embarrassment. I had felt some sympathy. I knew how I would react if one of my girls ever went missing.

We went early to his house It was a warm, clear Rome morning, on the way to a very hot noon. The hint of haze above the Capitol, as we rounded it into the Forum, would soon become a flagrant dazzle, too bright to look up at the new Temple of Jupiter with its golden roof and stinging white marble. Over the far end of the Forum hung a cloud of dust from the huge building site of the Flavian Amphitheatre, no longer just the biggest hole in the world, its walls were slowly rising in a fabulous travertine ellipse and at this hour it was the busiest area of activity. Everywhere else there were fewer crowds than usual. Anyone who could afford to leave town was away. Bored senators and bloated ex-slaves with multimillion businesses had been at the coast, in the hills, or by the lakes for a couple of months; they would not return until the lawcourts and schools reopened later in September. Even then, sensible ones would find excuses to delay.

We kept to the shade as we crossed at the north end and made our way towards the Via Lata district.

I had written a letter of introduction and received a short note back that I might call. I guessed Caesius would view me as a ghoul or a shyster. I could handle that. I had had enough practice.

Caesius Secundus was a widower, long-standing; the daughter who disappeared had been his only child. He lived in a faded town house off the Via Lata, just before it turns into the Via Flamima. A cutler hired part of his ground floor for a workshop and selling space. The part where Caesius lived looked and sounded half empty, we were admitted not by a porter but by an all-purpose slave in a kitchen apron, who showed us to a reception room then went back to his stockpot.

Despite my fears of rebuff, Caesius saw us at once. He was tall and must have once been quite heavily built; now his white tunic hung slackly from a stringy neck and bony shoulders. The man had lost weight without yet noticing that he needed new outfits. Time had frozen for him, the day he heard his daughter had disappeared. Perhaps now he was back in Rome, in his own household, he would be reminded of mealtimes and other normal routines. More likely he would resist being cared for.