"I have every faith in that," Hilaris assured him quietly.

Petronius Longus gazed downriver. "He is out there. I'll get him in the end."

???

As a courtesy we had to wait while Flavius Hilaris checked the condition of his damaged boat, then spoke to the soldiers. Petro and Maia sat together on a bollard, intertwined.

I grumbled to Helena, "I'm not sure I can face a thousand-mile journey home, with those two acting like star-struck teenagers."

"Be glad for them. Anyway, they'll have to be discreet with four nosy children watching."

I was none too sure. They were lost in each other; they didn't care.

The soldiers had now removed the barriers, so members of the public could come and go at will. Numbers had been attracted here by the military activity. A vagrant, one of the wide-eyed hopefuls who congregated in this frontier province, wandered up and decided I was a suitable friend for a man of his mad status. "Where are you from, Legate?"

"Rome."

He gazed at me, from some vague world of his own.

"Italy," I said. The need for explanation grated, even though I knew he was a derelict. He was filthy and showed signs of disease, but acted as if he recognized a like soul in me.

"That Rome!" murmured the vagrant wistfully. "I could go to Rome." He would never go to Rome. He had never wanted to.

"The best," I agreed.

He had made me think of Italy. I went across to Helena and hugged her. I wanted to go back to the residence and see my two daughters. Then, as soon as possible, I wanted to go home.

LIX

Any good informer learns: never relax. You fight to create a workable case. It has flaws; they always do. In ours there was a gaping hole: we had one target dead in the Thamesis, but the other chief suspect had escaped.

Petronius Longus was anxious to leave Britain on the next available boat from Rutupiae. He had personal reasons to call him back to Ostia, but naturally intended to put himself where Florius might reappear. In view of the Florius angle, the governor allowed him a pass for the imperial post service. In recognition of the demands of love, he extended that to Maia and the children, and then he felt obliged to include Helena and me. Fine. A quick journey suited all of us.

Just as we prepared to leave for Rome, however, a key witness let us down. We were doing well in some respects. The very public success of the attack on the gang at the customs house had impressed the locals. As a result, Frontinus was able to draw depositions about the extortion from some tavern-keepers, and these were with Petro to take back and use in any trial. A formal statement from Julius Frontinus himself might also be read out in court, if ever Florius was brought to justice. That would sound good. But we had already lost Chloris. Her companions could testify only that Florius had pressured them, which-apart from their dubious status as gladiators-a good lawyer would demolish by calling it

"legitimate business practice." Any Roman jury would envy the ability to make money. As the jurors struggled to stay afloat amid their mortgages and creditors, Florius would seem to them an ideal citizen. He would walk.

Our one damning piece of evidence against him was the waitress's claim that at the Shower of Gold Florius had deliberately ordered Pyro and Splice to shove Verovolcus down the well. I could say I saw him kill Chloris-but accuse him of murdering a gladiatrix, in the arena? Excuse me. Case dismissed!

I wanted to persuade Frontinus that the waitress's evidence was so important he should order her transportation to Rome. With her smart new name and newly refined accent, Flavia Fronta could be tricked out as a nearly honest woman, even though the profession of waitress ranked very close to gladiating socially and legally. I was ready to prime a barrister to blacken Florius by suggesting that the low venue for the killing had been his choice, symptomatic of a despicable man who frequented filthy dives. Verovolcus was in effect British aristocracy, so with the King's closeness to the Emperor there was a scandal factor in killing him.

I first became uneasy while discussing whether Frontinus would agree to a Rome trip for the waitress. King Togidubnus had returned to his tribal capital; I assumed he was still saddened by the fate of his renegade retainer, yet comforted by the fact that the issue had been resolved. But instead of being taken to Noviomagus with the King, to be installed in the promised new wine bar, Flavia Fronta was still in Londinium.

"So where is she?" I demanded of the governor. "There is a security angle."

"She is safe," Frontinus assured me. "Her evidence is being reassessed by Amicus."

Reassessed? By the torturer?

I went to see Amicus.

"What's going on? The waitress said Florius ordered the well-drowning. That alone will send him to the lions if he ever stands trial. Giving the statement makes her our one strong witness-but, with due respect to your art, it has to be seen that she made this statement voluntarily!"

"There is doubt," replied Amicus dourly.

"Well, we cannot have doubt! So what is the problem?" I tried not to rage too fiercely. I was irritated, but concerned to ring-fence our case.

Amicus then told me one of the arrested men he had been allowed to work on was the owner of the Shower of Gold. I remembered him from the night I took Helena there for a drink: he had been an unwelcoming, stubborn piece of truculence.

"He sticks with what others had told me," said Amicus. "Verovolcus was a nuisance to the gang, and Florius wanted to humiliate him-but putting him in the well was just a game. That barber said the same. But the bar owner actually saw what happened."

"He denied that before."

"Well, I loosened his tongue."

"That's your job. But under torture people say what they think you want to hear-" Amicus looked put out. "If he admits it was murder, he may be scared that we'll charge him as an accessory."

"He has been assured we won't punish him for the truth. Oh, go and see the procurator, Falco!" Amicus burst out. "Ask him to show you the evidence. You won't argue with that."

I found Hilaris, who looked depressed. He confirmed that the bar owner had croaked out a clue, which had caused a new search to be made of his premises. Hilaris then unlocked a small paneled wall-cupboard. With two hands he removed an object, which he dropped on a table with a loud thump. I picked it up: a torque of truly regal weight. It was a wonderful snaky thing of interlinked thick gold wires that must have made its wearer's neck ache. I wished I could ask my father's advice, but it seemed to me to be of some age, maybe dating back to Caesar's time. The techniques of weaving the wires and the granulated filigree that patterned the fastener were Mediterranean.

I sighed. "Tell me this was found among the loot we took from the gang, Gaius."

"Afraid not. We found it hidden in a wattle-wall panel at the Shower of Gold."

"And that's why Amicus is trying out his best skills on the waitress?"

"He has done it. She won't talk to him. The woman is being brought before the governor now, if you want to come."

Flavia Fronta, as the informant now called herself, was dragged before a strict tribunal: Julius Frontinus, Flavius Hilaris, and me. We sat in a line on folding stools, the Roman symbol of authority. Where we went, our power to adjudicate went too. That did not mean we could persuade an intransigent waitress to talk.

There were some signs of damage on her, though I had seen women look far more battered. The soldiers who brought her in were holding her up, but when they stood her in front of the governor, she stayed upright stoically. She still had breath to complain loudly about her handling by Amicus.