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WITH ONE ACCORD we rose to our feet and went out to search the establishment. We found plenty of slaves, mostly smelling of stables, but none Anacrites could identify.
“Do we demand that Calliopus should produce him, Falco?”
“You're not a Palace torturer now. Leave it. He'll say he doesn't recognize your description as any slave he owns. And he'll imply you're a romancer.”
Anacrites looked offended. Typical of a spy. We informers may be reviled by everyone but at least we have the guts to acknowledge how our reputation stinks. Some of us even occasionally admit that the profession has asked for it.
“How long did you wait outside after he got here?” I asked.
“Wait?” Anacrites looked puzzled.
“Forget it.” He was a typical spy all right-absolutely amateur.
The messenger belonged elsewhere. Still, if he had turned up here once to contact somebody, he might come again.
“So what now, Falco? We need to interview this Rumex.”
“Sorry to be logical, but we need to find him first.”
“Aren't you anxious we'll lose the lead?”
“Somebody assumes we know who he is. So he'll probably come crawling out from under his stone if we just carry on as normal. Anyway, you were the one who said we were not to be sidetracked. If somebody's trying to give us something else to think about we don't have to comply like lambs. Let's go back to the office and concentrate on our tax report.”
As we turned away to do just that, we ran into the bestiarius called Iddibal.
“Who is your fabulous lady admirer?” I chaffed him.
The young bastard looked me straight in the eye and claimed that the woman was his auntie. I looked straight back at him like an informer who had supposed that antique story went out with the Punic Wars.
“Know anyone called Rumex?” Anacrites then asked him casually.
“Why, who's he? Your bathhouse back-scratcher?” Iddibal sneered and went on his way.
I noticed a change in Iddibal. He seemed harder, and as if he were harbouring some new streak of bitterness. As he walked off in the direction of the throwing range Calliopus emerged from a side-room and said something to him in a very sharp voice. Maybe that explained it. Maybe Calliopus had pulled Iddibal up for the affair with his so-called aunt.
We waited for Calliopus to join us, then asked him the Rumex question. “Not one of my boys,” he answered, as if he assumed it was a gladiator. He should have known we knew it was not one of his troop, or the man's name would have been on the list of personnel he had given us assuming the version he was offering to the Censors was accurate. He drew himself up for what looked like a prepared speech. “About Leonidas-you've no need to involve yourselves. I've looked into what happened. Some of the lads were playing up that night and the lion was let out for a bit of a lark. He turned troublesome, and they had to put him down. Naturally nobody wanted to own up. They knew I would be furious. That's all. It's an internal matter. Iddibal was the ringleader, and I'll be getting rid of him.”
Anacrites gazed at him. For once I could imagine how it had felt in Nero's day to be interrogated by the Praetorian Guards in the bowels of the Palace with the notorious Quaestionarii in attendance, bringing their imaginative range of torture implements. “Internal? That's odd,” Anacrites commented frostily. “We have received further information about the death of Leonidas, which doesn't square with that. He was killed by this man Rumex, apparently-though now you tell us Rumex is not one of your boys!”
“Save him having to be got rid of as you're planning for Iddibal,” 1 said. Proposing a dubious fate for Rumex was, as it turned out later, a poignant piece of augury.
The lanista huffed and puffed for a moment, then thought of something urgent he had to run off and do.
Anacrites waited until we were back in the office and had the place to ourselves.
“So that's that, Falco. We may not have heard the whole story, but the lion's death need not trouble us any more.”
“Whatever you want,” I answered, with the smile I keep for butchers who sell last week's meat as fresh. “Still, it was good of you to defend my viewpoint when Calliopus was so obviously fibbing.”
“Partners stick together,” Anacrites assured me glibly. “Now let's finish taking the cheat apart for his financial misdemeanours, shall we?”
I stuck with the audit report like a good boy until lunchtime. As soon as my partner had sunk his jaws into one of my mother's homecooked rissoles and was preoccupied with mopping the squidged gravy from the front of his tunic, I let out a curse and pretended Helena had forgotten to give me any fish-pickle to sauce up my cold sausage, so I would have to go and scrounge some. If Anacrites was only half a spy he must have guessed I was bunking off to interview someone else about the lion.
I really did mean to go back to auditing later. Unfortunately one or two little adventures got in the way.