‘Surprise! You’d think,’ Perella told me in disgust, ‘if he wanted Nobilis dead, as he told me, he could have found the chance to put a boot in the small of his back and shove the bastard overboard. Anacrites is handy enough—and I hear you know all about that!’

‘What?’

‘A little bird twittered “Lepcis Magna”?’

‘That birdie must fly absolutely everywhere! I’ll wring his neck for tweeting.’ Anacrites had fought as a gladiator at Lepcis. It was illegal for any but slaves. Citizens who fought in the arena became non-persons. News of it would make Anacrites a social outcast; he would lose his job, his ranking, his reputation, everything. I smiled gently. ‘You are well informed. It’s true; he spilled blood on the sand. But that information is mine to exploit, Perella. I was there.’

‘I won’t step in—even though I want his job.’

‘You want his job?’

‘Why not?’ Indeed! The Praetorians would never accept her, yet Perella was just as shrewd, experienced and ruthless as the current incumbent. More intelligent, in my opinion. She had the talent. Only the ancient traditions of keeping women beside the hearth interfered with her qualifications. No tombstone yet had ever said: She kept the house and worked in wool—and slit a few throats for security reasons . . . ‘You could destroy Anacrites, Falco—and presumably he knows it. Can you ever feel safe?’

‘I have protection: other witnesses. If he touches me, they’ll tell. So he’s the one who lives in fear. I’m saving the information for the sweetest possible moment.’

The dancer took up her barley water peacefully. She still sounded like a well-disposed aunt, giving me career advice: ‘Don’t wait too long, my dear.’

54

I found my team, not as tipsy as I feared, merely unreliable. I said it was good to associate with happy men. Petronius had to work, or at least take a nap at the station house. The Camilli, being persons of leisure, rolled along with me. They had reached the clingy phase, where I was their best friend. Trailing them like seaweed stuck on an oar, I went up the Aventine to Ma’s house, intending to collect Albia.

She had left, for home my mother said. ‘Anacrites was here—he drops in, to see I am all right,’ she confided in Aelianus and Justinus hoarsely. ‘He knows my own don’t give me a second thought. When I am found stone dead in my chair one morning, it will be Anacrites who raises the alarm.’

I cursed this libel and sat down on a bench. The Camilli did likewise, fitting in fast, as people did at Mother’s house. They were clearly thinking: what a dear little old lady. She sat there, tiny and terrible, letting them believe it. Her beady black eyes rested wisely upon them. ‘I hope my good-for-nothing son hasn’t taken you drinking.’