See Delphi and Die

The next thing Lampon told me was even more important."The girl had a better offer!'

"You saw the better offer?'

Lampon looked shamefaced."I never told Milo.'

"Did you tell anybody else?'

"I went to the tents with Milo next day. He wanted to know why she hadn't come. He could never tell when people just weren't interested in him…' Clearly the poet was more experienced.

"What happened at the tent?'

"We were told she had been killed. Milo was shocked – and nervous, in case he got the blame. A couple of men talked to him, then they sent him away. While they were in conversation, I saw an elderly man on his own. He looked ill; he was taking medicine, sitting on a folding stool in the shade. I spoke to him.'

"Medicine?' Turcianus Opimus.

"Something strong,' said Lampon, with a faint note of envy."He was looking dreamy. Maybe he took a few too many swigs. I mentioned that I had seen the girl with someone; he smiled a lot and nodded. I never found out what he did about it.'

"Nothing, apparently. But it gave you a clear conscience… So tell me about Valeria and the man. What were they doing when you saw them? Were they up to no good?'

"Nothing like that. He was leading her into the building, as if he had just offered to show her the way.'

"Did she look worried?'

"Oh no. Milo and I were leaving the palaestra when I saw her, and I wanted a drink, not hours of reading. We were outside and it was fairly dark. I grabbed Milo and pulled him in another direction before he spotted her.' Leaving Valeria to her fate.

"You had no reason to think the girl was going into the palaestra against her will?'

"No. Well,' added Lampon,"she thought she was going to find us.'

"If you had believed she was in trouble, you would have alerted Milo?'

"Yes,' said Lampon, with the unreliable air of a poet.

I took a deep breath."And who was this man with her? Do you know him?'

That was where the poet let me down, as poets do. His head was filled up with shepherds and mythical heroes; he was useless at noticing modern faces or names. When I begged him to provide a description, all he came up with was a man in his forties or fifties, solidly built, wearing a long-sleeved tunic. He could not remember if the man was hairy or bald or bearded, how tall he was, or the colour of the tunic.

"You've seen Statianus here, I take it?'

"Yes, I was in a complete funk when he turned up. I thought he was after me.

"The poor bastard only wants the truth. Was it him at Olympia?'

"Definitely not.'

"Would you know the man again?'

"No. I don't take much notice of the old-timers.'

"Old-timers?'

"I assumed that was how he could get admittance to the palaestra – he looked like a retired boxer or pankration exponent, Falco. Didn't I say so?'

"You omitted that telling detail.' A detail which not only cleared Statianus, it exonerated all the other men touring in the same group. Well, all except one."Do you know the Seven Sights Travel operator, Phineus?'

"I think I've heard of him.'

"Would you know him by sight?'

"No.'

"Well, he's a heavily built man, who conceals his past, so he could

have been an athlete – and he has missing teeth. Lampon, you're going to come with me to Corinth, when I leave here, and tell us if you've seen Phineus before.'

"Corinth?' Lampon was a true poet."Who is going to pay my fare?'

"The provincial quaestor. And if you vanish, or mess up your evidence, he'll be the man who throws you in a cell.'

Lampon looked at me with troubled eyes."I can't appear in court, Falco. The barristers would shatter me. I go to pieces if I'm shouted at.'

I sighed.

XLIV

Lampon looked queasy but he agreed to follow orders. He gave me one more suggestion. According to him, Statianus not only ran at the gym; he liked to climb up to the official stadium. The stadium lay about as high as could be, above the sanctuary of Apollo, where the air was even more refined and the views were breathtaking. Statianus had been heard to say that he went there to be alone and to think.

With directions from the poet (which, since he was a poet, I checked with passers-by at intervals, I made my way along the track, back to the Kastalian Spring, then into the sanctum and up past the theatre on a route I had never yet taken. A narrow path led upwards. The climb was steep, the situation remote. A man who had suffered a great calamity might well be drawn here. After the bustle of the sanctuary and the businesslike hum of the gym, this was a solitary walk where the sun and the scents of wild flowers would act on a tortured mind like a soothing drug. I suspected that when Statianus reached the stadium, he generally lay down on the grass and lost himself. You can think as you walk but, in my experience, not when you run.

I myself was thinking as I went, mainly about what Lampon had told me. Turcianus Opimus, the travel group's invalid, had learned more about Valeria's killer than the killer would have liked. From the poet's description, he may even have recognised who the killer was. Whom had he told about this? Was he ever sufficiently free of his pain-killing medicine to realise what information he held? Perhaps something he said or did about it led to his death at Epidaurus. Or perhaps he really died naturally – but someone believed he could have passed on the poet's story to Cleonymus.

I wondered if the poet himself was in danger. Damn. Still, as far as I knew, the killer was in Corinth.

I consoled myself with the thought that he was probably a bad poet

anyway.

*

I took my time. If Statianus was up here, well and good. If not, I knew we had properly lost him. I held off blaming myself until I was sure. It would come. Every step I took convinced me he had run away from me. If he left Delphi altogether, I would have no idea where to look for him.

I was so certain that I was completely alone, I peed on the grey rocks, not even moving from the path. A gecko watched me, tolerantly.

I wished Helena was here. I wanted to share the glorious view with her. I wanted to hold and caress her, enjoying the silence and sunshine in this isolated spot. I wanted to stop thinking about deaths that seemed unsolvable, griefs we could never assuage, brutality, fear, and loss. I wanted to find Statianus at the stadium. I wanted to convince him to have faith. The misery he revealed to us yesterday had affected me. Standing alone with the gecko and the faraway wheeling buzzards made me aware how much.

As I slowly resumed walking, I transferred all my thoughts to Helena. I lost myself in memories of her warmth and sanity. I filled my head with dreams of making love to her. Yes, I wished she were here.

When I came upon the woman, I was so surprised I nearly jumped off the path, over the edge into oblivion. That was before I realised I had met her before at the top of a crag – in Corinth. It was the middle-aged dipsy nymph I had treated like a prostitute, who called herself Philomela.

XLV

She was standing on the narrow path, gazing out at the vista with extravagant enjoyment. She wore a many-pleated white Greek dress, folded over on the shoulders in the classical manner – a style which modern matrons had abandoned decades ago, instead copying Roman imperial fashion. Once again, her hair was bundled up in a scarf, which she had wrapped around her head in a couple of turns and tied in a small knot above her forehead. The classical look. This lady had gazed at a lot of old statues.

Now she was looking at me. Her wistful air was immediately familiar; that kind of wide-eyed wonderment seriously annoys me. She too was startled by our sudden confrontation. She stopped the blissful reverie, and became nervous.

"Well, fancy!' I made it avuncular. Not much choice but to gulp and be cheerful. Maybe she had forgotten how crassly I had insulted her. No. I could see she remembered me all too well."I'm Falco and you are Philomela, the Hellenophile nightingale.' She had dark eyes and had spent hours with hot tongs making herself a fringe of curly hair, but she was not Greek. I remembered she had spoken perfectly good Latin. I spoke in Latin automatically.