I thought it a possibility.
Being inconspicuous was difficult with Arctos and Nux dragging at their leads. Arctos was a boisterous young beast with long matted fur and a wavy tail, whose father we had never traced. My dog Nux was his mother. Nux was smaller, madder, and much more proficient at nosing in filthy places. To the locals both our pups were piteous. Britons bred the best hunting dogs in the Empire; their specialty was mastiffs, so fearless they were a good match for fighting arena bears. Even their lapdog-sized canines were tough terrors, with short stout legs and pricked-up ears, whose idea of a soft afternoon was to raid a badger set-and to win.
"Is Nux going to help you track a criminal, Uncle Marcus?" Nux looked up and wagged her tail.
"I doubt it. Nux just gives me an excuse to wander about." I then thought it worth trying: "Marius, old pal, did Petronius say anything to you about what he was up to, before he went off?"
"No, Uncle Marcus."
The boy made it sound convincing. When I stared at him, he looked me in the eye. But even in Rome, a city crammed with the world's worst confidence tricksters, the Didius family had always bred a special brand of sweet-faced liars.
"You grow more like your grandfather every day," I commented, to let him know I was not fooled.
"I hope not!" quipped back Marius, pretending to be one of the boys.
We spent a couple of hours trailing around the downtown district, with no luck. I discovered that the baker whose business burned down was called Epaphroditus, but if anybody knew where Epaphroditus had his bolt-hole, they were not telling me. I tried asking about the Verovolcus killing, but people pretended that they had not even heard that it happened. I found no witnesses who had noticed Verovolcus in the locality still alive; nobody saw him drinking in the Shower of Gold; no one knew who had killed him. Finally I mentioned (because I was growing desperate) that there might be a reward. The silence continued. Evidently the judicial administrator had failed, in his citizenship classes, to explain how Roman justice worked.
We found a booth that passed for a pie stall and treated ourselves. Marius managed half of his, then I helped him finish, making up for my lack of grub yesterday. He had slathered his pie in fish-pickle sauce from the encrusted communal jug at the stall. I would have done the same at eleven, so I said nothing.
"All these people you have been talking to seem rather law-abiding and dull." Most of my nephews had a dry wit. "You would think a man headfirst down a well would cause more fuss."
"Maybe murders occur more often here than they should, Marius."
"Well maybe we should nip off out of here then!" Marius grinned. Among my nieces and nephews I was viewed as a clown, though one with a hint of danger attached. His face clouded. "Could we get into trouble?"
"If we upset someone. You can get into trouble anywhere if you do that."
"How do we know what to avoid?"
"Use good sense. Be quiet and polite. Hope that the locals have been paying attention to the section about manners in their toga-folding lessons."
"And always keep an escape route when entering an enclosed area?" Marius suggested.
I raised my eyebrows at him. "You have been listening to Lucius Petronius."
"Yes." Marius, who was quiet by nature, hung his head for a moment.
Bringing four young children all across Europe to their mother, Petro must have resorted to strict drill, for everyone's safety. In Maia's offspring he would have found intelligent listeners, keen to learn when plied with army and vigiles lore. "Lucius Petronius was good to be with. I miss him."
I wiped my mouth and my chin with the back of my hand, where the pungent fish pickle had dripped from his pie. "So do I, Marius."
XIV
We were not the only ones missing Petronius. A letter had arrived for him from Rome.
Flavius Hilaris had the letter, and he made the mistake of mentioning it to me when we were all at lunch. "If anybody sees your friend, it would be helpful to say I have this-"
"Is it from a lover?" demanded young Flavia, unaware of the ripples her remark caused. With Petronius there were quite a few women in that category. Most were long in the past as far as I knew. Many would be too easygoing to correspond; some probably could not write. Petronius had always had the knack of staying on good terms with the flighty ones, but he also knew how to break free. His liaisons meant little; they ran their course, then usually petered out.
"His exciting love, the gangster's wife perhaps," jeered Maia. Petro's stupid affair had been no secret anywhere on the Aventine. Balbina Milvia did try to stick, but Petro, with his domestic life in tatters and his job threatened, had shed her. He knew that dallying with Milvia had been dangerous.
"A gangster!" Flavia was greatly impressed.
"Please, all of you be serious." Hilaris was more pinched than usual.
"This letter comes from the vigiles. It is written by a tribune, Rubella. But it is passing on a message to Petronius from his wife."
"Ex-wife." I did not look at my sister.
As I said it, I realized that aspects of this letter, which clearly bothered Hilaris, were odd. He would deny that his province practiced censorship of correspondence, yet he had obviously read the letter. Why not simply hang on to it until Petro reappeared? Why was the letter from a tribune? Arria Silvia could write if she wanted to bother-unlikely, given the state of things between them-but she would hardly ask Petro's superior to pass on her usual complaints about their three girls growing out of their clothing and how the slump in sales of potted salads caused her new boyfriend problems…
Neither could I imagine any vigiles tribune, especially the hard-bitten Rubella on the Aventine, scribbling a fond note to wish Petro a wonderful holiday.
How did Silvia know he was in Britain anyway? How did Petro's tribune know? If he were taking leave, he would consider his destination his own business.
"Give the letter to me if you like," I offered.
Hilaris ignored my offer to take custody of the scroll. "It was forwarded by the Urban Prefect."
"Official channels?" I stared. "The Prefect is so close to the top, he is virtually hung on the belt of the Emperor! What in Hades is going on?"
He bent his head, avoiding my eyes.
"What's up, Gaius?"
"I really don't know!" Hilaris was frowning, and sounded slightly annoyed. He had given his working life to Britain, and he expected to be kept informed. "I thought you knew, Falco."
"Well, I don't."
"Someone has died, Marcus," interrupted Aelia Camilla, as if imposing sense on us. So her husband had been sufficiently perturbed to discuss the letter's contents with her.
"I didn't know Petronius had much family." Helena glanced quickly at me. He had some flat-footed relatives in the country, whom he hardly saw. An aunt in Rome. He did have contact with her, but who gets letters from estranged wives sent urgently half across the world-about an aunt? His Auntie Sedina was elderly and overweight; it would be no surprise if she passed away.
Helena must have read in my face a reflection of her own fears. "Oh, not one of his children!" she burst out.
Aelia Camilla was upset. "I'm afraid it is worse-it is two of them."
Everyone was horrified. The message from the tribune was curt bureaucracy: L. Petronius Longus was to be informed with regret that two of his children had succumbed to the chicken pox. "Which two?" Helena demanded.
"It does not say-" Hilaris at once faced a barrage of female anger. You must send a signal urgently," his wife commanded. "We have to be able to tell this poor man which of his daughters has survived!"