I was her uncle. I was head of her mother's household, since Pa was an absconding scoundrel and the child's own father was a complete deadbeat whom even Galla threw out whenever possible. It was my role to find the child. Dear gods, I hated this kind of responsibility.

`Let me try,' Helena urged, snuggling up to me. `I'll speak to the parents of the other so-called missing children. Marcus, you can't do everything.'

I turned my head and gazed at her sadly. `You're beautiful!' `What's that for?' She was suspicious at once. `What's happened?'

I closed my eyes wearily. This had to be confession time. `I can't do anything right. I bought you a wonderful present for once – and it's been stolen from me.'

`Oh no! Oh my darling.'

`It was marvellous… Something I'd probably never be able to better.' I was really depressed. `I've been trying to replace it, but I can't find anything I like as much.'

'Ah Marcus. It doesn't matter. Come to bed properly.'

`I didn't want to have to tell you this.'

`It's not your fault.'

`I'm supposed to be catching the bastards. I thought I'd get it back.'

`You will,' she said. I loved her faith, but it was terrifying. Helena put her arms around me. I began to feel drowsy straight away. That was no good. I had too much to worry about. If I dozed I would have bad dreams. I might as well just stay awake and ruin my chances of sorting out anything by making myself completely exhausted for tomorrow.

Tomorrow was going to be a difficult day. `Helena Justina, what are we going to tell your mother when she asks you what you had from me?'

`I shall just smile mysteriously and say it's a secret.'

Helena's mother would take this for a salacious reference to the child we were expecting. Once she knew of it. `Well what, if it isn't too much to ask, are we going to tell your mother about starting a family?'

`Don't worry.'

`I do worry. I've bungled enough things. I'd like to handle this with decorum and tact.'

`I'll tell her that was my birthday present.' Exactly as I feared: `He's made me pregnant. What more do you want?'

What a wonderful household. A hopeless informer, a girl he should not be living with, a strange little foundling baby, and a dog I didn't want. And somehow between the four of us, we were trying to solve half the conspiracies in Rome.

By next morning there was another crime for us. During the night Alexander, the doctor who had told Nonnius he was dying, was found by the watch lying in his open surgery. The place was a wreck and he was surrounded by scattered instruments and spilled medicines. His throat had been cut with one of his own scalpels. Various disgusting experiments had been perpetrated on him first. His brother, Scythax, the Fourth Cohort's medico, happened to be out with the night patrol that came across the corpse.

XLII

HELENA'S BIRTHDAY. MY poor girl loyally spent her time trying to find my lost niece. She set about interviewing all the Aventine householders who had reported missing children. Gaius Baebius had turned up just as I was myself leaving home, so I found a piece of rope in my skip to tie Ajax to a pillar in the laundry portico, then arranged with Gaius that he would stick close to Helena. It was protection for her, something I could not spare time to provide myself, and kept him out of trouble too.

Lenia bawled something angrily about the dog.

`Leave off, Lenia. If I'm to provide your augury, you owe me a favour or two.'

`Don't push your luck, Falco! Seems to me you're using this as an excuse to behave like a complete tyrant.'

`Don't underestimate the lies I'll have to make up.' `If you feel like that I'll find somebody else.' `I wish you would.'

Nobody else would do it, we both knew. Every lockup shopkeeper in Fountain Court had already given himself a hernia laughing at the thought of me having to suffer under the sacrificial veil.

Dear gods. That was another problem: I would have to acquire a headdress to parade in at the altar on the wedding day.

`Gaius Baebius, you look like a man with a sense of duty. Have you got a priest's veil?'

`Of course,' smirked my brother-in-law. Trust him. What a pious operator. How could even Junia have married him? (Answer: for his customs salary. Do not ask me, however, how a placid lump like Gaius ever married a spiteful stick like her.) `Marcus Didius, I am hoping to be elected to the college of the Augustales soon.'

Official religion. Oh spare me, Gaius! `Excellent fellow! And thanks for the loan of your bonce sheet,' I cried, setting off in the opposite direction from Helena and him at a fast pace. I could see him looking puzzled; Helena would explain. If I knew Gaius Baebius, lending me his head veil would make him think he had the right to attend Lenia's nuptials. Things were looking up. He and Junia were bound to bring their dog; Ajax was their child substitute, treated as one of the family. Maybe Ajax could be trained to bite the bride's beloved. Maybe, if the gods were very kind, they would give me time to train Ajax myself.

Walking to the station house, I enjoyed myself thinking of fierce canine teeth being sunk into my landlord's most personal assets on his wedding day.

I already knew how my own day would be unfolding. Fusculus had called at the apartment early to break the news of the doctor's murder. He said Petro had been up half the night pursuing investigations into the Saepta thefts. When he heard of Alexander's murder he. had given up and gone home to grab a hasty nap. The plan was for us all to meet at midmorning in order to tackle the new disaster after the crew had rested and were fresh.

This gave me a couple of hours to spare. Time for serious preparations: I went to the gymnasium and put in some wrestling and weapons practice. Given the grim state of Rome it seemed a good idea.

I had forgotten about my shoulder. That very promptly sent me out of the gym and into the massage room.

`You're full of flab,' complained Glaucus the proprietor, who acted as my personal trainer whenever I allowed him access.

`Get me into condition then.'

`In half an hour, Falco?'

`Half an hour is all I have.'

`You're slow, you're weak, you're dopy. It's going to take me months to undo this. I hope you're not planning anything dangerous in the near future.'

`Just tackling a gang of vicious murderers. And mind it, man! I had a dislocated shoulder poked back yesterday.'

`Jupiter, Juno and Minerva! I presume,' moaned Glaucus sarcastically, `somebody also landed some heavy blows to the soft part of your head?'

I do like to approach threatening situations with such warm encouragement.

Petronius Longus was in a filthy mood. `What in Hades is wrong with these bastards? Can't they give us time to run ourselves into the ground on one job before they have to jump up like flea-bitten rabbits? Time was you could rely on growing thoroughly depressed with your first case before some cluck decided to throw the next at you…'

He was just ranting. I could understand why.

He had Scythax in the interrogation room. The poor man was so deeply in shock he seemed drunk. Every few minutes he wandered out muttering a confused suggestion, or asking the same question he had put to us three times already. `What did they think they were achieving? Why did they have to torture him? Why, oh why?'

`Revenge, Scythax. Porcius, make yourself useful. Go in there and sit with him.'

`Just talk to him,' counselled Fusculus in a low voice. `Or if he talks about his brother, just nod and listen.'

As the nervous recruit obediently led the grief-stricken man indoors again, Petro covered his face briefly. `I can't send him home. Oh gods on Olympus, Falco! What a mess. He lived with his brother. He'll go mad in those surroundings. Besides, these bastards may be looking for Scythax too.'