Now he was like a visitor, a helpful, easygoing one. He read in silence to himself. He read aloud to me. He hummed around, tidying the place. He washed up. When he was utterly exhausted, he slept on a couch out in my day room.

We never spoke about the case. He had my report. Even though I was sickening when I wrote it, I knew I had done a good job there.

Eventually, although I had told him not to, he wrote to my family to tell them what had happened. I had said, wait until either I am better or I die; do not put them through this anxiety. Faustus had never met my family, but he knew who they were and how close we were to each other. He sent the letter to Quintus Camillus for urgent forwarding, then when it was too late for me to make him recall it, he told me what he had done.

I was not surprised, therefore, when only a day later my mother came to the apartment.

Faustus was reading when she let herself in. I saw him look up as he heard someone enter. I had recognised her footfall so I did not need to look. I kept looking at him.

‘You must be Manlius Faustus!’ Helena Justina’s familiar voice dryly accosted this unknown man in her daughter’s bedroom. Even though his occupation (reading aloud a scroll about how to win elections) was not typical of men in women’s bedrooms, as a mother she went straight on the offensive: ‘A friend of my daughter’s – though for some reason none of us have met you … Are you lovers?’

‘Not yet.’ Tiberius answered without a flicker. Then he looked up with a sudden broad smile. ‘I’m saving her for best.’

As I covered my face with the bedsheet, I believe it was the first time I ever knew my mother lost for words.

After that, Tiberius seemed to allow that my mother still thought she owned me. She intended to collect me and nurse me herself. I was twenty-nine years old, widowed, working, independent – but when I was in trouble, my family expected me to go home. A woman of tact, Helena Justina avoided saying to Faustus, ‘so she can be looked after properly’.

He must know what she thought. Although his own died twenty years ago, I had to hope he knew the ways of mothers.

He might do. I had learned a little about his mother now. Once, during his care of me, I had asked how he became so competent. He said he had a younger sister; his mother had taught him to help bath the baby. This was so he would not be afraid of children if he ever had any – and he would not be shy with girls.

We smiled together over that. Nobody, on either side, who shared what Tiberius Manlius did for me that week could be called shy.