Lindsey Davis - See Delphi And Die

'Gods, I can't remember!' His voice was low and full of irritation. I lifted my mouth from the sticky cup, and gazed at him. He must have had an answer at the time – and I wanted to hear it. 'It was the last day,' he remarked, in his dismissive way.

Young Glaucus had told me the programme. As Phineus and I moved on, towards the Forum's massive triple entrance arch, beside the huge complex of the Peirene Fountain, I counted off the events. Day One: swearing in competitors, contests for heralds, sacrifices, orations. Day Two: Equestrian events (chariots and horse races, the pentathlon. Day Three: sacrifice of the hundred oxen to Zeus, foot races. Day Four: the contact sports – wrestling, boxing, pankration.'

'And race-in-armour,' Phineus added. Pedantic bastard.

'Day Four would be particularly trying for any women present, I imagine. Penned up, with nothing much to do, waiting for their male companions to come home, knowing the men would talk obsessively about blood and battery.'

'The way I see it,' Phineus said, pompously and without much sympathy, 'if these rich women agree to accompany their men on an athletics tour, they must know what they are letting themselves in for.'

'I think my wife might say, all women underestimate what men will impose on them!'

We were at the fountain now. We stood on the busy flight of steps, buffeted by people coming and going from the pools. It had six dramatic arches above gloomy cisterns, which lay some way below the level of the modern Forum. I wondered if that represented the old foundation level, before the brutal destruction wreaked in Rome's name by Corinth-conquering Mummius. 'Marcella Naevia is well travelled, I am told, but she and her young niece may have known little about the world of sport. Perhaps they were not prepared, Phineus. Was the aunt single, married, or widowed?'

'She was trouble,' said Phineus. 'Always raising protests. Always having a go.' A typical Seven Sights client, then.

'She took against you?' It was a guess, but accurate.

'She did.'

'Why?'

'Absolutely no idea.' I could have provided suggestions. Once more he closed off. Once more I waited. 'The woman was unreasonable.'

'The woman lost her niece, Phineus.'

'Nobody knew the girl was dead. She could have run off with a one-legged sprinter, for all anybody knew.'

'Do virgins run off with athletes or otherwise frequently on your tours?'

Phineus laughed coarsely. 'No, they usually just end up pregnant. My job is to spot the bulge in time to ship them back to Rome before they actually have the child – then my company washes its hands of them!'

'That must save you a lot of trouble,' I said. He took it as a compliment.

After a while, we moved down the wide fountain stair ourselves, into its water-cooled open courtyard. The pools were still below our level, reached by a few further steps. We could hear the water cascading from six lion-headed spouts. Overshadowed by the enclosing walls, we trod carefully on the wet slabs. I glanced up to admire the elegantly painted architecture, then reminded Phineus of where we left off. So – Day Four, three years ago; what happened, Phineus?'

'The men had a really good day at the contact sports, then I had arranged to take them to a feast.'

'You can't get them in to the official winners' banquet, presumably? The Prytaneion is reserved for competitors. So you fixed up an alternative – like the one you arranged this year for the current group?' That would be a dreary night with execrable refreshments, according to the angry group member Sertorius. 'Any good?' I could not resist the chance to be satirical.

'Of course. Then next morning, the bloody girl went missing, her damned aunt raised an outcry, and just when we were due to leave, we spent a day fruitlessly searching for darling Caesia. I'll never forget. It was bloody pouring with rain.

'She had vanished overnight?'

'The aunt reported it when we were ready to go. I think she waited until morning.' Phineus saw me looking sideways. 'In case darling Caesia had just found herself a boyfriend and wanted to stay with him.'

'Did you have any reason to think that she had?'

'Found a boyfriend? I wouldn't think so. She was a prim little mouse. Jumped, if anybody so much as looked at her. Didn't seem to like men.'

That was new. Inaccurate too. Her father had said there was an episode with a man at home in Rome. 'You thought she had no experience?'

'She hid behind the skirts of older women on the trip.' Hid from what, I wondered.

'Who was making advances?'

'Nobody.' Phineus looked annoyed. 'Don't twist my words. I never said that.'

I changed tack. 'Did you meet her father – afterwards?'

Now it was Phineus who jumped. 'Why? What's her father said, Falco?'

'Touchy! It was a straight question.'

'I met him,' stated Phineus. 'I was polite to him. He had lost his child and I sympathised. There simply wasn't anything that I could do to help the man. I know nothing about what happened to Marcella Caesia.' He paused then. I could not tell what he was thinking – but once again I felt there were things Phineus kept hidden. 'Except this, Falco – if Caesia really disappeared the night before we left, this is a certainty: none of the male clients on that tour harmed her. It would have been impossible. All of them were with me all Day Four, from when we left the women in the morning – with Caesia among them, perfectly all right.'

It had taken Aquillius and me a long time to find Phineus, and it had been a hard walk. Talking to him had scrambled my brain too. I knew he was bamboozling me. After I left him, I felt unsettled. Looking up at the crag, with its distant temples dreamily far off, I was filled with inertia. I lost interest in climbing the acropolis today.

I went back to the Elephant, learned that Helena had gone shopping, and fell back on an informer's honest standby: writing up my notes. (There are other excuses, less useful, though often more fun.) The good work just happened to occur in the courtyard of the Bay Mare, where eventually I was offered lunch. Since I was occupying their table, it would have been discourteous to refuse.

When Helena came and found me looking guilty with a bowl and goblet, I escaped censure due to guilt of her own. She carefully arranged the folds of her light skirt and graceful stole – a delaying tactic that I recognised. Then she admitted she had been purchasing ancient vases. We could afford these antiquities, for which Corinth had once been famous, but her intention was to export most back to Rome for my father's business. I said what I thought of that. Helena thought I was unfair to Pa. We had a satisfying wrangle about the meaning of 'unfairness', after which, since none of our party was around, we slunk off to our room, threw off our clothes, and reminded ourselves of what life together was all about.

Nothing that is anybody else's business.

Some time later, I remembered to give Helena the letter that Aquillius had brought from her brother.

Our vagrant scholar was as trusting as ever that we would have rushed out to Greece when he whistled. How he guessed we might come through Corinth was not revealed. Aulus wrote a blunt epistle, void of frills; explanations were not his strength. It boded ill for his career as a lawyer, should he ever take it up.

He must have reasoned we would go to Olympia because that was where the deaths took place, then since Corinth was roughly in a line with Athens, we would rest here on our way to see him. He had convinced himself that if we were in Greece we were coming to find him. That he, Aulus Camillus Aelianus the layabout law student, might not be my priority during a murder hunt never struck him. There was a time when I disliked this fellow; now I just despaired.