'You were never there to tell.'
'All right. Larius, how did anyone else acquire this paintbrush?'
'From the hut while I was out, I suppose. I leave everything here.'
'Any chance Pomponius himself might have borrowed it?'
'What, to tickle his balls at the baths?' mocked Larius. 'Or cleaning his ears out. I hear it's a new fashion among the arty fraternity- better than a plebeian scoop.'
'Answer the question.'
'As for pinching a brush, I don't suppose that snooty beggar ever knew where our site huts were.'
'What happened when you wanted to show him a proposed design?'
'We carried sketches to the great man's audience chamber and waited in a queue for two hours.'
'You did not like Pomponius?'
'Architects? I never do,' scoffed Larius offhandedly. 'Loathing self important people is a churlish habit I picked up from you.'
'And why are you so ripe for incrimination, happy nephew? Whom have you upset?'
'What, me?'
'Is Camillus Justinus the only man you've beaten up recently?'
'Oh yes.'
'Have you slept with anybody other than Virginia?'
'Certainly not!' He was a real rogue. A total hypocrite.
'Has Virginia another lover?'
'Famous for it, I should say.'
'So is she attached to anyone who bears grudges?'
'She's a girl who gets herself attached. No one regular, if that's any help.'
'And what about you, Larius? Everyone knows you? Everyone knows what you're like nowadays?'
'What do you mean- what I'm like?'
'Start with layabout,' I suggested cruelly. 'Try a wine-swigging, fornicating, quarrelsome byword for trouble.'
'You're thinking of my uncle,' said Larius, as ever surprising me with sudden caustic repartee.
'True.'
'I get around,' confessed the lad. I remembered him as a shy, poetry-loving dreamer the single-minded romantic who had once spurned my dirty profession in favour of high ideals and art. Now he had learned to hold his own in rough company- and to despise me.
'You'd better come along to my quarters,' I said quietly. 'On reflection, I'm taking you into custody until this is sorted out. Let's get this clear- I have young children and polite nursing mothers in my party, not to mention the noble Aelianus withering away from his doggie bite, so we'll have no drinking and no riots.'
'I see you've gone staid,' sneered Larius.
'Another thing,' I ordered him. 'Keep your damn hands off my children's nurse!'
'Who's that?' he asked, full of rosebud ignorance. He knew who I meant. He did not fool me. He was born on the Aventine, into the feckless Didii.
To be honest, his attitude gave me a nostalgic pang.
XLI
I was worse than staid. I was suffering like any householder whose domestic life had filled up with crying infants, sex-crazed nephews, disobedient freed women unfinished business tasks and jealous rivals who wanted him dismissed or dead. I was like the harassed foolish father in a Greek play. This was no milieu for a city informer. Next thing I would find myself buying pornographic oil lamps to leer at in the office and giving myself flatulence as I worried about inheritance tax.
Helena shot me an odd look when I deposited Larius in her care. He seemed startled to see her. He had once adored her. This was awkward for the new man who trifled with women for a bet then breezed off, callous and untouched.
Helena greeted him with an affectionate kiss on the cheek, a refined gesture that upset his equilibrium further. 'Oh this is splendid! Come and meet your little cousins, Larius…'
Horrified, Larius shot me a baleful glance. I returned an annoying grin, then left to investigate who really killed Pomponius.
Magnus was still supervising his assistants near the old palace. They had extended the lines for foundations where the two huge new wings would meet the existing buildings. When the dug trenches currently petered out, strings on pegs now showed the planned links. Magnus himself was scribbling down calculations for the levels, his instrument satchel lying open on the ground.
'This yours?' I asked casually, holding something out to him as if I had found it lying around on site. Absorbed in his work, he was fooled by my indifferent tone.
'I've been searching for that!' His eyes came up from the long string that I was proffering and I saw him freeze.
I had deliberately asked the question so his student helpers would hear. Having witnesses put pressure on. 'That's a five-four-three,' one of them informed me helpfully. Magnus said nothing. 'It's used to form a hypotenuse triangle when we set out a right angle.'
'That right? Geometry is an amazing science! And I thought this was just any old length of twine. May I have a private word, Magnus? And bring your instruments, please.'
Magnus came to my office without a quibble. He realised his setting-out string was what had strangled Pomponius. Now I had to decide, did he know that before I produced it or did he simply work out why the knotted twine was in my possession today?
We walked the short distance to my office. Gaius the clerk prepared to leave, but I signalled him to remain as a witness. He sank back on his seat, undecided whether this was to be a routine interview or something more serious.
'You've declared your movements last night, Magnus.' For a second the surveyor looked at Gaius. There was no doubt about it. The glance, involuntary and cut short, was enough to make me wonder if my clerk was his pretty boy. Did everyone on this site have unmanly Greek tastes? 'One of my team is working on the witness statements, so I've not seen them yet. Remind me, please.'
'What team, Falco?'
'Never mind what bloody team!' I snarled. 'Answer the question, Magnus.'
'I was in my quarters.'
'Anyone vouch for that?'
'Afraid not.'
'Always the clever witness answer,' I told him. 'Avoids what sounds like easy collusion, after the event. Genuinely innocent men quite often lack alibis- that's because they had no idea they needed to fix one.' It would not clear Magnus but it would actually not condemn him either.
I took the satchel from him and flapped it open on a table. In silence we both studied the neatly ranged equipment, all secured under stitched leather loops. Spare pegs and a small mallet. A pocket sundial. Rulers, including a fine, well-worn folding one marked with both Roman and Greek measurements. Stylus and wax tablets. And a hinged metal pair of mapping compasses.
'Used these today?'
'No.'
I carefully released the compasses from their restraining strip of leather, using only my fingertips. I teased them open. Barely visible along one pointed prong was a faint brown stain. But under the leather band into which the instrument had been pushed more staining was obvious.
'Blood,' I decided. It certainly was not cartography ink.
Magnus was watching me. He was intelligent, forthright and highly respected on this site. He also hated
