A DYING LIGHT IN CORDUBA

'I owe somebody a thank-you then.'

She showed no interest in my gratitude. 'My bet is, Selia thought he was losing his nerve and she intended to do for him as well. If he talked she would have been in trouble.'

'Letting her remove Quadratus would have solved a problem.'

'If you say so, Falco.'

'Well let's be practical. Apart from whether it's likely anyone can persuade a judge to try him, when any judge in Rome is liable to have his inclination to do so suborned by large gifts from Attractus-somebody has to catch the bastard first. You're chasing round the mines now, and so am I. I'm definitely looking for Quadratus and you're either after him-or me.'

She turned around and grinned at me.

'What was the game?' I asked in a dangerous voice. 'You've been lurking around all my suspects-Annaeus, Licinius, Cyzacus-they've all had a visitation. I gather you even made a trip to see me.'

'Yes, I got to most of them ahead of you; what kept you dawdling?'

'Romantic mentality. I like to admire the scenery. You may have got to them first, but most of them talked to me for longer.'

'Learn anything?' she jeered.

I ignored it. 'You knew I was official. Why not make contact? We could have shared the work.'

Perella dismissed my quibbles as mere prissiness. 'Making contact with you took second place! Until I decided whether I could trust you I didn't want to give you any clue who I was or what I was there for. I nearly managed to get to you the night of the Parilia.'

'Was it you who hurled that rock at me?'

'Just a pebble,' she smirked.

'Then why make yourself invisible afterwards?'

'Because unbeknown to you, Quadratus was lurking up ahead.'

'He had left in a carriage with two others.'

'He'd stopped it, pretending he wanted to throw up. The girl-'Aelia Annaea-'was distracted, looking after the youth, who really was chucking his heart up. Quadratus had walked back slowly along the track as if he was getting some air, but it looked to me as if he was expecting somebody. That was why I flung the stone, to stop you before you blundered into him. I thought he was waiting for a meeting with Selia; I wanted to overhear what they said.'

'I never saw you and I never saw him.'

'You never saw Selia either! She was creeping up behind. In fact, Falco, the only one who wasn't hiding in the dark from you that night was Selia's sheep!'

'Did Selia make contact with Quadratus?'

'No, the girl in the carriage called out and he had to go off with her and the youth.'

'I thought it might have been you dressed up as the shep-

herdess?' I suggested. No chance of that: Perella could not compete with the dead girl's glorious brown eyes.

She laughed. 'No fear. Can you imagine trying to get Anacrites to sign an expenses chit for the hire of a sheep?'

So she still thought he was in operation, then.

'Let's talk about Rome,' I suggested. 'Double dealing is afoot; that's clear. It's in both our interests to explore who's doing what to whom, and why two thoroughly reasonable agents like ourselves have ended up in the same province on two different missions involving the same racket.'

'You mean,' mouthed Perella, 'are we on the same side?'

'I was sent by Laeta; I'll tell you that for nothing.'

'And I was not.'

'Now that raises an interesting question, Perella, because I had worked out you were a staffer for Anacrites- but the last time I saw him he was lying in my mother's house with the fare for the ferrymen to Hades all ready in his outstretched paw.'

'The Praetorians have got him in their camp.'

'I arranged that.'

'I saw him there.'

'Oh so I'm dealing with a girl who mingles with Guardsmen. Now that's a real professional!'

'I do what I have to.'

'Spare my blushes; I'm a shy boy.'

'We all work well together.' That's usually a pious lie.

'How fortunate,' I said. Still, the intelligence service was attached to the Guard. 'Did the Praetorians tell you he was with them?'

'I tracked him down myself, after you told me he had been beaten up. It was hard going, I admit. In the end I came to ask you where he was-' I remembered giving her my address. 'You'd just left Rome, but someone put me on to your mother. She didn't tell me where he was, but she had a big pot of soup bubbling, and I guessed it was for the invalid. When she went out with a basket, I followed her.'

'Ma's still taking Anacrites broth?' I was amazed.

'According to the Praetorians she regards him as her responsibility.'

I had to think about that. 'And when you took your own bunch of flowers to his sickbed, exactly how was your unlikable superior?'

'As tricky as ever.' This was a shrewd lady. 'He croaked and moaned as sick men always do. Maybe he was dying. Maybe the bastard was rallying and fighting back.'

'And Ma's still nursing him? I don't believe it! In the Praetorian camp?'

'The Praetorians are great lumps of slush. They adore the maternal virtues and such old-fashioned tripe. Anyway, Anacrites is safe with them. If he survives he'll think your mother's wonderful.'

I experienced a swooning dread that I would go home to Rome and find my mother married off to the Chief Spy. Never fear; she would have to divorce Pa first. They would never sort out arrangements while neither was on speaking terms.

'And you talked to Anacrites? What did he say?'

'Nothing useful.'

'How like him!'

'You saw the state he was in. It was only a couple of days after you left.'

'So who sent you here?'

'Own initiative.'

'Do you have the authority?'

'I do now!' Perella laughed, fished down inside her satchel and held something up for me to see. It was a seal ring; rather poor chalcedony; its cartouche showing two elephants with entwined trunks. 'Selia had it. I found it when I searched her. She must have stolen it when she clonked Anacrites.'

'You searched her?' I inquired politely. 'Would that be before or after you squeezed very hard on her pearly throat?' I received a sideways look. 'I knew the ring was missing, Perella. Knowing Anacrites, I assumed he heard Selia and her heavies creeping up behind him, so he swallowed it to safeguard public funds.'

Perella liked that. After she finished laughing she spun the ring in the air, then threw it as far as possible across the road and into a copse opposite. I applauded the action gently. I always enjoy a rebel. And with Selia dead, the ring was no longer useful evidence. 'I'll tell Anacrites you've got it, Falco. He'll be on at you about it for the next fifty years.'

'I can live with that. What are you doing here?' I demanded again.

Perella pursed her mouth and looked sorrowful. I was still trying to reconcile in my mind that this dumpy fright in her frumpish wrappings was a highly efficient agent-not just a damsel in a short dancing frock who listened in at dinners to earn herself a few denarii, but a woman who worked alone for weeks on end, who traveled, and who