THE ATMOSPHERE WAS thick with lamp smoke; hard to see why, as there was a mean supply of lamps. Something crunched under my boot either an old oyster shell, or part of a whore's broken necklace. There seemed to be a lot of debris on the floor. Probably best not to investigate.

No one else was in the dump. No customers, anyway. A couple of grimy lasses roused themselves slightly when we tramped inside, but they soon got the message and slumped back into sleep. They looked too exhausted even to be curious. That didn't mean they wouldn't be listening in, but we were not intending any loud indiscretions. There was too much at stake.

We cramped ourselves on to benches, feeling stiff and oversized in our outdoor dress. We were all armed, to the point where it was impossible to be discreet when crowding around small tables. If we tried to pretend we were just carrying Lucanian sausage rolls, someone would have his privates shorn off by an awkwardly placed sword blade. We arranged ourselves with care.

The landlord was an unsmiling, unwelcoming coastal type who had summed us up as we crossed his threshold. `We were just closing.' We must have brought in a suggestion of imminent violence.

`I apologise.' Petronius could have used his official status to insist we were served, but as usual he preferred to try his charm first. His brevity probably screamed `law and order'. The landlord knew he had no choice. He served us, but made it plain that he hoped we would be leaving quickly,. It was too late in the night for trouble.

Well, we agreed with that.

There was tension in all of us. I noticed Martinus, the cocky bantam who was Petro's second in command, took one deep swig of his drink, then kept going to the doorway and staring out. The others ignored him fidgeting. In the end he parked his rather jutting backside on a stool just beyond the threshold, occasionally calling in some remark to the rest, but watching the waterfront. In Petro's troop even the tame annoyance was a decent officer.

Petronius and I ended up at a table to ourselves.

He had strong bonds with his men. He always led from the front. He pulled his weight in routine enquiries and on a surveillance he mucked in as one of them. But he and I had been friends for a long time. Between us were even stronger links, forged from when we had met at eighteen and shared a legionary posting to one of the grimmest parts of the Empire while it was earning dismal fame – Britain, in Nero's time, with the Boudiccan Rebellion as our special treat. Now, although for long periods we often failed to meet, when we did we could pick up straight away, as if we had shared an amphora only last Saturday. And when we entered a wine bar with others it was understood that we two would sit together, very slightly separate from the rest.

Petro gulped his wine, then visible regretted it. `Jupiter! You could paint that on warts and they'd fall off by dinner time… So how was the East?'

`Wild women and wicked politics.'

'Didius Falco, the world traveller!' 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 owned me money for my undercover services; he would love to renege. Then one of his 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 stiffbacked 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 explanation 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.