Before I could flare up, Justinus stressed the point. ‘My niece is special to us, Faustus. My brother and I stand in loco parentis when necessary.’

‘Nuts!’ I shrieked. ‘Your brother and you aren’t fit to be in loco to a worm!’ I realised the idiots must have talked over the dangers to me before Faustus and I arrived. I had to steer them all off this subject. No informer should allow a bunch of men to quibble about how she conducts her enquiries. ‘Uncle Quintus, you know perfectly well Didius Falco has nominated an old Bithynian freedman as his daughters’ guardian.’ Turning to Faustus, I joked, ‘My father holds the traditional view that any woman without a father or husband should be placed in the care of a lecherous fraud with his filthy eyes on her money − as if my sisters and I couldn’t fritter away our property for ourselves.’

‘I thought Falco chose Nothokleptes, that disaster of a banker he uses,’ grinned Justinus, happily sidetracked. ‘That way, the cash can just be reassigned in a ledger and won’t even need to be physically moved.’

‘He told me he had found a degenerate priest.’ Even Aelianus played the game. ‘One who likes pretending he’s the Pontifex Maximus and beating naughty girls on their bottoms with rods.’

‘I imagine Flavia Albia can run rings around the guardian system.’ Faustus was rubbing a scar on his hand where I had stabbed him with a meat skewer once; he was subtly reminding me how I had once over-reacted to something he said. There was no need to explain that to the uncles.

Aelianus returned to his original caveat. ‘The point is, aedile, we cannot sanction sending our dear niece among violent criminals.’

‘Not an issue,’ replied Faustus, stiffening up. ‘I admire Flavia Albia’s work, and I have witnessed her personal courage, but my intention is to use other means to follow up the burglary.’

He probably just that moment decided. Until the Camilli acted up, Manlius Faustus, the fast-thinking plebeian rich boy, had seen me as a tough, street-savvy worker he could send anywhere. He would have been right. I would have done whatever was necessary. Now, half the inquiry had been whipped away from me.

They agreed that the more tiresome task − detailed interviews with members of the Aviola household − was suitable for me. I groaned at the prospect of mumbling pot-scourers, shrine-tidiers and clothes-attendants, but I let the men enjoy the thought that they could snooze in their studies, overlooked by busts of poets, while I wasted note tablets on domestic minutiae.

In the end they would claim the credit for whatever I learned. Yes, I had been a female informer for a long time. I knew all the disadvantages.

‘It should be simple,’ Uncle Quintus assured me. ‘Remember the proverbial answer: the cup bearer did it.’

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