‘Has my master said you have to finish?’

‘No. I set my deadlines for myself. I have to know what is realistic.’

I left him to start packing up, while I went to say goodbye to Graecina. At my approach to their apartment, the rough dog kicked up his normal racket though when she let me in he calmed down, walking off to gnaw at a table leg.

‘Where is Cosmus?’ Graecina lifted an eyebrow to query why I asked. I indicated the dog.

‘Oh, Panther is ours. He belonged to my husband, really. Polycarpus fed him; he used to bring unwanted scraps from the master’s kitchen. Panther knew who to love.’

‘I thought he belonged to Cosmus.’ From things he said, Cosmus either thought that too, or he pretended. A lot of slaves have pets. The poorly-treated like to have something of their own to beat. ‘Apart from barking, which a guard dog is supposed to do, he seems obedient.’

‘He’s a good boy, aren’t you, Panther?’ asked Graecina in that exaggerated voice some people use for their animals. Panther wagged his tail, even though he was sitting on it. ‘He’s wonderful with children.’ I bet he gave them wonderful fleas too.

I was working up a theory. ‘I noticed that when Panther is out in the street, you don’t have him on a lead.’

‘He trots back if he’s called. He had a bit of old cord for a long time—’ Graecina stopped, as she saw where I was heading. She was an intelligent woman. She looked at me in a mixture of wonder and horror. ‘Oh no.’

A true sense of surprise was missing. Yesterday, while we were drinking and talking in the courtyard, Graecina spent a lot of time lost in her own world. She must have had doubts even then. Thinking about Panther’s lost lead confirmed her pre-existing fears. She had half-expected me to ask the question.

She made no attempt to put me off. She went to the back of a door where a hook was nailed. It held a hat and a cloth bag for shopping, nothing else. ‘The dog’s lead used to be kept here. It was not much more than a length of raggy twine. He doesn’t have a collar; we just looped it around his neck …’ Graecina swallowed and I felt my own mouth go dry. ‘They lost it.’

‘They?’

‘Cosmus, my husband … one of them.’

‘Which?’

‘I don’t know.’ I felt she did not want to say it was Polycarpus who disposed of the lead.