Nemesis

Albia was right. He was there. One of them, on his own. I wondered where his brother was. Maybe the two agents were taking turns – - or if Anacrites was thoroughly obsessed with us, the other might be outside Petro and Maia's apartment. We would have to find out. My sister would become hysterical if she thought the spy was having her watched.

What we did next was totally unplanned. Petronius and I had been in this kind of dark situation once before, in Britain. An officer who betrayed our legion had to be dealt with. Justice was done. Maybe it gave us a taste for hard revenge. I for one had hoped we'd never find ourselves in such a situation again, but when we ended up here on the Embankment with the spy's agent, neither Petro nor I thought twice.

The man saw me coming, as I walked directly up to him. He was considering resistance when Petro tapped him on the shoulder from behind. We were already too close for him to run or fight. So we had him. We simply took him into custody.

At the time we presumed he thought Anacrites would rescue him. Perhaps he did think that. Perhaps we did. He may have expected we would merely argue about the surveillance, at worst throw a few punches, then order him to stop harassing me. That may even have been what we initially intended.

We searched him. It was no surprise to find that he was carrying: four knives of different sizes plus a short piece of rope that was only suitable for strangulation. We kept him standing in the road while we stripped him of this armoury, not bothering to be polite, though since it was a public place, we were not particularly brutal. He grunted a bit. Petro and I were feeling our way towards a decision.

Once we made him safe, we took him into my house. He had not expected that. Neither had we, to be honest; it seemed to follow on naturally from the search process. In this way we took him off the street and out of sight very rapidly – and we saved Petronius the potential awkwardness of imprisoning one of the spy's men at the station house. As soon as we stepped inside and the front door closed, everything became intensely serious.

We put him in a downstairs room. It was one of the damp ones I reserved for summer storage. In August he would not develop asthma or foot rot. The walls and door were thick. I pointed out that nobody would hear him call for help. Then we gagged him anyway. By this time, the black implications were growing. For him, there could now be no happy ending. For us, too, there was no going back.

We worked quietly. He endured it with resignation. This would not be a job for the vigiles punishment officer, Sergius and his metal-tanged whip; we would give it our personal treatment. The agent was an unimpressive specimen, but it was soon clear he would be professional. We bound his arms behind his back, tied his ankles together, then picked him up like a long parcel and roped him carefully to the top of a heavy bench, face up. We turned the bench on its end so he hung upside down, then left him to think about his situation while we went for refreshments and warned all my household that the room was out of bounds. Albia would probably have rushed straight in there, but she was out on one of her long solo walks.

Helena was apprehensive, though we tried to avoid her concern. She could tell Petro and I were beginning to feel raw. We had no regrets about our capture, but we had put ourselves in a grim deep hole. Helena drew herself up and said, 'I live here with very young children. I want to know what you are intending to do to this man.'

'Ask him questions.' Ask him questions in a particular way, a way that would produce answers – - eventually.

'And if he refuses to answer?'

'We'll improvise.'

'How long should it take?'

'Perhaps a few days, love.'

'Days! You are going to hurt him, aren't you?'

'No. There's no point.'

'Am I to provide food and drink for him?'

'That won't be necessary.'

'I wish you meant he won't be here that long.'

'No. We don't mean that.'

'You cannot starve him.' We could. With this kind of man, we would have to. And that was just the start.

'Well, maybe a bowl of delectable soup, with an aromatic scent,' suggested Petronius with a smile. 'After two or three days…' To stand in the room and tantalise.

'What about toilet facilities?' Helena demanded angrily.

'Good thinking! A bucket and a large sponge would be wonderful, please.' We would clean up as we went. Petro and I had fathered babies; we could look after a prisoner hygienically. A regime of squalor has been known to work, but Helena was right; this was our house.

Our first conversations with him were civilised.

'Anacrites sent you – agreed? How long have you known him?'

'Couldn't say.'

'I can check the payroll. I have contacts.'

'Couple of years.'

'Who is the other fellow I've been seeing with you? A brother of yours, I'm thinking.'

'Could be.'

'Where is he?'

'Gone to see his wife.'

'Where's that?'

'Where he lives.'

'Don't be funny with us. You two look like twins.'

'And you two look like donkey-fuckers.'

'I'll overlook that, but don't push us. Do you have a name?'

'Can't tell you.'

'Are you from Melita?'

'Where?'

'Small island.' Ma had a Melitan lodger once. Thinking about it, at close quarters, this man was not olive-skinned, hairy or stumpy enough. He was hard to place – - not from the East, but not from as far north as Gaul or Britain either.

'Don't insult me. I'm from Latium,' he claimed.

'You don't look like it.'

'How would you know?' A generation back, on Mother's side, I was from Latium myself. His accent was right: Latin, though countrified. This was almost the first occasion I had heard him speak. Three-quarters of Rome sounded just the same.

'What part of Latium?'

'Can't tell you.'

'Could be anywhere from Tibur to Tarracina. Lanuvium? Praeneste? Antium? Come on, what's the harm? Be specific'

Silence.

'At least he never says, Find out yourself!' Petronius weighed in. 'He's being wise. That only leads to a big kicking.'

'Not our style.'

'No; we're soft little cupids.'

'So far.' I think we knew we were on the cusp of surprising ourselves.

'He doesn't like you, Falco. Perhaps he has a point. Let me talk to him. I expect he wants to deal with a professional.'

'Just don't thump him. You'll defile my house.'

'Who needs to touch him? He's going to be sensible. Aren't you, sunshine? Tell us your name now.'

'Find out yourself

Oh dear. Well, Petronius Longus had warned him.

We left him soon afterwards. It was dinnertime. For us.

XLI

We continued. One at a time, then in tandem. Long pauses. Short pauses. For the agent, existence became concentrated on events in this small room. When Petronius and I left the door open briefly, so he heard a child's cry or a rattle of pots in the distance, it must have seemed other-worldly.

'What's your name?'

'Can't tell you.'

'Won't, you mean. Why did Anacrites order you to watch my house?'

'Only he knows.'

'We may have to ask him, then. So much easier all round, if we can stop him knowing you were so easily spotted and caught… No, I'm wrong. He must realise by now. How soon do you think he missed you? Can't have taken long. Where is he, I wonder? What's he going to do about you? You would think Praetorian Guards would rip in here to grab you back for him. 'Has he given up on you? Perhaps he's away – could he have gone to the Pontine Marshes, working the Modestus case? Looking for the Claudii – - have you heard about them?'

'Can't tell you.'

Petronius Longus suddenly spun the cameo in the air. 'Did you have this?'