Things had moved on. While Helena and I were away, the Seventh Cohort had been called out to the necropolis on the Via Triumphalis. This burial ground was across the river, north of the city, unlike where Modestus was discovered. Passers-by had alerted a caretaker to what looked like a shallow grave, dug without permission close to the road. In it was a fresh, mutilated corpse.

30

Julia and Favonia had been playing quietly on the floor with their pottery animals. As soon as we walked in, they remembered they had been abandoned by us, their callous parents. They jumped up, grew red in the face and ran away screaming loudly, real tears streaming down their faces. It was a classic scam.

Helena Justina gave me a quizzical look. ‘Maybe two is enough?’

‘Agreed!’

Albia, too, refused to welcome our return but stalked off like an offended dog. That gave Nux the same idea, even though she had been on the trip with us.

The message from Petronius about the new murder was irresistible. I changed my tunic and boots, then washed my face. I thought about a comb-through but settled for the windswept look. Being back in Rome had fired me up enough; being neat would be too much excitement. Sometimes I needed to remember when I lived in Fountain Court and was a rough rascal.

At mid-morning I set out from home, with a knife down my boot and just enough money in my purse to cover emergencies. My mind was clear and my step spry. However, I had the faint edgy feeling of a man who needs to reimpose himself on his customary surroundings. Adultery and cart-crashes could have occurred without me knowing it. I might have missed the crucial capture of that balcony thief from the Street of the Armilustrium. Old Lupus could have gone on his long-promised cruise of the Mediterranean—for all I knew, taking that pudgy waitress from the Venus Scallop, instead of his miserable wife, the one with pigtails who was always cadging off Brutus from the fish stall. Once I reached Maia’s, she would fill me in on these essentials, but first my way took me to the Fourth Cohort’s station house.

Petronius had finished the night shift and gone home. Fusculus was there and gave me the story.

‘Same modus as before?’

‘Apparently. Body found at the necropolis—though not in a tomb this time. There’s a difference from the Appia and Latina sites, where you find patrician surnames and bloody big mausoleums. The Via Triumphalis is a big burial ground with a mixed clientele, slaves to middle rank. Its burials are mixed, everything from old skeletons popping out of shallow graves to grey stone urns with nice pointy lids or half a broken amphora lying on its side to hold the deceased’s ashes.’

‘About our level!’ I said, grinning.