Albia turned her pale little face to me. 'Do you think coming from a rough, hard background, being treated badly in their slave generation, explains why those Claudii turned out as they are?'

'Maybe. But some groups, some families are feckless by nature. People carry their character defects from birth, whatever their origin. You find freedmen who are loyal, kind-hearted, hard-working and decent to live with. Then you find noblemen who are vicious, deceitful and intolerable to be around.'

Albia smiled. 'Helena would say, "I blame their mothers!" '

Petronius clapped her on the shoulder. 'There may be some truth in that.'

'So how does this theory explain Anacrites the spy?'

Petro and I both laughed. I said it: 'He is just a poor sad boy who never had a mother!'

Albia gave me a long look. She did not say, since she could see I had just remembered it, that until Helena picked her off the streets in Londinium, she herself had struggled with neither parent.

Petronius, a father of girls, recognised her mood. 'Falco is right. Most people do seem to be born with a character inbuilt. So you, Flavia Albia, are destined to be decent, sweet and true.'

'Don't patronise me!' Of course, being Lucius Petronius, he had charmed her.

We left it there. Sergius, with his long whip, was impatient to begin.

He got as far as ascertaining that the terrified fellow the Fifth had brought us was indeed the slave Livia Primilla owned. When she went to see the Claudii, she had given him instructions to wait three days then if she failed to come home, to go to tell her nephew. Syrus, who looked as if he had come from the interior deserts of Africa, was able to describe the scene: Primilla mounted on a donkey, wearing a round-brimmed travel hat. The slave was poor on garments but thought her outfit was in shades of dark red, with a long fringed stole that was also red or damson coloured. Petronius showed him the sardonyx cameo; he failed to recognise it.

One new piece of information emerged. Petronius demanded: how could her staff, despite their duty of care to their mistress, have let Primilla go off alone to see the Claudii - especially after Modestus had already gone missing? Syrus said Primilla had intended to meet up with someone: the overseer who looked after the property and who had first found the broken fences, a man called Macer. This was a development. This man had not previously figured in the disappearances. He must be one of the family slaves who had run away.

At that point, we were thwarted. Loud hammering at the mighty gates of the station house announced unwelcome visitors. The gates were kicked open. In burst a small group of large armoured men. Plumes danced in their glittering helmets. Violence curdled the air.

Three tiers of military cohorts kept law and order in the city; neither law nor order had much to do with the feud between them all. The Praetorian Guards despised the Urban Cohorts and they both hated the vigiles. But the Praetorians protected the Emperor and were commanded by Titus Caesar now; whenever those thrusting bullyboys strode from their camp and appeared in public, there could be no contest.

They burst into the exercise yard like dam water after a leak. There was no stopping them. Petronius did not try. Somehow Anacrites had learned we had the slavey; he had sent the Guards to snatch Syrus. They made it plain, it would be foolish to request a warrant.

'Take the ungrateful bastard; I don't want him. Our budget's too tight for feeding runaways.' Well, Syrus was a slave. Nobody was going to make an issue of it. 'I heard the Fifth had found him,' Petronius told the Guards' leader helpfully. 'My plan was to check the facts and send him up to the Palace with a note. You're doing me a favour. He's all yours.'

'Oh he is!' snarled the Guards' leader. 'Word of warning - - don't meddle!'

'Are you speaking for Anacrites?'

'None of your business who I'm speaking for - back off, soldier!'

I could not believe the spy had been so crude - - and it went against the careful pretence of comradeship he had been laying on thick at his dinner party. But that was him, since his head wound. He was highly unpredictable. Capricious mood changes damaged his judgement. The one thing a spy needs is self-preservation - - and that demands self-knowledge.

Syrus was hauled from the interrogation cell by the Emperor's elite thugs while we stood around like puddings. Terror overtook him so his legs gave way; the Guards virtually carried him. His eyes rolled white and he shat himself. It had nothing to do with Sergius, who despite our teasing of Albia had barely touched him. Petronius was not preparing a witness statement; he had wanted answers, answers he could trust. Instead, as the Praetorians dragged the slave away, the poor creature knew his fate. He would be dead in a ditch within the hour. Anacrites, we were starting to suspect, either knew the answers already or he did not care.

Petronius cursed. He knew nobody would ever see that slave again. At least we still had the cameo. Petro retrieved it from a murky bucket of water where he had quickly dropped it when the Guards crashed in.

As for them giving us orders to back off, it was blatant intimidation. Nothing new for the Praetorians; not so new for the spy - but foolish. So stupid, in fact, that Petronius and I wondered if Anacrites had lost his grip.

XXXIX.

