Poseidon_s Gold

LXIV

His eyes devoured the Phidias.

I asked quietly, 'What are you doing here?' Pa let out a small groan of ecstasy, ignoring my question as he lost himself in admiration of the Zeus. 'Did you know this was here, Pa?'

For an instant Geminus blinked unreliably. But he cannot have known for much longer than I had, or the statue would not have been left here. He must have been starting to guess as he came up the stairs. I tried not to believe he had run into the caupona at top speed, intent on breaking down the wall himself.

He walked around the Zeus, admiring it from all sides. I amused myself wondering whether, if he had found the statue first, he would ever have told me.

My father's expression was inscrutable. I realised he looked just like Festus, and that meant I shouldn't trust him.

'We should have known, Marcus.'

'Yes. Festus was always hanging around this place.'

'Oh he treated it like home!' agreed Pa, in a dry tone. 'We should have guessed. And what's more,' he declared, 'this won't be the end of it. Your precious brother must have had hideaways packed with treasure everywhere he ever went. We can find them,' he added.

'Or we can tire ourselves out looking!' I commented. Euphoria dies very quickly. I felt tired already.

'He will have had a list,' said father, hanging his lamp on the statue's thunderbolt and coming back round to us.

I laughed. 'That would be madness! If it was me, the details would be locked only in my own head!'

'Oh me too!' agreed Pa. 'But Festus was not like us.'

I saw Helena smile, as if she enjoyed thinking that my father and I were alike. With half a million sesterces' worth of Phidias standing opposite, I allowed myself to smile back at her.

We all stood about for as long as possible, gazing at the Zeus. Then, when it became ridiculous to stay in that dark empty space any longer, we squeezed back to the comparative luxury of the furnished room beyond.

Pa surveyed the rubble from my demolition work. 'You made a right mess here, Marcus!'

'I was as tidy as I could be, in a hurry and without proper tools-' While the others gawped and marvelled, I had been planning. 'Look, we need to move fast. We'll have to cover up this rubble as best we can. It would be better to remove the statue before anybody sees it. Horrible-but we must shift it. We are sure it belonged to Festus, but explaining that to the owner of the building may not be so easy-'

'Relax,' interrupted my father graciously. 'Nobody's coming here tonight.'

'That's where you're wrong. Will you listen to me? I've been left here on guard while the owner is informed by Petronius that the waiter's dead. Any moment we're expecting to be joined by the mysterious Flora, and she won't be pleased to discover this great hole in her wall-'

Something made me stop. Nobody else was coming. Pa had said it in a flat voice. Even without a reason given, I understood.

'Thanks for looking after things,' my father chirruped wryly. I was still trying to ignore the implications, though already aghast. He reassumed his shifty look. 'Flora's not coming. Acting as watchman is man's work; I volunteered.'

Then I groaned as I realised what I should have worked out weeks before. I knew why my brother had always treated this place as if he owned it; why he had found jobs here for runaways; why he had made free with the rooms. It was all in the family.

Petronius was right. Flora existed. And right, too, that I would have preferred not to discover it. Flora's Caupona was the business my father had bought for the woman who now lived with him, to stop her interfering in his own. Flora was Pa's ladyfriend.