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  Beside the ancient Forum of the Romans lies the modern Forum of Julius; next is the Forum of Augustus, after that you run into the infamous area once called the Subura. Julius Caesar supposedly lived there, when he was not bedding the teenaged Cleopatra or dividing Gaul into parts. The legendary Julius had louche taste. If he lived in the Subura, trust me, he was lucky to survive to the Ides of March.

  This dangerous dump was now recategorised as the Alta Semita, the High Lanes district, though little had changed. Even I, in my single days, drew the line at an apartment in the High Lanes. You only die once, you may as well live a little first.

  The Seven Sights travel bureau was here - well within reach of the Argiletum where the Tullia lived and the Via Lata home of Caesius. It occupied a one-room lock-up in a dark alley, off a low street where I passed a knife fight being ignored by some small boys having a cockfight near to a dead beggar. I could see why locals would want a getaway. When I stepped across the threshold, I looked nervous and it was not acting. The male occupant ignored me as I glanced along faded wall-maps of Achaea and Egypt, pausing at the sketch of a miserable Trojan horse.

  ‘Poor geegee Looks like he’s caught the Strangles from his stablemate. Or has he just got woodworm?’

  ‘Planning a trip, sir?’ The bored salesman retaliated for this bad joke by showing me a set of mainly missing teeth. I tried not to stare at the gaping rictus. ‘You’ve come to the right place. We’ll make everything run smoothly.’

  ‘How much would it cost?’

  Keener, the salesman approached. He was a swarthy, paunchy fraudster, with a short curly beard and lashings of hair oil He wore a mid-calf tunic in vomit yellow, straining across his belly. ‘How long have you got, and where do you want to go?’ I won’t say this man was avoiding my gaze, but he was watching an invisible fly that he had dreamed up to the left of my ear.

  ‘Greece, maybe. Wife wants to visit her brother. I’m scared of the price.’

  The agent applied a sympathetic pucker of the lips. With practised ease, he hid the fact that fleecing scared voyagers was the sole reason Seven Sights existed.’ It need not be exorbitant!’

  ‘Give me some idea.’

  ‘Difficult, sir. Once you take off, you’re bound to get hooked. I wouldn’t want you to be locked into a package if you hankered for a little add-o. Suppose you had gasped at the Colossus of Rhodes, then heard of some up-country village that made fabulous cheeses.’ I thought the Colossus had been snapped off at the knees in an earthquake; still, I love cheese. I brightened. That made him brighten. ‘Now with our mix-and-match infinite journey plan, sir, anything is possible - right up to the moment you decide to come home so you can boast to all your friends. Tell you what, legate, how about I mooch along to your house and talk you through it?’

  I looked nervous. I was nervous. ‘Well, we’re just thinking about it.

  ‘Absolutely fine. No obligation. I’m Polystratus, by the way. They call me the Seven Sights facilitator.’

  ‘Falco.’

  ‘Excellent. Falco, let me drop by with a few maps and itineraries, spread them out in the comfort of your own home, then you can choose at leisure. Make sure the wife is in; she’ll just love what we have on offer.’

  ‘Oh she’s mad to spend some money,’ I confirmed gloomily. While he hid his glee, the appointment was made for that same night. Seven Sights never let a victim cool.

  Our current address was a tall town house on the Tiber Embankment in the shadow of the Aventine Hill. It had previously belonged to my father, Didius Geminus the notorious auctioneer; we still had a couple of rooms furnished with grand, unsaleable furniture, which Pa kept ‘forgetting’ to remove. One of these salons was ideal for making Polystratus think us wealthier than we were. He tottered in with an armful of scrolls, which he dropped on a low marble table. Helena encouraged him to relax on a metal couch which still possessed uneven cushions; smiley lion’s head finials showed off what looked like real gilding.

  Polystratus gazed around admiringly at Pa’s special brand of decor. This was one of the rooms that periodically flooded. At least the blotched frescos might stop the facilitator adding noughts to his estimate. Millionaires would have had new paint.

