Petronius may have picked up what Helena and I were thinking. He lowered his voice. ‘So, Marcus Didius, my old tentmate, who volunteers to confront Anacrites?’

‘Not us—not yet,’ I answered.

Ever cautious, Petro nodded too.

52

‘Claudius Virtus lived in the Transtiberina. Petronius had found the address in the vigiles’ lists. This was the Fourteenth District, a hike across the Tiber, an area I had always distrusted. It had a long history as a haunt of immigrants and outsiders, which gave it a reputation as a refuge for low-grade hustlers. Officially part of Rome for several generations, it retained a tang of the alien. Its dank air was imbued with murky hints of cumin and rue; alive with harsh, foreign voices, its dark, narrow lanes were populated with people in exotic cloaks who kept strange birds in cages up above on their windowsills. Carts here regularly tried to ignore the curfew. The vigiles, whose station house was just off the Via Aurelia, rarely made their presence felt, even to tackle the soft option of traffic nuisance. This area was attached to Rome, yet kept from full participation by more than the yellow-grey loop of the Tiber. The Transtib would always stay separate.

As I walked with Petro, Aulus and Quintus, I was still remembering that night at the spy’s house. ‘I saw someone else. Just a glimpse. I think he had been with the two agents. Could it have been Nobilis? Nobody we’ve questioned seems to have spotted him, though the chef did say Pius and Virtus asked for double portions with their meal—that could have been a cover for their brother. I certainly saw enough used dishes for three.’

‘Description?’

‘No good. He was too far away, and in a gloomy corridor. It was after dark by then, and Anacrites is mean with lamps.’

‘So who do you think it was, Falco?’

‘I don’t know—but don’t let’s forget him. According to the caterer’s chef, the third man was the one with the cameo.’

Virtus rented a room above a row of crumbling shops. It was in the same building as the bar we chose when we arrived, immediately above us. If he had been there, he could have jumped through a window and landed right on Quintus. But there was a fifty-fifty chance he had gone away, and would not be coming back.

The barman, who knew him, said Virtus had not lived there full-time for six months. He kept the place on, and had been coming back to check his stuff once a week. Not just lately, however.

‘Sounds as though he’s living in with a girlfriend? Keeping up with his rent because he thinks she’s going to throw him out. Or he may want to dump her?’