I wondered if the posse from Antium had searched here. It must have done them no more good than it did me. The freedman’s house was crammed with stuff with an obsessive neatness. The collection of rubbish looked as if Nobilis had lined it up in rows, just waiting to upset enquirers by failing to provide clues.

Plotia came to the door behind me. She was gazing around as if she too had never stepped inside before. ‘He keeps everything. He’s got stuff that goes back decades.’

That was true, but if Nobilis killed Modestus, he had not kept the statue-seller’s lapis lazuli signet ring. There were no locks of hair from victims, no lovingly cared for boxes of different girls’ underwear. I found no old calendars with scored marks to signify killing days. No bloodstained weapons. No ropes with cut ends that could be matched to ligatures around dead men’s necks.

I had been an informer long enough to expect disappointment.

I searched until I had had enough, then I came back outside.

‘Find anything?’ called Plotia, now squatting alongside her sister-in-law, with the early evening sun on her face.

‘No. Does Nobilis have anywhere else he hangs out? Some special annexe, where he plays boys’ games alone?’

Both women merely gave me odd looks.

This place was a shack to me, but maybe it had a subsidiary hovel, some even more secret hideaway where Nobilis committed his worst deeds. If so, either he kept it from his relatives or they were playing dumb. ‘Just one last thing—did either of you see the quarrel with a neighbour called Modestus?’ Both Plotia and Byrta shook their heads, rather too quickly. ‘You know who I mean?’ I insisted. ‘He disappeared after a bust-up here, then his wife came to look for him and now she’s missing too.’ When the women continued to blank me, I said in a sombre voice, ‘Modestus is dead. Murdered—on a journey to petition the Emperor. This isn’t going away, so you may as well tell me. You still deny seeing the argument?’

‘Probus and Nobilis talked to the old man.’ For the first time Byrta found her voice. She had a common country accent and her attitude was the wrong side of aggressive. ‘It did get heated—Modestus was an idiot, and pushy with it. Our lads never did anything to him. He just went away.’

‘You sure of that?’ I don’t know why I bothered asking. I included Plotia in the question; she was keeping quiet now. She looked away and I knew she was not going to help me. ‘Nobilis and Probus were the ones Modestus argued with?’

‘They never touched him,’ repeated the pale, thin woman as if this was a religious chant and if she said a word wrong, some sacrifice would be invalidated.

‘That right? I’ll be off then.’

‘We’ll tell the boys you came!’ Plotia mocked my wasted effort.