Nemesis

She moved away again and looked at us. 'He says it was found in undergrowth, out on the marshes.' Helena walked to the door. 'Now you two, I want him out of here, please.'

She refrained from saying, That was easy, wasn't it?

We refrained from pointing out he could be lying; he probably was.

When she had gone, Petronius asked him, in a quiet, regretful tone of voice, 'I don't suppose if we took you to the marshes, you would point out the spot where you say this cameo was found? Or tell us more about the context?'

The man on the bench smiled for once, as if he let himself enjoy our understanding; he shook his head sadly. He lay quite still. He seemed to believe that the end was coming. It looked as if he had decided there was no hope now, never had been any.

He spoke to us, the first time in two days. He croaked, 'Are you going to kill me?'

'No.'

We had our standards.

XLIV

The next time I emerged from the room, I was shocked to find the hallway full of luggage. Sheepish slaves carried on moving chests out through the front doors, clearly aware that I had not been told what was going on. I bit my lip and did not ask them.

I found Helena. She was sitting motionless in the salon, as if waiting for me to interrogate her as roughly as we were dealing with the agent. Instead, I merely gazed at her sadly.

'I cannot stay here, Marcus. I cannot have my children in this house.' Her voice was low. Her anger was only just under control.

The usual thoughts passed through my head – that she was being unreasonable (though I knew she had tolerated what was going on longer than I could have expected) and that this was some overreaction in the grief she was still feeling after the baby's death; I had the sense not to say that.

I seated myself opposite, wearily. I held my head in my hands. 'Tell me the worst.'

'I have sent the girls away and now that I have spoken to you, I will be joining them.'

'Where? How long for?'

'What do you care?'

Flaring up like that against me was so rare, it shocked me. A terrible moment passed between us as I held back the urge to retaliate with equal anger. Perhaps fortunately, I was too tired. Then perhaps because I was so exhausted, Helena was able to see me as vulnerable and to relent slightly.

'I care,' I said. After a moment I forced out the question: 'Are you leaving me?'

Her chin went up. 'Are you still the same man?'

The truth was, I no longer knew. 'I hope so.'

Helena let me suffer, but briefly. Staring at the floor, she said, 'We will go to your father's villa on the Janiculan.'

She started to rise. I went across to her; taking her hands in mine I forced her to look at me. 'When I have finished, I will come and fetch you all.'

Helena tugged her hands free.

'Helena, I love you.'

'I loved you too, Marcus.'

Then I laughed at her gently. 'You still do, sweetheart.'

'Cobnuts!' she snapped, as she swept from the room. But the put-down she had used was a habitual one of mine, so I knew that I had not lost her.

I had to bring this to a finish.

Petronius and I had told the man we would not kill him. We could never give him back, however. Capturing one of the spy's agents was irreversible. So what happened to him next would involve more terror, cruel treatment and – soon, probably, though not soon enough for him – his death, even if it was not at our hands.

Petro and I had talked about a solution. We abandoned our efforts to extract information and made final arrangements. I had thought of a way to do this, so there would be no comeback.

I left the house, the first time I had been out for days. I went to see Momus. For an eye-watering sum, Momus fixed it up for me. I did not say who we wanted to put away so discreetly, or why; with his sharp grasp of a filthy situation, Momus knew better than to request details. When he wrote out a docket he just asked, 'Are you telling me his real name – - or shall I give him a new one?'

We still did not know who he was. He was so hard, he consistently refused to tell us. 'Anonymity would be ideal.'

'I'll make him a Marcus!' Momus jeered, always one for a joke in bad taste.

I was startled how easy it was to make somebody disappear. Anacrites' man would be taken away from my house that night. The overseer who worked for the Urban Prefect was now expecting an extra body; when we delivered the Melitan, he would be infiltrated among a batch of convicts who were going for hard labour in the mines. This punishment was intended to be a death sentence, an alternative to crucifixion or mauling by the arena beasts. Protest would be pointless. Convicted criminals always claimed to be the victims of mistakes. Nobody would listen. No one in Rome would ever see him again. Chained with an iron neck-collar in a slave gang in a remote part of some overseas province, stripped and starved, he would be worked until it killed him.

We told him. I had once worked as a slave in a lead mine, so I knew all the horrors.

We gave him a last chance. And he still said nothing.

LXV

Soon after I returned home alone after removing the agent, Anacrites came to the house.

I had bathed and eaten. I had devoted time to making sure all trace of recent events had been removed. I was in my study, reading a scroll of affable Horace to cleanse my sullied brain. It was late. I was missing my family.

A slave announced the spy was downstairs. Would I see him? This was how things worked now; I would probably get used to it. Helena must have stiffened the staff, teaching them not to let visitors get past them. It gave a prosperous householder a few moments to prepare himself – much better than the days when any intruder walked right into my shabby apartment, saw exactly what I had been doing (and with whom), then forced me to listen to his story whether I cared or not.

I paused to wonder at the spy's timing – did he know we had shed our prisoner? Then I went in my house slippers to greet him.

He had no Praetorians. The other 'Melitan' was not with him either. He had brought a couple of low-grade men, though when I invited him up he left them below in the entrance hall. Taking no chances, I put slaves to watch them. I had known him when he only had available a legman with enormous feet and a dwarf; later he hired a professional informer, though he was killed on duty. A woman worked with him sometimes. This pair today -were a grade up from basic, ex-soldiers I guessed, though pitiful; in a peaceful province they would have been relegated to rampart turf-cutting or in war they would have been expendable, mere spear fodder.

'I called in to wish you good fortune, Falco, on the Feast of the Rustic Vinalia,' Anacrites bluffed. I rarely honoured feast days, whether mystic or agricultural; nor did he, in my experience. I had sat with him in our Census office, yearning in vain for him to leave early to go sardine-munching at the Fishermen's Games in the Transtiberina or to pay his respects to Invincible Hercules.

'Thanks; how civil' I refrained from bringing out a rock-crystal flagon of rotgut nouveau.

Anacrites favoured guarded sobriety while he was working – so different from Petronius and me, abandoning care at every opportunity and living on the edge. He made no attempt to cadge a festival drink. Significantly, as was also his tendency, he straightway lost his nerve. Despite having probably spent hours perfecting an excuse, he came right out with it: 'I have mislaid an agent.'

'Careless. What's it to me?'

'He was last seen outside your house. You won't object if I take a look around here, will you, Falco?'

'This is hardly an amicable gesture – and after we all had such a rollicking time at your hog-roast too! Still, help yourself. I dare say there is no point objecting. If you find him squatting on my property, I'll want compensation for his upkeep.'