"Well, I am on the right side," he claimed.
I told him what we had discovered at the Marcellinus villa. The missing supplies that we would be fetching back today should improve chances of balancing the site account. Gaius cheered up.
"So tell me about helping Magnus. In particular, explain why you never told me what you were up to."
Gaius looked shy. "Not allowed to, Falco."
"Not allowed? Look, I'm tired. Murder depresses me. So does blatant corruption, actually. Magnus said I should ask you what's what."
The clerk still kept mum.
"Gaius, I like hearing that you are straight, but it is not enough. Explain your role. I won't allow mystery men to meddle in this project."
"Is that a threat, Falco?"
"I can dismiss you, yes. Dalmatia's a long way to trundle home in disgrace, with no transport and your pay held up."
Dalmatia was where he had said his mother lived.
Somebody else in this province had a Dalmatian birthplace: a highly placed British official. Your father's highest position was as a third-grade tax inspector in a one-ox town in Dalmatia' was how I once put it to the man defiantly. I was stroppy in those days. "No one but the governor carries more weight in Britain than you…"
"Flavius Hilaris!" I exclaimed. How could I have forgotten him? After all, he had lent us his town house in Noviomagus. Once my mission was completed, Helena wanted us to visit him and his wife in Londinium.
Gains had flushed slightly. "The financial procurator?"
"A tine man. My wife's uncle, did you know? He was born in Narona."
"Is that so?" murmured Gaius. "Skip the bluff."
"Lots of people come from my province, Falco."
"Not so many end up here. What are you- twenties? What did you work on before the palace, Gaius?"
"Forum feasibility study."
"Not the forum in Novio? I've seen that; it must have been planned on the back of a whelk bill one that someone then lost. Where, Gaius?"
"Londinium," he admitted.
"Under the nose of the provincial governor- and of his right-hand man! Hilaris is fair. He knows how to select staff. He's not given to favourites. But being from Dalmatia would endear you, I bet. And if he thought you showed promise- well! His speciality, for your information, is the rare one of weeding out graft. That was how I met him; it was how I met my wife, so I'm unlikely to forget. So tell me, are you working undercover here for the procurator in Londinium?"
"He would have told you, surely?" The clerk, who would have been sworn to silence for his own safety, tried one last gambit.
"I'm sure he meant to keep me fully informed," I answered starchily.
"Administrative hitch?" murmured Gaius, starting to reveal his amusement.
"Absolutely. And Helena Justina's uncle in his curule chair is a mischievous swine!"
We seemed to understand one another, so I left it at that. Gaius was well placed to observe what happened on this site, but he was fairly junior. He was doing good work. I would tell Hilaris that. To enhance future control, it was best to leave the planted clerk here if possible, maintaining his cover. So I winked in a friendly manner and continued with my own work.
I spent a couple of hours drafting a report on the site problems, and my thoughts on their future resolution. From time to time people came in with dockets for me to sign as project manager, though things seemed quiet. Cyprianus was off site of course, taking transports to collect Magnus and the materials we were retrieving from the Marcellinus villa. Not much was happening here.
When I wanted air, I took a walk around. The place today was full of abandoned barrows and half-dug trenches. I could either regard it as a site where everything had gone into limbo because of a real emergency- or as a perfectly normal building scheme where, as so often, nobody had bothered to turn up.
Investigations acquire their own momentum when they start going well. Discover enough, and new connections then quickly become apparent. It may even help to surround yourself with well-chosen, intelligent assistants.
First Gaius softened up enough to try ingratiating himself. "How's the tooth, Falco?"
"It was all right until you just mentioned it."
"Sorry!"
"I tried to tweeze it out myself, but it's too deep. Have to ask Alexas to recommend a painiree puller."
"There's a new sign up showing a dogtooth, down by the Nemesis. It must be a barber-surgeon, Falco. Just what you want."
"Could you hear any screams?" I shuddered. "Is the Nemesis a drinking dive?"
"Owner with a sense of humour," Gaius grinned.
I had lost mine. "Informers are famous for their irony- but I don't want my gnasher wrenched out next door to a hovel called after the goddess of inescapable retribution!"
"Her wrath is averted by spitting," he assured me. "That should be easy during deep gum dentistry."
"Spare me, Gaius!"
I carried on scratching away with my stylus. I was using a tablet that had a rather thin wax sheet. I must remember that my words might show up on the backboard. However lucid and elegantly phrased, I did not want them being read by the wrong people; my discarded tablets must be burned after use, not tipped into a rubbish pit.
"About that other problem of yours, Falco," said Gaius after a while.
"Which of many?"
"The two men you want to find."
I looked up. "Gloccus and bloody Cotta?" I set down my stylus in a neat north-south line on the table. Gaius looked nervous. "Speak, oracle!"
"I just wondered about that uncle Alexas has." I stared. "Well, he might know them, Falco."
"Oh is that all. Know them? I thought you were about to say he was one of them! Anyway, Alexas has always said he's never heard of Gloccus and Cotta."
"Oh well, then!" There was a small silence. "He could be lying," offered Gaius.
"Now you sound as cynical as me."
"Must be contagious."
"His uncle is called Lobullus."
"Oh that's what Alexas says, is it, Falco?"
"He does. However," I said, with a wry smile, "Alexas could be lying about that too!"
"For instance-' Gaius made a great point of proffering the reasonable solution 'his uncle may be a citizen, with more than one name."
"If he builds bath houses, I bet his clients call him a few choice ones. Or he might be using an alias to avoid lawsuits…" I put down my stylus, considering the proposition. "Do you know Alexas? Apart from his own job, is he from a medical family?"
"No idea, Falco."
"And you don't know what part of the Empire he hails from?"
"No." Gaius looked crestfallen. It was temporary. "I know! I could ask my pal who keeps the personnel lists. Alexas should have filled in a next-of-kin record. That would give his home city."
"Yes and it will say who wants his funeral ashes, if I find out he has fibbed to me!"
By an odd quirk, in an earlier conversation with Alexas about deaths on site, I might even have nudged him into supplying these details myself.
Camillus Justinus stuck his head into the office at about midmorning. I introduced him to Gaius; they acknowledged each other suspiciously.
"Falco, I've just seen a man I recognise,"Justinus informed me. "I've come to tell you immediately this time. Larius says he is the King's project representative."
"Verovolcus? What about him?"
"Thought you might like to know I've seen him before he was drinking with Mandumerus," Justinus explained.
"Oh those two have always been thick as ticks," Gaius contributed. He looked smug until I tore into him for not mentioning their alliance earlier.