Lindsey Davis - A dying light in Corduba

I was glad I had spoken to these two in person, despite the long trip. I did feel their story carried weight. Their assessment of the producers matched my own. Norbanus and Cyzacus seemed too self-reliant to follow the lead of an entrepreneur from the political world – and too capable of making money on their own account. Not that I could ever rely on this: if the men Attractus had summoned to Rome had leapt at his suggestion, they were hardly likely to tell me. Price-fixing works on subtlety. Nobody ever admits it is happening.

I was leaving. 'I said there were two reasons why I came to Baetica.'

Cyzacus stopped wielding his toothpick. 'What is the other one?' For a vague old man, he responded well.

'It's not pleasant. The night you dined on the Palatine a man was killed.'

'Nothing to do with us.'

'I think it was. Another man, a high official, was seriously wounded. He may be dead too. Both victims were at the dinner. Both were in fact dining with Attractus – which means he's implicated, and as his guests so are you. Somebody slipped up that night – and it won't go away.' This was a long shot. I was hoping that if the Baeticans were unconnected with the attacks, they would turn in the real perpetrator to absolve themselves.

'We can't help you,' said Norbanus. So much for that pious hope.

'Oh? Then why did you leave Rome so fast the next day?'

'Our business was concluded. Since we turned down his offer, we all thought it would be presuming on the senator's hospitality to remain.'

'You've just admitted that an offer was made,' I pointed out. Norbanus grinned evilly.

The excuse for leaving could be true. Staying at the Quinctius house after refusing to play the Attractus game could have been embarrassing. Besides, if they hated the plan, they might want to escape before Attractus tried putting on more pressure. And if they had said no, then they heard about the murder and suspected it was connected with the cartel scheme, they were bound to flee.

'It looks bad,' I returned sombrely. 'A sudden departure straight after a killing tends to appear significant in court. Part of my work includes finding evidence for banisters, and I can assure you that's the sort of tale that makes them gloat and think of massive fees.'

'You're making wild accusations,' Norbanus told me coolly.

'No!

My simple reply for once caused silence.

Cyzacus recovered himself. 'We offer our sympathy to the victims.'

'Then perhaps you would like to help. I need to find a girl who comes from Hispalis. In delicate official parlance: we think she may have important information relating to the deaths.'

'She did it?' Norbanus sneered crudely.

I smiled. 'She was at the dinner, dancing for Attractus; he claims he doesn't know her though he paid her fee. You may have recognised her; her name's Selia – probably.'

To my surprise they made no quibble about it: they knew Selia. It was her real name. She was a local girl of moderate talent, struggling to make a career where all the demand was for dancers from (Jades. (Lades dancers had organised a closed shop on the entertainment circuit… it had a familiar ring.) Cyzacus and Norbanus remembered seeing Selia at the dinner on the Palatine; they had been surprised, but assumed she had finally made the big breakthrough in Rome. Recently they had heard she was back in Hispalis, so they assumed it came to nothing.

I stared Cyzacus in the eye. 'Just how well do you kuow her? Would Selia be the lovely who came here looking for you recently?'

'Girls like Selia are not welcome at the bargees' clubroom,' he maintained.

'So she never found you?'

'That's right,' he answered with a cool glare that suggested he was lying again, but that I would extract no more.

Patiently I explained why I was asking: 'There's another woman going around asking questions about this business. They're both trouble. I need to know which is up to what. Your fellow members implied that the girl who came here was a looker – but their standards may be more flexible than mine.' The daytime skivers playing dice looked as if anything in a dress would make them salivate. 'So was it Selia or not?'

'Since I never saw her,' sneered Cyzacus, 'I can't say.'

He and Norbanus were closing up on me, but when I asked the most important question they did know the answer and they told me straight away: they gave me directions to where Selia lived.

I walked back to the quays, needing to rid my mind of other men enjoying a long convivial lunch – which they called doing business. I hated my work. I was tired of working alone, unable to trust even the people who had commissioned me. This was a worse case than usual. I was sick of being a plaything in the pointless bureaucratic feud between Laeta and Anacrites.

If Helena had been here, she would have made me feel ludicrous by appearing to sympathise – then suggesting that what I wanted was a new job as a cut-out-fringe sewer in the suede-purse market, with a stall on the Via Ostiana. Just thinking about it made me grin. I needed her.

I found myself staring at the shipping. More boats than I would have expected had plied their way through the straits of Hercules and into the broad gulf at the start of the Atlantic Ocean, past Gades, past the lighthouse at Turris Caepionis, and up the wide estuary of the Baetis to reach Hispalis. Huge merchantmen from all around the Inner Sea were here, and even deep-sea ships that ventured around the outer edge of Lusitania to make landfall in North Gaul and Britain by the hard route. They lined the wharves; they jostled in the channel. Some were anchored out in the river, for lack of space on the quays. There was a queueing system for the barges that came down from Corduba. And this was April, not even the olive harvesting season.

It wasn't April. May had arrived. Some time this month, unavoidably, Helena would produce our child. While I stood here dreaming she might even be having it…

Now I had Selia's address. Even so, I was in no hurry to go chasing there. I was thinking about this just as carefully as a man who finally made a successful move on a girl who had been playing hard to get – and with the same mixture of excitement and nerves. I would be lucky if the worst that happened was acquiring a slapped face.

Before I could tackle the dancer, I had to prepare myself. Brace myself. She was a woman; I could handle her. Well, I was a man so I assumed I could; plenty of us have been caught out like that. She might even be on my side – if I had a side. The evidence in Rome said Selia was a killer. It might be wrong. She might work for Anacrites. If she did, someone else must have attacked Valentinus and him – unless the Chief Spy was even more behind with approving expenses for his agents than usual. That would be typical, though not many of his deadbeats responded by trying to crack his skull.

If Selia was in the clear I still had to identify the real killer. That was a very big unknown.

Whatever the truth – and being realistic, I thought she was the killer – this woman knew I had come to Baetica; she would be waiting for me. I even considered approaching the local watch and asking for an escort, an option I rejected out of sheer Roman prejudice. I would rather go alone. But I had no intention of just strolling up to her door and asking for a drink of water like an innocent passer-by. One wrong move and the dangerous lady might kill me.

I must have been looking grim. For once the Fates decided that I was so pessimistic I might give up this job altogether and deprive them of a lot of fun. So for the first time ever they decided to offer me a helping hand.

The hand was ink-stained and nail-bitten, attached to a weedy arm which protruded from a shrunken long-sleeved tunic with extremely ragged cuffs. The arm hung from a shoulder over which was slung a worn satchel; its flap was folded back for easy access and I could see note-tablets inside. The shoulder served as a bony hanger for the rest of the tunic, which came down below the knees of a short, sad-dooking man with pouchy eyes and uncombed hair. Every dry old thong of his sandals had curled back on itself at the edges. He had the air of being much rebuffed and cursed. He was clearly ill-paid. I deduced, even before he confirmed the tragedy, that he worked for the government.