Lindsey Davis - The Jupiter Myth

'Ah, what you need are big estates where the labour force is money; if a body goes missing, it's a commercial loss.'

'Better still, I need to be able to demand compensation for expensive Greek accountants, masseurs and musicians!' Popillius laughed.

'You have looked into the prospects, then?' I asked.

'Only joking,' he fibbed. 'Bringing a high-class legal service to the province is my mission. I want to do commercial and maritime case-work.'

I told him that was highly commendable. He seemed unused to irony.

'Sorry, Falco – I don't recall what your wife said you do?'

Sometimes I cannot be bothered to bluff. 'Government work. I'm looking into a suspicious death that seems to be gangster-related.'

Popillius raised his light-coloured eyebrows. 'That is surely not why you have come to visit me?' If he was offended, he was working out just how wronged, financially, he intended to be.

'I am looking at everyone,' I assured him gently. 'I hate to disappoint you, but letting me eliminate you from my enquiry won't lead to slander fees!'

Popillius gave me a level, warning stare. 'I don't bother with slander claims, Falco.'

The implication was that if I upset him, he would do for me in much more dangerous ways.

I smiled. 'How long have you been in the province?'

'Just a couple of days.' Not enough to be my suspect – if it was the truth.

'Ever found your way to a drinking dive called the Shower of Gold?'

'Never. I prefer to entertain myself at home, with a well-aged amphora.'

'Very wise,' I said. 'You can buy a good Italian variety, even this far north. Let it settle well. Then dribble it through a wine-strainer two or three times – and pour it down a drain. Table wines from Germany and Gaul seem to survive the route march better.'

'Thank you for the advice,' he replied.

'It's no trouble,' I said.

There was no point hanging around just to discuss his gustation habits. Lawyers are snobs. He was bound to believe in more expensive vintages than I ever thought worthwhile for home consumption with a pan-fried mullet. The grand wines of the Empire stood no chance of travelling well so far as this, but I deduced it would be hard to shake his prejudice.

I could see no sign that he had companions staying here, and if he had only just arrived, what new friends could he possibly have made? So the big question was, when Popillius poured the precious grape of an evening, who shared it with him?

We left, no better and no worse informed than when we came. Slowly we walked back towards the residence. Both Helena and I were mulling over what kind of man this lawyer seemed to be, and what his real quality was. I was paying little attention to our surroundings and less to passers-by.

But I was all there when a familiar voice hissed at me from a doorway: 'Marcus darling, come over here! I must have a little word with you -'

Chloris!

She was leaning on a doorframe as if she had been there a long time waiting for me. 'Olympus, you made me jump, you fiend! Are you watching the lawyer's house?'

'What lawyer? I was looking for you, darling.'

Chloris ignored Helena. Helena's gaze was fixed on me. 'What's it about, Chloris?'

'The Briton in the well.'

Anything else could have been brushed aside. This I had to pursue. I turned to Helena, giving her the choice. With an angry shrug, she left me to it. As she strode off alone, a fool might have taken her departure for a sign of trust. Not me.

Chloris looked pleased with herself. 'That was easy!'

'Wrong. Make it quick.'

'We can't talk in the street.'

'Find a bar then.'

'My house is nearby.'

It was not that near. 'We'll go to a bar,' I said tersely. We walked to a food shop, fairly neat and tidy, called the Cradle in the Tree. I obtained the usual unappetizing British cold snacks.

We sat on a bench in the street. This was some way from the wharves so I felt we were probably out of the extortionists' patch. Even so, by instinct I checked to see if the proprietor was leaning on the counter above, listening. He had gone inside.

'You look tired,' commented Chloris, who looked immaculate. Arena performers are fit and they know how to present themselves. 'Is your snooty goddess a goer? Rumpled bedclothes all night, was it?'

'Chloris, get on with it.'

'This is no way to approach a witness.'

'Witness to what?'

'The death scene.'

'Oh yes? Look, don't mess me about on this.'

'You just assume I know nothing,' she complained. She could have been nagging me for not paying her enough attention. Well, perhaps she was.

'Right.' I would do this properly. 'I am investigating the death of a Briton called Verovolcus, a visitor to Londinium from a tribe on the south coast. His body was discovered head-first down a well at a filthy mead kennel down towards the river, four days ago. It looks as if he was robbed. There could be more to it. So do you, Chloris, know anything that may help me find his killers?'

'How about, I know who did it?'

'Who?'

'Ask me questions. I'm a witness.'

'You'll be a suspect at this rate – and the questioning will done by the governor's horrible torture squad.'

'I won't talk to them.'

I opened my mouth to say that everyone talked to the quaestiones. Then I stopped. She was not boasting.

'They could even kill me,' sneered Chloris. 'But you know all I would say to them would be 'Stuff you'. So charming.

'In that case, they certainly would kill you… Tell me then. Were you there that night?'

'Close enough.'

'In the bar?'

'No, but right outside looking in.' There were windows, though I remembered they were small and barred.

'What brought you there?'

'Tailing a man who has been bothering us.'

'He's brave! Name?'

'That was one thing I was hoping to find out.'

'Helena Justina told me you are being pressured by an entrepreneur.'

'He won't get us.'

I sighed patiently. 'I know that, Chloris. But then I know you, while he's not so well informed. I'm sure you will make him quite aware of his mistake! He's a Roman?'

'He's a bastard.'

'I deduced that… Either help, or shut up. If you just want to tantalise me, I'm off-'

She grinned. 'I'll help. The tantalising comes later '

'Oh please! Just get on with it.'

Chloris licked her fingers clean and stared up at the blue sky. 'I'll say this for the wife – she knows how to keep him skewered to the home bed!' I said nothing. My food lay uneaten alongside me on the bench. In this company I was not touching stuffed flatbread – or indeed, anything else; I felt a distinct lack of appetite. Chloris continued, as demurely as she did anything: 'The big punter – or he thinks he is – had been at our house nagging us again about letting him take over. We sent him off, then I slipped after. I followed him half across town to that dump, the Shower of Gold. Outside, he had a muffled meet with those other bastards, Pyro and Splice.'

'I've seen them.'

'Pigs,' Chloris denounced them, without much feeling. 'They held a confab then all went inside the joint. I sneaked up close. Soon the Briton came along. He took an interest -'

'In the place?'

'No, dummy.'

'In you? That's Verovolcus. He would.'

'You knew him then, Marcus?' She sounded surprised.

'We had met. That's how I came to be involved in the case afterwards. You shook him off, I take it?'

'He stood no chance.'

'Why not? He had a nice big torque.' That reminded me: I had to find out what had happened to it.

'And a nice big opinion of himself. How could I fall for him, after I'd been with you, darling?' Chloris laughed. 'I may have moaned about you, Falco, but you show up well against a hairy Britunculus any day.'