`Frankly, Marius, one more problem and I'll buckle.'

`I rather hoped I could rely on you,' he said gloomily. Short of bopping him on the head with a baton and sprinting for cover, I was trapped.

`You're a hard master! Have you ever thought of becoming a bailiff?'

`No, I think I shall be a rhetoric teacher. I have the mind for it.'

Had he not borne his father's eyes (in a less bleary vision), I might have wondered whether Marius had been found under the parapet of a bridge. Still, maybe young sobersides would grow up and fall in love with a tinker's by-blow, then run off to be a harp player.

I doubted it. Full of calm assurance, Marius saw the pitfalls of eccentricity and had simply turned his back on them. Sad really. The mind he spoke of with such respect deserved a more colourful fate.

We had reached the laundry. `I'm going up, Marius. If you've something to tell me, this is the moment.' 'Tertulla's disappeared again.'

`Why fret? It happens all the time. Anyway, your grandma's taken her in hand.'

`It's true. This time I'll get the blame for it.'

`Nobody could possibly blame you for Tertulla, Marius. She's your cousin, not your sister, and she's beyond help. You're not responsible.' I wondered if he knew he had been supposed to be named Marcus, after me. When his father was sent to register his birth, Famia had dropped into several wine bars on the way to the Censor's Office, then he had misread the note Maia had sent him out with. This would have, been bad enough once, but he had repeated his triumph when he registered his second son as Ancus instead of Aulus. When Maia gave birth to her daughters she dragged herself to the Censor's with him and made sure things were done right.

`Uncle Marcus, I think I'd better tell you what has happened.'

The sight of a child confiding his problems was too much. Marius must have been relying on this, the cunning brat.

I sighed. `You ought to be at home having your dinner.' `I'm frightened to go.'

He didn't look very frightened, but it was unlike him to say it. `Walk upstairs with me then.'

`Tertulla hasn't run away. She's too scared of Grandma. Grandma put me in charge of seeing her to school. It was really annoying. And then I was supposed to march her to lunch at her mother's house -'

`So she did go to school in the morning?'

'No, of course not!' scoffed Marius impatiently, scuttling after me around the third bend. `She skipped off as soon as we arrived, but she promised to meet us all outside after lessons.'

`So what happened?'

`She never showed up. I think something bad has happened. I need you, Uncle Marcus. We'll have to conduct a search.'

'Tertulla's a minx and she's forgotten the time. She'll turn up.'

Marius shook his head. He had the same curls as me and Pa, yet somehow managed to make his look neat. I ought to ask him for hairdressing tips sometime. `Look, Uncle, I have an interest in this problem since I shall be blamed for losing her. If you agree to search, I'll help you.'

`I don't agree!' I told him cheerfully. We had reached the apartment; I led him indoors. `But I don't agree with a future rhetoric teacher being made a scapegoat for one of Galla's rascals either. Now here's Helena -'

`Oh good!' exclaimed Marius, with no attempt to disguise his relief. `Somebody who will know what we should do!'

Helena came in from the balcony. She was carrying the skip baby. I grinned approvingly, but it was my nephew who risked his neck. Maia must have been talking at home about our own impending family because as soon as Marius saw the baby he shrieked, `Oh goodness, Helena! Has Uncle Marcus brought you one in advance to practise on?'

She was not pleased.

XXXIII

I DID NOT wait for Petro's promised agent to come with me to I see the Balbinus relatives. My domestic cares were so pressing it seemed necessary to leave home as soon as I had swallowed lunch. I did take a witness, however.

`I miss you, Marcus,' Helena had complained.

This was an aspect of living together that had always worried me. Born into a class where the women spent their days surrounded by scores of slaves and visited by flocks of friends, Helena was bound to feel isolated. Senators' daughters were offered no other respectable daytime occupation than taking mint tea together, and though many preferred to forget being respectable and hung around gladiators, Helena was not that type. Living with me in a sixth-floor apartment must be frightening – especially when she often woke up to find I had rushed out without leaving a note of my plans. Some girls in this position might get too friendly with the janitor. Luckily Smaractus had never provided one. But if I wanted to keep her, I would have to produce some other option.

`I miss you too.' It sounded glib.

`Oh yes? And that's why you have deigned to come home?'

`That, and I have to wait to be supplied with a witness.' A thought struck me. `You could take notes and listen as well as some silly coot from the vigiles.' She looked surprised. `Wear a plain dress and no necklaces. Bring a stylus, and don't interrupt. I hate a secretary who talks smart.'

So Helena came with me. She was not one for staying at home with the domestic cares either.

It suited me to start investigating without one of Petro's minders lurking at my elbow, breathing my air, then reporting everything I did straight back to him. It certainly suited me to be out with my lass – more like leisure than work.

We sent Marius home to Maia's, telling him to confess his loss of Tertulla and to promise that if the girl was still missing this evening Helena and I would organise a search from Fountain Court. Marius looked happier about owning up. He knew nobody would thump him once I was involved; they would rather wait for a chance of thumping me. We made him take the skip baby to his mother's for the afternoon. It was leading a busy life. Helena had found a wet nurse to feed it sometimes, while in between it went to Ma's house to be weaned on the gluey polenta that had produced my sisters, me and numerous sturdy grandchildren.

`Your mother agrees with me; there's something odd about the baby,' Helena said.

`You'd seem odd if you found yourself abandoned in a rubbish skip on the Aventine. Incidentally, I met Justinus this morning. He's in love with an actress, but I'll try to cure him of it. We are invited to a birthday dinner with your parents. I'm to have the extreme pleasure of being introduced to Aelianus.'

`Oh no!' cried Helena. `I wanted my birthday to be fun!'

I always enjoyed discovering that relationships in patrician homes were as terrible as those in my own low family.

`There will be fun,' I promised. `Watching your mother trying to be polite to me while your father hankers to nip off and hide in his library, your friendly brother nags me to teach him flirting with floosies, and your nasty brother flicks sauce in my eye should provide hours of jollity.'

`You go,' Helena urged despondently. `I think I'll stay at home.'

Flaccida, the Balbinus wife, lived in a gorgeous gem of town architecture just south of the Circus Maximus, at the Temple of Ceres end. It was a rare residential block in the Eleventh district – well placed for the crime empire Balbinus had run along the Tiber waterfront. It lay in, the lee of the Aventine but on a piece of land that was patrolled, along with the racecourse itself, not by Petro's cohort but by the Sixth.

At least, Flaccida was living there this week. A huge notice advertised that the spread was for. sale; confiscated straight after the trial verdict. Flaccida would be moving house soon.

Indoors, everything echoed. The place was virtually empty, and it was not done for stylish effect. Only the fixed assets remained to show the opulent lifestyle master criminals enjoy: ravishing yardages of mosaic floor, endless perspectives in top-quality wall painting, meticulously plastered ceilings, fascinating shell grottoes that housed well-maintained fountains. Even the birdbaths were gilded.