  I introduced myself as Procurator of the Sacred Geese of Juno. Untrue, since I had been let go by the tight-pursed Emperor. My post had been made redundant; nonetheless, I still sometimes went up to the compound and endured a peck or two for old times’ sake. I could not bear to think of the Sacred Geese and the Augurs’ Chickens suffering neglect. Besides, we were used to the free eggs.

  Helena Justina was giving her jewellery a good workout this week; tonight she had on a rather fine amber necklace, plus ridiculous gold earrings like chandeliers which she may have borrowed from a circus artiste we knew. She scrutinised Polystratus slyly, while I perfected our winsome tourist act.

  He had late-luncher’s breath, but had covered it up especially for us by sucking a lavender pastille; it slid in and out through that wide gap in his teeth. Perhaps he had hoped I had a wife he could flirt with. Tonight he had changed from the ghastly yellow outfit I saw him in this morning; he had smartened up for the occasion and was now in quite a respectable long tunic, dried-blood red with an embroidered hem. I reckoned he bought it as a cast-off from some touring theatre company. It looked like something a king would wear in a very boring tragedy.

  ‘Put yourself in my hands, madam!’ cried Polystratus saucily. Already Helena disliked him and he seemed none too keen on her either, since she looked ready to stop me signing any expensive contracts. I could see him struggling to get the feel of our relationship. For fun, we had changed places in the game now; I was pretending to be travel-crazy, while Helena played the sourpuss. This did not fit what I had said at the bureau, so Polystratus clearly felt caught out.

  ‘I rather like the sound of the infinite journey plan,’ I pleaded with Helena. ‘Go as we please, not tie ourselves down, wander wherever the fancy takes us.’

  ‘Excellent!’ Polystratus beamed, eager to let me do the work for him. ‘May I ask what you do in life, Falco?’ He was testing my collateral. How wise If only I had some to test. ‘Are you in trade ‘Import-export’? Maybe favoured by a legacy?’ His eyes wandered around the room, still seeking evidence of money. There was a highly polished silver display-stand that must seem good for an excursion to a few Arcadian temples. The back was caved-in, although from where he sat he would not see the defect

  ‘Marcus is a poet!’ Helena quipped wickedly.

  ‘No profits in it,’ I smirked. All businessmen say that.

  Polystratus was still taken with the silver stand. Family habit kicked in. I wondered if I could sell it to him. Still, Pa would haggle about sharing the commission…

  Helena noticed my daydream and aimed a kick at my shin. ‘I really must go and see my little brother, Polystratus; that’s all. It’s my wild husband who is interested in tailor-made trips. Last I heard, he was hankering for Egypt.’

  ‘A classic romantic!’ the facilitator chortled. We do a nice little Spring Excursion to the Pyramids of Giza. Alexandria is a hot draw. Gaze at the Pharos. Borrow a scroll from the Library, a scroll that may once have rested at the bedside of Cleopatra while she made love to Antony…’

  Helena, who collected information, shook her head at me. ‘Did you know that Augustus went to pay tribute at Alexander the Great’s tomb, he covered the corpse with flowers - and inadvertently broke off a bit of Alexander’s nose?’

  ‘What a lady!’ Polystratus thought women with a sense of humour should be locked in the pantry - however, he knew that was out of the question if the cash in our bank chests had come as her dowry.

  ‘She’s a treasure!’ I meant it. It unnerved him. He dealt in cliche wives. ‘Tell us about these tailor-mades of yours,’ I insisted, still the stubborn husband who was yearning for adventure. ‘It has to be Greece, for her brother…’

  ‘No problem with that,’ Polystratus assured me. ‘We can do you
a spectacular Pythons and Phidias circular itinerary.’

  ‘I really want to go next summer, to catch the Olympic Games.’ I glanced at Helena, implying she had refused permission.

  ‘Oh bad luck! Our Tracks and Temples tour is there at the moment.’ For the first time I wondered why, if the Games were not until next year. Still, Olympia has an age-old religious sanctuary, its statue of Zeus one of the Seven Wonders of the World. ‘Funnily enough,’ Polystratus confided, I had a letter back about that group only today; they are having a wonderful time. Absolutely thrilled with it, all of them.’ That would be all except the late Valeria Ventidia, and possibly her bridegroom. He could have no idea we knew about the murder.

