Lindsey Davis - The Ides of April

I had to sit in the Armilustrium to let the stodgy feast go down. I did not see Robigo. I had glimpsed no foxes since the night of the burning-torch ritual. I knew my Robigo had probably been killed in the Circus.

At mid-morning I went to the aediles' office. A worried slave told me Laia Gratiana had already arrived, but she had ensconced herself with Tiberius and they were not to be disturbed. Had she been more bearable I would have barged in anyway, but in her case, I decided to forego the cheeky option. I would wait until the miserable cow departed, and get the facts direct from the runner. It was bad enough putting up with him.

I had nowhere else I wanted to be, so I waited in their courtyard. It felt wrong, being at the aediles' headquarters without Andronicus. I was glad to be alone while I dealt with that pang. Still, it would kill the demon. This was just a public office. Like them all, the furniture was dingy and the bastards made you hang about.

I had declined refreshments, which was a mistake because I soon felt violently thirsty after the vigiles breakfast. There had been slabs of cured gammon and even the doorstep slices of bread were salty; it was food for men who sweated themselves to wraiths in firestorms. Biffing away the mosquitoes that habituated the fountain, I took a drink of water there after which, since the flow was glugging feebly, I found a stick and began poking the outlet to make it run better. It is a tradition in my family that wherever we go we improve people's water features for them, whether they invite us to or not. You do have to make sure you don't block the thing entirely by mistake, or at least not when they are looking.

Laia and Tiberius must have taken refreshments, because while I was bent over working my water magic, a slave collected their empties. When he carried out the tray, he left the door open behind him. I could then overhear a low murmur of voices. Knowing this was confidential material, I tried not to listen, though not very hard.

Morellus was keeping Venusia in a small, bare, smelly cell, where she could hear horrible noises nearby of men being beaten, drunks screaming, and other unpleasant sounds she could not even identify. She became frantic. The mere appearance of Laia Gratiana, playing the concerned mistress who might use influence to have Venusia released, had been enough to break her. In tears, Venusia had admitted what she claimed was the whole story: Andronicus had made her acquaintance, seduced her, and subsequently made a fool of her. He had even conned the foolish woman out of her life savings. Laia gave Tiberius details which were horribly familiar to me, concerning the archivist's tactics. By the sound of it, he had even taken Venusia for lunch at the same place he once took me.

When she found her lover cooling off, Venusia had become demanding; she threatened to tell Laia he was making trouble for the aedile. His response was the attack that killed Ino. Terrified, Venusia told her fears to Laia, though without admitting the full relationship at that point; she was sent to Aricia. I heard Tiberius comment that it might have been better to ask first, in case official advice was different because of the investigation. At that point someone, probably Tiberius himself, must have noticed the open door and quietly closed it.

I got on with making an elegant job of fountain maintenance. I had no need to hear what followed. I could amuse myself imagining Laia's response to anyone who dared suggest she should have taken advice.

Eventually the door reopened. Laia bounced out first, exclaiming, "It's no use arguing. I will do it!" as if she meant to have the runner's balls toasted in a bread roll.

The elderly maid I recognised must have been chaperoning; she scuttled ahead, presumably to organise Laia's chair, which I had spotted out in the street when I arrived earlier. Tiberius, tight-lipped, escorted Laia as far as the atrium, whence she would leave the building. He took her down the colonnade, which had a certain amount of entwined foliage between the columns; as I remained beside the fountain in one corner, neither of them spotted me. I was therefore a secret witness to their parting: Tiberius leaned in and gave Laia Gratiana a deliberate kiss on the cheek. After a moment of hesitation, she even returned the favour, albeit with an angry peck. Then she swirled her skirts as she turned away; she left without another word on either side.

This was unexpected. I could easily believe that Tiberius would act as a trusted go-between, given that Laia could not abide Manlius Faustus. But the cheek-kiss is a formality for intimates; it is strictly reserved for close colleagues, friends and family. Such farewells should not occur in Rome between a woman of her status, an elite member of the cult of Ceres, and a man who acted as little more than someone else's errand boy.

Well, well!

Tiberius stood with his thumbs in his belt, as if ensuring Laia was off the premises. When he turned and noticed me, I almost thought his expression lightened. I was innocently scratching moss off the shell-shaped fountain bowl. Dropping the stick, I brushed my hands clean. "Oh there you are!" I said off-handedly. If he feared I had seen his odd moment with Laia Gratiana, he did not blush.

I followed him into the room he occupied, which at least I had never been in with Andronicus. It must have been decorated for the aediles. Stirring wall frescos showed heroes shedding the blood of monsters, watched by vacuous maidens, in various rocky locations: the sort of lurid adventure people suppose takes place abroad. I had been abroad, and knew otherwise. None of the characters had all their clothes on. There were borders of pretty foliage and distant hints of the seaside. I could live with it. Not from choice, however.

I was offered a ladies' armchair, still warm from the thin backside of Laia. I hopped off that and found a cushioned X-stool. Tiberius took a hard man's stone seat. Not quite marble; Pa had several better ones in a corner of the antiques warehouse.

I sat meekly while my companion relayed all I had overheard Laia saying. He tipped back his head and looked down his nose at me, as if he guessed I had eavesdropped.

Tiberius sighed. "We have a problem."

"Really?"

"Andronicus escaped-

"Yes, while you were sauntering round the Aventine to give yourself courage, he was calmly eating an apple at my place and helping himself to my last sewing needle."

"I'm afraid he just walked out of our house with a basket of old documents, saying he was taking them to the rubbish-heap. The porter had not been warned, because we did not want to alarm Andronicus with any whiff of trouble coming. But he must have sensed it; he never came back. At least we have found and arrested the apothecary who supplied his poison, and warned others. Apparently Andronicus was quite open about who he was. He claimed he needed the drug to paint on arrows to shoot rats in the archive store."

"Every poisoner says that," I grumbled. "You would think apothecaries would be trained to report mad-eyed people who have a rat problem."

"You know him," replied Tiberius wearily. "A few smooth jokes about the vermin being unfeasibly tenacious, that big-eyed confident look of his, and he would convince anyone."

Me, for instance.

"Sorry," apologised Tiberius, although I had not spoken. He became brisker. "Look, I haven't time to be delicate about your love life. Plans must be made. You are not the only person to be harried by Andronicus since he walked free. Laia Gratiana is in danger. She felt somebody was following her around yesterday, and when she arrived home from the station house last night, she definitely saw a man lurking outside her apartment. She is sure it was the same person she glimpsed when Ino was attacked. She described Andronicus' build and distinctive colouring."