“This is all understood.”

“I shall, as you say, be discreet.”

“Thanks, Falco.”

We had started to move towards one of the courtyard exits, heading for the elderly, foursquare arch of Fabius Maximus over the crossroads on the Sacred Way.

“Why,” I asked bluntly, “are we being so careful with this family? Surely it is not just a matter of status?”

Rutilius paused, then shrugged. I felt he knew more than he had said. He gestured to our right as we emerged. “Do you have the current address of the Laelii? Before Numentinus became Flamen Dialis and moved to the official residence, they used to live down there, you know-in one of the great houses that perished in Nero’s Great Fire.”

“Jupiter! The Sacred Way-the best address in Rome? I know where their new place is, thanks; on the Aventine. A decent house-though hardly the same.”

“They were once a prominent family,” Rutilius reminded me.

“Obviously. This quarter was favored by famous republicans: Clodius Pulcher, Cicero. And was there not a notorious house along here that was owned by a Scaurus-with those expensive red-black marble columns that ended up on the Theatre of Marcellus? My father is a specialist salesman, and he always cites its record price: fifteen million sesterces it changed hands for once. Gaia Laelia’s father has Scaurus as his cognomen; is that significant?”

Rutilius shrugged again. His noble shoulders were working hard today. “There could well be a past connection. It is a family name, no doubt.”

I felt my eyes narrowing. “Do the Laelii have money nowadays?”

“They must have some.”

“Will I be allowed to ask them?”

“Only if it is very obviously relevant. They may not answer, of course,” Rutilius warned. “Please remember, you are not interrogating Census frauds today.”

I would have preferred that. Give me an honest cheat. Infinitely preferable to a devious and hypocritical so-called pillar of public life. “One more thing, sir: time is of the essence. I need support. I would like to bring in my friend and ex-partner, Petronius Longus.”

“I thought you would say that too,” Rutilius confessed. “Sorry; it is impossible. The Emperor decided that we should not involve the vigiles in direct contact with the family. The troops are to be ordered to search the city for the child, but the old Flamen is adamant that he does not want the big boys invading his home. Remember, Falco, for most of his life, Numentinus was bound never to look on armed men or to witness fetters. Even his ring had to be made from a broken band of metal. He cannot change. The paraphernalia of law and order still affronts him. This is the situation: he refuses to let in the vigiles; you have been put forward as the acceptable alternative.”

“He may not accept me.”

“He will.”

Worst luck.

XXX

It looked as dreary as when I came here first with Maia. I felt today’s errand was likely to be just as abortive. Visiting for the second time, now that I knew more about the family, I viewed their unappealing home with an even more gloomy sense of mistrust.

Somebody was leaving, just as I arrived. A litter emerged, ebony colored, with heavily drawn gray curtains. It was not the one with the Medusa boss that the Laelii themselves used. A well-wisher, perhaps. Whoever it was, they appeared to be accompanied by their laundry: a short train of slaves followed, one with a bulging clothes hamper and others with smaller baggage items. I refrained from asking the escort who this was; off-putting lads with pug noses walked alongside the litter. They paid as much attention to checking that the half doors were closed and the dark curtains kept tight as they did to surveying the street for menaces. Some husband who did not want his wife leaping out to buy too much from jewelry kiosks, I joked to myself.

After they left, I walked up to the house, thoughtfully. The porter’s peephole was shuttered so I stood with my back to the front door as if waiting. Passersby would suppose I had knocked and was waiting. Instead, I listened. This was a house where a young girl had gone missing. There should be panic inside. Every footfall on the front doorstep should make somebody rush to investigate.

Nothing.

I rang a bell which hung on its bracket so stiffly I had to wrench at it with a strength that seemed discourteous. Well, I am a delicate fellow. After an age of extra silence a thin, pale porter answered-a different man from the one who had dismissed Maia and me. I recommended a light application of low-grade olive oil to the bell.

“Don’t use fish oil. It stinks. You’ll be plagued with cats.” He stared at me. “My name is Didius Falco. Your master is expecting me.”

He was the kind of slave who only needed firm orders. Any burglar could have effected an entry just by speaking with bravado and a sweet accent. He had no idea what I wanted. I could have been any cheap confidence trickster about to offer the patrician householder a fake set of cheap Greek vases, stolen turnips, or this week’s special in curses, guaranteed to rot your enemy’s liver within five days or your money back.

I was wearing my toga again. It must have helped. The porter had no sartorial discernment or he would have seen that this garment had once belonged to the army’s most disreputable centurion, and that the crumpled moths’ delight now spent its idle time on a crude hook which had left a large poke in the wool, just where the swathe was so elegantly flung over my left shoulder.

Whoever he supposed I was, he set off to lead me straight to the old man. Now I was inside at last, I could sense the presence of a large staff. There had to be a steward or chamberlain, yet the porter never thought of consulting a superior about me. It argued a lack of regular dealings with visitors. Still, this saved time.

As I followed my guide, I made rapid observations. After a standard curtained nook where the duty porter sat, we crossed a small hallway tiled in black and gray, then traversed a dark corridor. I could now hear the normal morning noises of a large house: brooms, voices giving domestic instructions. The voices were low, though not exactly hushed. I heard no laughter. No bantering old cooks or larking youths. No dog, no cat, no caged finches. The house was clean, though perhaps not spotless. No bad smells. No particularly pleasant ones either. Neither sandalwood boxes, potted white lilies, nor warm rose balsam bath oil. Either the kitchen was in another part of the house, or today’s lunch must be cold.

We had first traversed the atrium. It was old-fashioned and openroofed, with a small rectangular pool, dry at present. That was because-their first sign of humanity-the Laelii had builders in. Perhaps this was where Gloccus and Cotta bunked off to whenever Helena needed them. If so, here too they were conspicuously absent today, though they could have been sent away because of the trouble over Gaia.

The atrium surrounds had had their walls stripped for repainting, and on one side a small shrine was under construction, the kind of niche where families with well-tended pedigrees keep not just their Lares but ugly busts of their most elevated forebears.

I was taken to a side room. There the porter unceremoniously left me. I began to smell incense: unusual in a private house. The porter had forgotten my name so I had to introduce myself. Luckily, I can do that. I could even name the person I was addressing. It had to be old man Laelius. He might be retired, but he found it impossible to let go. Even now, he wore the robes of his past office: the thick woollen toga praetexta, purple bordered and, according to ritual, woven by the hands of his late wife; and his apex, the conical cap with its earflaps and surmounting olive twig intertwined with white wool.