'You two great men have lost yourselves!' Albia was a frank wench; it was liable to get her into trouble. 'Why don't you ask the big question: if the cameo really belonged to Primilla, and if it was taken by a killer - - how did Anacrites get it?' how did Anacrites get it?'

I pointed out coldly that I had spent all morning among the dregs of artistic society trying to find out. 'Anyone else, Petronius and I would go along to his house, pin him to a wall with a meat skewer and demand an explanation. But the spy can't be handled like that. He claims it belongs to some woman he had had at the house.'

Petronius snorted. 'She must be desperate.'

'So many are, sadly,' Albia commented. 'That is how you men get away with things.'

'Helena is teaching her a lot!' said Petro.

'Sarcasm especially. It's always possible the spy does have a girlfriend.'

Albia biffed this aside. 'The jewel was found by the hog-chef, tucked away in luggage that we think belongs to the Melitan brothers. If they are Melitan. Or even brothers. Who said so? Nobody. This is just a fantasy Falco dreamed up last Saturnalia, when he had had too much wine with his hot water. I remember the pair of them watching our house, and the only thing we could tell was that they were idiots.'

'You ought to be at school, young lady,' Petronius instructed her. 'Not hanging around a vigiles house, causing upset.'

'I'm making sensible suggestions. And, by the way, I am home-tutored by Helena.'

'Oh take her home, Falco.'

'I can't. You and I have to talk about this cameo - '

'Send her then. Albia, be off with you!' Petro lowered his voice to me. 'I could assign a man to escort her -'

'I don't need a bodyguard!' snapped Albia. 'I'll go by myself She went.

Petronius Longus stared at me. 'You let her walk in the streets alone?'

'Nothing else is practical. You allow Petronilla out unchaperoned, don't you?'

'Petronilla is a child. Much safer. Your girl is marriageable age.' He meant beddable.

We left it.

'She's right,' I grumbled. 'We need to explore how the cameo came to the Melitans.'

'Surely you mean the idiotic agents of unknown origin?'

'Bastard! I'm sure they look like brothers. Listen - - if there is an innocent explanation for them having it, that saves us trying to link this to the Pontine killings. Maybe Anacrites really does screw women. Asking him for more details will be a waste of effort - but we could find his unknown-origin agents and ask them questions. He won't like it, but by the time he finds out, it's done. Can't you put troops out to look for them?'

Petronius groaned. 'I'd love to. I haven't got the manpower, Falco. If Anacrites keeps them close to him at home or in his office, those are no-go areas. I can't send troops into the Palace and I am not getting a formal reprimand for watching that swine's private house - especially not on a case I was told to drop,' Petro concluded reasonably.

'Last night, he suggested they were his bodyguards.'

'Then the whole idea is definitely off 'You didn't tell me it was on.'

'I'm thinking about it.'

In the end, Petro taxing his brain proved unnecessary. One of my nephews turned up at the station house, bringing a message. Katutis had written it out. His writing was so neat, I always had difficulty deciphering the letters.

'What exactly is the point of your secretary, Falco?'

'Oh he goes his own way. That keeps him happy.'

Petro got his clerk to decipher. Albia had spotted one of the hangdog Melitans. Anacrites was watching my house again.

'The bastard! He's made this too easy for us - -'

Petronius grabbed my arm. 'Now hang on, Marcus; we need to plan this properly -'

I nodded. Next minute he and I were scuffling in a doorway, laughing like ten-year-olds, as we each tried to be first through as we dashed out to run down the Aventine by the nearest steps to the Embankment. We knew that in taking on the Melitan we would be taking on Anacrites. Nothing of what happened next had been adequately considered. But with hindsight, it is fair to say Petronius and I would still have done it. adequately considered. But with hindsight, it is fair to say Petronius and I would still have done it.

XL.

We separated and approached from two directions. It was still light. The day's heat had diminished slightly, but blue sky still soared over the marbled bank, the Tiber, and the low hills opposite. The frenetic hum of city life had lost a little of its persistence as businesses slowed down and individuals thought about going to the baths. Those bath houses that had already opened would have just allowed admittance to their outer porticoes. Stokers were busy raising a smoke, ready for the formal entry to the changing rooms when the bell rang. There was plenty of banging and shouting, which carried further across the water as the last boat relays brought goods up to the Emporium from Ostia, making the weary stevedores curse as they longed to down tools and bunk off to wine shops.

Surveillance could not be easy. My house had no side or back approaches. The front looked straight out across the Tiber over the Transtiberina slums, towards the old Naumachia where Augustus had staged mock-sea-battles. Nobody here kept topiary in terracotta pots, suitable to hide behind, because if we did night-time drunks just rolled them over the road and pushed them in the river. Occasionally carts were parked, but as the Embankment was a main thoroughfare and a commercial artery, the street aediles had them moved to avoid congestion. All an observer could do was hang around in the road chewing a bread roll, hoping I would not appear in person and spot him. Last time the two so-called Melitans were watching us, the whole family used to wave at them as we came and went. Even the dog once ran up to wag her tail and say hello.