  ‘So how do your arrangements work?’ Helena enquired. ‘Do you have someone who escorts people, to find good accommodation and organise the transport?’

  ‘Exactly! For our Greek adventures, that’s Phineus. Our best guide. A legend in the trade, ask anyone. He does all the legwork, while you are out enjoying yourselves.’ And if a client disappeared, I knew from Caesius, this Phineus legged it back to Rome.

  Helena was frowning nervously. ‘So if anything went badly wrong…’

  ‘Not on our trips!’ snapped Polystratus.

  ‘What if there was a terrible accident and someone died on the journey?’

  Polystratus slurped through his missing teeth. I wondered just how many bar-room brawls a man had to partake in to wreak such dental havoc. ‘It can happen.’ Changing his tactics, he lowered his voice. ‘In the rare eventuality of a tragic accident, we do have expertise in repatriation, both for the living and the not so fortunate.’

  ‘So consoling! You hear such stories,’ Helena murmured meekly.

  ‘Believe me,’ Polystratus confirmed, ‘I know of companies who behave quite shamefully. Some old gent swallows a grape pip and chokes, then the sobbing widow finds herself abandoned with no money and no donkey, hundreds of miles from anywhere - I can’t even tell you the appalling things that happen - but we,’ he pronounced, ‘have been organising happy travel for two decades. Why, the Emperor Nero wanted to see Greece on one of our journeys, but unluckily for him, it was booked out. We always say that when he slit his throat with a razor it was out of disappointment that we had no room for him.’

  I gave the agent a sickly smile. ‘I met Nero’s barber. He does a superb shave. Xanthus. What a character. Now he’s working for a retired rebel chieftain in Germany… He was heartbroken that Nero committed suicide using one of his best razors.’

  Polystratus did not know how to take that. He thought I was poking fun. ‘Nobody who goes with us ever has any trouble, I can promise you.’

  The Nero line was his official joke. Unluckily for Polystratus, we already knew that his promise of freedom from trouble was a lie.

  V

  We put off Polystratus by saying we would think about his Acropolis Adventure, definitely, really soon. I even managed to persuade him to sneak me a copy of the route of Tracks and Temples, implying I would hide it under my mattress then book myself a boy’s sporting escapade next year.

  That would have been one way to investigate Olympia. Seven Sights Travel were the link between the two young women’s deaths. Caesia and Valeria had both travelled with this pushy team. So we could have sat back until the next Olympics, travelled with Seven Sights ourselves, and just waited to see which female tourist had an adventure too many .

  Falco and Associates were not so irresponsible. Anyway, I was being sent to Greece - assuming I went - this year, to nudge Aulus on his way to Athens. The noble Julia Justa wanted her baby signed up with a rhetorician now. If I failed to arrange it, in a year’s time I was likely to find myself divorced.

  Why stick with one sponsor, when you can fix up two? I took myself to the Palatine. I was fobbed off with an excuse I knew of old that the Emperor was visiting his Sabine estate. In any case, Vespasian would quite likely pooh-pooh the Olympus trip but afflict me with some ghastly political mission in the foggy north (like the one where he lumbered me with the imperial barber, Xanthus)

  Instead, I set about persuading one of the palace bureau chiefs, Claudius Laeta, that the double death could lead to a crisis in public confidence. Caesius was still denouncing a cover-up, Valeria Ventidia had been sister-in-law to a senatorial candidate, any moment now, these shocking murders would feature in the Daily Gazette. Laeta knew I had contacts at the Gazette.

  ‘Women are being preyed on.’ The slimy swine sounded too keen on that idea.

  ‘Unmarried girls and young brides,’ I specified. ‘High potential for public revulsion.’

  ‘Officially, our position is that we wish senatorials would stay in Italy.’

  ‘Well, they won’t do it, Laeta. So are respectable families to be unprotected, while travelling in a Roman province?’

  ‘Your high-mindedness stinks, Falco!’

