XXIII

I SAW HELENA'S chin come up.

`The householder's return – Marcus! This is Pacuvius,' she broke in, heartlessly spoiling a story that the narrator would never have stopped voluntarily. I could tell it was elderly material, rich with worked-up detail yet moth-eaten too. To Maia and Helena it probably seemed endless after hours of previous monologue. I gave Helena a smile that I hoped would seem special. She did not smile back.

`Didius Falco,' I introduced myself, in a light voice. Maia glowered, convinced that I was incapable of extracting the bore. `I was expecting you at the Chrysippus house, Pacuvius.'

'Ah! What an idiot!' He slapped his head in a way that was supposed to be comic. `Fool of a slave never gives a clear steer -' He blundered upright from his stool, awkwardly. He wanted it to seem rude if I insisted he left. Indifferent, I walked past him and emptied a water jug into a beaker, which I tipped down my throat.

Helena then felt obliged to lighten the atmosphere: `Pacuvius is a satirical author, known as Scrutator'

He laughed diffidently. So far, I was immune to his charm. `I have, as you gather, been entertaining your ladies with my fund of wit, Falco.' Oh yes? Neither liked men who thought themselves too witty.' Both Helena and Maia were picky over how they were entertained. Once he left, I fancied they would set about dissecting him. Both could be cruel. I looked forward to listening in.

`So what's the verdict, fruit? I asked, directly of Helena. I had no doubt she had spoken to the man with authority in my absence; he may not have believed how much I respected her judgement. He looked to me like one of those untidy single men who pretend to flirt, but who would never let a real woman come within a stadium's length.

Helena would have asked the right questions, though she would have done it slyly, as if making polite conversation. She gave her report in a quiet voice, a little too crisp to be neutral: `Pacuvius was called in yesterday to discuss progress on his latest series of verses; he produced a new set; Chrysippus was delighted; they did not quarrel; Pacuvius left the house shortly afterwards.'

`Did he see any of the other authors?' I could have asked him that. He was now dying to answer for himself.

`He says not,' said Helena. Nice phrasing. Just the merest hint that she withheld judgement on whether the flamboyant braggart told the truth.

I smiled at her. She smiled rather wearily at me.

I bent down and picked up the baby for a fatherly greeting; Julia chose not to be used as a prop in this comedy, and she started bawling. `Well, that sounds fine,' I said firmly to Pacuvius over the row.

The man flustered his way to the door. `Yes, yes. I am delighted it is satisfactory. I will leave you to your domestic harmonies -' He could not resist upsetting my domesticity by returning to plonk elaborate kisses on the ladies' hands (both made very sure they had their arms stretched out ready, lest he try kissing them at closer quarters). I watched in silence. If he had dared anything else, I would have thrown him physically downstairs. I suspected Maia and Helena were secretly hoping to see it.

`If I find any holes in your story I'll want to see you again. If you can think of anyone with a reason to kill Chrysippus, you come and tell me. If you had a reason yourself, I suggest that you own up now, because I will find out. My working base is Chrysippus' Latin library.'

He bowed, as if making amends for an intrusion, and rushed off. If I was supposed to feel uncouth for my hostility, it did not work.

Julia settled down again.

`What a creep!' shrieked Maia. He may still have been within earshot. I stepped out to look. He was striding away down Fountain Court, a large man who walked too fast and caused awnings to flap as he passed. Perhaps he felt some witty verses coming on so was rushing to write them down before he forgot. He was big enough to overpower and kill Chrysippus. I classified him as too useless, though.

`We'll be in a satire, I warn you,' I said, retreating indoors again. `I've come across his stuff. Scrutator is a snob. Some like to write skits on the rich. He enjoys twitting the upwardly-moving lower classes who think they have social significance. Informers have always been good material, and here's a senator's daughter who ran off to live in the gutter, together with a very pretty widow whose husband – she claims – was eaten by a lion. Gods, if I wasn't so scared of the pair of you, I would write it up myself.'

Helena flopped down on a bench. `I thought he would never shut up.'

`So did Maia. I could see that as soon as I walked in.'

`He had no idea,' Maia chimed in – adding in her usual measured way, `selfish, self-centred masculine monster.'

`Keep it clean in front of the baby,' I reproved her. I took out the note-tablet where Passus had prepared details of Chrysippus' visitors. `Curious how these writers are all coming to see me in exactly the same order as their names on my list. Neat choreography. Maybe they need an editor to suggest more natural realism.' To Helena, whose determination I knew well by now, I said, `Any pickings from that bore that I should know about?'

`It's your business,' she pretended.

I shrugged. `I don't expect you to have wasted an opportunity.'

Since the others were exhausted, I dumped the baby on Maia and started hunting out food-bowls. `The chopping board is under Julia's blanket,' Helena told me helpfully. I found it, and the lettuce to chop behind a pot of growing parsley. While I set about making lunch, with a competence that failed to impress anyone, my partner in life roused herself enough to tell me what she had managed to extract from the satirist. Maia threw in snippets too, while she tried to clean fig seeds off Julia.

`I think I'll spare you his life history, Marcus,' Helena decided. `Courteous woman.'

`He has been writing for years, a regular hack with a small continuous readership, people who probably return to his work just because they have heard of him. He does have a certain blowsy style and wit. He is observant of social nuances, adept with parody, quick with cutting remarks.'

`He knows how to circulate scandal,' Maia grunted. `All his stories were crammed with things people would rather keep quiet.' That could be a source of antipathy.

`Could you tell how he got on with Chrysippus?'

`Well…' Helena was dry. `His view was that the famous Scrutator is a founder member of the writing circle, without whose dogged loyalty and brilliance Chrysippus would never have survived on the literary circuit.'

`Or to put it more succinctly, Scrutator is a useless old fart,' said Maia.

Helena took the thoughtful approach: `He claims that Chrysippus was thrilled by the new poems he produced yesterday, but I- wonder. Could it be that Chrysippus really saw him as a dire washed-up hasbeen whom he wanted to drop? Now the patron is dead, who can tell? Will Pacuvius manage to have work published that might have been rejected?'

`Would he have killed to achieve publication?' I murmured, scraping salt from a block.

`Would he ever stop talking long enough?' asked Maia.

`If he really has an established market, he must want the scriptorium to continue trading as normal, without any commercial upheavals caused by the death of its proprietor.'

`Is there a sensation effect?' asked Helena. `Might a murder increase sales?'

`Don't know – but it's presumably only temporary.' I had other priorities. `Where's that nice matured goat's cheese?'

`Gaius Baebius ate it yesterday.'

`Jupiter, I hate that glutton! So did the talking man give you any inside patter on the others involved?'

`All cooing turtledoves, according to him,' sneered Helena.