant. They had both come into the kitchen at one point, asking for a meal. Nymphidias said it was a cheek — not in the party contract and they had demanded double portions too — but he prepared some food in a slack moment, which he personally took to their quarters as an excuse to look around. They were in the room where I saw them sitting, not the same as where he found the cameo.

It started to look as if all kinds of agents slept at the spy’s house, on occasions. He must be running a kind of runners’ dormitory.

‘You see anyone else apart from the two who were hungry?’

‘No.’

‘Nobody who stayed in the single room, where you found the jewel?’

‘No.’

I did not believe it. ‘There was someone else — I saw him myself.’

‘Party guests came to use the washroom. So did the musicians. That singer was hanging about like a spare part — we run into him at a lot of das.’

‘He’s called Scorpus,’ Heracleides put in, trying to seem helpful. ‘Always takes an interest in how much money the hosts have, who their wives are sleeping with, and so on. Very persistent. It’s all wrong; in our business you have to be discreet. These clients are high-status; they expect complete discretion.’

‘So unprofessional,’ I sympathised. ‘He sings appallingly too. Whose nark is he? Who pays him?’

‘You’ll have to ask him.’ Heracleides looked jealous, as though he thought Scorpus might receive more for information than he did.

‘And who do you spy for?’

‘No comment.’

‘Oh him! I’ve met that shy boy “no comment” before! There are ways to make him less bashful — and they are not pleasant.’

I returned my attention to the chef. He said the spy’s household staff had kept to themselves all evening, annoyed that outsiders had been hired. Apparently that was common. When Heracleides ran functions, he told his staff to make sure the house slaves did not spike drinks or spoil dishes. Anacrites dressed his slaves in green (how sickly; he would!); when they did wander about, they were easy to identify.

‘So,’ I enquired of Nymphidias, ‘from its position and appearance, what did you think when you found this jewel?’

He sniffed. ‘I thought whoever had it must have no right to it. It was hidden away too carefully. The rest of his stuff didn’t look at all swank. The gem couldn’t be his. So I might as well take it off him, mightn’t I? Just the way,’ he whined, with a new aggression in his tone, ‘you’ve taken it off me.’

‘The difference being,’ I answered quietly, ‘I shall hand it in to the vigiles, so they can find out who really owns it.’

Standing beside me, Heracleides laughed. ‘Anacrites won’t like that!’

He was right. But Anacrites would never know, until there was a good reason for Petronius and me to tell him.

Before I left, I took Heracleides out of hearing of his staff. ‘One last question. Who is so keen to know what goes on in Anacrites’ house?’

‘I don’t know what you mean, Falco.’

‘Pig’s pizzle. Anacrites is supposed to be the Chief Spy — but more observers sneaked in last night than deluded fathers and clever slaves in a Greek farce. What if I float the name Claudius Laeta past you?’

‘Never heard of him.’

‘You’re tiring me out. Anacrites may be simple-minded, but I can spot infiltrators. Admit it; you do the same as Scorpus. You get paid to poke around houses, on likely nights. . Indiscretions happen at parties. People drink too much, there is unfortunate groping, you overhear talk of an illegal betting syndicate, someone says Domitian Caesar needs a good spank, someone else knows about the Praetor’s nasty habit — ’

Heracleides looked wide-eyed. ‘What habit?’

I had started a rumour. Well, it was probably true. ‘Educated guess. . We can make a deal. You tell me about Laeta, and I’ll make sure you will hear no more about your staffs pilfering last night?’

‘Can’t help you, honestly. Oh leave it alone, Falco — we’ve got a good racket, and it’s harmless. The hosts can all afford it. And we don’t keep the stuff ourselves.’

‘What racket’s this?’

At once Heracleides regretted the slip. He soon drooped and confessed. ‘We lift a few pretty things that look as if they may have sentimental value. We pass them to our principal. He goes along to the house a few days later. He tells them he has heard on his special grapevine about some property that belongs to them. He thinks he can get it all back, and will retrieve it as a special favour. Of course there is a premium to pay. . You know.’ I knew all right.

‘So who is this?’ It could not be Laeta. He had more class. Blackmail was his medium, not ransoming heirlooms.

‘Someone I’m not prepared to mess with, Falco.’ Well, the scam was almost irrelevant. I handled property-hostage hustles sometimes, but my present interest was in bigger things.

Heracleides seemed genuinely afraid. Joking initially, I finished up, ‘That settles it. I shall have to assume that you work for Momus!’

Then the party-planner shuddered. ‘Yes, but he scares me! For heaven’s sake don’t tell the filthy bastard that I told you, Falco.’

Momus, as well as Laeta? — Now this was really getting complicated.

