I crept upstairs slowly, and slipped into my apartment. There I equipped myself with my favourite tunics, a useful hat, my festival toga, a pillow, two cooking pots which were more or less sound despite five years of wear, the waxed tablet where I wrote sentimental poetry, spare boots, and my favourite possessions: ten bronze spoons, a gift from Helena. I corded all these in a blanket I had brought home from the army, then set off back to ground level humping my bundle like any burglar leaving with his swag.

A burglar would have got away with it. Real thieves can strip a mansion of ten cartloads of antique marble, a score of bronze statues, all the vintage Falernian and the beautiful teenage daughter of the house-while nobody in the neighbourhood notices a thing. I emerged legitimately-only to have some gross female sausageseller whom I had never even seen before spot me and assume the worst. Even then, most robbers would have strolled on their way safely while the witness winked her eye. I met the only interfering citizen this side of the Aventine. The minute she spied me sauntering off, she hoiked up her coarse woollen skirts, let out a shriek they must have heard on Tiber Island, and scuttled after me.

Panic-and annoyance-lubricated my stiffened limbs. I hared off up the lane... just as Anacrites' two spies popped out from the barber's where they were having the top half-inch scraped off their beards. Next thing I was brought up short howling, with my left boot trapped inextricably under one of the monstrous feet.

I swung my bundle at the other spy. From inside it my biggest iron skillet must have caught the brute right across the throat; he flew backwards with a croak it hurt to hear. The owner of the feet was too close for me to swipe him, but his idea of overpowering a helpless victim was simply to yell for assistance from passers-by. Most of those knew me, so when they stopped guffawing at my plight they jeered at him. They were also bemused by the sight of the sausageseller-who was all of three feet high-laying into us ferociously with her salami tray. I managed to angle myself so that coracle-feet caught the worst of it, including a violent thwack with a giant smoked phallus which must have put him off peppered pork for life.

But he still had his massive flipper planted on my toes. I was hampered by the need to cling onto my bundle, for I knew if I once let go some Thirteenth Sector layabout would run off with my chattels and have them auctioned on a street corner before I could blink. So Footsie and I leaned against one another madly, like partners in some tribal wrestling match, while I tried to dance myself free.

I could see his fellow spy reviving. Just then Lenia rushed out of the laundry to investigate the racket, carrying a vast metal basin on her hip. She recognised me with a scornful look, then upended her cauldron over the man I had hit with my skillet; not his day with ironmongery. As his skull took the weight and his legs buckled, I managed to get enough purchase with my trapped foot to slew my other knee inwards; I aimed it angrily at a section of the spy which was much less developed than his feet. His girlfriend would curse me. His toes curled in agony; I hopped free. Lenia was treating the sausageseller to some irreligious language. I finished off Footsie with a wack from my luggage, and did not stay to apologise.

Home again.

After the havoc in the Aventine it seemed ridiculously quiet. I livened things up by whistling a rude Gallic ditty, until the queer widow on the floor above began banging again. She had no idea of keeping time, so I drew my recitation to a close.

Exhausted, I hid Helena's spoons in my mattress, then rolled myself up in my moth-eaten blanket and collapsed on the bed.

Snoring away whole afternoons is an enjoyable pastime; one which private informers carry out with practised ease.

Chapter XXIII

Next day I woke refreshed, though aching. I decided to go and give Severina Zotica a piece of my mind while suitable phraseology was suggesting itself fluently.

Before I left I had breakfast. My ma, who believes home cooking keeps a boy out of moral danger (especially when he is the one stuck at home stirring the cooking pot), had organised a brazier, which would heat the occasional pannikin until I constructed a home griddle. That might have to wait. In August there was not much incentive to lug home stolen builders' bricks, only to fill my elegant new quarters with smoke, unwanted heat, and the smell of fried sardines. On the other hand, it might be easier to start at once than to keep defending myself to my mother for not getting round to it... Ma had never yet grasped that private informers might have more enterprising things to do than household jobs.

I drank my home-brewed honey drink, pondering the proposition that having fierce mothers may explain why most informers are furtive loners who look as if they have run away from home.

By the time I strolled into Abacus Street other people had forgotten their early-morning snacks and were musing on the possibility of lunch. I recalled my own recent breakfast with a refined belch-then joined the trend and considered acquiring further refreshments myself. (Anything I ate here could be charged up to the Hortensius mob as 'surveillance costs'.)

I was diverted from the cookshop by spotting the gold-digger. From the scrolls under her arm, this dedicated scholar had been to the library yet again. The cheese shop which fronted her apartment was having supplies delivered, forcing her to dismount from her chair in the street because her entry was blocked by handcarts carrying pails of goat's milk and made-up cheeses wrapped in cloth. As I approached, she was flaying the delivery men with sarcasm. They had made the mistake of complaining that they were only doing their job; this gave Severina Zotica a fine opportunity to describe how their job should be done properly if they had any consideration for fire regulations, local street bye-laws, the peace of the neighbourhood, other occupants of the building, or passers-by.

For Rome it was a normal scene. I stood back while she enjoyed herself. The men with the handcarts had heard it all before; eventually they edged aside a cream-encrusted bucket so if she gathered in her skirts she would be able to squeeze past.

'You again,' she threw back over her shoulder at me, in a tone some of my relations tend to use. Once again, I felt she was enjoying the sense of danger.

'Yes-excuse me...' Something had distracted me.

While I was waiting for Severina a lout on a donkey had ridden up to speak to the fruitseller, the one with the Campagna orchard to whom I had spoken yesterday. The old chap had come out from behind his counter and appeared to be pleading. Then, just as the lout appeared to be riding away from the lock-up, he backed his donkey savagely against the counter. Destructiveness was the creature's party trick; it swung its rump as accurately as if it were trained to entertain arena crowds between gladiatorial fights. All the careful rows of early grapes, apricots and berries spilled into the road. The rider snatched up an untouched nectarine, took one huge bite, laughed, then tossed the fruit contemptuously into the gutter.

I was already sprinting across the road. The lout prepared to back his mount a second time; I wrenched the bridle from his grasp and dug my heels in. 'Careful, friend!'

He was a seedy slab of insolence in a knitted brown cap, most of whose bulk was arranged horizontally. His calves were as broad as Baetican hams and his shoulders would have blocked the light through a triumphal arch. Despite the muscle he oozed unhealthiness; his eyes were gummy and his fingers sore with whitlows. Even in a city full of pimply necks, his was a marvel of exploding pustulence.