The weather had warmed up. It was a long hot walk. I should have paid for a chair, but I chose not to sting the aedile with a hefty fare at the moment when I was dropping his case. If I did, as soon as the carriers set off, Dromo was bound to be left behind. How often have you seen women leaning out of chairs and helplessly calling slaves’ names, shouting themselves hoarse while their difficult entourage pretends not to hear?

I needed Dromo; I was going to the apartment to collect my personal belongings and Faustus’ property, so Dromo would have to transport it all on his handcart. While I could rely on Polycarpus to return these things eventually, he had no incentive to be prompt and it was foolish to suppose every item would reappear. Even a good steward could not prevent messengers picking out choice goodies for themselves.

As it turned out, asking Polycarpus to organise it was not an option.

Close to heat exhaustion, we passed the Market of Livia but I did not go in. If I was leaving the apartment, I had no further need for provisions. I could not face the crowds, nor the barracking shopkeepers. You have to be feeling confident to cope in a Roman market. I was too demoralised.

When I reached the part of the Clivus Suburanus where Aviola had lived, I looked around carefully from the shelter of a doorway, telling Dromo to stand close and not draw attention to himself. He knew what had happened to Camillus Justinus, so was prepared to follow orders temporarily. But the butterfly-brain would not keep still for long.

I carefully checked for gangsters, though identified none.

Everyone appeared to be going about their normal business. It was just a street. Elderly women muttering abuse after young men who had barged into them; young men staring at young women as if they had never seen anything female before; one girl and her mother brushed mud off their skirt hems where they had accidentally stepped in a gutter puddle. Overhead, someone invisible inside an apartment pulled a cross-street washing-line hand over hand as they hung wet clothes out. A clean tunic fell off into the same puddle, followed by a magnificently inventive torrent of screaming curses. A door slammed. A couple of pigeons lifted themselves laboriously from a sill, flew in a half-hearted circle and landed in fluffed lumps, to continue their midday drowsing.

A dopey-looking boy stood outside the leather shop, which was closed for lunch. A couple of feet away from him sat a very hairy black dog. It had fleas. I could tell from here, by the intent way it was scratching among its long matted fur. It was loose, so could have belonged to anyone or no one, but kept looking at the boy as if it half hoped for a titbit and half feared a kick.

‘Cosmus,’ said Dromo, catching the direction of my gaze.