Petronius and I walked into the Palace next evening side by side. We were silent, our tread measured, both outwardly impassive. Anacrites had played this trick on us before. It didn’t work then—trust him to repeat the same manoeuvre.
As we neared his office, one of the pair I called the Melitan Brothers came out. When the man drew level, we made space for him to pass us. Afterwards we both stopped, pivoted on our boot heels and stared after him. He managed to keep looking ahead all the way to the end of the corridor, but could not help glancing back from the corner. Petro and I just stood there, watching him. He nipped away out of sight, ducking his head anxiously.
We strode into Anacrites’ room without knocking. As Petronius opened the door, he said loudly, ‘Standards are slacker than ever. He looks too foreign to be scuttling about like a rat, so near the Emperor—if I had a Palatine remit, I’d make him prove citizenship—or he’d find himself in a neck-collar.’
‘Who’s your runt?’ I demanded of Anacrites. He had been lounging in his usual pose, with his boots—a rather fine pair of russet calfskins—on his desk. He swung rapidly upright, knocking over an inkwell, while his clerk sniggered.
‘One of my men—’ Petronius guffawed at that, while I winced, miming pity. Anacrites mopped ink, thoroughly flustered. ‘Thank you, Phileros!’ That was a hint for the clerk, a puffy, overweight Delian slave, to make himself scarce so the spy could talk to us confidentially.
I pretended to think it was an order to fetch refreshments. ‘Mine’s an almond tart, Petronius likes raisin cakes. No cinnamon.’
Petro smacked his chops. ‘I’m ready for that! I’ll just have mulsum with it, not warmed too much, double honey. Falco takes wine and water, served in two beakers if they run to it.’
‘Hold the spice.’ I steered Phileros on his way as if the rest of us needed to get on. The clerk left, and Petronius made a point of closing the door.
It was a small room, and now there were three of us filling it. Petro and I took over. He was a large character, with substantial thighs and shoulders; Anacrites began to feel cramped. If he looked directly at one of us, the other went out of eyeshot, probably making rude hand gestures. I seized the clerk’s stool, shoving all his work aside, none too gently.
Then we sat still, with our hands clasped, like ten-year-old girls waiting for a story. ‘You first!’ ordered Petronius.
Anacrites was beaten. He abandoned any attempt to follow his own agenda. We were all supposed to be colleagues; he could not force us to play straight with him.
‘I have read the scrolls—’ he started. Petro and I glanced at each other, grimacing as if only a maniac ever read the case papers, let alone relied on them. ‘Now I need you to sum up your findings.’
‘Findings!’ said Petronius to me. ‘That’s a sophisticated new concept.’
Anacrites was almost pleading with us to settle down.
Abruptly, we became fully professional. We had agreed in advance we would give him no excuse to say we had been uncooperative. I briskly set out that I had encountered Modestus’ disappearance through his business deal with my father. I did not mention his nephew, Silanus. Why should I? He was neither a victim nor a suspect.
Petro described the discovery of the corpse and its identification from the letter Modestus was carrying. He spoke in a crisp voice, using vigiles vocabulary. He gave an account of our visit to the Claudii; how we had interviewed Probus; searched the area; found nothing.
‘What were you planning next?’ asked Anacrites.
‘Since the next move is all yours, what do you think?’ snapped Petro tetchily.
Anacrites ignored the question. ‘Do you have any other leads?’
Petronius shrugged. ‘No. We have to sit back and wait until another corpse turns up.’
Anacrites applied a sombre expression, which we dutifully mirrored.
‘Look, you can leave this all to me now. I can handle it.’ Time would show if that was right. He closed the meeting. ‘I hope you two stalwarts don’t feel I took your case away.’ We refused to look sore.
‘Oh, I have plenty to do chasing tunic-thieves at the baths,’ sneered Petronius.
‘Well, this isn’t quite on that level . . .’
‘Isn’t it?’
Anacrites then brought in the ploy he’d tried on me last night: he mentioned his plans for a dinner party, inviting Petronius too. ‘I had such a wonderful time when Falco and Helena entertained me at Saturnalia—’ Saturnalia may be a time for patching up feuds, but believe me, I was pushed into that hideous arrangement. ‘Such a glorious family atmosphere . . . Have you eaten with them at their house, Lucius Petronius?’ Of course he had! He was my best friend, living with my best sister. ‘I feel it’s time I issued some invitations in return . . .’
Previously noncommittal, Petronius Longus straightened up. He looked the spy directly in his weird eyes, which were almost two-toned, one shifty grey, one browner—and neither to be trusted. He stood up, placed both fists on the spy’s table and leaned across, full of menace. ‘I live with Maia Favonia,’ my pal declared heavily. ‘I know what you did to her. So no thanks!’
‘Oh dear! I was hoping to smooth over any unpleasantness, Falco!’ Anacrites was ghastly when he whined.
‘Not possible,’ I told him with a sneer, then I followed Petro from the room.
Outside, Phileros was hanging about nervously with such an enormous tray of confectionery his stretched arms could hardly hold it. Petronius cared about the poor, since he so often had cause to arrest them. He had ascertained it was all paid for out of the spy’s petty cash, not the shabby clerk’s own pocket. So we swept up as many cakes as we could carry, and took them away with us.
We gave them to a tramp, of course. Even if they were not dosed with aconite, to eat anything provided by Anacrites would have choked us.
There was no chance we would allow Anacrites to have our case. Earlier in the day Petronius and I had agreed on the same system as the last time he tried muscling in. We would proceed as normal. We would simply keep out of the spy’s view. Once we solved the case, we would report to Laeta.
According to Petro, he had Rubella’s support. I did not press for details.
Although we had implied to Anacrites we had reached a dead end, we had plenty of ideas. Petronius had issued an all-cohorts notice to look out for the runaway slave called Syrus, the one who had worked for Modestus and Primilla then was passed on to the butcher by their nephew. Petro’s men visited the other cohorts to inspect any slaves they had found roaming. There was another alert too: for the missing woman, Livia Primilla, or more likely her body.
It was too risky to have official warrants for Nobilis or any other Claudii; Anacrites was liable to hear about it. Nonetheless, efforts were being made to trace the couple who were supposed to work in Rome, using word of mouth among the vigiles. There was also a port watch for Nobilis, arranged through the Customs service and the vigiles out-station at Ostia. Meanwhile Petronius was having his clerk go through the official records of undesirables, looking for members of the family listed in Rome. If the two called Pius and Virtus had become astrologers or joined a weird religious cult, that could turn them up.
Rubella would not permit Petronius to leave Rome again, so I was going back to Antium: I would be looking for the estranged wife of Claudius Nobilis, hoping to hear about life on the inside with the Pontine freedmen.
First, came an assignment close to home. When I returned, Helena met me at the door.
‘Marcus, you have to do something and it must be now, while Petronius is at the station house. Your sister sent a message; she sounds upset—’
‘What’s up?’
‘Maia needs to see you. She doesn’t want Lucius told, because he will be too angry. Maia had an unwelcome visitor. Anacrites went to see her.’
Never mind Lucius Petronius. I was damned angry myself.