Malabar Coast…)
'So the villain is called Falco!' the Consul declared. 'An informer-is he good at his job?'
'Very,' she said.
Then, for an instant, our eyes met.
•
I waited, trying to gauge the scene. I sensed a slight atmosphere; nothing to do with Malabar perfumery. Her ladyship took herself off to another chair some distance apart, extracting herself from our business affairs like a well-bred young woman. (This was nonsense; Helena Justina interfered in everything if she could.)
'Matters to discuss?' Marcellus prompted me. I apologized for not visiting him in formal dress and offered my condolence on the death of his adopted heir. He was up to it; his face showed no alteration that I could detect.
Next I stated in the same neutral voice how I had been appointed an imperial executor for the Pertinax estate. 'Insult piled on injury, sir! First some negligent jailor finds your son strangled; then the five fellow senators who had pounded their intaglio rings on his will as witnesses are bumped aside by Vespasian's agents taking over as executors-a fine waste of sealing wax and three-stranded legal thread!'
The Consul's expression remained inscrutable. He made no attempt to disown Pertinax: 'Did you know my son?' Interesting question: could mean anything.
'I had met him,' I confirmed carefully. It seemed easiest not to mention that the testy young bastard once had me badly beaten up. 'This is a courtesy visit, sir; a vessel called the
An ocean-going merchant-ship: a life-saver to a poorer man. To a multimillionaire like Marcellus, simply a fleet vessel his chief accountant sometimes reminded him he owned. Yet he burst out at once, 'I thought you people were impounding her at Ostia!'
I felt a flutter at his intimate knowledge of the Pertinax estate. Sometimes in my business the simplest conversation can give a useful hint (though an excitable type can easily miscalculate and convince himself of a hint that was never there…)
As he noticed me speculating I reassured him quietly, 'I had her sailed down here for you.'
'I see! Shall I need repossession documents?'
'If you let me have writing equipment, sir, I'll give you a certificate.' He nodded, and a secretary brought papyrus and ink.
I used my own reed pen. His people were shifting in surprise that a scruff like me could write. It was a good moment. Even Helena was glinting at their mistake.
I signed my name with a flourish, then smudged my signet ring onto a wax blob which the secretary grudgingly dripped for me. (The smudge made no difference; my signet in those days was so worn all anyone could make out was a wobbly one-legged character with only half a head.)
'What else, Falco?'
'I am trying to contact one of your son's household who is owed a personal legacy. It's a freedman who originated on his natural father's estate-fellow called Barnabas. Can you help?'
'Barnabas…' he quavered weakly.
'Oh, you know
I paused, looking thoughtful, while I tucked away my pen in a fold of my pouch. 'I understand Atius Pertinax and his freedman were extremely close. It was Barnabas who claimed your son's body and arranged his funeral. So are you saying,' I asked, remaining non-committal, 'that afterwards he has never been in touch?'
'He was nothing to do with us,' Marcellus insisted coldly. I knew the rules: consuls are like Chaldaeans who read your horoscope and very pretty girls; they never lie. 'As you say, he came from Calabria; I suggest you enquire there!' I had intended to ask about the missing yachtsman Crispus; something made me hold back. 'Nothing else, Falco?'
I shook my head without arguing.
•
This interview had raised more questions than it solved. But a confrontation served no purpose; it seemed best to withdraw. Caprenius Marcellus had already excluded me. He began a tortured fight to raise his long shanks from the chair. Clearly he was an invalid who enjoyed fuss; after only half an hour of him I no longer trusted the way that his pains came and went so conveniently.
Attendants closed in. Helena Justina was also making herself busy with the old man; I nodded once, in case she deigned to notice, then I left.
Before I reached the atrium the swift light step I knew so well came following me.
'I have a message from my father, Falco; I'll come to the door!'
Somehow I was not surprised. Aggrieved women are a hazard of my work. It was not the first time one had rushed after me, intending to back me into a corner for some vile tirade.
It was not the first time either that I had hidden a sly grin at this prospect of free entertainment.
Decorative plaques hung with wind chimes were suspended between the great Doric pillars in the white- stepped portico. Their trembling tintinnabulation added to my sense of unreality.
Larius, who never let grand mansions intimidate him, had just parked our ox at the elegant Marcellus carriage stop; my nephew sat there picking at his pimples while Nero, who had brought a spinning cohort of cattle flies, nibbled into the neat edge of the lawn.
Behind them lay the astonishing blue half-circle of the Bay. In the middle distance a bevy of gardeners were scything a piece of greensward large enough to exercise a legion at full strength; their heads all popped up as Nero bellowed at me. Larius merely gave us a sombre stare.
Her ladyship and I stood together above the steps. Her familiar perfume hammered my senses as neatly as a metal mallet on bronze. I was dreading some new reference to the burial of her uncle. The subject never came up, though I sensed Helena's anger still tingling just below the surface as we talked. 'Here on holiday?' I croaked.
'Just trying to avoid you!' she assured me serenely.
Fine; if that was her attitude-'Right! Thanks for seeing me to my ox-'
'Don't be so sensitive! I came to console my father-in-law.'
She had not enquired about me, but I informed her anyway. '
'Are you liking it?'
'No.'
Her ladyship tilted her head, with a frown. 'Restless?'
'I don't talk about it,' I told her brusquely-then because it was Helena I immediately relented: 'It's hopeless. The Palace doesn't like me any more than I like them. All I get is pottering errands-'
'Will you give it up?'
'No.' Since I had taken this on for her sake, I stared her out. 'Look; will you be discreet with Marcellus about my interest in his son?'
'Oh, I do understand!' Helena Justina responded, with a hint of rebellion. 'The Consul is a frail old man who can hardly move-'
'Settle down; I'm not harassing the poor old bird-' I stopped. A large attendant came out from the house and
