Lindsey Davis - A dying light in Corduba

He went straight to the girl. Considering he had admitted to me that the public were wrongly convinced he would marry her, it might have been kinder to keep his distance. But he was murmuring shock and regret. Then as Claudia collapsed in tears, he stooped over her chair, holding one of her hands and with his other arm gently around her hunched shoulders.

Young men are not normally so good with the bereaved. Maybe Helena and I were wrong about him. It is possible to take against someone, then continue to loathe them out of pure prejudice. Maybe Quadratus was a perfectly well- meaning lad, with a kind heart…

On the other hand, Claudia had not been crying until he spoke to her.

Claudia struggled to calm herself. She brushed away the tears and leaned forwards to free herself from the young man's solicitous embrace. 'Tiberius, I want to ask you something -'

I interrupted her. 'If and when Quinctius Quadratus is required to answer questions, I'll deal with it.' The girl caught my eye and fell silent. I wondered whether he noticed she might now have doubts about his probity.

Quadratus straightened up, remembering to put a hand to his sprained back. He was rather pale. His good looks were strong enough to take it. His physique was too sturdy for him to took anything other than bouncingly fit. 'Falco, it's perfectly obvious you believe I have done wrong somewhere. I would like to answer your questions and clear things up!' Very good. Spoken like an innocent man, in fact.

'I have nothing to ask you, quaestor.'

'You always use my title as if it were an insult… I wish to have these suspicions removed!'

'You are not under suspicion.'

'That is clearly untrue.' He sounded so pained a court would free him on the spot. Juries love a man who goes to the trouble of bad acting. 'This is all so unjust, Falco. It seems I cannot move in Baetica without incurring censure. Even the proconsul seems disinclined to work with me – I suppose he thinks I was appointed through influence, not on merit. But is it my fault if my family has strong connections with Baetica? I was as qualified for this quaestorship as any man in Rome!'

'That is perfectly true,' I declared. So it was. Idiots with no sense of ethics are elected to the Senate every day. Some of them are bound to get dumped in important financial posts. 'But be lenient,' I teased him. 'You do meet the occasional eccentric governor who criticises his quaestor on the grounds that the lad has read Plato's Academy yet can't tell which way up an abacus should stand.'

Quadratus was letting himself get snappy: 'There are very competent people to do the sums, Falco!' True. And just as well, when the man who should be making decisions on the basis of those sums was unable to understand what the figures meant or whether his staff had fiddled them – and when he had told me he did not think there was any point in trying anyway. Quadratus ran his hands through his fine head of hair, looking troubled. 'I have done nothing wrong.'

I smiled. 'Criminals say that every day. It makes life very hard for innocent men: all the good speeches are used up.'

Quadratus frowned. 'So where does that put me?'

I assumed an expression of surprise. I was enjoying myself. It was time to force the issue too: 'Doing your job, I suggest.' If my doubts about Laeta's purely personal interest were right, there was no point expecting him to pursue the Quinctii once he had snatched Anacrites' position. I may as well give this one a chance to damn himself in office. 'Why not prove the proconsul wrong?

You came to Baetica to fill the quaestorship. The efficient management of your function is the best way to demonstrate your quality. Just tell him hunting's lost its allure, and you're back in harness. Either he'll accept it with good grace, or he'll have to dismiss you and you can go to Rome to fight your case officially.'

He looked at me as if I had just revealed the secrets of eternity. 'By Jove, I will! You are right, Falco!' He beamed. The transformation had been slick. No longer the suffering accused, he was so used to his family brazenly grabbing whatever they wanted, he now burst with confidence that he could force the proconsul to act as he desired. The coming confrontation might be more interesting than Quadratus realised. 'So you're not hounding me, after all?'

I smiled. Let him think that. 'First, quaestor, I shall place my carriage at your disposal to return you to your father's estate.'

'Of course; you must be sick of me. I'm sorry to be a burden. I've been looked after splendidly!'

'Think nothing of it,' smiled Helena.

'But I can't possibly take your carriage.'

'Well, you can't ride Prancer again.'

'That demon! I ordered Optatus to put him down -'

'Prancer does not belong to Optatus,' I interposed coldly. 'His owner is Annaeus Maximus, and his current trustee is me. He threw you; that is what horses do. You were hurt; that was your risk when you mounted him. I'm no horseman, but Prancer never gave me any trouble. Maybe you upset the beast.'

Swift to back off, he answered quietly, 'As you say, Falco.' Then he turned to Claudia Rufina. 'If I'm leaving, I can easily take you home at the same time.'

'I wouldn't hear of it,' I told him. If Rufius Constans had known something about the cartel, whoever wanted him silenced might wonder if he had talked about it to Claudia. If Claudia was correct in thinking her brother had been murdered, then she herself needed to be guarded – even from suspects with firm alibis. I was not having her left alone with the son of the man who was running the cartel. Quadratus, you need to travel the shortest way, for the sake of your sprained back. Helena and I will escort Claudia in her grandfather's carriage -'

'Maybe Tiberius would be more comfortable in that one,' suggested Claudia suddenly. 'It has a seat that cau be pulled out flat so he can lie at full stretch.'

I accepted the arrangement. Helena and I would escort Claudia in our own carriage. We would be going by way of the scene of the accident – though I did not tell the charming Tiberius that.

We all set out together in a procession of two carriages, but I had instructed the Rufius driver to maintain a dead slow speed, in order to protect the wounded gentleman. That enabled Marmarides to move ahead and lose them. I felt better after that, even though for much of the journey we were driving through the spreading fields of the Quinctius estate. I had ridden on top with Marmarides, leaving the women together, though Helena told me afterwards they had made a silent couple, with Claudia Rufina staring numbly into space. She had probably run out of energy and been overtaken at last by shock.

The scene of the young man's death had been marked by a portable altar. It stood at the roadside, so nobody could pass without taking note of the tragedy. On the slab stood flowers, bowls of oil, and wheaten cakes. A slave we found slumbering in the shade of a chestnut tree was supposed to be on guard at the sad shrine.

I remembered the place. The Rufius oil presses were in a yard before the main house; it was attached to what would have been the original farm, a villa rustica in an older style that had been abandoned when the family became prosperous and opted for a larger, more lavish and urban home. The old house was probably now occupied by bailiffs and overseers, though in the daytime it was normally deserted as they were all out in the fields and olive groves. That was how it must have been yesterday when young Rufius came out here.

I jumped down quickly as Marmarides pulled up. The main estate road ran through this yard. Marmarides made the mules wheel and parked the carriage on the shady side, where a horse was already tethered; I patted the animal as I went past and found its flanks warm from a recent ride. A flock of white geese came strutting towards me menacingly, but the slave who was guarding the shrine took a stick and drove them away.