Lindsey Davis - A dying light in Corduba

'The proconsul soon told him otherwise. He was livid!' Placidus muttered. 'I heard about it from Cornelius.'

It sounded as though this proconsul liked breaking rules: he could spot a wrong move coming – and he was not afraid to dodge it. Not afraid of telling Vespasian he was annoyed, either. He was exceptional among men of his rank. No doubt he would live down to my expectations eventually, but at the moment it looked as though he was doing his job.

I returned to the main problem: 'I'll be fair to Aelianus. Assume he meant no harm. He arrived in Rome with the report for Anacrites, all full of the importance of his mission. He was bursting with it, and could simply have boasted to the wrong friend in Rome. He may not have realised the Quinctii were involved.'

Did Cornelius tell him what the sealed letter said?' Placidus scowled.

'Apparently Cornelius used some discretion. Of course that only excited the lad's curiosity; Aelianus confessed to me he read the report.'

Placidus was raging again: 'Oh, I despair of these young men!'

I smiled, though it took an effort. Pedants irritate me. 'At risk of sounding like a ghastly old republican grandfather, discipline and ethics are not requirements for the cursus honorem nowadays… With or without the connivance of Aelianus, someone altered the report. Even with that done, they knew Anacrites would be taking it further. They decided to stop him. The results were disastrous. Somebody killed the agent who was on surveillance when the oil producers came to Rome – and they made a brutal attack on Anacrites too.'

'Dear gods! Is Anacrites dead?'

'I don't know. But it was a serious misjudgement. It drew attention to the plot, rather than burying it. The investigation wasn't stopped, and won't be now.'

'If they had kept their heads,' Placidus philosophised, 'nobody could have proved anything. Inertia would set in. Cornelius has left; Quadratus is installed. He can't be left on hunting leave for ever. The financial affairs of this province are under his sole control. For myself, I expect every hour to be recalled to Rome, due to some quiet manipulation by the tireless Quinctius Attractus. Even if I stay on, anything I say can easily be dismissed as the ravings of an obsessive clerk with cracked ideas about fraud.'

'You know how the system operates,' I complimented him.

'I should do. It stinks – but gods alive, it rarely involves the murder of state servants!'

'No. That was arranged by somebody who doesn't know.' Somebody inexperienced. Someone who lacked the patience and confidence to wait and let the inertia Placidus mentioned creep insidiously through the state machine.

Placidus was frowning. 'Why are you so vague about the report, Falco? There ought to be copies of everything filed by the quaestor's clerk.'

'He tried to find it for me. Gone missing.'

'Why did you think that was?'

'Stolen to hide the evidence? Quinctius Quadratus is the obvious suspect. I'm only surprised he knew his way around the office.'

'I bet he doesn't,' Placidus retorted sourly. 'But he will one day. Maybe it wasn't him. Maybe the documents have been removed by someone else to stop him seeing them!'

'Who do you suggest?'

'The proconsul.'

If that was true, the bastard could have told me he had done it.

Placidus took a deep breath. When governors of provinces have to start prowling offices, censoring records in order to deceive their own deputies, order has broken down. Governors of provinces are not suppcsed to know how the filing system works (though of course they have all held lowly posts in their youth). Allowing them to fiddle with scrolls opened up frightening avenues. This was all filthier and more complex than Placidus had thought. 'So what now, Falco?'

'A tricky piece of reconnaissance.'

I explained about finding the dancer. The procurator did not know her, or was not aware of it if he did. He expressed a theory that men may watch, but do not learn the names of girls who entertain. Obviously his past life had been more mnocent than mine.

'And where does she fit in, Falco?'

'I found evidence that she and her African musicians carried out the attacks in Rome on Anacrites and his man.' 'What did she have against them?'

'Nothing personal, probably. I imagine that somebody paid her. If I find her I'll try to make her tell me who it was. And if his name happens to be one of those we have been discussing, you and the proconsul will be happy men.'

I told him the address the two shipping tycoons had given me. Placidus said he believed it was a dangerous area of town – though inspired by the excitement of our conversation, he decided he would come along with me.

I let him. I believed he was straight, but I do have my standards; he was still a man who held a salaried government post. If I got into trouble with Selia and needed a decoy, I would cheerfully throw him to her as bait.

Every town and city has its unhappy quarter. Hispalis might be a thriving hub of commerce, a producer of sculptors and poets, and a regional capital, but it too had potholed lanes where thin, dark-eyed women dragged screaming toddlers to market while very few men were in evidence. I could guess that the missing masculine element were all loafers or thieves, or had died of a wasting disease. Maybe I was prejudiced. Maybe I was just nervous. And maybe I was right to be.

Where the girl lived proved hard to find. There was no point asking directions. Even if anyone knew her, they would conceal it from us. We were too smart and too well- spoken – at least I was. Placidus looked pretty down-at- heel.

'This is a bad place, Falco!'

'Surprise me. At least with two of us, we can watch our backs in two directions.'

'Are we watching for anything in particular?' 'Everything.'

It was now late afternoon. The people of Hispalis were taking a lengthy siesta, much needed in the terrific heat of midsummer. The narrow lanes were quiet. We walked in the shade and trod softly.

Eventually we identified a lodging house, slightly larger and less grim than its surroundings, which appeared to match the directions Cyzacus and Norbanus had given me. A fat, unhelpful woman on a wonky stool peeling a cabbage into a chipped bowl agreed grumpily that Selia lived there. We were allowed up to knock on her door. She was out.

We went down and sat in what passed for a foodshop opposite. There appeared to be little to eat or drink, but a waiter was gambling furiously with a friend. He managed to break off long enough to ask us to wait until they finished the next round, after which he scribbled hasty sums on a piece of board, collected the dice again ready, then dashed together two beakers of something lukewarm and cut us two chunks from a loaf, before he and his pal reabsorbed themselves in their game.

Placidus carefully wiped the rim of his cup with the hem of his sleeve. I had learned to toss down a draught without touching the container. There would not be much point in hygienic precautions if the liquor itself was contaminated.

'This is a fine way to do work, Falco!' my companion sighed, settling in.

'If you want it, the job's yours.'

'I don't know if I'm qualified.'

'Can you sit in a bar doing nothing half the day, while you wait for a girl who wants to beat your brains out?'

'I can sit and wait – but I don't know what I'm supposed to do once she arrives.'

'Keep well out of the way,' I advised.

I was beginning to regret bringing him. The neighbourhood was too dangerous. We were getting into serious trouble, and Placidus did not deserve it. Neither did I perhaps, but at least I had some idea what to expect and it was my job.

These tiny streets with cramped dwellings had neither piped water nor sewerage. Ill-defined gutters in the stony tracks between hovels served to take away waste. In bad weather they must be atrocious; even in sunlight they stank. Depression was all around. A pitifully thin goat was tethered to a stick in the foodshop yard. Flies zoomed at us in angry circles. Somewhere a baby cried mournfully.