Ode To A Banker by Lindsey Davis Page A

first person you interview looks as guilty as all Hades.'

    'The wife did not kill him?'

    'Not in person. Both she and her clothes would show damage And although I can imagine she can wind herself into quite a frenzy when she wants to, I doubt if she is strong enough to inflict this.' We forced ourselves to resurvey the corpse at our feet. 'Of course she could have hired someone.'

    'She virtually fingered this son, Diomedes.'

    'Too convenient. No, it's too early to accuse anyone, Passus.'

    Passus looked pleased. He was curious to know the answers - but he did not want Petronius' pet private informer to be the outsider who provided them.

    His hostility was a cliche, one I was well used to, yet it annoyed me. I told him to give orders for the corpse to be removed to an undertaker's. Spitefully, I added, 'Get this room cleared, not by the household slaves but by your own men, please. Keep an eye out for any clues we may have missed under the mess. And before they are flung out in a basket, I shall need a list of what all these unrolled scrolls on the floor contain, by subject and author.'

    'Oh shit, Falco!'

    'Sorry.' I smiled pleasantly. 'You may have to do that yourself, I suppose, if your rankers can't read. But what Chrysippus was working on today may turn out to have some relevance.'

    Passus said nothing. Maybe Petronius would have wanted the scrolls listed, had he been in charge. Maybe not.

    I went back to the scriptorium, where I told the guard maintaining quarantine for Euschemon that he could be released into my custody. I could see he was not the killer; he was wearing the same clothes as when he came to see me at home this morning, with not a bloodstain on them.

    There were too many scribes within earshot, and I reckoned it would inhibit him when he talked to me. I took him away for a drink. He looked relieved to be out of there.

    'Think nothing of it,' I said cheerfully. After a grisly corpse and a flagrant wifelet, I was feeling dry myself.

XV

    THERE WAS a popina on the next street corner, one of those grim stand-up foodshops with crude mock marble countertops on which to bruise your elbows. All but one of the big pots were uncovered and empty, and the other had a cloth over it to discourage orders. The grumbling proprietor took great pleasure in telling us he could not serve eatables. Apparently the vigiles had given him a bollocking for selling hot stews. The Emperor had banned them. It was dressed up as some sort of public health move; more likely a subtle plan to get workers off the streets and back in their workshops - and to deter people from sitting down and discussing the government.

    'Everything's banned except pulses.'

    'Ugh!' muttered I, being no lover of lentils. I had spent too much time on suveillance, gloomily leaning against a caupona counter and toying with a lukewarm bowl of pallid slush while I waited for some suspect to emerge from his comfortable lair - not to mention too many hours afterwards picking leguminous grains from my teeth.

    Privately I made a note that this ban might affect business at Flora's - so Maia might not want to take on Pa's caupona after all.

    'I gather you had the red tunics here, just when the alarin was raised about the death at the scriptorium?'

    'Too right. The bastards put the block on today's menu right at lunchtime. I was furious, but it's an edict so I couldn't say much. A woman started screaming her head off. Then the vigiles rushed off to investigate the excitement and by the time I had finished clearing the counters, there was nothing to see. I missed all the fun. My counter-hand ran down there; he said it was gruesome -'

    'That's enough!' I gave a tactful nod towards Euschemon, whom he probably knew. The popina owner subsided with a grouse. His counter-hand was absent now; perhaps sent home when the hot food was cleared away.

    Euschemon had shambled after me from the house in silence. I bought him a cup of pressed fruitjuice, which seemed the