•

I waited, trying to gauge the scene. I sensed a slight atmosphere; nothing to do with Malabar perfumery. Her ladyship took herself off to another chair some distance apart, extracting herself from our business affairs like a well-bred young woman. (This was nonsense; Helena Justina interfered in everything if she could.)

'Matters to discuss?' Marcellus prompted me. I apologized for not visiting him in formal dress and offered my condolence on the death of his adopted heir. He was up to it; his face showed no alteration that I could detect.

Next I stated in the same neutral voice how I had been appointed an imperial executor for the Pertinax estate. 'Insult piled on injury, sir! First some negligent jailor finds your son strangled; then the five fellow senators who had pounded their intaglio rings on his will as witnesses are bumped aside by Vespasian's agents taking over as executors-a fine waste of sealing wax and three-stranded legal thread!'

The Consul's expression remained inscrutable. He made no attempt to disown Pertinax: 'Did you know my son?' Interesting question: could mean anything.

'I had met him,' I confirmed carefully. It seemed easiest not to mention that the testy young bastard once had me badly beaten up. 'This is a courtesy visit, sir; a vessel called the Circe is being returned to you. She is docked on the Sarnus at Pompeii, ready to be claimed.'

An ocean-going merchant-ship: a life-saver to a poorer man. To a multimillionaire like Marcellus, simply a fleet vessel his chief accountant sometimes reminded him he owned. Yet he burst out at once, 'I thought you people were impounding her at Ostia!'

I felt a flutter at his intimate knowledge of the Pertinax estate. Sometimes in my business the simplest conversation can give a useful hint (though an excitable type can easily miscalculate and convince himself of a hint that was never there…)

As he noticed me speculating I reassured him quietly, 'I had her sailed down here for you.'

'I see! Shall I need repossession documents?'

'If you let me have writing equipment, sir, I'll give you a certificate.' He nodded, and a secretary brought papyrus and ink.

I used my own reed pen. His people were shifting in surprise that a scruff like me could write. It was a good moment. Even Helena was glinting at their mistake.

I signed my name with a flourish, then smudged my signet ring onto a wax blob which the secretary grudgingly dripped for me. (The smudge made no difference; my signet in those days was so worn all anyone could make out was a wobbly one-legged character with only half a head.)

'What else, Falco?'

'I am trying to contact one of your son's household who is owed a personal legacy. It's a freedman who originated on his natural father's estate-fellow called Barnabas. Can you help?'

'Barnabas…' he quavered weakly.

'Oh, you know Barnabas!' Helena Justina encouraged from across the room.

I paused, looking thoughtful, while I tucked away my pen in a fold of my pouch. 'I understand Atius Pertinax and his freedman were extremely close. It was Barnabas who claimed your son's body and arranged his funeral. So are you saying,' I asked, remaining non-committal, 'that afterwards he has never been in touch?'

'He was nothing to do with us,' Marcellus insisted coldly. I knew the rules: consuls are like Chaldaeans who read your horoscope and very pretty girls; they never lie. 'As you say, he came from Calabria; I suggest you enquire there!' I had intended to ask about the missing yachtsman Crispus; something made me hold back. 'Nothing else, Falco?'

I shook my head without arguing.

•

This interview had raised more questions than it solved. But a confrontation served no purpose; it seemed best to withdraw. Caprenius Marcellus had already excluded me. He began a tortured fight to raise his long shanks from the chair. Clearly he was an invalid who enjoyed fuss; after only half an hour of him I no longer trusted the way that his pains came and went so conveniently.

Attendants closed in. Helena Justina was also making herself busy with the old man; I nodded once, in case she deigned to notice, then I left.

Before I reached the atrium the swift light step I knew so well came following me.

'I have a message from my father, Falco; I'll come to the door!'

Somehow I was not surprised. Aggrieved women are a hazard of my work. It was not the first time one had rushed after me, intending to back me into a corner for some vile tirade.

It was not the first time either that I had hidden a sly grin at this prospect of free entertainment.

Decorative plaques hung with wind chimes were suspended between the great Doric pillars in the white-stepped portico. Their trembling tintinnabulation added to my sense of unreality.

Larius, who never let grand mansions intimidate him, had just parked our ox at the elegant Marcellus carriage stop; my nephew sat there picking at his pimples while Nero, who had brought a spinning cohort of cattle flies, nibbled into the neat edge of the lawn.

Behind them lay the astonishing blue half-circle of the Bay. In the middle distance a bevy of gardeners were scything a piece of greensward large enough to exercise a legion at full strength; their heads all popped up as Nero bellowed at me. Larius merely gave us a sombre stare.

Her ladyship and I stood together above the steps. Her familiar perfume hammered my senses as neatly as a metal mallet on bronze. I was dreading some new reference to the burial of her uncle. The subject never came up, though I sensed Helena's anger still tingling just below the surface as we talked. 'Here on holiday?' I croaked.

'Just trying to avoid you!' she assured me serenely.

Fine; if that was her attitude-'Right! Thanks for seeing me to my ox-'

'Don't be so sensitive! I came to console my father-in-law.'

She had not enquired about me, but I informed her anyway. 'I'm trying to trace Aufidius Crispus-working for the Emperor.'

'Are you liking it?'

'No.'

Her ladyship tilted her head, with a frown. 'Restless?'

'I don't talk about it,' I told her brusquely-then because it was Helena I immediately relented: 'It's hopeless. The Palace doesn't like me any more than I like them. All I get is pottering errands-'

'Will you give it up?'

'No.' Since I had taken this on for her sake, I stared her out. 'Look; will you be discreet with Marcellus about my interest in his son?'

'Oh, I do understand!' Helena Justina responded, with a hint of rebellion. 'The Consul is a frail old man who can hardly move-'

'Settle down; I'm not harassing the poor old bird-' I stopped. A large attendant came out from the house and spoke to Helena; he claimed to have been sent by Marcellus, bringing her a parasol to ward off the strong sun.

I pointed out coldly that we were standing in the shade. The slave stuck fast.

My hands began clenching at my sides. He had size, but his body was so soft he wore wristbands like a gladiator to convince himself he was tough. It took more than a few buckled straps to convince me. Here on the Consul's estate he was safe enough. But anywhere off his home ground, I could have doubled him up like a piece of human guyrope and fastened him in a cleat.

My temper reached straining point.

'Lady, I may have all the social breeding of a cockroach in a wall crack, but you don't need a bodyguard when you're talking to me!' Her face set.

'Wait over there please!' Helena Justina instructed him; he looked truculent, but did shuffle off out of earshot.

'Stop sounding so brutal!' she ordered me, with a look that would etch cameo glass.