Lindsey Davis - Nemesis

She toddled into a corner to brew herself some nettle tea before we started. I gazed around, impressed that one elderly woman could have collected so many doilies and corn dollies, so many horrible old curtains, so many amulets with evil eyes or hieroglyphs or stars. The air was thick with dust, every surface was crammed with eccentric objects, the high window was veiled. I bet every superstitious old woman from a two-mile radius came here for her special Thursdays. I bet half of them left her something in their wills.

Nothing that smacked obviously of witchcraft was out on view. The desiccated claws and vials of toad's blood must be behind the musty swathes of curtain.

Eventually she settled down with her tea bowl and I learned Claudius Virtus was a regular at the seances. 'He was interested in the Dark Side. Always full of questions – - I don't know where he got his theories. From his own strange brain, if you ask me.'

'Are you going to tell me what you do at your meetings?'

'We try to contact the spirits of the dead. I have the gift to call them up from the Underworld.'

'Really? And did Virtus ask about anyone in particular?'

'Usually he watched the rest. He tried to talk to his mother once.'

'Did she answer?'

'No.'

'Why would that be?'

Abruptly, Alis turned confiding: 'I got the creeps, Falco. I don't know why. I just felt I didn't want to be in the middle of that conversation.'

'You have some control then?' I asked with a smile.

The seer sipped her nettle tea, with the manners of a lady.

She told me Virtus had never missed a meeting until a few weeks ago. His mother – Casta – had died a couple of years before, he told Alis; he claimed to be close to her and said all the family adored the woman.

'My information is she was vicious,' I said. 'She had twenty children and was reputed to treat them all very coldly.'

'That's your answer,' replied Alis comfortably. 'It explains Virtus. He tells himself she was wonderful; he wants to believe it, doesn't he? In his poor mind, his ma is a darling who loved him. He misses her now, because he wants her to have been someone he should miss. If you were to say to him what you just said to me about his mother, he'd deny it furiously – - and probably attack you.' I believed that.

Alis had winkled out of him that his father died before his mother, and that he had other relatives, some in Rome. 'More than one?'

'I gained that impression. He spoke of "the boys".'

'There are sisters too.'

Alis shrugged. She knew about the twin, believed he lived not far away, but had never set eyes on him. Plotia, the wife, had never been mentioned. When I commented that I was not surprised, Alis pulled a face and nodded as if she knew what I meant. Of course I despised this woman and her arcane dealings – yet in her frumpy, frowsty way, she was a good judge of character; she had to be.

'Did you think him capable of great violence?'

'Aren't all men?'

Virtus had ceased coming to the meetings, without warning. I took this as evidence that he was the agent we had sent to a hard death in the mines.

Alis put down her tea bowl. She sat motionless, as if listening. 'I don't feel we have lost him, Falco. He is still among those who wander the earth in body.'

I said I was sure she knew more about that than me, then I made my farewells as politely as a sceptic could.

This conversation had made me feel closer to Virtus now than in all the time Petronius and I had spent with him.

We men had a short case conference as we walked back towards the river. We would have preferred to stay at the bar, but that meant the helpful barman and his inquisitive wife would have listened. Anyway, Petro hated their drink.

We agreed it was futile for us to tackle Anacrites. However, the time had come to explore whether any higher authorities would take an interest. Camillus senior was on friendly terms with the Emperor; the senator might speak on the subject next time he was chatting with Vespasian. It would be tricky: so tricky, I shied off it until we gathered better evidence though I instructed Aulus and Quintus to tell their father what we believed. We had convinced ourselves, but that was not the same as proof.

Titus might be open to an approach, though his reputation varied from kind-hearted and affable to debauched and brutal. As commander of the Praetorians, he was Anacrites' commander too; that could rebound on us. If we failed to persuade him the spy was compromised, we could unleash a violent backlash from Anacrites – all for nothing. Even if Titus believed us, it could look as if he had misjudged his man. Nobody wanted Titus Caesar as an enemy. His dinner parties were more fun than the spy's – - but he exercised the power of life or death over people who upset him.

I said I would have another word with Laeta and Momus. All the others thought that an excellent idea. They went to a bar near the Theatre of Marcellus that Petro reckoned was really well worth visiting, while they waved me off to the Palace.

I saw Laeta first, my preference. He did not turn me away. His method was to greet you with interest, listen gravely – then if your story was unwelcome politically, he let you down without a qualm. Unsurprisingly, he let me down.

'It's too thin. On what you've got, Falco, I don't see this going anywhere. Anacrites will simply say he made a mistake when he employed those men, and thank you for pointing it out to him.'

'Then he'll get me for it.'

'Of course. What do you expect with his background?'

'What does that mean?' I raised an eyebrow. 'As far as I know, his background is the same as yours. An imperial slave who made good -in his case, for unfathomable reasons.'

'He is bright,' Laeta said tersely.

'I've known pavement sweepers who could think and talk and grade dog turds to a system as they collected them – but such men don't end up in senior positions.'

'Anacrites was always known for his intellect – though he was more physical than most secretaries, which suits his calling. He had pliability; he could bend with the political breeze – which, when he and I were coming up the staff list, was a must!'

'He adapted himself to the quirks of emperors, whether mad, half-mad, drunkard or plain incompetent?'

'Still at it. Titus thinks well of him.'

'But you don't. You have a singer spying on him at home,' I threw in.

Laeta brushed it aside. 'The same man who observes me for Anacrites! Suspicion is a game we all play. Nevertheless, Marcus Didius, if you find genuine proof of corruption, I am sure I can persuade the old man to act on it.'

'Well, thanks! Tell me what you meant about the spy's background,' I persisted.

Laeta gave me a fond shake of the head – but then what he said was enlightening: 'Many of us feel he never fitted in. You compared him with me – - but my grandmother was a favourite of the Empress Livia; I have respected brothers and cousins in the secretariats. Anacrites came up the ladder by himself, always a loner. It gave him an edge, honed his ambition – - but he never shakes off his isolation.'

'Not isolated enough for me; he crushes up against me and my family.'

Laeta laughed softly. 'I wonder why?' He went no further, naturally. 'So, Falco, dare I ask: are you and your cronies still investigating the Pontine Marsh murders?'

I gave him a straight look. 'How can we, when our last instructions were to drop the case? Instructions, Claudius Laeta, which you gave us!'

He laughed again. I smiled with him as a courtesy. But as soon as I left, I stopped smiling.

Momus, I was certain, never had a slave grandmama who was cosy with the old Empress. He must have crawled out of an egg in a streak of hot slime somewhere. Any horrible siblings were basking in rich men's zoos or their heads were on walls as hunters' trophies.