  To get rid of me, Laeta agreed to fund one week at Olympia investigating, plus travel to Corinth so I could report to the governor (the worst aspect of the job, since he would hate having a palace intermediary poking about his province unasked.)

  I had no intention of using Seven Sights. I assembled my own travel group. First, while most people were wondering who I would take with me, I made sure I left the right ones behind. I did not tell my father I was going, even though he had business contacts in Greece They were dubious. The Greek art trade is notorious. Leaving him behind saved more trouble than anything.

  With more regret, I also declined Helena’s younger brother, Quintus. I liked him as a travelling companion; he was organised, easygoing, and spoke very good Greek. But his young Baetican wife, who had just given him a son, was vexed with him; blatant pressure from the rest of the Camillus family persuaded me - and Quintus - that his domestic ties came first. (In the event, this was to rebound badly. For once, the problem would not be my fault.)

  Helena took a tricky decision about our own children; here, I was blamed. Helena said that our trip last year to Britain with Julia and Favonia had been a strain for them and for us, they needed a more settled routine; since we planned to be in Greece for only a few weeks, this time our children would be left with their grandmother (her mother). Among Roman officials it was standard practice for infants to remain in Italy while their father served abroad.

  I let Helena explain these arrangements to my own mother. Luckily Ma was feeling her age and she recognised that a senator’s house, full of spare rooms and doting slaves, was a good place for two lively toddlers. She did point out that most travelling officials left their wives at home, especially if they were good mothers. Helena deflected Ma; I only found out afterwards she did it by saying that she and I needed more time alone if we were to produce our next baby… Ma did not know that the bundle of dried sausages she gave us (since it is well known that you starve abroad) were nestling in a luggage pack between other items for every eventuality: sunhats, snowboots - and a soapstone pot of alum, anti-conception wax.

  Yes, Helena Justina was coming with me. Why ask?

  And of course the next question was: what about Nux? I begged my mother to babysit my dog. Already put out, Ma told me where to stuff that bright idea. Nux came with us. Now I was damned as the man who happily abandoned his children - yet refused to part from a smelly mongrel.

  Albia, our foster-daughter, wanted a jaunt. Many people asked us why, if we were leaving our children, we took their nursemaid. The straight answer was, Albia was not the nursemaid. The other answer was, we had intended her to stay behind.

  Albia hailed from Britain - one of the casualties of the Great Rebellion. We believed that her parents were Romans, massacred by the rampaging tribes. The war orphan had been living on the streets when Helena found her. Giving a feral scavenger a home with us was madness - yet it was one small reparation for the British tragedy Conscience. Even informers have it. I had seen Londinium, after the tribes burned everything, and I would never forget.

  ‘So what am I doing with you?’ Albia de
manded dramatically. She was dressed like a Roman girl, yet as we sat on our roof terrace, her crossed arms and hunched shoulders were those of a barbarian waif who had been cruelly made captive - in fact, the classic pose of any teenager thwarted by adults ‘You never told me I was merely to look after your children, saving you the price of a slave!’

  ‘Because that was never true ‘ I was not having my daughters brought up by slaves, for one thing.

  It would be reassuring for Julia and Favonia to have Albia rush to comfort them as they screamed in their cribs. But Helena knew she was being tested. Albia was adept at throwing the sympathy dice; she always knew she could make us scared that our goodwill gesture would go bad. ‘You were offered a place as part of our familia, Albia. Anyway, we believe you were freeborn, a Roman citizen -‘

  ‘So you are teaching me about Roman life?’ This was leading to a classic adolescent demand for everything money could buy.

  ‘We never promised you Greek life.’ Chortling, I was no help, still, the game was lost. ‘Helena, she’s right; no Roman girl would miss the chance of being a thorough nuisance on a foreign trip.’

  ‘Does this have your approval, Marcus Didius?’ Helena glowered.

  ‘Don’t play the submissive wife with me! Sweetheart, it seems our work is done with Albia. She is the complete Roman woman - wheedling, devious, and brutal when she wants something.’

  ‘Such humour!’ mocked Albia, flouncing off in triumph - another trick she had learned since she lived with us.

  ‘You have to be consistent,’ Helena grumpily conceded.