Lindsey Davis: Shadows in Bronze

The Falco apartment was the best I could afford, so it was grim. I rented a filthy garret above the Eagle Laundry in a street called Fountain Court (which had never possessed a fountain, and wasn't a court). To reach this impressive location I had to turn off the comparative luxury of the paved Ostia Road, then squeeze down a series of twisting entries that grew narrower and more threatening at every step. The point where they diminished into nothing was Fountain Court. I flailed through several lines of damp togas that were blocking the laundry's frontage, then attacked the long haul up six flights of stain to the sky-high hovel that served as my office and home.

Once aloft I knocked, for the hell of it and to warn off any wildlife frolicking in my absence, then I told myself to come in and unlatched the door.

I had two rooms, each a bare eight foot square. I paid extra for a rocky balcony but my landlord Smaractus allowed me a discount in the form of natural daylight through a hole in the roof (plus free amiss to water, whenever it rained). There were multimillionaires in Rome who housed their horses better, though thousands of anonymous individuals fared even worse.

My penthouse was for tenants who went out a lot. Yet for five years this squalid hole had seemed gracious enough, especially since when I was running around for clients I was rarely there. It had never been cheap; nowhere in Rome was. Some of my human neighbours were objectionable types, but an amiable gecko had recently taken up residence. I could entertain four people if I opened the door to the balcony, or five when one was a girl who would sit on my lap. I lived alone; financially I had no choice.

Anxious to discard my insanitary tunic, I stepped quickly across my outer room. There I had a table where I ate, wrote, or thought about the filthiness of life, plus a bench, three stools, and a cooking oven I built myself. In the bedroom stood my lopsided bed, alongside a spare couch, a storage chest which doubled as a washstand, and a perch for when I forced myself to patch the leaky roof.

Stripping off with relief, I used the last water in a pitcher for another good scrub down, then found a tunic that had only torn in two new places since the last time my mother mended it. I combed my hair roughly, rolled up my second- best toga in case I went anywhere respectable later, then pounded downstairs.

While I was delivering my castoffs I heard myself hailed raucously by Lenia, the laundress.

'Falco! Smaractus wants your rent!'

'What a surprise! Tell him we can't all get what we want in life…'

I found her in the corner she used as an accounting room, sitting in her greasy slippers while she supped mint tea. Until this pitiful ninny decided to invest in real estate (and real misery) by planning to marry our landlord Smaractus, she had been one of my shabby friends; once I could persuade her to ditch the brute she would be again. Lenia was a sagging drab about five times stronger than she looked, with startling snaggles of henna-red hair which constantly worked free of a limp scarf round her head; she had to poke the strands back in to peer ahead safely when she wanted to go anywhere.

'He means it, Falco!' She had sickly eyes and a voice like forty dried peas rattling in a pannikin.

'Good. I like a man whose ambitions are serious…'

By this time my attention was wandering, as Lenia undoubtedly knew. There was another woman with her whom she introduced as Secunda, a friend. We had long passed the time when I saw any advantage in flirting with Lenia, so I spent a few moments giving the glad eye to her friend.

'Hallo! I'm Didius Falco; I don't believe I've seen you before? The lady jingled her arm bangles and smiled knowingly.

'Watch him!' Lenia commented.

Secunda was mature without being over ripe; she was old enough to pose an interesting challenge, yet young enough to suggest overcoming the challenge could be very worthwhile. She had a thorough inspection of me, while I gazed back frankly.

I was offered mint tea, but its unappealing grey colour led me to decline on grounds of health. Secunda received my impending departure with fragrant regret; I assumed the expression of a man who might be detained.

'Some ferret-faced scavenger came in for you, Falco,' Lenia scowled.

'A client?

'How should I know? He had no manners, so he seemed your type. He barged in and asked your name.'

'Then what?'

'He left. I wasn't sorry.'

'But,' Secunda added sweetly, 'he's waiting for you outside, I think.' She missed nothing – if there was a man involved.

Lenia's cubbyhole was open on the street side, except for the clutter of her trade. I tweaked at the laundry until I could look out without being seen. A green cloak with its hood well up was loitering against the open doorflap on Cassius' bread shop two doors down.

'Him in the green?' They nodded. I frowned. 'Some tailor's found himself a gold mine there! Evidently green cloaks with pointed hoods are all the rage this month…' I would soon know; it was my eldest nephew's birthday next Thursday, and if that was the latest fashion Larius was bound to ask for one. 'Has he been there long?'

'He arrived just after you did and has been waiting ever since.'

I felt distinctly apprehensive. I had been hoping that the citizen in green was just an opportunist thief who had noticed something going on at the warehouse and gone in to explore as soon as he thought Frontinus and I had left.

Following me home put his presence in a different light. That degree of curiosity could not be innocent. It meant his interest in the warehouse was no coincidence. He must be some character who badly needed to know what had happened there, and to put a name to any stranger connected with the place. This spelt trouble for those of us at the Palace who were thinking we had put the conspiracy against the Emperor to bed.

While I watched, he lost his zest for spying and took himself off strolling towards the Ostia Road. I had to find out more about him. I raised an arm to Lenia, left Secunda with a smile that ought to keep her simmering, then slipped out in pursuit.

Cassius the baker, who must have been keeping an eye on the stranger, tossed me a thoughtful look and a stale bread roll as I went by.

I nearly lost him on the main road. I glimpsed my mother inspecting onions by a greengrocer's stall. Judging by her grim face, the onions, like most of my lady friends, fell short of her standards. My mother had convinced herself my new job working for the Palace involved good money, simple clerical work, and keeping my tunics clean. I was reluctant to let her discover so soon that it was the same old round of trudging after villains who chose to slouch through the streets when I wanted my lunch.

It took deft footwork to avoid her without losing him. Luckily the green cloak was an unpleasant shade of viridian, easy to pick up again.

I trailed him to the river, which he crossed on the Sublician Bridge; a ten-minute hike away from civilization to the Transtiberina hovels where the street hawkers crowd when they are kicked out of the Forum after dark. The Fourteenth District had been part of Rome since my grandparents' day, but there were enough swarthy immigrants over there to make it feel alien. After my task that morning I did not care if one of them knifed me in the back.

When you don't care, they never try.

We were walking in deep shadow now, through streets overhung by perilous balconies. Thin dogs ran in the gutters. Ragged, lug-eared gypsy children yelled at the terrified dogs. If I let myself think about it, the whole district terrified me.

The green cloak was travelling at a steady pace like a citizen going home for lunch. His build was ordinary, with thin shoulders and a youngish walk. I still had not seen his face; that hood stayed up despite the heat. He was too shy to be honest, that was sure.