LII

I HAD PLANNED to keep it to myself Helena winkled it out of me. She seemed less troubled than I was, but then she had never lived too long in abject poverty. Our days in my old apartment up in Fountain Court had passed like an adventure for her. The cramped conditions, leaky roof and unpleasant, violent neighbours had been soon superseded by a larger, quieter set of rooms. Though not much better than our first dreadful nest, for Helena even they had now faded to a memory.

It all came back to me readily. The bugs. The creaking joists, threatening to cave in at any heavy footfall. The dirt. The noise. The theft and battery; the disease and debt. The threats from fellow lodgers, the smoke from wonky cooking benches, the screaming children. The smell of urine on the stairs – not all of it coming from the vats in Lenia's laundry. Lenia bawling drunkenly. The filthy, filthy-hearted landlord…

`If you were just to withdraw, honestly telling Marponius that you made a mistake, Marcus -'

`No. It's no let-out.'

`So you began the case – and you have to finish or become liable?'

`We could keep quiet, of course. Convict Calpurnia, and send her to her death… My conscience won't cope with that.'

`Anyway,' murmured my sensible girl, `somebody else might come forward with evidence. Keeping quiet would be too dangerous.'

I fell asleep shortly afterwards. I was holding Helena, smiling against her hair – smiling at the ridiculous thought that this model of rectitude might have let us cover up the truth if she thought we could get away with it. She had lived with me too long. She was becoming a pragmatist.

Helena herself must have lain awake for much longer. She knew how to keep still, shielding her busy thoughts from me. For her, if we could not hold back the new evidence, then we would damn well fight to minimise the damage. She was planning how. Her first move was to ensure that the steward's tale was true.

By the time I was up, she had started. While it was still dark, she summoned the others, explained the situation, ordered them not to panic, then addressed avenues to be explored. Honorius was due in court again today. He was to warn Marponius that we had a new witness whose testimony we thought it fair to investigate; he would request a short adjournment. We might be allowed a day; longer was unlikely. Meanwhile, Justinus was to take a full, formal statement from the steward. Aelianus was to revisit the funeral director, Tiasus; Helena had looked through the old case-notes and had spotted that originally we were told the Metellus funeral was to have had `clowns', plural. She told Aelianus to find out who the others were, and ask them for anything they knew about the background enquiries carried out by the murdered Spindex before he was paid off by Verginius Laco.

`Especially, ask who Spindex used as his informer,' she was instructing Aelianus as I came to the breakfast table. Going vague on her, he was assessing me. I had the slow walk of a man facing disaster. Helena kept talking, as she set fresh bread in front of me. `The vigiles haven't discovered who killed Spindex, or I presume Petronius would have told us, but you can check at the station-house, Aulus, if you have time.'

`Don't tell Petro we've been idiots,' I said.

All three young men stared at me. They were in shock too.

`Petro's not stupid,' said Aelianus bleakly. `He'll work it out.'

Just don't think about the penalty,' Helena advised everyone quietly. `We have to carry on, being scrupulous about double-checking. Just because we say we have a new witness, Paccius won't immediately know we are at his mercy.'

`He will demand to know who the witness is,' Honorius said gloomily.

`Say the query arose out of the vigiles torturing the slaves,' Aelianus suggested – another of the Camillus family who was willing to bend the truth. `Paccius will waste time following up with the Second Cohort.'

`No, Paccius will scent victory,' Honorius disagreed. I had always suspected lack of funds was a big problem for him; he seemed utterly deflated by our dire situation. He would need watching.

`Forget Paccius!' Helena retaliated crisply. Her eye landed on her younger brother. `Quintus, you're quiet. I suppose you thought you would be the centre of attention today, with your news from Lanuvium?'

He shrugged. When I saw him last night he had been weary, stressed by his encounter with the vigiles and livid that they had killed Perseus. Now he was down, but seemed glad to be here with us. His wife must have greeted him with a lively scene. `I'll tell you very quickly. I had a hard time getting anything out of the freedman to start with; he sees it as his role to act as guardian over the Metellus family troubles. He refused to admit that Perseus was there, then he did everything he could to prevent me finding the porter. Still, I tracked him down on the sly, roped him up and was bringing him back a prisoner.

`Didn't Alexander spot you leaving his property?' I asked.

`No, Perseus was on a different farm. Alexander runs a big outfit in his own right – but I found another place locally in which he has a disguised interest. Marcus, I reckon this is where the money from the corruption was salted away.'

`So Julius Alexander may have bought property at Lanuvium anonymously?'

`He did indeed, although he denies it. Perseus told me.'

`But did Perseus confess what the real secret is?'

`No. He only started gossiping about the property to stop me asking other questions – and we were almost back in Rome by then.'

`Just at that point, you ran into the vigiles?'

`Yes. If I had known,' Justinus growled, `I would have thrown Perseus in a ditch and hidden him. In fact, I might as well have killed the cocky bastard myself and at least enjoyed it. When the Second pulled us over and asked who we were, Perseus piped up and admitted his identity. The vigiles snatched him off me, and tore back to their station-house with me panting after them, unable to get word to you.'

`It's not your fault.'

`We could not have held on to him.' Honorius sounded pompous. `Stealing a slave is bad enough if you deprive his master of possession – depriving the vigiles would be madness.'

Annoyed at his pedantry, Helena briskly stirred her hot drink. `Don't forget: we think that Saffia poisoned Metellus. We think we know how she did it too – but we still have no idea why.'

`Impatient to get at her legacy,' Aelianus replied.

`If they were lovers, it could be a love quarrel.' His brother, so used to wrangling with his wife, gloomily put up a counter-suggestion.

`I don't believe they were ever lovers.' Helena looked as if she had a theory. `I suspect Saffia Donata was just a very efficient blackmailer.' She would not tell us more. She said she did not have time to look into it today; she was going to see her father, to warn him we were all bankrupt. Meanwhile, she had one last instruction, this time for me. I had to visit the midwife Euboule, and her daughter Zeuko too, if the vigiles had released her.

That was a waste of time. Zeuko was still in custody, but if she was as hard-bitten as her mother, I would have obtained little from her.

Once I made my inspection of their house, I agreed with Helena that the children seemed well cared for and treated with kindness; there was no apparent reason why Ursulina Prisca had heaped disparagement on the two women. The house itself was well furnished and warm. A couple of young slave girls were playing with the children, who had a large toy collection. Walls and floors were covered in a collection of Eastern carpets, a highly unexpected luxury. Helena and I had no walls tapestried with Eastern carpets, even though they were attractive, useful as an investment, and difficult for casual thieves to whip away. My father had a few. But carpets were for auctioneers and kings; they were well out of our reach.