'You mean you've already asked ten other people, and they all developed sick headaches!'

'It could be a job to get you noticed.'

'You mean if I do it well, the assumption will be it can't have been so difficult after all.'

'You've been around too long!' He grinned. Momentarily I liked him more than usual. 'You seemed the ideal candidate, Falco.'

'Oh come off it! I've never been outside Europe!'

'You have connections with the East.'

I laughed shortly. 'Only the fact my brother died there!'

'It gives you an interest – '

'Correct! An interest in making sure I never visit the damned desert myself.'

I told Anacrites to wrap himself in a vine leaf and jump head first into an amphora of rancid oil, then I derisively poured what remained in my winecup back into his flagon, and marched off.

Behind me I knew the Chief Spy wore an indulgent smile. He was sure I would think over his fascinating proposition, then come creeping back.

Anacrites was forgetting about Helena.

Chapter IV

Guiltily I recalled my attention to the baby elephant.

Helena was looking at me. She said nothing, but she gave me a certain still, quiet stare. It had the same effect on me as walking down a dark alley between high buildings in a known haunt of robbers with knives.

There was no need to mention that I had been offered a new mission; Helena knew. Now my problem was not trying to find a way of telling her, but sounding as if I had intended to come clean all along. I disguised a sigh. Helena looked away.

'We'll give the elephant a rest,' Thalia grumbled, coming back to us. 'Is he being a good boy?' She meant the python. Presumably.

'He's a treat,' Helena answered, in the same dry tone. 'Thalia, what were you saying about a possible job for Marcus?'