'You mean to his house?'

'No. To hers-'

I stopped dead.

'When his own, with all his servants, was only three blocks away? He, a senator, walked all across the city to the Capena Gate? Why the urgency? Why was the lady so distressed? Was she ill? Was she hurt?' Milo had not been told. We were within sight of the street where he said Gordianus lived, but I exclaimed, 'No, this is bad news, Milo! Tell your master I shall come and see him later-'

'Falco! Where are you rushing off to?'

'The Capena Gate!'

LXXXIV

That nightmare journey all across Rome took another hour.

I planned the best route I could round the southern side of the Palatine, though it meant clambering through the grounds of Nero's Golden House. The Golden House was in limbo-too extravagant for the Flavians-so I found a whole convention of surveyors crowding the lake area trying to decide what our respectable new Emperor should do with it. Vespasian himself had a grand idea that this prime site should be returned to the people, the Flavians' gift to Rome for all posterity… So here were the designers, about to wish on us a fifteen-year construction site for their new city amphitheatre. The last thing I wanted as I struggled to reach the Camillus house was having my way impeded by a swarm of dreary architects in peculiar-coloured tunics, planning yet another forgettable Imperial monument. It strikes me the happy Roman mortar mixer who developed the use of concrete has a lot to answer for.

At last I reached the peace of the Capena Gate. As usual, the door porter refused to let me in.

I argued; he shrugged. He looked like a king and I felt like a lout. He stood inside; I stayed out on the step.

By then I was so hot after my gallop, and so anxious, that I grabbled the young pervert by the front of his tunic, then flung him against the doorpost and banged my way in. Falco: ever ready with the subtle touch.

'If you know what's good for you, sonny, you'll learn to recognize the friends of the house!'

A sharp female voice demanded what the commotion was. I was whisked into a reception room, face to face with the noble Julia Justa, the Senator's highly irritated wife.

'I apologize for breaking in,' I said tersely. 'There seems no other way I can pay my respects-'

Helena Justina's mother and I had failed to strike up a friendship. What I found most unnerving (since, to put it bluntly, her mother did not like me) was that where Helena had inherited expressions and intonations from her father, her looks came from her mother's side. It was always odd to see the same intelligent eyes as hers viewing me so differently.

I noticed that Julia Justa, who was a well-dressed, well-mannered woman, with a face that had benefited from the best oils and cosmetics a millionaire's wife could buy, looked pale and strained today She also appeared to have some problem deciding what to say to me.

'If,' began Helena's mother slowly, 'you are visiting my daughter-'

'Look-I heard something that disturbed me; is Helena all right?'

'Not entirely.' We were both standing. The room seemed incredibly stuffy; I was finding it hard to breathe. 'Helena has lost the child she was expecting,' her mother said. Then she regarded me with a pinched expression, uncertain what to expect from me-yet certain it would be something she did not like.

It was quite unacceptable to turn my back on the wife of a senator in her own home, but I took a swift interest in a dolphin statuette that served as a lamp. I never like other people seeing my emotions until I have inspected them for myself.

The dolphin was a slick little clown, but my silence was worrying him. I returned my formal attention to the Senator's wife.

'So, Didius Falco! What have you to say about this?'

'More than you think.' My voice sounded tinny, as if I had spoken into a metal vase. 'I'll say it to Helena. May I see her?'

'Not at present.'

She wanted me out of the house. Good manners and a bad conscience both dictated a speedy departure. I never had much truck with good manners: I decided not to shift.

'Julia Justa, will you tell Helena I am here?'

'I cannot, Falco-the doctor has given her a strong sleeping draught.'

I said in that case I had no wish to inconvenience anyone, but unless Julia Justa vividly objected I would wait.

Her mother agreed. She could probably see that if they put me out of doors I would only cause speculation among their noble neighbours by lurking out in the street like a seedy creditor.

•

I waited three hours. They forgot I was there.

Eventually, the door opened.

'Falco!' Helena's mother surveyed me, startled at my sticking power. 'Somebody should have seen to you-'

'Nothing I wanted, thanks.'

'Helena is still asleep.'

'I can wait.'

At my grim tone, Julia Justa came further into the room. I answered her curious gaze with a hard, bitter stare of my own.

'Madam, was today's event an accident of nature, or did your doctor give your daughter something to help things along?'

The lady considered me with Helena's own angrily perturbed dark eyes. 'If you know my daughter, you know the answer to that!'

'I do know your daughter; she is extremely sensible. I also know Helena Justina would not be the first unmarried mother who had a solution to her predicament wished on her!'

'Insulting her family will not help you to find out!'

'Excuse me. I've spent a long time thinking. Always a bad idea.'

Julia Justa let slip a slight sigh of impatience. 'Falco, this is achieving nothing; why are you still here?'

'I have to see Helena.'

'I must tell you, Falco-she never asked for you!'

'Did she ask for anyone else?'

'No.'

'Then no one else will be offended if I wait.'

Then Helena's mother said that if I felt so strongly I had better see Helena now, so that for everybody's sake I could go home.

•

It was a small room, the one she had had as a child. It was neat, and convenient, and when she had returned to her father's house after her divorce she must have asked for it back because it was nothing like her grand apartment in the Pertinax house.

In a narrow bed, under a natural linen coverlet, Helena lay motionless. She was drugged so deeply there was no chance of waking her. Her face looked completely colourless and plain, still in the exhaustion of her physical ordeal. With other women in the room I felt unable to touch her, but the sight of her dragged out of me, 'Oh they should not have done this to her! How can she know anyone is here?'

'She was in pain; she needed rest.'

I fought against the thought that she might need me. 'Is she in danger?'

'No,' her mother said, more quietly.

Still sensitive to atmosphere, I noticed that the white-faced maid who was sitting on a coffer had been crying earlier. I found myself asking, 'Will you tell me the truth; did Helena want the child?'

'Oh yes!' her mother answered immediately. She disguised her annoyance, but I glimpsed the bad feeling that must have surged around this family before today. Helena Justina would make no one an easy relative; she did everything in her own stubborn high-minded way. 'That may have placed you in a difficult position,' Julia Justa suggested to me in a thin voice. 'So this must be quite a relief?'

'You seem to have me well weighed up!' I answered narrowly.

I wanted Helena to know that I had been with her today.

I had nothing else to leave, so I tugged off my signet ring and laid it on the silver tripod table at the side of her bed. Between the pink glass water beaker and a scatter of ivory hairpins, my worn old ring with its dirty red stone and greenish metal looked an ugly chunk, but at least she would notice it and know whose grimy hand she had seen it on.