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Her hand was extraordinarily soft when she touched his. She said, “Thomas. You’ve no need. Really. Walk along with me.”

As if she thought he might not do so, she put her hand at his elbow and with her other hand she held on to his arm. She brought him close to her side and it was oddly comforting. He realised that other than his immediate family and Deborah St. James, no one had touched him for months, aside from shaking his hand. It was as if people had become frightened of him, as if by touching him they believed the tragedy that had visited his life would somehow visit theirs. He found he felt such relief at her touch that he walked with her, and their steps fell into a natural rhythm.

“There,” she said when they reached her car. She faced him. “I’ve had a pleasant evening. You’re very good company, Thomas.”

“I’ve my doubts about that,” he said quietly.

“Do you?”

“Yes. And it’s Tommy, actually. That’s what most people call me.”

“Tommy. Yes. I’ve noticed.” She smiled and said, “I’m going to hug you now and you’re meant to know that this is in friendship.” She did so. She held him close to her-but only for a moment-and she also brushed her lips against his cheek. “I think I shall call you Thomas for now, if that’s all right,” she said before she left him.

Now in the coin shop Lynley waited while the proprietor put his heavy volume away. Lynley handed him the card they’d found in Jemima Hastings’ bag, and he showed Dugué the Portrait Gallery photo of Jemima. He also showed his police identification.

Surprisingly, after Dugué examined the warrant card, he said to Lynley, “You’re the policeman who lost his wife last February, aren’t you?”

“I am.”

“I remember these things,” Dugué told him. “Terrible business, that. How can I help you?” And when Lynley nodded at the Portrait Gallery picture of Jemima, he said, “Yes. I remember her. She’s been into the shop.”

“When?”

Dugué considered the question. He looked out of the shop, which was mostly windows, and studied the corridor beyond it. He said, “Round Christmas. I can’t be more exact than that, but I do remember the decorations. Seeing her backlit by the fairy lights we put up in the corridor. So it would have been round Christmas, give or take two weeks in either direction. Unlike some establishments, we don’t keep our decorations up all that long. We all of us loathe them, to be honest. Along with the carols. Bing Crosby may dream of snow. I, for one, dream of strangling Bing Crosby at the end of one week having to listen to him.”

“Did she make a purchase?”

“As I recall, she wanted me to look at a coin. It was an aureus, and she thought it might be worth something.”

“‘Aureus.’” Lynley considered his schoolboy Latin. “Gold, then. Was it worth a great deal?”

“Not as much as one would think.”

“Despite its being gold?” It seemed to Lynley that the price of gold alone would make it valuable. “Did she want to sell it?”

“She just wanted to know what it was worth. And what it was, actually, because she’d no idea. She reckoned it was old and she was right about that. It was old. Round one-fifty AD.”

“Roman, then. Did she say how she came to have it?”

Dugué asked to look at the picture of Jemima again, as if this would stimulate his memory. After studying it for a moment he said slowly, “I believe she said it was among her father’s things. She didn’t tell me exactly, but I reckoned he’d died recently and she’d been going through his belongings the way one does, trying to sort out what to do with this and that.”

“Did you offer to buy it?”

“As I said, aside from the gold itself, it wasn’t worth enough. On the open market, I wouldn’t have been able to get a lot for it. You see…Here, let me show you.”

He went to a desk behind the counter where he opened a drawer that had been fashioned to hold books. He ran his fingers along them and brought out one, saying, “What she had was an aureus minted during the reign of Antoninus Pius, the bloke who came to be emperor directly after Hadrian. Know about him?”

“One of the Five Good Emperors,” Lynley said.

Dugué looked impressed. “Not the sort of knowledge I’d think a copper would have.”

“I read history,” Lynley admitted. “In another life.”

“Then you know his was an unusual reign.”

“Only that it was peaceful.”

“Right. As one of the good guys, he wasn’t…Well, let’s say he wasn’t sexy. Or, at least, he’s not sexy now, not to collectors. He was intelligent, well educated, experienced, protective of Christians, clement towards conspirators, and happy to stay in Rome and delegate responsibility to his provincial leaders. Loved his wife, loved his family, assisted the poor, practised economy.”

“In a word, boring?”

“Certainly compared to Caligula or Nero, eh?” Dugué smiled. “There’s not been a lot written about him, so I think collectors tend to dismiss him.”

“Which makes his coins of less value on the market?”

“That and the fact that there were two thousand different coins minted during his reign.” Dugué found what he was looking for in the volume, and he swung it to face Lynley.

The page, Lynley saw, displayed both the obverse and the reverse of the aureus in question. The former depicted the emperor in profile, draped in the fashion of a bust, with CAES and ANTON-INVS in relief, parenthesising the emperor’s head. The latter showed a woman enthroned. This was Concordia, Dugué explained, a patera in her right hand and cornucopiae beneath her. These images were fairly standard stuff, the coin dealer went on, which was what he’d also told Jemima. He’d explained to her that although the coin itself was rare enough-“One generally comes across coins of baser metals because they were minted more regularly than the aureus”-its true value would come from the marketplace. That was defined by the demand for the coin among collectors.

“So what are we talking about, exactly?” Lynley asked.

“The value?” Dugué considered this, tapping his fingers against the top of the display case. “I’d say between five hundred and a thousand quid. If someone wanted it and if that person were bidding against someone else who wanted it. What you must remember,” Dugué concluded, “is that a coin needs to be-”

“Sexy,” Lynley said. “I understand. The bad boys are the sexy ones, aren’t they?”

“Sad,” Dugué confimed, “but true.”

Could he then assume, Lynley asked, that Sheldon Pockworth Numismatics did not have an aureus from the period of Antoninus Pius among its stock?

He could, Dugué said. If the inspector wanted to look at an actual aureus from that time, he would likely find one in the British Museum.

BARBARA HAVERS HAD been forced to begin her day by shaving her legs, which hadn’t done much to elevate her mood. She was fast discovering that there was a domino effect to altering her physical appearance: For example, the wearing of a skirt-A-line or otherwise-dictated either the wearing of tights or going bare legged, and either choice demanded that something be done about the condition of her legs. This required the application of razor to skin. That required shaving cream or some other kind of lather, which she did not possess, so she used a dollop of Fairy Liquid instead to develop some suds activity. But the entire operation led to the excavation of a plaster from her medicine cabinet when she sliced into her ankle and blood gushed forth. She shrieked then cursed. What the flaming hell, she wondered, did how she dressed have to do with what she was able to accomplish as a cop anyway?

There was no question, however, that she would wear the skirt. That had been dictated not only by the acting superintendent’s pointed suggestion but more by the fact that Hadiyyah had gone to such an extreme to make it ready for her. Indeed, what was also demanded of the morning was that Barbara stop at the Big House upon leaving her bungalow, her purpose to show Hadiyyah how she looked. She had on the new bracelet and the blouse as well, but she’d eschewed the scarf. Too hot, she reasoned. She’d save it for autumn.