'No. If I'd seen it I'd have told you before this. I'd like to get the villain sorted,' Davos chortled, 'so I can avoid being plagued by questions from you!'

'Sorry.' I wasn't, and I refused to give up. 'So you won't want to tell me about the night Ione died?'

'Dear gods:' he muttered good-humouredly. 'Oh all right, get on with it!'

'You were dining with Chremes and Phrygia, and Philocrates was there too.'

'Until he bunked off as usual. That was quite late. If you're suggesting he drowned the girl, then judging by the time we all heard the news after you got back from the pools, he must have sped there on Mercury's wings. No, I reckon he was with his dame when it happened, and probably still hard at it while you were finding the corpse.'

'If there ever was a dame.'

'Ah well. You'll have to check with him.' Once again the disinterested way he threw it back to me seemed convincing. Killers looking to cover their own tracks like to speculate in detail about how others might be implicated. Davos always seemed too straight for such nonsense. He said what he knew; he left the rest to me.

I was getting nowhere. I tried the hard screw. 'Somebody told me that you liked Ione.'

'I liked her. That was all it amounted to.' it wasn't you who met her at the pools?' it was not!' He was crisp in denying it. 'You know damn well that was my night for dining with Chremes and Phrygia.'

'Yes, we've been over that rather convenient tale. One thing I'm asking myself is whether your party at the manager's tent was a set-up. Maybe the whole gang of you were in a conspiracy.'

By the light of his camp fire I could just make out Davos' face: sceptical, world-weary, utterly dependable. 'Oh stuff you, Falco. If you want to talk rot, go and do it somewhere else.' it has to be thought about. Give me one good reason to discard the idea.'

'I can't. You'll just have to take our word.' Actually, Davos giving his word seemed fairly convincing to me. He was that kind of man.

Mind you, Brutus and Cassius probably seemed decent, dependable and harmless until somebody offended them.

I clapped Davos on the shoulder and was off on my way when another point struck me. 'One final thought. I've just had an odd conversation with Chremes. I'm sure he was holding back on me. Listen, could he have known anything significant about the playwright's finances?'

Davos said nothing. I knew I had got him. I turned back, square to him. 'So that's it!'

'That's what, Falco?'

'Oh come on Davos, for a man whose timing is so tight onstage, you're lousy off it! That silence was too long. There's something you don't want to tell me, and you're working out how to be uncooperative. Don't bother. It's too late now. Unless you tell me yourself, I'll only press the matter elsewhere until someone gives.'

'Leave it, Falco.'

'I will if you tell me.'

'It's old history:' He seemed to be making up his mind. 'Was Phrygia there when you had this strange chat?' I nodded. 'That explains it. Chremes on his own might have told you. The fact is, Heliodorus was subsidising the company. Phrygia doesn't know.'

I gaped. 'I'm amazed. Explain this!'

Davos sounded reluctant. 'You can fill in the rest, surely?'

'I've seen that Chremes and Phrygia like enjoying the good life.'

'More than our proceeds really cover.'

'So are they peeling off the takings?'

'Phrygia doesn't know,' he repeated stubbornly.

'All right, Phrygia's a vestal virgin. What about her tiresome spouse?'

'Chremes spent what he owes to the stagehands and the orchestra.' That explained a lot. Davos continued glumly: 'He isn't hopeless with money, but he's scared that Phrygia will finally leave him if their lifestyle gets too basic. That's what he's convinced himself, anyway. I doubt it myself. She's stayed so long she can't leave now; it would make all her past life pointless.'

'So he put himself in hock to Heliodorus?'

'Yes. The man is an idiot.'

'I'm starting to believe it:" He was also a liar. Chremes had told me Heliodorus spent all his cash on drink. 'I thought Heliodorus drank all his wages?'

'He liked to cadge other people's flagons.'

'At the scene of his death I found a goatskin and a wicker flask.'

'My guess would be the flask was his own, and he probably drained it himself too. The goatskin may have belonged to whoever was with him, in which case Heliodorus would not have objected to helping the other party drink what it contained.'

'Going back to Chremes' debt, if it was a substantial sum, where did the money come from?'

'Heliodorus was a private hoarder. He had amassed a pile.'

'And he let Chremes borrow it in order to gain the upper hand?'

'You're brighter than Chremes was about his reasoning! Chremes walked right into the blackmail: borrowed from Heliodorus, then had no way to pay him back. Everything could have been avoided if only he had come clean with Phrygia instead. She likes good things, but she's not stupidly extravagant. She wouldn't ruin the company for a few touches of luxury. Of course, they discuss everything – except what matters most.'

'Like most couples.'

Obviously hating to dump them in trouble, Davos blew out his cheeks, as if breathing had become difficult. 'Oh gods, what a mess: Chremes didn't kill him, Falco.'

'Sure? He was in a tight spot. Both you and Phrygia were insisting that the inkblot should be kicked out of the company. Meanwhile, Heliodorus must have been laughing up his tunic sleeve because he knew Chremes could not repay him. Incidentally, is this why he was kept on for so long in the first place?'

'Of course.'

'That and Phrygia hoping to extract the location of her child?'

'Oh she'd given up expecting him to tell her that, even if he really knew.'

'And how did you find out about the situation with Chremes?'

'At Petra. When I marched in to say it was Heliodorus or me. Chremes cracked and admitted why he couldn't give the playwright the boot.'

'So what happened?'

'I'd had enough. I certainly wasn't going to hang around and watch Heliodorus hold the troupe to ransom. I said I would leave when we got back to Bostra. Chremes knew Phrygia would hate that. We have been friends for a long time.'

'She knows your value to the company.'

'If you say so.'

'Why not just tell Phrygia yourself?'

'No need to. She would certainly insist on knowing why I was leaving- and she'd make sure she heard the right reason. If she pressed him, Chremes would crumble and tell her. He and I both knew that.'

'So, I see what your plan was. You were really intending to stick around until that happened.'

'You get it.' Davos seemed relieved now to be talking about this. 'Once Phrygia knew the situation, I reckoned Heliodorus would have been sorted – paid off somehow, and then told to leave.'

'Was he owed a large amount?'

'Finding it would have hit us all very hard, but it was not unmanageable. Worth it to get rid of him, anyway.'

'You were confident the whole business could have been cleared up?' This was important.

'Oh yes!' Davos seemed surprised that I asked. He was one of life's fixers; the opposite of Chremes, who collapsed when trouble flared. Davos did know when to cut and run in a crisis (I had seen that when our people were in jail at Gadara), but if it were possible, he preferred to face a bully out.

'This is the crux then, Davos. Did Chremes believe that he could be rescued?'

Davos considered his answer carefully. He understood what I was asking: whether Chremes felt so hopeless he might have killed as his only escape. 'Falco, he must have known that telling Phrygia would cause some harrowing rows, but after all these years, that's how they live. She wasn't in for any surprises. She knows the man. To save the company she -and I – would rally round. So, I suppose you are asking, ought he to have felt privately optimistic? In his heart, he must have.'