Back on familiar ground, curiosity drew me to a colonnaded peristyle, formally planted around a statue of three half-size nymphs. This was where the dining room really ought to be situated. I wondered if there was in fact a better triclinium than Anacrites had assigned to us.

I was looking for Albia. Sure enough, she was there on a low wall, looking in at the courtyard. She was just sitting, so I paused. Albia had gone out for a break from watching Aelianus being polite to his wife. It would be best if she could work through her heartache privately.

Someone else interrupted her reverie: Anacrites strolled through the colonnade opposite. Crossing a corner of the garden, he went straight over to Albia. He sat on the wall beside her, not so near as to make her nervous, though near enough to worry me.

‘There you are!’ he said easily, as though she had been missed, not perhaps by the company but by him. To reinforce his position as a careful host, he added, ‘I am glad I saw you hiding here. Helena Justina told me all about your unhappiness.’

‘Really!’ He would have his work cut out with Albia. He played it well, saying nothing more until she asked in her blunt way, ‘What are you doing away from your guests?’

Anacrites rubbed the tips of two fingers against his right temple. ‘Sometimes commotion disturbs me.’

‘Oh yes,’ Albia, the unfeeling adolescent, answered. ‘I heard you had your head smashed in.’

He managed to sound rueful. ‘I don’t remember much about it.’

‘Does it affect your work?’

‘Not often. The effects are random. Days may be good or bad. It’s very frustrating.’

‘So what happens?’

‘I think I have partly lost my powers of concentration.’ It must be three years since his head wound; he had had time to learn how to cope.

‘That’s awkward. You might lose your job. Do you have to conceal it from everyone?’

‘Whoa!’ In the teeth of Albia’s relentless attack, Anacrites made it jocular: ‘I’m the spy. I’m supposed to ask the heavy questions.’

‘Ask one then!’

Anacrites leaned back his head against a pillar. He was savouring the peace and quiet, resting. ‘Do you like my little garden?’

Oil lamps had been dotted around the rest of the house, though there were none out here, probably to avoid attracting insects. In the last light of evening, only outlines of climbers and topiary showed, though there were pleasant scents and a faint splash from some informal water feature. A boy grotesque, pouring from a vase, maybe. I did not see Anacrites as a two-doves-on-a-scallop-shell man.

‘It’s not bad.’

‘I have it looked after by professional horticulturalists. They claim they need to visit every day to keep things trim. It costs a fortune.’

‘Are you rich?’

‘Of course not; I work for the government.’

‘Spies don’t do gardening?’

‘No idea how to.’