Nemesis

I let time pass before I answered. Perella put the nuts down. We gazed at one another. I said quietly, 'As usual, my role is complex. I cannot trust my principle – - insofar as I have any, given that the case I was investigating for a dead man's nephew was then grabbed by Anacrites.'

Perella folded her hands on her full waistline, as if she was just about to ask me where I got my stylish wrist purse. 'My whimsical employer!'

'Still?'

'Oh yes. You mean the marsh bugs, I suppose? He sent me there, if you're interested.' I must have looked surprised. 'I can swat flies, Falco.'

'And which fly,' I asked with emphasis, 'was he wanting you to swat?'

'A vicious coward called Nobilis.' Although Perella worked for Anacrites, he never quite managed to buy her loyalty. She was more likely to connive with me, a fellow professional. 'Nobilis must have heard I was coming, so he fled abroad.'

I could not blame him. 'So that's why he vanished! How did he know you were coming for him?'

'I wonder!' scoffed Perella. She implied Anacrites let it slip.

'Do you know where he went?'

'Pucinum.' Where had I heard that name recently? 'Fled into hiding with his grandma,' Perella said, sneeringly. 'That's where they come from, those animals. I could have gone over there and dealt with him easily.'

'Did Anacrites run out of cash for your fare?'

'Much more intriguing! Anacrites was going that way himself.'

Davis, Lindsey – Falco 20

Nemesis (2010)

'Aha! So Pucinum is in Istria!' I whistled through my bottom teeth, to give myself thinking time. 'I've remembered – he bought wine there on the trip… Has Anacrites done the business? Has he finished Nobilis himself?'

Perella gave me an odd look. 'Well, just like you, I'm off the case. But, just like you, I never let go. He didn't. Nobilis is back, according to my sources. Seen in Rome. Anacrites must have reprieved him.'

'Or he just bungled it.'

'Not so,' said Perella softly. 'Claudius Nobilis came home on the same ship as the spy. The pair of them together, tight as ticks.'

'Anacrites brought him back? But not in leg irons – - I haven't seen a trial announced!'

'Surprise! You'd think,' Perella told me in disgust, 'if he wanted Nobilis dead, as he told me, he could have found the chance to put a boot in the small of his back and shove the bastard overboard. Anacrites is handy enough – - and I hear you know all about that!'

'What?'

'A little bird twittered "Lepcis Magna"?'

'That birdie must fly absolutely everywhere! I'll wring his neck for tweeting.' Anacrites had fought as a gladiator at Lepcis. It was illegal for any but slaves. Citizens who fought in the arena became non-persons. News of it would make Anacrites a social outcast; he would lose his job, his ranking, his reputation, everything. I smiled gently. 'You are well informed. It's true; he spilled blood on the sand. But that information is mine to exploit, Perella. I was there.'

'I won't step in – even though I want his job.'

'You want his job?'

'Why not?' Indeed! The Praetorians would never accept her, yet Perella was just as shrewd, experienced and ruthless as the current incumbent. More intelligent, in my opinion. She had the talent. Only the ancient traditions of keeping women beside the hearth interfered with her qualifications. No tombstone yet had ever said: She kept the house and worked in wool – and slit a few throats for security reasons

… 'You could destroy Anacrites, Falco – - and presumably he knows it. Can you ever feel safe?'

'I have protection: other witnesses. If he touches me, they'll tell. So he's the one who lives in fear. I'm saving the information for the sweetest possible moment.'

The dancer took up her barley water peacefully. She still sounded like a well-disposed aunt, giving me career advice: 'Don't wait too long, my dear.'

LIV

I found my team, not as tipsy as I feared, merely unreliable. I said it was good to associate with happy men. Petronius had to work, or at least take a nap at the station house. The Camilli, being persons of leisure, rolled along with me. They had reached the clingy phase, where I was their best friend. Trailing them like seaweed stuck on an oar, I went up the Aventine to Ma's house, intending to collect Albia.

She had left, for home my mother said. 'Anacrites was here – he drops in, to see I am all right,' she confided in Aelianus and Justinus hoarsely. 'He knows my own don't give me a second thought. When I am found stone dead in my chair one morning, it will be Anacrites who raises the alarm.'

I cursed this libel and sat down on a bench. The Camilli did likewise, fitting in fast, as people did at Mother's house. They were clearly thinking: what a dear little old lady. She sat there, tiny and terrible, letting them believe it. Her beady black eyes rested wisely upon them. 'I hope my good-for-nothing son hasn't taken you drinking.'

'They were drinking; I was somewhere else, working,' I protested. 'Now I shall have to take them to the baths, have them home to dine, and sober them up for their trusting wives.'

'I don't expect trust comes into it!' reckoned Ma. The senators' sons looked shifty. Belated doubts about the dear little old lady filtered through their blearied brains.

Ma then described a cringe-making scene at her house earlier between Anacrites and Albia. 'He said "I always admire Junilla Tacita; you should come to her when you are troubled, dearie".' He cannot have called Albia 'dearie'; it was the word Ma used, to avoid truly accepting this outsider as a granddaughter. Albia saw Ma's reservations; she only came up here when Helena sent her. 'We all had a nice chat, then when your Albia was ready to go, he so kindly offered to see her home. Beautiful manners,' Ma insisted to the Camilli.

Aulus said in a solemn, lawyer's voice, 'You can tell a man's character by the way he treats young women.' He thought he was being satiricaclass="underline" big mistake, Aulus.

'You are the one who broke her poor little heart, are you?' asked Ma, with her crucifying sneer. 'Well, you would know all about character!'

I judged it time to leave.

Albia was safe at home. Anacrites had left her on the doorstep, merely sending in greetings to Helena; he probably knew this would only increase her anxiety – - and my wrath. Albia failed to see what the fuss was about.

She dined with us, despite Aulus being present. Nothing kept Albia from her food. So she overheard us relating our progress. Helena summed up: 'Virtus has been dealt with; let us not remember how. He said Pius had gone home to the Pontine Marshes. Perella believes Nobilis is back in Rome, though you have no leads, unless it was him Marcus saw at the spy's house. Now we know the "Melitans" are his brothers that does seem likely. You won't get in there a second time to look. Relations with Anacrites are deteriorating, and he will hardly invite us all to dinner again – '

With yelps of pain, her brothers and I pleaded to be excused if he did.

'I could go to his house!' piped up Albia. 'He is perfectly nice to me! He says I can go at any time.'

'Keep away from him,' snapped Helena. 'Have respect for yourself, Albia.'

'Don't listen when he makes out you're special!' I said crushingly, 'Saying he's never met anybody like you is a very old line, sweetheart. When a man – any man – who has a collection of obscene art invites a young girl to visit, there is only one reason. It's nothing to do with culture.'

'Is this from experience, Falco?' Albia asked, disingenuously. 'How did you meet Helena Justina?' murmured our little troublemaker.

'I worked for her father. He hired me. I met her. She hired me as well. I never invited her to my horrible hutch.' Helena turned up there of her own accord. That was how I knew enough about strong-minded girls to be afraid for Albia.

'Was it when you lived at Fountain Court? I've seen it! I went with Lentullus, hiding that cameo. Is that how you know how the art invitation works, Falco? Did you lure girls up to your garret, pretending your father was an auctioneer so you had curios to show them – - then when they had climbed all those stairs and found out there was nothing, it was too late and they were too weary to argue?'