I walked my brother-in-law towards the Forum Boarium. He was probably drunk, but always had a serious limp that made him walk with a lurch, so I had the distasteful task of holding him upright. He looked as if he smelt, though I tried to avoid snuggling up close enough to find out.

We were on the stone-clad side of the Tiber, what they call the Marbled Bank, a good way past the wharves that surround the Emporium but before the elegant theatres and porticoes and the great bend in the river that encompasses the Campus Martius. After the Sublician Bridge we steered round the Arch of Lentulus, and the Market Inspector's office, and ended up looking out over the water near the ancient Temple of Portunus, immediately above the exit arch of the Great Sewer. A nice smelly place if I had thrown Lollius off the embankment. Something I should have done. Rome, and Galla's children, deserved it.

`What do you want, young Marcus?'

`It's Falco to you. Show some respect for the head of the family.' He took it that I was joking. Being head of our family was an unenforceable honour. Unendurable, too; a punishment I had been give by the Fates out of malice. My father, the auctioneer and fillollicking finangler Didius Geminus, ought to carry out the prescribed duties, but he had fled from home many years back. He was callous, but shrewd.

Lollius and I stared gloomily towards the Aemilian Bridge. `Tell me about what you find in the river, Lollius.'

`Shit.'

`Is that a considered answer, or a general curse?'

'Both.'

`I want to hear about dismembered bodies `More fool you.'

I fixed him sternly. It did no good.

When I forced myself to survey him I was looking at a miserable specimen. Lollius appeared to be about fifty, though he could have, been any age. He was shorter and stouter than me, in such, bad condition that things looked, cheerful for his heirs. His face had been ugly even before he lost most of his teeth and had one of his eyes permanently closed by Galla's hitting him with a solid-bottomed pancake pan. His, eyes had been too close together to start with, his ears were lopsided, his nose had a twist that made him snuffle and he had no neck. A traditional waterman's woollen cap covered his lank hair. Several layers, of tunics completed the dreary ensemble; when he had spilt enough wine down himself he just pulled a new one on top.

So was there nothing to recommend him? Well, he could row a skiff He could swim. He could curse, fight and fornicate. lie was a potent husband, though a disloyal father. He made regular earnings, then persistently lied about them to my sister, and never handed, over anything for the upkeep of his family: a classic. True metal from the traditional Roman mould. Surely overdue to be elected to a priesthood or a tribunate.

I looked back at the river again. It wasn't much. Brown and gurgling fitfully as usual. Sometimes it floods; the rest of the time the fabled Tiber is a mediocre stream. I had stayed in smaller cities whose waterways were more impressive. But Rome had been built on this spot not just because of the fabled Seven Hills. This was the prime position in central Italy. To our right at Tiber Island had been the first bridgeable position above the sea, a decent one-day stage from the coast. It had probably seemed a sensible location to the kind of slow-witted shepherds who thought they were clever fortifying a floodplain and placing their Forum in a stagnant marsh.

Nowadays the narrow, silting river was a grave disadvantage. Rome was importing fabulous quantities of goods from all over the world. Every amphora and bale had to be dragged along the highroad in carts or on muleback, or carried up by barges to the Emporium. The new harbour at Ostia had had to be rebuilt but was still unsatisfactory. So as well as the barges there was plenty of small boat traffic, and that enabled the existence of parasites like Lollius.

He was the last person I wanted to see credited with assisting any enquiry I took part in. However, Petro and I were stuck for useful information. If we 'were to vie with Anacrites even my brother-in-law had to be tackled.

`Lollius, either shut your trap about finding things, or tell me what in the name of the gods they are.'

He gave me his 'most unreliable squint, bleary and sly, `Oh, you mean the festival fancies!'

I knew at once that the bastard had just told me something significant.

SEVENTEEN

`We call them that,' he gloated. Slow to grasp a point himself, he assumed I was just as dim. `Festival fancies…' he repeated lovingly.

`What exactly are we talking about, Lollius?'

He drew two lines on his own body with his index fingers, one across his filthy neck and one, at the top of his fat legs. `You know -'

`Torsos? Limbless?'

`yes.'

I was no longer feeling chatty, but my brother-in-law looked eager. To forestall more horrible details I asked: `I suppose the heads are missing too?'

`Of course. Anything that can be chopped off.' Lollius flashed what remained of his stumpy teeth in an evil grin. `Including the melons.' He drew circles on his chest then sliced down with the flat of his hand as if cutting off breasts. At the same time he made a revolting, squelching sound through his gums.

`I gather they are women?' His mime had been graphic, but I had learned to make sure of everything.

`Well, they were once. Slaves or flighty-girls presumably.' `What makes you think that?'

`Nobody ever comes looking for them. Who else could they be?? All right, slaves might be valuable. So they're all good-time girls – ones who had a really bad time.' He shrugged off-handedly. I deplored his attitude, though he was probably right.

`I've never heard anything about these limbless lasses.' `You must move in the wrong circles, Falco.'

I made no plans to alter my social life. `Have you fished any out?'

`No, but I know someone who did.' Again

`You saw it yourself?'

`Right.' Remembering, even he went quiet.

`How many are we talking about?'

`Well, not so many,' Lollius conceded. 'Just enough for us to think "He's still at it!" when one floats to the top or gets tangled in an oar. They all look pretty much the same,' he explained, as if I was too dumb to work out how the boatmen made the connection.

`With the same mutilations? You talk as if pulling these beauties out of the river is a traditional perk of your job. How long has it been going on?'

`Oh, years!' He sounded quite definite.

`Years? How many years?'

`A's long as I've been a waterman. Well, most of the time, anyway.' I should have known better than to hope Lollius would be definite, even about something as sensational as this.

`So we're looking for a mature murderer?'

`Or an inherited family business,' Lollius cackled.

`When was the last one discovered?'

`The last I heard about' – Lollius paused, letting me absorb the implication that he was at the centre of life on the river so bound to know everything important – would have been about last April. Sometimes we find them in July, though,, and sometimes in the autumn.'

`And what did you call them?'

`Festival fancies.' Still proud of the definition, he didn't mind repeating it once more. `Like those special Cretan cakes, you know

`Yes, yes, I get it. They turn up' at public holidays.';

`Neat, eh? Somebody must have, spotted that it's always when there's a big set of Games, or a Triumph.'

`The calendar's so crammed with public holidays – I'm surprised anyone noticed.'

`The joke is, it's always when we rollback to. work with a really vile headache and can't face anything too raw.' That happened frequently too; the water boatmen all had a notorious capacity for drink.