A donkey cart was standing outside the gate. Helena had already arrived. She was just inside the entrance, keeping her cloak tightly around her. In late July it was far too hot for cloaks, but a respectable woman's duty is to be uncomfortable in public. The Sixth Cohort duty boys would not have interfered with her, but nobody made her welcome either. The vigiles rankers are ex-slaves, doing a horrid job as the quick route to citizenship; their officers are citizens, normally ex legionaries, but few and far between. Helena glanced around the quadrangle, with its many shadowed doorways; they led to equipment stores, the bare cells where the men slept, and the offices where they skilfully brought pressure to bear on witnesses. Even the entrance to the shrine at the far end looked forbidding. As harsh voices sounded loudly from indoors, she flinched. Helena Justina was a tall, spirited girl, who could always fend off trouble by citing her position as a senator's daughter, but she preferred to avoid the trouble in the first place. I had taught her some tactics. She disguised her nervousness, though she was glad to see me.

Luckily no suspects are screaming in agony just at this moment," I teased, acknowledging the atmosphere that hung over the yard, especially at dusk. We went to the room I had been using. The false excuse was to fetch my belongings; the true one was to greet my lady privately. I had not seen her for a week. Since everyone I knew swore that she was bound to leave me one day, I had to reinforce my feelings. Besides, I liked getting excited when Helena showed her affection for me. Even we felt too uneasy there to dally. I promised greater relaxation at an apartment I had found for us.

Aren't we staying with Lucius and Maia?" Helena was fond of them both.

Not likely. Petro has been loaned a flash mansion by a damned construction magnate."

What's wrong with that?" Helena was smiling. She knew me.

I hate handouts." She nodded; I knew she too preferred our family to live quietly, with no obligations to patrons. Most of Rome operates on favours; we two had always made our own way. But we can go and have a free dinner!" There were limits to my high-mindedness. Back at the town house, Petro and Maia were already eating in one of their host's frescoed dining rooms. He had several. This was made airy by folding doors, currently flung open on to a small garden, where a tiled turquoise niche housed a sea god statue. A child's hat was hanging on his conch shell. Small sandals, clay animals and a home made chariot littered the garden area. Space was quickly made for us on the large, cushion-strewn couches. Maia gave us a calculating look, as she rearranged the children. Marius, Cloelia, Ancus and little Rhea, who were aged between twelve and six, all four of them bright as new carpentry nails, together with Petro's quiet daughter Petronilla, who must be about ten.

Are you staying or what?" demanded my sister. She and I came from a large, loud, quarrelsome family whose members spent much effort avoiding each other.

No, we've taken a holiday apartment, just the other side of the Decumanus," I reassured her. Maia did not want us cluttering up her already busy household, but she went into a huff. Suit yourselves!" Petronius came back from stabling Helena's luggage cart. It looks as if you've come for the rest of the season by the amount you have brought!" he said.

Oh it's holiday reading." Helena smiled calmly. I was rather behind with the Daily Gazette, so my father has lent me his old copies."

Three sacks of scrolls?" Petro asked her, in disbelief. Clearly he had poked through Helena's luggage without shame. Everyone knew that the strange girl I had chosen would rather have her nose in literature than tend to her two little daughters or walk to the corner market for a mullet and some gossip like a normal Aventine wife. Helena Justina was more likely to neglect me because she was deep in a new Greek play than because she was having a fling with another man. She did tend our daughters in her own fashion; Julia, at three, was already being taught her alphabet. Fortunately I liked eccentric women and was not afraid of forward children. Or so I thought so far. Helena fixed her gaze on me. The news all looks rather dull at the moment. The imperial family are at their country estates for the summer, and even Infamia has taken a holiday." Infamia was the pseudonym of whoever compiled the salacious scandal about senators" wives having affairs with jockeys. I happened to know that Infamia was shifty and unreliable, and if he really had taken a holiday, he had forgotten to clear the dates with his employers.

If there's no scandal," Maia announced crisply, then there's absolutely no point in reading the Gazette." Helena smiled. She hated me being devious and was trying to force me to say what I knew. Infamia must have a hotspot villa somewhere. Think of all his payoffs from people who don't want their secrets told. What do you think, Marcus?"

Are we missing something?" Maia hated to be left out. She sounded tetchy. Nothing new in that.

Falco, you rat. Are you down here on one of your crackpot investigations?" demanded Petronius, also catching on.

Lucius, my dearest and oldest friend, when I am commissioned for work, crazy or sane, I shall report it to you immediately."

You are on a job!"

I just denied it, Petro." Petro turned to Maia. Your tight-lipped bastard brother is hiding a commission in his hairy armpit." He scowled at me, then gave his attention to capturing a tureen of gingered shellfish the children had been scooping up like ravenous gulls. He had to deal with the squeals as they watched him emptying all the good bits into his own foodbowl.

What job?" Maia quizzed me rudely.

Secret. Clause in my contract says, Don't tell your nosy sister or that interfering boyfriend of hers." I relieved Petro of his trophy and served Helena and myself to the last prawns. Maia snatched one from my bowl. Grow up, Marcus!" Ah, family life. I wondered if the man I had come to look for had any close relations. When you are looking for motives, never neglect the simple one.

Helena and I had one evening to ourselves. We made the most of it. Tomorrow we would be joined by Albia, a young girl from Britain who took care of our children while we tried to take care of her. Albia had had a poor start in life; running around after Julia and Favonia took her mind off it, in theory. She had experience of family travel from when we brought her to Italy from Londinium, but controlling a toddler and a growing infant on a two-hour jaunt in a cart would be a challenge.

Are we sure Albia can find her way here all on her own?" I sounded wary, but not too critical.

Settle down, Falco. My brother is bringing her."

Quintus?"

No, Aulus. Quintus stays with Claudia and the baby." Gaius Camillus Rufius Constantinus, our new nephew aged two months, was making his presence felt. The world and all the planets revolved around this baby. It could be why Helena's other brother was very keen to leave the family home. Aulus is coming on his way to university. He expressed an interest in law; Papa seized the moment and Aulus is being packed off to Athens."

Greece! And studying? We are talking about Aelianus?" Aulus Camillus Aelianus was the unmarried son of a senator, with money in his pocket and a carefree outlook; I could not see him gravely attending jurisprudence lectures under a fig tree at an antique university. His Greek was awful, for one thing. Can't he be a lawyer in Rome?" That would be more useful to me. Expert knowledge for which I did not have to pay was always welcome.

Athens is the best place." Well, it was traditionally the place to send awkward Romans who did not quite fit in. I chuckled. Are we certain he is going? Do you and I have to check that he goes on the boat?" At a little short of thirty, the favourite pursuits of the noble Aulus Camillus Aelianus were hunting, drinking and gymnastics, all done to excess. There must be other, equally vigorous and disreputable habits, which I tried not to discover. That way, I could assure his parents I knew of no nasty secrets.