‘Anyway,’ Albia had demanded, ‘what did you do with that scraggy bit of rope you took away from Nux? We spent hours searching for it while you were away.’

‘I burned it. You don’t need to know why—nor does the dog.’

‘That was a waste. She loved her tugging rope.’

Nux was a scamp but I liked to think even she had standards. She might not have loved the rope if she knew what it was. Besides, with Anacrites repeatedly dropping in on us like an annoying uncle, the dog’s toy had to be sacrificed.

While I was in Antium, he had even come up to the villa, Helena said. She told him I had gone to Praeneste for a client. She claimed it was a very attractive widow for whom I carried out unspeakable personal services; Anacrites had commiserated with her in apparent shock and sorrow.

‘He said, This is a new side to Falco. So I snapped, You are not a very good spy if you think that! Don’t relax,’ Helena warned me. ‘The man is not stupid. He didn’t believe a word of it. Marcus, he will be wondering where you really did go.’

Next morning Helena arranged to bring the family back to our house. I had the impression she had been pretty well ready to do it even if I had not arrived to fetch them. I left the villa earlier. Even up here, I checked carefully that I was not followed. The spy was a man down now, though; perhaps he would stop haunting me.

Flora’s Caupona was a decrepit drinks place in my family’s part of the Aventine, run by my sister Junia. Luckily she had not yet arrived, since her mornings were occupied with the needs of her son, who was profoundly deaf. Junia had proved an inventive, devoted mother who spent hours coaxing him into basic communication. She had already had plenty of practice with her supremely dull husband, so perhaps her patience with little Marcus was not all that surprising.

In her absence the waiter Apollonius produced what the workers who formed the caupona’s early passing trade had to endure as stamina food: stale bread and weak posca, the vinegary drink that is given to slaves and soldiers. Nobody who hoped for a sociable outdoor breakfast would ever come here. The tuck had one advantage, though; it was better, and safer, than what Flora’s served for lunch.

Apollonius had once taught geometry at an infant school; he taught Maia and me. It would have been a neat coincidence if he had known the victim Volusius—a coincidence to find only in a Greek adventure yarn. In real life it never happens. ‘Can’t say I’ve heard of him, Falco.’