The doorpost of my old apartment still had the painted tile that advertised my name for clients. An old nail, carefully bent about ten years ago, was still hidden in a pot on the landing; as a spare latch-lifter it still worked. I put the nail back, pushed open the door very gently in case someone jumped me; I went in, feeling an odd patter of the heart.

It looked empty. There were two rooms. In the first stood a small wooden table, partly eaten away as if it were fossilised; two stools of different heights, one missing a leg; a cooking-bench; a shelf that once held pots and bowls but was now bare of fripperies. In the second room was just a narrow bed, made up neatly.

I called out that it was me. I heard pigeons flutter on the roof.

There was a folding door from the main room to a tiny balcony. I jerked the door with a special hitch that was needed to move it. Then I stepped out through the opening into the old, incongruously glamorous view over Rome, now bathed in warm afternoon sunlight. For a moment I soaked up that familiar scene, out over the northern Aventine to the Vaticanus Hill beyond the river.

Albia was basking on the small stone bench. Coming from Britain, she adored the sun. The building was so badly maintained by its landlord Smaractus that one day the whole balcony would fall off, taking the bench and anyone who was sitting on it. For the moment it held. It had held for the six or seven years that I lived here, in view of which it was easiest to continue to have blind faith than to try and make the unbearable Smaractus carry out repairs. The kind of builders he used would only weaken it fatally.

My fosterling wore an old blue dress, tight plaits, a simple bead necklace. She sat with her fingers linked, pretending to be happy, calm, and unafraid. There was no chance she was afraid of me. I was her father, just a joke. But she must know her situation. Someone else had terrified her.

‘I thought I would find you here.’ She made no answer. ‘You had better stay until I have a chance to straighten things out with Anacrites. Are you all right, Albia? Do you have food money?’

‘Lenia gave me a loan.’

‘I hope you fixed a good rate of interest!’

‘Helena came. She settled up.’

‘Well, I’ll send you an allowance until it’s safe to come home.’

‘I won’t be coming,’ Albia informed me suddenly and earnestly. ‘I have something to say, Marcus Didius. I love you all, but it cannot be my home.’

I wanted to argue but I was too tired. Anyway, I understood. I experienced deep sadness for her. ‘So we failed you, sweetheart.’

‘No.’ Albia spoke gently. ‘Let’s not have a family argument, like other tiresome people.’