Alexandria

morning and asked for everything. I’m told he wants to send personal effects to the family.’

‘What family did Nibytas have?’

‘None I know of.’

‘You let those notebooks of his go?’

Pastous had discovered a liking for intrigue. ‘No. I claimed you had taken everything. I decided that if they were so urgently in demand, they must be significant . . .’

‘Is the stuff here?’ Everything off the table where the old man worked had been secreted in a little back room. ‘I want Aelianus to go through it. ’The noble youth pulled a very ignoble face. ’If you have free time, Pastous, maybe you can help. You don’t need to read every line, but decide what Nibytas thought he was doing. Aulus, just give us an overview, as rapidly as you can. Pull out anything significant, then the residue can be dispatched to Philetus. Jumble it up a bit to keep him busy.’

Before I left them to it, I asked Pastous to tell me what he knew about scrolls being found on rubbish dumps. It was clear the assistant was uneasy. ‘I know that it once happened,’ he admitted.

‘And?’

‘It caused much unpleasantness. Theon was informed, and he managed to reclaim all the scrolls. The incident made him extremely angry’

‘How had the scrolls got there?’

‘Junior staff had selected them for disposal. Unread for a long time, or duplicates. They had been instructed that such scrolls were no longer needed.’

‘Not by Theon, I take it! What do you think of the principle, Pastous?’

He stiffened up and sailed into a heartfelt speech. ‘It is a subject we discuss regularly. Can old books that have not been looked at for decades, or even centuries, justifiably be thrown out to increase shelf space? Why do you need duplicates? Then there is the question of quality - should works that everyone knows are terrible still be lovingly kept and cared for, or should they be ruthlessly purged?’

‘And the Library takes what line?’

‘That we keep them.’ Pastous was definite. ‘Little-read items may still be requested one day. Works that seem bad may be reassessed - or if not, they are still needed to confirm how bad they were.’

‘So who ordered the staff to clear the shelves?’ asked Aulus.

‘A management decision. Or so the juniors thought. Changes are always happening in large organisations. A memo comes around. New instructions appear, often anonymous, almost as if they fell through a window like moonbeams.’

What Pastous said seemed all too familiar.

Aulus had less experience than me of the madness that infects public administration. ‘How can such things happen? Surely someone would have double-checked? Theon cannot have allowed such important and controversial instructions to be given to his staff behind his back?’

Four days had passed since Theon died. In an organisation, that counted as eternity. His loyal staff, once completely tight-lipped, were already prepared to criticise him. Pastous himself seemed more confident today, as if his place in the hierarchy had changed. He admitted to Aulus, ’Theon had not been much in evidence. He was going through a bad patch.’

‘Illness?’

The assistant gazed at the ground. ‘Money worries, it was rumoured.’

‘Did he gamble on the horses?’

I had asked this before, when we first met Pastous, and he had avoided the question. This time he was more forthcoming. ‘I believe he did. Men came here looking for him. He disappeared for a few days afterwards. But if there was trouble, I assumed he cleared it up, because he was back at his post when a civic-minded member of the public came to report finding the dumped scrolls.’

‘So how did Theon tackle that?’

‘First priority was to reclaim them. Afterwards, he confirmed that Library policy was to keep all scrolls. And I think - though of course it was done very discreetly - he had a terrific argument with the Director.’

‘Had Philetus sent the scrolls to the rubbish dump?’ Pastous answered my question only with a weary shrug. Staff had given up any hope of loosening the Director’s grip. Philetus was stifling their initiative and their sense of responsibility.

Aulus could always be relied upon to give delicate subjects a big thumping push. ‘Was there any crossover between Theon’s personal money worries and Library finances? I mean, did he -’

‘Certainly not!’ cried Pastous. Fortunately, he liked us enough now not to flounce off in horror.

‘That would have been a terrible scandal,’ I remarked.

I was thinking it was the kind of scandal I had come across too many times - the kind that could have fatal results if it got out of hand.

Leaving Aulus and Pastous to wade through the morass Nibytas had bequeathed to us, I decided to try to tackle Zenon once more about the Museion’s accounts.

He was in the observatory on the roof again. He seemed to hide up there as often as possible, tinkering with equipment. Remembering how he went for me last time, I made sure I kept his sky-scrutinising chair between us. He noticed.

‘Getting anywhere, Falco?’

I sighed dramatically. ’In my dark moments, my enquiries here seem particularly futile. Did Theon kill himself or was he killed? Did Nibytas die of old age? Did young Heras die by accident and if not, who killed him, was he the real target or did they intend to murder someone else? Are any of these deaths linked, and do they have any connection to how the Museion and the Great Library are run? Does it matter? Do I care? Would I ever let a child of mine come here to study in this crazy home of warped minds, with its once-fine reputation apparently now hanging in tatters due to incompetence and maladministration on a monumental scale?’

Zenon looked slightly taken aback. ‘What maladministration have you found?’

I let him wonder. ‘Tell me the truth, Zenon. The figures are a mess, aren’t they? I am not blaming you - I imagine that however hard you struggle to impose sound business practice and prudence, still others - we know who - constantly thwart you.’ He was letting me talk, so I pressed on. ‘I haven’t seen your accounts, but I hear that at the Library things have got so bad, even penny-pinching measures like clearing out old scrolls have been attempted. Somebody is desperate.’

‘I wouldn’t say that, Falco.’

‘If funds are tight, you need a concerted effort to economise. This can’t be co-ordinated properly during a full-blown disagreement about holdings policy. What? - The Director sneaks in behind Theon’s back to clear out old scrolls he reckons are not worth keeping. Theon violently disagrees. The spectre of the Librarian on hands and knees in a rubbish dump, retrieving his stock then wheeling it back here through the filthy streets in handcarts, is quite unedifying.’

‘There is no financial crisis calling for the Director’s measures,’ Zenon protested.

‘It was all pointless, anyway,’ I growled. ‘Savings would have been minimal. Tossing out a few scrolls and closing a few cupboards would never achieve much. Staff still have to be paid for. You still have to maintain your building - not cheap when it is a famous monument, constructed on a fabulous scale, with four-hundred-year-old irreplaceable antique fittings. All that happened was that the staff ended up depressed, feeling that they work for a declining organisation that has lost its prestige and energy.’

‘Calm down,’ said Zenon. ‘All that was just Philetus trying to upset Theon.’

‘Why?’

‘Because Theon refused to be pushed around by a fool.’

‘He objected to short-sighted policy?’

‘He objected to the whole current regime. What can we do? Do you have the power to overturn it?’ asked Zenon, clearly without much faith in me.

‘Depends on the root cause. One man’s ineptitude can always be altered - by removing the man.’

‘Not if he is in a post for life.’

‘Don’t give up. Under Vespasian, incompetents who thought they were fireproof have nevertheless found themselves uplifted to occupy absolutely meaningless positions where they can do no harm.’

‘It will never happen here.’ Under the current Director’s stifling rule, Zenon, like Theon before him, had