`No.' Florius was exasperated. `I don't want to contact him; I want to forget he exists! I told him not to bother me again.'
`All right. Calm down. Let me ask you something different. Was it Balbinus who gave you the glass water jug, the one all the fuss has been about?'
`Yes.'
`He approves of you then?'
`No, he thinks I'm nothing. It was a present for Milvia.'
`Did you tell her that?'
'No. I took the damned thing home, then I had to be vague about it. I don't want her to know he's here. I don't want him to give her gifts paid for from his illegal activities.'
`Pardon me, but you and Milvia seem to have a strange relationship. I've been trying to meet you at your house, but you're never there. You hate your wife's family, and you seem to have little to do with her, yet you stay married. Is this for purely financial reasons? I thought you had money of your own?'
`I do.'
`Are your gambling debts exorbitant?'
'Certainly not. I've been very successful.' He might support the Whites, but clearly he did not bet on them – unless he bet on them losing. But no one would give him long odds. `I'm just about to buy a training stable of my own.'
I whistled jealously. 'So what's with Milvia?'
He shrugged. Complete disinterest. Amazing.
I gave him a stern look. `Take my advice, young man!' He was about my own age, but I was streets ahead of him in experience. `Either get a divorce, or pay some attention to your wife. Be businesslike. A racing trainer wants to impress the punters. You can't afford to have whiffs of scandal sullying your name. People you depend on will just laugh at you.,'
Forgetting that people would know he had a father-in-law who was a condemned extortionist and murderer, Florius fell for the domestic threat. `Milvia wouldn't.
`She's a woman; of course she would. She's a pretty girl who's very lonely. She's just waiting for a handsome piece of trouble to walk in and smile at her.'
`Who are you talking about?' It would have been tough talk, had he not been less worked up than a scallop basking open on a sandbank. Pardon me; scallops lead lives of vivacious incident compared with Florius.
`It's hypothetical.' I was terse. `Let's stick with your father-in-law. It sounds to me as if you have a very strong interest in helping the officials discover him. To start with, you can assist me. I was enquiring into the glassware. It is stolen property -' Florius groaned. He was a man in a nightmare. Everything he heard about the Balbinus family including my instructions about his wife – made him more anxious. `I don't suppose Balbinus made up a story about where he got it from?'
`He didn't have to make it up,' said Florius, sounding surprised. `I was with him at the time.'
`How come?'
`He kept insisting he wanted to send a present to my wife. He made me go with him to buy something.'
Taking a hostile witness to a receiver's lockup sounded strangely careless for a king of crime. I was amazed. `Balbinus bought his gift? Where from?'
`A place in the Saepta Julia.'
It was still raining, but the Saepta lies right alongside the Pantheon. I dragged Florius across the street and into the covered market. I made him show me the booth where the jug had been purchased. Almost as soon as we reached it, the eager proprietor hurried out to greet us, clearly hoping his previous customer had come back for more. When I stepped into view, the atmosphere cooled rapidly.
I told Florius to go. He already had a jaded view of life. I didn't want him more upset. And I did not want, any strangers present when I spoke my mind about the glass to its slimy, seditious retailer. All our efforts to follow up the Syrian water jug had been a waste of time. It had no bearing on the Balbinus case. The `stolen' glass had never been lost. All I was pursuing here was a sleazy compensation fraud – one to which I was myself inextricably linked.
`Hello, Marcus,' beamed the dealer, utterly unabashed as usual. I answered in my blackest tone, `Hello, Pa.'
`That crown of yours was a gorgeous bit of stuff. I can make you
a fortune if you want to sell. I had one customer who was interested -'
`Who actually bought it, you mean?'
`I told him Alexander the Great had worn it once.'
`Funnily enough, that's one of the ludicrous stories the original salesman tried out on me. You're all the same. Though not all of you steal from your own sons and go in for blatant fraud!' `Don't be unkind.'
`Don't make me livid. You bastard, you've got some explaining to do.'
Frankly, now I knew the `loss' of the glass was just another example of my father on the fiddle, I did not want to hear any more. 'Ah Marcus, settle down – '
`Stop warbling. Just describe the man who came here with the limp lettuce leaf who was just with me – the man who bought the glass water jug.'
`Balbinus Pius,' answered Pa. `You know that thug?' `Everyone knows him.'
`Do you know he's an exile case?' `I heard so.'
`Why didn't you report seeing him?'
`He was buying; I don't throw trade away. I knew someone would be on to him eventually. That great po- faced lump of a friend of yours, presumably… Come in for a drink,' invited my father cheerily. Instead I left.
LV
AS I STRODE angrily home I felt edgy. For one thing I had ringing in my ears various sly protestations from Pa – mighty claims that he had meant no harm (oh that old story!), and bluster that he would never have accepted compensation illegally… To be descended from such a reprobate filled me with bile.
There was more to my sense of unease than that. Maybe I was growing jumpy. The knowledge that Balbinus was here and apparently flourishing, despite all the law's efforts, depressed me bitterly. What was the point in anything if criminals could do as they liked and go where they pleased, and laugh at verdicts so blatantly?
The city felt unfriendly. A cart raced around a corner, causing walkers and pigeons sipping at fountains to scatter; it must be breaking the curfew, for dusk had only just fallen and there had hardly been time for it to have reached here legitimately from one of the city gates. People pushed and shoved with more disregard than ever for those in their path. Untethered dogs were everywhere, showing their fangs. Sinister figures slunk along in porticoes, some with sacks over their shoulders, some carrying sticks that could be either weapons or hooks for stealing from windows and balconies. Groups of uncouth slaves stood blocking the pavement while they gossiped, oblivious to free citizens wanting to pass.
An irresponsible girl backed out of an open doorway, laughing. She banged into me, bruising my forearm and making me grab for my money in case it was a theft attempt. I roared at her. She raised a threatening fist. A man on a donkey shoved me aside, panniers of garden, weeds crushing me against a pillar that was hung dangerously with terracotta statuettes of goggle-eyed goddesses. A begger stopped blowing a raucous set of double pipes just long enough to cackle with mirth as a white-and-red-painted Minerva cracked me across the nose with her hard little skirt. At least being pressed back so hard had saved me from the bucket of slops that a householder then chose to fling out of a window from one of the dark apartments above.
Insanity was in Rome.
When I reached Fountain Court the familiar scents of stale flatfish, gutter water, smoke, chicken dung and dead amphorae seemed positively civilised. At the bakery, Cassius was lighting a lamp, meticulously trimming its wick and straightening the links on its hanging chain. I exchanged greetings with him, then walked up on that side of the street to say a few words to Ennianus, the basket-weaver who lived below my new apartment. He had supervised removal of the skip. I borrowed a flat broom and swept some loose rubbish up the gulley so it was
