After we stopped giggling, I explained that we had to find solid evidence, using mundane investigation techniques. All the young people lost interest. This would be how it felt to run an educational leisure tour, with reluctant adolescents hating the culture Bored young people might start plotting mischief- though not, I thought, actual murder.

Albia was annoyed that I had dismissed her theory, but she did support me next morning when I went to reconnoitre the spot where the Seven Sights tour had camped. Helene wanted to come, but was unwell; Greek food had struck her down. After breakfast Albia and I walked quickly southwards from the Leomdaion along the embankment formed by the great retaining wall of the River Kladeos. The Kladeos was a hesitant trickle, wandering among bulrushes, though no doubt in flood it became dramatic.

Jumping fleas pinged around our feet. The air was thick with vicious insects.

"This is nothing, Albia. Imagine this place during the Games, when a hundred oxen are slaughtered at one sitting. Don't even try to calculate the quantities of blood involved. Plus hide, bones, horns, entrails, scraps of uncooked or uneaten meat. While the smoke is soaring up to the gods on Mount Olympus, down here the flies are in their own heaven.'

Albia picked her way cautiously." I can see why those two Germans we met said they always prayed it would not rain. The ground would become very muddy.'

"Mud and worse!'

We found where the camp had been. Aulus had drawn a clear plan. He was a strong, rough draughtsman, using thick stubby lines, but what he meant was clear enough. We could just about discern pale grass, about the footage of two ten-man army tents. We even found tent-peg holes and trampled hollows where they had had a couple of doorways. For a wide area around, three-year-old detritus disfigured the riverbank, left behind by the spectators at the last Games. But where the Seven Sights people camped, there was absolutely no rubbish.

"The travel company are such tidy people, Falco!' Albia had learned informing irony." They have been so careful to remove any clues.'

I planted myself in what would have been the outside approach to the Seven Sights tent, feet apart and thumbs in my belt. It was my favourite belt and this was a useful stance for thinking. The belt had stretched in two places to accommodate my thumbs." I doubt if there were many clues, Albia. And I don't credit the Seven Sights party with immaculate housekeeping.'

"Then who did it?'

"Barzanes said the girl had been killed somewhere else and the

corpse was just carried here afterwards. Forensically, you might search a crime scene. But here, cleaning up so thoroughly gains nothing.'

"Forensically,' Albia repeated, learning the new word." Why then, Marcus Didius?'

"The place was regarded as polluted. Murder ruins the good name of the sanctuary, and maybe brings bad luck as well. So they eliminated all trace of everyone who stayed here with Valeria.'

"The priests?' Albia's grey eyes widened." Do you think the priests killed Valeria?' There was heavy derision in my foster-daughter's tone. She had learned on the streets of Londinium to distrust all authorities. I cannot say that attitude had been discouraged by Helene and me.

"Albia, I believe anything of priests!'

We stood in silence, feeling the sunshine and listening to birdsong. Beneath our feet the grass, starved of nourishment while it was covered by tents, was already greening, the blades standing up again stalwartly. Leafy hills surrounded us, thickly covered with olives, plane trees, larches, and even palm trees, above a thick undergrowth of vines and flowering shrubs. The conical Hill of Cronus dominated, waiting for me to tackle other secrets.

With its bright skies, tumbling rivers, sacred groves, and its ancient attributions, this remote spot hummed with fertility and folklore. At any moment I expected some lithe god to hail us and ask if we knew any virgins who might consent to be ravished in the interests of mythology.

"Albia, Valeria Ventidia was not much older than you are. If you had been with that party visiting Olympia, how would you feel about it?'

"Older than we think I am!' Albia could never miss an opportunity to remind herself how little she knew of her origins. She had no birthday We could not say for sure whether she was fifteen, sixteen, or seventeen." Aulus made the people sound bad. I would not have liked it.'

"Say you are Valeria and you feel that way. Would you duck out of any organised events?'

"What could she do? Staying in the tent alone might be a bad idea. If some man knew Valeria was there by herself…'

"True. While the male tourists studied sporty things, Valeria and the other women of the party would have been taken around together sometimes.'

"She might not have liked those women.'

"When you travel in an escorted group, you have to live with your

companions, Albia, whoever they are How do you think the women occupied themselves? There are poets and musicians to listen to.'

Albia pulled a face." You could look around, like we all did yesterday. Valena could go out by herself- but that might be a worry.'

"Men might make personal overtures?'

"You know they would do, Marcus Didius.'

True again. A young woman would be an immediate target. Men hanging around a sanctuary alone would be odd types by definition. Groups could be even more threatening. We did not know whether Valeria Ventidia was pretty, but she was nineteen. Wearing a wedding ring would not help.

"If she was spotted alone, she would be thought to be waiting for men's attention. Of course,' murmured Albia slyly," Valeria might have liked that.'

"Albia, I am shocked! Valena was a bride.'

"She married because she was told to.'

"And Aulus says her husband was a dumb cluck!'

Albia giggled." Why stay chaste for a man like that?'

Perhaps because in a sanctuary like this, word would soon get around if you did not.

XII

Feeling my responsibilities more than usual, I escorted Albia safely back to the Leomdaion, where I told her to check up on Helene. I had arranged to meet Young Glaucus. There was a lavish new Roman clubhouse, donated by the Emperor Nero after his visit ten years ago, but since Nero's death it had remained unfinished. So I walked on to the old palaestra, into which Glaucus had wormed his way yesterday As I went, the workshop of Phidias and the shrine of the Unknown Hero were on the right; to the left stood a bath house and an enormous outdoor swimming pool A door porter refused me admittance to the sports facilities, so I waited until somebody else distracted him, then slipped past. There was no way Claudius Laeta and the Palatine auditors would pay a subscription to join this elite exercise club My official expenses hardly covered a bread roll a day.

The indoor sports facilities at Olympia were as grandiose as you would expect Yesterday we had spent most time admiring the gymnasium; that sumptuous facility had a mighty triple-arched gateway, leading to a vast interior where running could be practised on a full-size double track, safe from rain or excessive heat It was so large that in its central area discus and javelin practice could occur even while races took place on the perimeter.

Attached to the gym was the palaestra – more intimate, yet still impressive. It had four grand colonnades, each housing rooms with specialist functions, around a huge central workout space that was open to the skies. In one preparatory room athletes oiled themselves or were oiled by their trainers – or their boyfriends Another contained bunkers of fine dust which was slathered all over them on top of the oil. It came in different colours After practice, the dust and oil and sweat would all be scraped off Because there were splendid full-scale baths elsewhere in the complex, washing facilities here were basic – a clinical stingil-and-splash room and an echoing cold bath