Lindsey Davis - See Delphi And Die

'They had marital problems. They were known to have quarrelled the previous day.

'Was that a one-off, or routine?'

'It had happened throughout the trip. Their relationship was volatile; they often had heated exchanges.'

'Was the last quarrel special?'

'Who knows?'

'Subject?'

'People told me it was all about sex. Mind you,' said Aquillius, playing the man of the world, 'sex is what most tourists have on their minds most of the time.' I raised my eyebrows in gentle enquiry. 'They have all read up on the love lives of the gods. Then they start looking for personal experience. We have a terrible time at temples,' he informed me bitterly.

'Ah, the legendary Corinth temple prostitutes!'

'No, no; the pros are never any trouble. Well, they've been at it for centuries.'

'So what's the problem?' Informers have heard most things, but I felt wary.

'Travellers want thrills. We've caught them bribing priests to let them lurk in sanctuaries after dark, so they can breathlessly wait for a sensual experience with a god, – it's usually the priest himself, of course. Priests will screw anything… We regularly have to peel masturbating male visitors off cult statues, especially if it's a beautiful sculpture.'

'Appalling!'

'You said it.' Aquillius looked genuinely disgusted. 'Maintaining good relations with the locals is bloody hard when Roman visitors have no sense of shame. Still, none of the drooling here is quite as bad as they get with the Aphrodite of Cnidus -' The Aphrodite of Cnidus, a masterpiece by Praxiteles, had been the first fully nude statue of a goddess ever made and was still revered as sculptural perfection; I had seen Nero's copy in Rome and agreed with that. Aquillius was still ranting. 'Mind you, from what I've heard, the Cnidians ask for all they get, not least by charging extra to go through a special gate for a viewing of their Aphrodite's exquisite backside…'

The worldliness was a veneer. Aquillius seemed uncomfortable with his own salacious stories. He would not be the first virgin sent abroad for his country, who then grew up fast.

'So, quaestor – has Seven Sights Travel been accused of lewd midnight love trysts and temple desecration?'

'Not on this trip,' said Aquillius.

'Then let's get back to basics – What were your conclusions about the Valeria Ventidia murder?'

'I told you that: the husband did it.'

I gazed at him. 'Any proof?'

'Most likely candidate.'

I gazed at him some more.

'Falco, look, most of the others liked the girl. None of them stood to gain from bashing her head in with a discus.

'A jumping weight.'

'What's the difference?' Not much if you were the victim, dead. But her friends and family, wanting answers, deserved accuracy. 'The husband denied it, naturally.'

'You interviewed the others?'

'A sample.' That would be a small sample. It would not surprise me if Aquillius just asked the tour leader, Phineus. Phineus would have passed him off with whatever story suited Seven Sights.

'When was she missed?'

'When people settled down for the night. Then the husband went out, ostensibly to look for her.' I saw no reason for 'ostensibly'; looking for her seemed a good reaction, quarrel or no quarrel. Aquillius took a harder line. 'I reckon he found her – maybe in the arms of her lover – and that was when he killed her.'

'What was his answer to that charge?'

'Oh he claimed he never saw her.'

'And you were unable to find anyone who saw them together at the palaestra the night Valeria died?'

'Right.'

'The first real witnesses were next morning, when he found her dead?'

'Yes, that was tough. We had to let him go. This is a Roman province, Falco. We do have standards!'

Not high enough standards for me, however.

'What was your take on Milo of Dodona?' I asked, giving nothing away.

'Who's he?'

'A friend of the girl, apparently.'

'Silly cow! Milo was never mentioned.'

'Maybe nobody knew. Maybe Milo was Valeria's special little secret.' I left Aquillius to work out any relevance. 'Now tell me about the other dead girl – Marcella Caesia.'

'The one with the bloody awful father?' The quaestor groaned. Caesius must have really made a nuisance of himself, though Aquillius had only heard about it. 'Before I came to Greece.'

'Can I see the file? The father was given a banning order. He presumably had a lot of contact with your office, if he managed to annoy the governor that much.'

'Oh, I can't show the file to you, Falco. Security.' This probably meant the governor had given vent to his feelings too rudely – or more likely Aquillius knew the scroll had been put in their dead archive and re-used for packaging souvenirs the governor was sending home. 'Our view is that the girl either went up the Hill of Cronus to meet with a lover, or-' He lowered his voice in hollow sympathy. 'Or she did away with herself.'

I gave him the silent treatment again. Aquillius took it with his normal good nature. 'No, we don't really go for the lover story. By all accounts she was a quiet little scrap. No looks and no personality.'

I told him her father had mentioned that before her trip there had been 'trouble with a young man'. Aquillius blanked it and stuck with his own version. 'We think she got carried away by the mystique of Greece, and had a breakdown of some sort.'

'So officially it was suicide?'

'Yes, but the governor is a soft old cove. He just could not bring himself to say that to the father. When Caesius kept on agitating, the best solution was to expel him.'

I was tired. I had had a long sea journey; now I faced a week of irritation with bureaucracy. I gave up.

I asked for and was given the name of a reputable lodging house.

'Will Claudius Laeta foot your bill, Falco?'

'As the crime occurred out here, he'll suggest you fund me against your petty cash.'

Aquillius Macer accepted it. He was the province's finance officer but had no clue how to fiddle costings. He could have passed this expense straight back to Rome and saved the money for entertaining influential locals. He was a hopeless overseas ambassador – and I was keen to preserve my meagre funds from Laeta, so I let him subsidise me.

Aquillius then supplied the address where the Seven Sights group were staying, in some fleapit called the Helios. 'Well, all except the escort.'

A new surprise. 'Phineus! What's happened to him?'

'Oh nothing. But we all know Phineus, he's no problem. He has other groups to look after. He's been set loose on parole.' That almost sounded as if Phineus was given a governmental travel pass and free hay for his donkey.

'When Caesia died,' I butted in, sounding snappish, 'this Phineus fled straight back to Rome. It's suspicious to me! Any sign of similar in the Valeria case?'

'No, no. Phineus is all right,' Aquillius reassured me. 'Really knows his stuff. Understands this country better than anyone. If I was booking a culture tour, Falco, I'd travel with Seven Sights. Phineus gives people the best time.'

'So what if I want to interview this man?'

'Oh he'll be back.'

When I asked Aquillius if I could see his interview tablets from the Olympia investigation, he had to confess he had not taken any notes.

'Go and get your head down, Falco. Let me know if there is anything that we can do. Enjoy your stay. And don't forget – the governor's office only wants to help!'

To work. After waking late and settling in next day, Helena and I took ourselves for a mid-morning brunch at the Helios, the rooming house where the Seven Sights group were penned up. Glaucus had gone to find himself a gymnasium. Our youngsters were out seeing the town. We knew that meant looking for the temple with the official prostitutes, but we were confident they would just stand around and stare. Helena had said if they got into any sort of trouble in the administrative capital of a province where I was working, we would abandon them.