I produced two winecups which looked clean, though I polished up Petro’s on the hem of my tunic before I clonked them on the table. In the hole under a floorboard that passed for my winecellar I had some smoked Spanish poison that was a gift from a grateful client, some new dusky red that tasted as if it had been robbed from an Etruscan tomb, and a well-aged amphora of decent white Setinum. Since Petro’s visit was so awkwardly timed, I wavered over acting casual and just serving the Etruscan, but in the end I settled for the Setinum because we were old friends and anyway I fancied some myself.

As soon as he tasted it, he knew he was being bribed.

He said nothing. We drained several cups. The time came when a chat seemed unavoidable.

“Listen,” he broached. “There’s a hue and cry for a little gold-hemmed skirt who was lifted from a senator’s house this morning, don’t ask me why—”

“Want me to keep an eye out?” I suggested, perking up cheerily, though I could see he was not deceived. “Heiress, is she?”

“Shut up, Falco. She was spotted later in the clutch of some slavering ghoul whose description uncannily fits yours. Her name is Sosia Camillina, she’s strictly off limits, and I want her put back where she came from before we have some praetor’s pet helpers crawling all over my patch passing rude remarks on the way I run the markets…That her in there?” He nodded at the bedroom doorway.

I owned up meekly. “Imagine it must be.”

I liked him; he was good at his job. We both knew he had found his lost kitten.

I explained about her in a way that laid a great deal of emphasis on my gallant role as rescuer of frantic nobility, and (in view of Petro’s earlier remark) less on me wrecking market stalls. It seemed best not to place him in any awkward dilemmas.

“I’ll have to take her back,” Petro said. He was nicely drunk.

“I’ll take her,” I promised. “Do me a favour. If you go it’s Thanks for doing your duty, officer; for me they may stretch to a small reward. Split?”

Lubricated by a good wine, my crony Petronius becomes a gentleman. Not many men are so considerate of the profit and loss columns of M Didius Falco’s personal accounts.

“Oh…” He tipped his cup wryly. “This will do me. Give me your word.”

I gave him my word and the rest of the Setinum, then he went away happy.

I had no real intention of giving her back.

Well…not yet.

V

I whipped into the bedroom, dangerous with annoyance. The curtain zinged along its rod. The little lost person jumped up guiltily, spilling my private notebooks onto the floor.

“Give me those!” I roared. Now I was really furious.