could he possibly have made? So the big question was, when Popillius poured the precious grape of an evening, who shared it with him?
We left, no better and no worse informed than when we came. Slowly we walked back toward the residence. Both Helena and I were mulling over what kind of man this lawyer seemed to be, and what his real quality was. I was paying little attention to our surroundings and less to passersby.
But I was all there when a familiar voice hissed at me from a doorway: 'Marcus darling, come over here! I must have a little word with you-' Chloris!
XXVIII
She was leaning on a doorframe as if she had been there a long time waiting for me.
'Olympus, you made me jump, you fiend! Are you watching the lawyer's house?'
'What lawyer? I was looking for you, darling.' Chloris ignored Helena. Helena's gaze was fixed on me. 'What's it about, Chloris?'
'The Briton in the well.'
Anything else could have been brushed aside. This I had to pursue. I turned to Helena, giving her the choice. With an angry shrug, she left me to it. As she strode off alone, a fool might have taken her departure for a sign of trust. Not me.
Chloris looked pleased with herself. 'That was easy!'
'Wrong. Make it quick.'
'We can't talk in the street.'
'Find a bar then.'
'My house is nearby.'
It was not that near. 'We'll go to a bar,' I said tersely. We walked to a foodshop, fairly neat and tidy, called the Cradle in the Tree. I obtained the usual unappetizing British cold snacks.
We sat on a bench in the street. This was some way from the wharves so I felt we were probably out of the extortionists' patch. Even so, by instinct I checked to see if the proprietor was leaning on the counter above, listening. He had gone inside.
'You look tired,' commented Chloris, who looked immaculate. Arena performers are fit and they know how to present themselves. 'Is your snooty goddess a goer? Rumpled bedclothes all night, was it?'
'Chloris, get on with it.'
'This is no way to approach a witness.'
'Witness to what?'
'The death scene.'
'Oh yes? Look, don't mess me about on this.'
'You just assume I know nothing,' she complained. She could have been nagging me for not paying her enough attention. Well, perhaps she was.
'Right.' I would do this properly. 'I am investigating the death of a Briton called Verovolcus, a visitor to Londinium from a tribe on the south coast. His body was discovered headfirst down a well at a filthy mead kennel down towards the river, four days ago. It looks as if he was robbed. There could be more to it. So, do you, Chloris, know anything that might help me find his killers?'
'How about, I know who did it?'
'Who?'
'Ask me questions. I'm a witness.'
'You'll be a suspect at this rate-and the questioning will be done by the governor's horrible torture squad.'
'I won't talk to them.'
I opened my mouth to say everyone talked to the quaestiones. Then I stopped. She was not boasting.
'They could even kill me,' sneered Chloris. 'But you know all I would say to them would be, Stuff you!'
'So charming. In that case, they certainly would kill you… Tell me then. Were you there that night?'
'Close enough.'
'In the bar?'
'No, but right outside looking in.' There were windows, though I remembered they were small and barred. 'What brought you there?'
'Tailing a man who has been bothering us.'
'He's brave! Name?'
'That was one thing I was hoping to find out.'
'Helena Justina told me you are being pressured by an entrepreneur.'
'He won't get us.'
I sighed patiently. 'I know that, Chloris. But then I know you, while he's not so well informed. I'm sure you will make him quite aware of his mistake! He's a Roman?'
'He's a bastard.'
'I deduced that… Either help or shut up. If you just want to tantalize me, I'm off.'
She grinned. 'I'll help. The tantalizing comes later.'
'Oh please! Just get on with it.'
Chloris licked her fingers clean and stared up at the blue sky. 'I'll say this for the wife-she knows how to keep him skewered to the home bed!' I said nothing. My food lay uneaten alongside me on the bench. In this company I was not touching stuffed flatbread-or indeed, anything else; I felt a distinct lack of appetite. Chloris continued, as demurely as she did anything: 'The big punter-or he thinks he is-had been at our house nagging us again about letting him take over. We sent him off, then I slipped after. I followed him half across town to that dump, the Shower of Gold. Outside, he had a muffled meet with those other bastards, Pyro and Splice.'
'I've seen them.'
'Pigs,' Chloris denounced them, without much feeling. 'They held a confab then all went inside the joint. I sneaked up close. Soon the Briton came along. He took an interest-'
'In the place?'
'No, dummy.'
'In you? That's Verovolcus. He would.'
'You knew him then, Marcus?' She sounded surprised.
'We had met. That's how I came to be involved in the case afterwards. You shook him off, I take it?'
'He stood no chance.'
'Why not? He had a nice big torque.' That reminded me: I had to find out what happened to it.
'And a nice big opinion of himself. How could I fall for him, after I had been with you, darling?' Chloris laughed. 'I may have moaned about you, Falco, but you show up well against a hairy Britunculus any day.'
'Thanks for nothing.'
'Pay me back later… He was going into the Shower of Gold, but there was no way I would join him in there. I didn't want the big fellow to know I had come after him.'
'But it sounds as if the Briton may have had a prearrangement?'
She nodded. 'He said somebody was waiting.'
'What happened when Verovolcus went inside?'
'Not much, for some time. I couldn't see much anyway, the window was too small. I had decided to give up and leave. Then I overheard them all arguing.'
'Listen-would you say that they knew each other prior to that?'
'It seemed so. I could see them all sitting at the same table. Your Briton had gone straight up to them; they were definitely the people he had arranged to meet.'
'Could you tell what they were discussing?'
'No. But Verovolcus was getting the worst of it. There was a lot of talk, then it clearly got nasty. Looked as if Verovolcus was blustering but he was out of his league. Our mighty would-be manager was running it. He did
