‘You two great men have lost yourselves!’ Albia was a frank wench; it was liable to get her into trouble. ‘Why don’t you ask the big question: if the cameo really belonged to Primilla, and if it was taken by a killer—how did Anacrites get it?’

I pointed out coldly that I had spent all morning among the dregs of artistic society trying to find out. ‘Anyone else, Petronius and I would go along to his house, pin him to a wall with a meat skewer and demand an explanation. But the spy can’t be handled like that. He claims it belongs to some woman he had had at the house.’

Petronius snorted. ‘She must be desperate.’

‘So many are, sadly,’ Albia commented. ‘That is how you men get away with things.’

‘Helena is teaching her a lot!’ said Petro.

‘Sarcasm especially. It’s always possible the spy does have a girlfriend.’

Albia biffed this aside. ‘The jewel was found by the hog-chef, tucked away in luggage that we think belongs to the Melitan brothers. If they are Melitan. Or even brothers. Who said so? Nobody. This is just a fantasy Falco dreamed up last Saturnalia, when he had had too much wine with his hot water. I remember the pair of them watching our house, and the only thing we could tell was that they were idiots.’

‘You ought to be at school, young lady,’ Petronius instructed her. ‘Not hanging around a vigiles house, causing upset.’

‘I’m making sensible suggestions. And, by the way, I am home-tutored by Helena.’

‘Oh take her home, Falco.’

‘I can’t. You and I have to talk about this cameo—’

‘Send her then. Albia, be off with you!’ Petro lowered his voice to me. ‘I could assign a man to escort her—’

‘I don’t need a bodyguard!’ snapped Albia. ‘I’ll go by myself.’

She went.

Petronius Longus stared at me. ‘You let her walk in the streets alone?’

‘Nothing else is practical. You allow Petronilla out unchaperoned, don’t you?’

‘Petronilla is a child. Much safer. Your girl is marriageable age.’ He meant beddable.

We left it.

‘She’s right,’ I grumbled. ‘We need to explore how the cameo came to the Melitans.’

‘Surely you mean the idiotic agents of unknown origin?’

‘Bastard! I’m sure they look like brothers. Listen—if there is an innocent explanation for them having it, that saves us trying to link this to the Pontine killings. Maybe Anacrites really does screw women. Asking him for more details will be a waste of effort—but we could find his unknown-origin agents and ask them questions. He won’t like it, but by the time he finds out, it’s done. Can’t you put troops out to look for them?’