Lindsey Davis - Time to Depart

'Didius Falco, the world travelled' He didn't believe a word of it. 'What really happened?'

I grinned, then gave him a neat summary of five months' travelling: 'I got my ear gnawed by a few camels. Helena was stung by a scorpion and spent a lot of money – much of it my father's, I'm delighted to say.' We had brought a quantity of stuff back with us; Petro had promised to help me unload in return for my assistance tonight. 'I ended up in a hack job scribbling Greek jokes for second-rate touring actors.'

His eyebrows shot up. 'I thought you went on a special task for the Palace?'

'The bureaucratic mission rapidly fell through – especially after I found out that Vespasian's Chief Spy had sent a message ahead of me encouraging my hosts to lock me up. Or worse,' I concluded gloomily.

'Anacrites? The bastard.' Petronius had no time for officials, whatever smooth title they dressed themselves up in. 'Did he land you in bad trouble?'

'I survived.'

Petronius was frowning. He viewed my career like a kind of blocked gutter that needed a hefty poke with a stick to shift the sludge and get it running properly. He saw himself as the expert with the stick. 'What was the point, Falco? What's in it for Vespasian if he destroys a first-class agent?'

'Interesting question.' In fact there could be several reasons why the Emperor might feel a foreign jail was just the place for me. I was an upstart who wanted social promotion; since he disapproved of informers, the idea of letting me wear the gold ring and strut like a man of substance had always rankled. Most of the time he owed me money for my undercover services; he would love to renege. Then one ofhis sons had tender feelings towards a certain young lady who preferred to live with me, while I had a long-term feud with the other. Either Titus or Domitian might have asked their pa to dump me. Besides, who really likes a hireling who handles problems with dispatch, then comes back wearing a happy smile and expecting a huge cash reward?

'I don't know why you work for him,' Petronius grumbled angrily.

'I work for myself,' I said.

'That's news!'

'That's the truth. Even if the damned secretariat offers me a straight task with a set fee and vast expenses, I won't consider it. From now on, I stick to private commissions – which was what I had to do after I got shoved in shit in Arabia by bloody Anacrites and his devious games.'

'You're a dope,' Petro answered disbelievingly. 'You can't resist the challenge. One nod from the man in purple and you'll scuttle back.'

I grabbed the flagon and helped us both to more wine. It still tasted like a cure for swine fever. 'Petro, the man in purple didn't try to sell me to a camel trader.'

Whatever I thought of the rank of emperor, Vespasian the man was completely straight. Even Petronius grudgingly allowed the point. 'So it was the spy, Falco. What's the difference?'

'Who knows? But Anacrites thinks I'm rotting in some desert citadel; this could be the lever I'm looking for to show him up. I'll give my travelogue to Vespasian before the spy finds out I'm alive and back in Rome.'

It was good to unload my anger, but there were better things to talk about. 'Come to dinner; when we get settled back in – bring Silvia and the girls. We'll have a gathering and tell our gripping travellers' tales.'

'How's Helena?' Petro remembered to ask when I mentioned his own wife and children.

'Fine. And no, we're not married, or planning it, nor quarrelling and planning to separate.'

'Any signs of impending fatherhood?'

'Certainly not!' I retorted, like a man who knew how to handle his private life. I hoped Petro would not notice I was bluffing. 'When I'm honoured, you'll be the first to know… Olympus! Talking to you is like fending off my mother.'

'Wonderful woman,' he commented in his aggravating way.

I carried on with a feeling of false confidence. 'Oh yes, Ma's a credit to the community. If everyone on the Aventine was as stiff-backed as my mother, you'd have no work to do. Unfortunately some of them are called Balbinus Pius – about whom you still owe me an expLaetation or two.'

This time the distraction worked. With a glow of satisfaction Petronius threw back his great head and stretched his long legs under the table. Beaming proudly, he settled down to bring me up to date.

'You realise,' Petro began, with mock-heroic grandeur, 'we're talking about the most vicious, seditious operator in organised crime who ever fixed his claws on the Aventine?'

'And now you've caught him!' I grinned admiringly.

He ignored the jesting undertone. 'Believe it, Falco!'

I was enjoying myself. Petronius Longus was a stolid, patient worker. I could not remember that I had ever heard him boasting; it was good to see him thrilled by his own success for once.

Inches taller than me to start with, he even seemed to have grown. His quiet manner tended to disguise how powerfully built he was. Slow of step and wry of speech, he could lean on wrongdoers before they even saw him coming, but once Petro applied weight, resistance caved in fast. He ran the watch enquiry team without seeming to exert himself, although as his best friend I happened to know that in private he worried deeply about standards. He achieved the highest. His was a lean, competent squad which gave the public what they paid for and kept the villains on the hop.

He had a calm grip on his domestic life as well. A good Roman: honorific father of three children. He had a small, scathing wife who knew how to make her presence felt, and a much-loved trio of lively little girls. At home he fielded Arria Silvia's sparky temper pretty easily. The children adored him. Even the wife modulated her complaints, knowing she had one piece of fortune that was missing from most marriages: Petro was there because he wanted to be. Both as a family man and as a public officer, he looked easy-going but was utterly reliable.

'Balbinus Pius..' he said softly, savouring his triumph.

'Ludicrous name,' I commented. 'Balbinus the Dutiful! As far as I know his only duty is serving himself. Isn't he the mouldy cheese who owns that filthy brothel they call Plato's Academy? And the thieves' kitchens down on the waterside at the back of the Temple of Portunus?'

'Don't speak to me about Plato's. I get a pain in the bladder just thinking about the place. Jupiter knows whose name is scratched on the crumbling title deeds, but you're right, it was Balbinus who had it sewn up. He took a percentage of every transaction in bed, plus whatever the house made on robbing purses or selling "abandoned" boots and belts. Then, as well as his entertainment interests, he had a nice goldsmith's workshop where stolen goblets could be melted down in minutes; several sweatshops that specialised in putting new braid on tunics that "fell off" washing lines; numerous tat stalls in the markets, constantly shifting just when I placed a man in the portico watching them; and a couple of counterfeiting factories. If it stank, he owned it,' confirmed Petro. 'Past tense, though, Falco. One of the bleak facts he has to face today is that a capital conviction means losing all his property.'

'I'm sobbing into my napkin.'

'Don't upset yourself too much – I'm still not certain we'll net his whole empire. Some of it must be in hidden hoards.'

'I bet! Was he expecting to be put away?'

'He wasn't even expecting to be put on trial! This has taken me months of planning, Falco. There was only ever going to be one crack at him, or he'd be screaming "persecution of a citizen!" and I'd be out of a job. But he didn't believe I'd ever find anybody prepared to prosecute.'

'So, Lucius Petronius, how did you arrange it?'

'Marcus Didius, there was only one way possible. I found somebody even greedier, and even more of a bastard, than him!'