Albia was right. He was there. One of them, on his own. I wondered where his brother was. Maybe the two agents were taking turns - - or if Anacrites was thoroughly obsessed with us, the other might be outside Petro and Maia's apartment. We would have to find out. My sister would become hysterical if she thought the spy was having her watched.

What we did next was totally unplanned. Petronius and I had been in this kind of dark situation once before, in Britain. An officer who betrayed our legion had to be dealt with. Justice was done. Maybe it gave us a taste for hard revenge. I for one had hoped we'd never find ourselves in such a situation again, but when we ended up here on the Embankment with the spy's agent, neither Petro nor I thought twice.

The man saw me coming, as I walked directly up to him. He was considering resistance when Petro tapped him on the shoulder from behind. We were already too close for him to run or fight. So we had him. We simply took him into custody.

At the time we presumed he thought Anacrites would rescue him. Perhaps he did think that. Perhaps we did. He may have expected we would merely argue about the surveillance, at worst throw a few punches, then order him to stop harassing me. That may even have been what we initially intended.

We searched him. It was no surprise to find that he was carrying: four knives of different sizes plus a short piece of rope that was only suitable for strangulation. We kept him standing in the road while we stripped him of this armoury, not bothering to be polite, though since it was a public place, we were not particularly brutal. He grunted a bit. Petro and I were feeling our way towards a decision.

Once we made him safe, we took him into my house. He had not expected that. Neither had we, to be honest; it seemed to follow on naturally from the search process. In this way we took him off the street and out of sight very rapidly - and we saved Petronius the potential awkwardness of imprisoning one of the spy's men at the station house. As soon as we stepped inside and the front door closed, everything became intensely serious.

We put him in a downstairs room. It was one of the damp ones I reserved for summer storage. In August he would not develop asthma or foot rot. The walls and door were thick. I pointed out that nobody would hear him call for help. Then we gagged him anyway. By this time, the black implications were growing. For him, there could now be no happy ending. For us, too, there was no going back.

We worked quietly. He endured it with resignation. This would not be a job for the vigiles punishment officer, Sergius and his metal-tanged whip; we would give it our personal treatment. The agent was an unimpressive specimen, but it was soon clear he would be professional. We bound his arms behind his back, tied his ankles together, then picked him up like a long parcel and roped him carefully to the top of a heavy bench, face up. We turned the bench on its end so he hung upside down, then left him to think about his situation while we went for refreshments and warned all my household that the room was out of bounds. Albia would probably have rushed straight in there, but she was out on one of her long solo walks. upside down, then left him to think about his situation while we went for refreshments and warned all my household that the room was out of bounds. Albia would probably have rushed straight in there, but she was out on one of her long solo walks.

Helena was apprehensive, though we tried to avoid her concern. She could tell Petro and I were beginning to feel raw. We had no regrets about our capture, but we had put ourselves in a grim deep hole. Helena drew herself up and said, 'I live here with very young children. I want to know what you are intending to do to this man.'

'Ask him questions.' Ask him questions in a particular way, a way that would produce answers - - eventually.

'And if he refuses to answer?'

'We'll improvise.'

'How long should it take?'

'Perhaps a few days, love.'

'Days! You are going to hurt him, aren't you?'

'No. There's no point.'

'Am I to provide food and drink for him?'

'That won't be necessary.'

'I wish you meant he won't be here that long.'

'No. We don't mean that.'

'You cannot starve him.' We could. With this kind of man, we would have to. And that was just the start.

'Well, maybe a bowl of delectable soup, with an aromatic scent,' suggested Petronius with a smile. 'After two or three days. . .' To stand in the room and tantalise.

'What about toilet facilities?' Helena demanded angrily.

'Good thinking! A bucket and a large sponge would be wonderful, please.' We would clean up as we went. Petro and I had fathered babies; we could look after a prisoner hygienically. A regime of squalor has been known to work, but Helena was right; this was our house.

Our first conversations with him were civilised.

'Anacrites sent you - agreed? How long have you known him?'

'Couldn't say.'

'I can check the payroll. I have contacts.'

'Couple of years.'

'Who is the other fellow I've been seeing with you? A brother of yours, I'm thinking.'

'Could be.'

'Where is he?'

'Gone to see his wife.'

'Where's that?'

'Where he lives.'

'Don't be funny with us. You two look like twins.'

'And you two look like donkey-fuckers.'

'I'll overlook that, but don't push us. Do you have a name?'