Lindsey Davis - See Delphi And Die

'It was sacrilege!' raged Barzanes. Which told us for sure just how the sanctum priests viewed it – and why they wanted a cover-up.

Unfortunately we were then interrupted. Our youngsters came pelting out through the temple porch behind us. They had glowing faces, still enthralled by the Statue of Zeus.

'We saw the god's face right up close!' Gaius was bursting with excitement. 'The statue is made from enormous sheets of gold and ivory – it's hollow with a huge support of wooden beams inside.'

'Full of rats and mice!' squealed Albia.' We saw mice running about in the shadows!'

'Nero tried to steal the statue.' Gaius, the natural leader of this little group, had found another guide and grilled him. 'But the god let out a huge burst of raucous laughter so the workmen fled!' Like me, Gaius avoided spiritual explanations. He lowered his voice tactfully. 'It may have been the supports shifting, after the workmen disturbed them.'

I looked around. In the turmoil of their arrival, the tour guide Barzanes had made good his escape. I reckoned if I tried to find him another day, he would be missing from the site.

Cornelius had a brisk attitude to wonders. 'So, Uncle Marcus! This is a grand place here – so where will you be taking us to next?'

'I am increasingly impressed by my brother!' Back at the hostel, Helena studied his letter more carefully.

'In good Roman homes,' I pointed out to Albia, 'nobody reads correspondence on their dining couch. Helena Justina was brought up in senatorial style. She knows the evening meal is reserved for elegant conversation.'

Helena ignored us. Her father read the Daily Gazette over breakfast; otherwise, in the Camillus household meals were a chance for family rows. So it had been in my own family. We, however, never read on our couches because we could not afford couches; nor did we own scrolls. The only time anybody ever sent us a letter, it was the one from the Fifteenth Legion that said my brother had been killed in Judaea.

'Aulus has changed,' said Helena. 'Now that he is a scholar, suddenly his letters are full of fine detail.'

'Has he gone on to Athens like a good boy?' Never mind fine detail. I wanted to establish whether I was off the hook with his mother.

'Afraid not, darling. He has joined the sightseeing tour.'

'Oh wicked Aulus!' Nux looked up, recognising the growl I used for reprimanding her. As usual she wagged her tail at it.

'He has given us a list of the people in the group, with his comments on them,' Helena went on. 'A map of where their tent was, showing how it related to the palaestra. And a heading for notes on the case – but no notes.'

'Tantalising!'

'He says, sorry, no time – with actually, no bloody ideas! scribbled afterwards, using a different pen nib.'

'That's the old Aulus. Slapdash and unapologetic.' All the same, I would have liked to have him here, to insult him to his face. We were a long way from home. Evenings, by starlight, are when you yearn for the familiar places, things, and people. Even a rather brusque brother-in-law.

'He seems to have equipped himself with a very nice traveller's writing-set,' Helena mused, inspecting the handwriting. 'How useful for his studies – if he ever starts.'

'Unless his inkpots have stupendous seals, the ink will dry out while he's travelling. If he's very unlucky, it will leak over all his white tunics.'

Any minute now, Helena and I would move from missing Aulus to missing our children. To sidetrack that, Helena showed me the list of participants in the travel group Aulus had drawn up for us.

Phineus: organiser; brilliant or appalling, depends who you ask.

Indus: Seems to be disgraced (Crime? Financial? Politics?)

Marinus: widower, looking for new partner; amiable cove

Helvia: widow, well-meaning = fairly stupid

Cleonymus and Cleonyma: come into money (freedmen?) (awful!)

Turcianus Opimus: 'Last chance to see the world before I die'

Ti Sertorius Niger and mousy wifey: ghastly parents; him very rude

Tiberius and Tiberia: horrendous children, dragged by parents

Amaranthus and Minucia: Couple; running away? (adultery?) (fun folk)

Volcasius: no personality = no one wants to sit with him

Statianus and Valeria: Newly-weds (one dainty and dead/one dumb and dazed)

'Rude, but lucid!' I grinned.

We all agreed they sounded dire, though Helena's conscience made her suggest that Volcasius, with whom nobody wanted to sit, was perhaps only shy. The rest of us guffawed. I pictured this Volcasius. bony legs, always in a very large hat; a man who ignored local customs, offended guides and hoteliers, had no sense of danger when boulders were falling down rain-sodden mountainsides, always last to assemble when the group were moving on – yet, sadly, never quite left behind.

'Smelly,' Gaius contributed; he was probably correct.

'Like you are, Gaius!' muttered Cornelius.

Every group of people thrown together by accident contains one creep; we had all met them. I pointed out how fortunate my companions were that I had assembled our party on scientific lines, omitting anti-social loners in large hats. They guffawed again.

'A man like that could be the killer,' Helena said.

I disagreed. More likely he himself would be murdered by someone he had driven crazy with his odd behaviour.

As Helena stacked our foodbowls neatly, she asked, 'I wonder where they have all trotted off to? That's one thing Aulus doesn't say.'

'Sparta.' I knew this from the Tracks and Temples tour itinerary I had pinched from Polystratus. I went to fetch it from my baggage pack, to double-check. One thing was certain: my personal group was not going to Sparta. Helena and I had a pact. She hated the Spartan attitude to women. I loathed their treatment of their inferiors, the Helots. conquered, enslaved, maltreated, and hunted down by night as sport by belligerent Spartan youths.

I had brought other lists among my note-tablets. One was a roll-call of the tour Marcella Caesia took three years ago, the names given to me in Rome by her father. I lined up his research against our new list, but apart from Phineus there were no matches.

'So the mystery is solved: we want Phineus!' declaimed Albia.

Informers are more cautious; most of us have made mistakes over naming suspects too fast. I explained that Phineus would be crazy to be so obvious, that it now looked as if the two dead women had met dissimilar fates, probably at the hands of different killers – and that accusing Phineus was too easy.

'Simplicity is good!' Albia argued. She waved her wrists and posed her head elegantly, as if she were modelling Roman fashions under Helena's tutelage.

'If you accuse an entrepreneur unwisely, it's a very simple lawsuit for defamation.'

'Then you could defend us in court, Marcus Didius.'

'I only chase achievable compensation; I won't go bankrupt! I could just as easily mess up my life by becoming a trapeze artiste. Danger, thrills, and -'

'Going up in life,' capped Gaius.

'See more of the world, joined in Cornelius, catching on fast.

'In all its ups and downs!' I quipped. Helena shot us a look implying none of us had reached formal manhood.

After we stopped giggling, I explained that we had to find solid evidence, using mundane investigation techniques. All the young people lost interest. This would be how it felt to run an educational leisure tour, with reluctant adolescents hating the culture. Bored young people might start plotting mischief – though not, I thought, actual murder.

Albia was annoyed that I had dismissed her theory, but she did support me next morning when I went to reconnoitre the spot where the Seven Sights tour had camped. Helena wanted to come, but was unwell; Greek food had struck her down. After breakfast Albia and I walked quickly southwards from the Leomdaion along the embankment formed by the great retaining wall of the River Kladeos. The Kladeos was a hesitant trickle, wandering among bulrushes, though no doubt in flood it became dramatic.