I dumped my luggage in the porch. Times had changed: I knew people would take it in for me. I could hear my little ones romping in the gardens, with Nux barking. Instinct drew me down a path away from them. I found Helena seated on a bench that had been set up close to where we held my father’s funeral. A new memorial stood there, with an inscription to Pa and a sad last line naming our lost baby son. Also Marcus Didius Justinianus, beloved of his parents: may the earth lie lightly upon him. I had not been able to ask Helena anything about this; I had to arrange it myself. I had not even seen it since the mason set it up.

Helena’s attitude suggested that she came here regularly. She was not weeping, though I thought I detected tears on her cheeks. If she was managing to mourn, that was an improvement on her previous tight, tense refusal to acknowledge what had happened.

After I met her gaze, I sat beside her in silence, then we looked at the memorial together. After a time, Helena of her own accord placed her hand on mine.

It was some weeks to Helena’s birthday, but when we returned to the house I gave her the blue glass vase anyway. She was worth it. I told her that; she told me I was a hound, but she still loved me. ‘I would have been just as pleased at your return without a gift.’ A man in my line of work has to be cynical, but I believed her.

‘Just so long as you don’t see it as a bribe.’ This would be our only mention of Petro and me keeping that man at our house.

‘Even you can’t afford the size of bribe you would have needed.’

‘Oh I know. At least, unlike the wife of Arrius Persicus, you know I haven’t bought a bigger present for some secret mistress.’

‘No, darling. Spending even this much money must have been enough of a shock.’

‘I’ll get used to doing it. For you.’

‘Well,’ said Helena graciously. ‘You had better go and tell Petronius Longus what you found out.’

‘You’re giving me a pass out of barracks!—Not tonight, though, honeycake. I’m staying in with you.’

‘Don’t overdo it, Falco—or I will think you have something to hide.’ Helena Justina was almost her old self again.

I really felt too travel-weary to seek out Petro but sent a message to him with news of Volusius being a mathematician and Arrius Persicus buying the cameo. He would follow up these leads. I suggested we meet up for breakfast at Flora’s next day. I burrowed back into domesticity—patted the children, tickled the dog, played mental tug of war with Albia about nothing much, bathed, dined, slept.