would have done, given this was a crisis). Instead, Martinus was forced to remove the back block from his note tablet and write out a chit. `Take this to the patrol house – tomorrow!' he said sternly. That would give him some grace before Petronius found out.
The pickpocket snatched the warrant, then found his feet and scurried off.
I continued thinking. It looked as if Lalage had lied to me – no surprise at all.
I did not believe she was running the crime empire from Plato's herself. Lalage was not so stupid as to do that openly.
They were still working for the old regime. After all Lalage's claims about seizing her independence, it was hard to accept that she had caved in and allowed Balbinus Pius to take over her premises. That he might even be hiding up there seemed incredible.
She would not do it. Either he had removed her – in which case I doubted that the brothel would be running as smoothly as usual – or Lalage had some ploy in hand. That boded ill for Balbinus. But it might help us.
As Martinus and I continued our vigil we abandoned casual chat – and draughts. That suited me. It also stopped his overblown raving about men who played board games being suitable to pit their wits against major criminals. Removing Balbinus from Rome called for a sudden rush with a sharp weapon, not cerebral guile.
It already felt like a long day and I reckoned we were heading for a big night exercise. We found some stale bread to gnaw on. We had a drink. Indigestion set in cruelly.
Towards the evening we started feeling tense. Something was going on. Men, singly or in twos or threes, walked up to the brothel. They appeared in the street as quietly as bats. Making
their way inside, they might have been bound for a party with their workplace dining club. If so, they were dressed less smartly than most colleages going out for a bash. Also, they were being asked to pay a hefty ticket price: `That's boodle, or I'm a baby!' Martinus had identified our first definite sack of swag – a bedcover knotted at the corners, from within which came the charming chink of stolen silverware.
We both knew what we were watching. I had discussed this when I first tried to involve the deputy, and now as the early dusk fell I was being proved right. The starlings were roosting. All the day shifts were closing and their operators were reporting in with their take. Cashing up: making their way here with their takings from all the corners of the Aventine, the waterfront and the Forum. The snatchers and grabbers, the confidence tricksters and bluffers, the strangling muggers, the dirty alley girls with thugs for minders, the robbers of drunks and schoolchildren, the mobs who held up ladies' litters, the thieves who beat up slaves. It was mainly money that was pouring in. Saleable goods would be passed to receiving shops or metal furnaces. I had to slip out to a stationer's to buy more wax tablets as Martinus had run out of space to note down all the criminals he knew. There were many more we could not identify – or not yet. Most of them left again shortly after arrival, clearly lighter of baggage.
We had to decide what to do. `Balbinus could have an accountant working at, Plato's. A sidekick who just keeps the ledgers and pays off the workmen.'
`What would you do, Martinus, if your most trusted collector had been Nonnius Albius, and he put you away?'
`I'd do the reckoning myself after that.'
`I bet he agrees! If so, then he's in there.'
`He's in there, Falco. Now he is. But if I was him, I'd move about.'
`So you're saying let's nab him before he hops?'
`Don't you agree?'
Of course I agreed – but I wanted to go in there in strength. In particular I wanted Petronius among us. It was partly old loyalty. But more than that, if I was going into Plato's knowing it was full of evil men and hoping to find the worst of all calmly sitting there with a glass in his hand and an abacus, then I wanted someone at my back I could trust.
`So is it a jump?' Martinus demanded impatiently. From his tone it was clear that if I declined tonight, he would not continue to work with me. I could live without his draughts game, but not with whatever chaos he might wreak if he started working on his own.
`It's a jump if Rubella will give us some backup.'
Even Martinus, with his high opinion of his own quality, could not consider a raid at Plato's with just the two of us. He went off to consult his tribune. I had to stay on watch. Things were so lively we no longer dared to leave together in case we missed something.
I sat there for some time. I had taken one of the spare noteblocks, and was drawing a map of the brothel based on what I remembered from my two visits. One thing I knew was that the place was very large. It occupied at least three storeys, each with numerous corridors. It had probably grown from a single house, taking in those either side as success enabled expansion. Although there was one main door, we had noticed that some of the gangsters knocked and were admitted to a more innocent-looking hole in the wall: they had a family entrance for criminals. In the other direction was a similar house door, much less used. Women occasionally slipped in and out. Once one emerged with two small children: it must be the prostitutes' private exit. Not many had freedom to come and go. I wondered where that would place them in a fracas with the law.
Sometimes the prostitutes received their own visitors. All were women. I made up some pretty reasons for these intriguing social calls. Some involved special entertainers who lived elsewhere but were hired in. Some involved the sort of tales adolescents tell each other about high-class ladies working in brothels for highspending favoured clients. Some of my theories were purely daft. Then two women called whose behaviour convinced me I knew what sometimes happened behind that private door.
They had come in a litter. It waited for them at the corner. They climbed out slowly, looking up and down the narrow street. Their skirts were long and full, their heads muffled in quite heavy cloaks. After a brief hesitation they straightened up and marched arm in arm to the mysterious door. Well-heeled sandals clipped the pavement. One of them rapped, so loudly I could hear it. Soon there was a furtive conversation with an inmate and the two women went inside.
Of course I knew what I was witnessing. A girl with money had got into trouble with a lover. Taking a friend for support, she had come to the brothel in order to end her problem with the aid of the abortionist. The Bower of Venus was bound to possess one.
I could have lived with that. Desperate people are entitled to risk their lives if it seems less harsh than the alternative.
What made me sick was that despite their caution I recognised those women. One was short and sturdy with a self-confident walk; one taller and straight-backed. The first was my sister Maia. And the other was Helena.
I LX
THEY WERE IN there for a long time. I wanted to rush in after them. Instead I remained at my post, brooding horrendously.
When they came out, it was hurriedly. The door slammed behind them. They took a few quick steps, then stood in heated discussion. I strode across to them.
`Oh gods, not still hanging around brothels!' Maia shrieked.
`Oh you're here!' exclaimed Helena, with what sounded like relief. Her tone was urgent, tense, yet ill-fitting the situation I had been conjuring up.
I was staring at Helena as she hugged her cloak around her. The girl I had loved – no; did love. With my sister, the only one I had been able to tolerate. `I'm on surveillance.'
Helena compressed her mouth slightly. I realised I had hardly seen her for the past two days. This morning I had left the house before she woke. Only a dirty tunic on the back of the door would have told her I came in last night.
`Helena, I'm doing what's important. You know that.'
`No I don't know!' She actually stamped her foot. `I have not seen you to talk to since the day before yesterday. I wanted to talk to you
