She feigned disapproval. `His sense of justice, you mean, Marcus Didius.'

`I prefer not to be the agent of marital disharmony,' Julius Frontinus told Milvia kindly. He was a tough old shoot. He had dealt with dim girlikins before. He could see beyond their glimmering silks and wide painted eyes, to just how dangerous they were. `I shall overlook what I have heard today. I can see that you wish to preserve your marriage, so you will obviously end your affair with all speed. And we all say, very good luck to you!'

Milvia was stunned. Her extortionist family owned a battery of tame lawyers who were famously good at discovering outmoded statutes with which to hammer the innocent. It was something new to find herself the victim of antique legislation, let alone to be subjected to delicate blackmail by a high-ranking senator.

Frontinus seemed so sympathetic she must have wanted to squeal. `As for your missing mother, you are clearly desolate without her. You must make every, effort to discover whether she has taken refuge with a friend or relative. Falco will conduct, enquiries on your behalf if time permits, but unless you produce proof that your mother has been abducted this is a private affair. There could be many other explanations. Though if a crime is thought to have been committed, surely that is a matter for the vigiles?'

`Oh, I can't go to them.'

Frontinus looked, at me. `They might not be, very sympathetic, sir. They spend a great deal of time investigating crookery in which the missing woman is heavily involved. Flaccida will not be their favourite maiden in distress.'

`I need help,' Milvia wailed.

`Hire an informer then,' said Helena.

Milvia opened her rosebud mouth to wail that that was why she had come to me, then she registered the word `hire'. A fee would not, of course, have been levied by Petronius. `Do I have to pay you, Falco?'

`It is considered polite,' answered Helena. She did my accounts.

`Well, of course then,' pouted Milvia. `In advance,' said Helena.

Frontinus looked amused. For our work on his formal enquiry, we were letting him pay in arrears.

FORTY FIVE

His illustriousness was not best pleased when I informed him later that he had lost half his team on sick leave. The way I told it, Petronius Longus, that selfless scourge of organised crime, had been attacked by a gang in retaliation for putting away the criminal Balbinus Pius. If, before he employed us, Frontinus had already been briefed on Petro's suspension from the vigiles, he would soon understand the connection with Milvia. I wasn't going to tell him unless he asked.

`Let us hope he recovers quickly. And how do you feel about carrying on alone, Falco?'

`I'm used to working solo, sir. Petronius should soon be back on his feet.'

`Not soon enough, the Consul warned. `I have just received a message brought by a very excited public slave.'

Then he came out with the real reason for his visit: there was news at last from Bolanus. Far from abandoning the case as I had been beginning to suspect, the engineer's assistant had been busy. He had stuck with his personal theory that the aqueducts which came to Rome from Tibur were the ones to investigate. He had organised systematic inspections of all their water towers and settling tanks, right out across the Campagna… Eventually his men extracted more human remains, a major find we were told several arms and legs, in various stages of decomposition – near the inlets above Tibur.

Julius Frontinus looked at Helena apologetically. `I am afraid I shall have to rob you of your husband for a few days. He and I need to make a site visit.'

Helena Justina smiled at him. `That's no problem, sir. A trip to the country is just what the baby and I need.' Frontinus tried nervously to look like a man who admired the spirit of modern women. I just smiled.

Flaccida's disappearance from home gave me a chance to show off.

There was a day's pause before we left' Rome, so I used that to investigate for Milvia. Needless to say, it was, not as much fun as pursuing widows can be. All the widows for whom I had previously worked were not merely provided with twinkling inheritances, but highly attractive and susceptible to a handsome grin. In fact since I met Helena I had given up that kind of client. Life was risky enough.

The pause occurred while I waited for my travel companion to clear his private affairs, which were necessarily more complex than mine. He had a few million sesterces invested in land to demand his attention, and a Senate reputation to cultivate, not to mention his imminent posting to Britain. The preparations for three years at the edge of the Empire couldn't be left to his underlings; his toga folders and secretaries might not yet appreciate how terrible the province was.

Frontinus had insisted on supervising the Tibur investigations. So long as he didn't try to supervise me I wasn't arguing. As a Roman I had little neighbourhood knowledge and no remit except as a member of his aqueduct investigation team. His presence would strengthen my hand. Given the status of the landowners who patronised that district,, resistance to enquiries was quite likely. The filthy rich have more secrets to guard than the poor.

Seizing my chance, therefore, while his honour sorted out his own business, I took myself down to the Florius homestead and spied around outside. A slave trotted out to go shopping, so I collared him, slipped him a small coin, added a few more at his suggestion, and asked what the word was about the missing dame. He clearly hated Flaccida, and willingly revealed that no one in the household knew anything of her whereabouts. I did not trouble to knock and speak to Milvia.

There was definitely no vigiles presence in the street, or I would have spotted them. So I took a stroll back up the Aventine, barged in on Marcus Rubella in the Fourth Cohort's Twelfth District headquarters, and asked him outright what had happened to his surveillance team.

`The Balbinus exercise is finished, Falco. He's dead and we wouldn't want to be accused of harassment. 'What surveillance team?'

Rubella was an ex-chief centurion, with twenty years of legionary experience behind him and now in command of a thousand hard-bitten ex-slaves who formed his fire-fighting cohort. He had a shorn head, a stubbly chin, and still, dark eyes that had witnessed unreasonable amounts of violence. He liked to think of himself as a dangerous spider twitching the strands of a large and perfectly formed web. I reckoned he thought too much of himself, but I made sure never to underestimate or cross the man. He was no fool. And he wielded a great deal of power in the district where I lived and worked.

I saw down in his office uninvited, leaned back in a relaxed manner, and placed my boots gently on the rim of his officer quality work table, letting my heel nudge his silver inkwell as if I might deliberately knock it off.

`What' team? The surveillance outfit that any intelligent tribune like yourself, Marcus Rubella, will have installed to observe the Balbinus' widow, Cornella Flaccida.'

Rubella's brown eyes dawdled on his desk set. His long army career had left him with a respect for equipment; it persisted even now that he held a post where officially there was none. He always kept his inkpot full and his sand tray topped up. A jerk of my insolent foot could make a fine mess of his office. I smiled at him like a man who had no intention of doing it. He looked uneasy.

`I cannot comment on any ongoing investigation, Falco.'

`That's all right. Stuff your comments; I'm not the clerk who edits the Daily Gazette searching for a sensational paragraph. I Just want to know where Flaccida has parked herself It's in your long-term interests.' I could rely on that argument to find favour here. Rubella was a born officer. He never moved unless it was in his own interests, but if it was he jumped.