XXXVII

I managed to screw from the party-planner directions for finding the torch singer. It took me an hour to locate his block, and identify which attic he festered in. Scorpus was fast asleep on his bed. That’s the beauty of witnesses who work late nights. You can generally find them.

I sized him up before I woke him. He was chunky, though not athletic. He had a red face, a grey moustache, fairish hair receding badly. He looked like a tax lawyer. He probably played for them.

He slept in a disreputable loincloth; I threw a blanket over him. He woke up. He thought I wanted his money or his body, which he took in good part; then he saw that I was holding his lyre and he panicked. There was no need even to threaten him. It was such a good instrument it would have hurt even me if I had to smash it. He would talk. In great alarm he struggled to get up, but I pushed him back prone, using one foot. I did it gently. I didn’t want this aesthetic type to collapse with anxiety.

‘My name’s Falco. Didius Falco. I expect you know that. And you’re Scorpus, the disgusting highbrow singer of doleful dirges — ’

‘I play in the respected Dorian mode!’

‘What I said. Minor keys and melancholia. If your listeners aren’t sad when you start, by the time you stop, the poor idiots will be suicidal.’

‘That’s harsh.’

‘Like life. . Just lie there and co-operate. It won’t hurt. Well, not as much as refusing, trust me. . We can save time, because I know the score. Whenever there is a gathering at an expensive private house, with hired-in food and entertainment, half the specialist artistes are collecting and selling information. You certainly do it. I want to know your paymaster, and anything you saw of interest last night at the Chief Spy’s house.’

He yawned insultingly. ‘Is that all!’

‘It’s enough. Let’s start with Claudius Laeta. Did he pay you to collect dirt on Anacrites — or have I got this the wrong way round: when you play for the great Laeta at the Palace is somebody else giving you kickbacks to observe him?’

‘Both.’

‘Ah Hades!’ I twanged a lyre-string vacantly, as if seeing how far I could make it stretch before it snapped. I can play a lyre. I use it for disguises. I know what happens when a string breaks and was really not keen to have whipping animal-gut flick at high speed into my eye. Scorpus could only see the threat to his precious instrument.

‘Please don’t do any damage!’

‘Who’s spying on Laeta? Momus? Anacrites?’

‘Both — Everyone thinks I am working for them. Really I’m freelance.’

‘Freelance, as in you’ll take anybody’s money? And you’ll shit on anybody too?’ I sneered. It made no impact. He was shameless. Well, I knew that from what he twangled for helpless listeners. ‘You can do better than this, Scorpus.’

‘What are you after?’ He caved in. He had no interest in the fine practice of resistance. I was almost disappointed.

‘I want to know what you saw.’

‘Much the same as you did, I suppose,’ he retorted defiantly.

‘I was a guest. I couldn’t look around freely, and anyway I’ve been in that house before. I know he has a pornographic art collection, so don’t try to pass that off as news.’

‘Has he?’

‘He’s sold a lot of it. Somebody must have warned him he’s under observation.’

‘I can’t think who would warn that man of anything.’

‘Then you have more taste than I supposed! What have you told Laeta?’

‘I am bound to secrecy.’

‘Let me unbind you.’ I inspected the arms of his instrument, while prising apart the elegant yokes, forcing them against their cross-strut. .

‘Oh leave off, Falco! I had nothing to tell Laeta, except a list of who attended. The Greek with the big beard was dire, I have to say.’

‘That Greek is a master of jurisprudence. He could sue you in three different courts for insulting him. He might even win.’

‘He’d have to be sober!’ The singer fought back with spirit. I had to stop this; I was starting to like him.

‘I know that the caterers were stealing, for a ransom scam. You must have seen them at it, at other parties. I know who’s paying them as well. Momus. You don’t want to tangle with that bastard.’

‘His money’s good, if you’re desperate.’

‘So you work for Momus too?’

‘Not if I can help it. Sometimes the landlord here is very demanding. .’

I looked around. The place was bare and unappealing. Not as squalid as rooms I myself had parked in, but unsuitable for a court musician. He wouldn’t want Laeta to spot fleabites. ‘Whatever the rent, he’s overcharging! You can afford better.’

‘Who cares? I’m never here.’

‘Have some self-respect, man!’ I was turning into his wise old nurse. ‘What do you spend your fees on?’

‘Saving for a once-in-a-lifetime cruise to Greece.’ That figured.

‘Did it last year — not all it’s cracked up to be. Still, book it and go now. You could die of self-neglect and your efforts would all be wasted. So — who were the tumblers and the band working for?’

‘No one special.’

‘What? We’re talking about Cretan shepherds in hairy coats!’