`Of course I share it with my junior,' Silius grumbled.

`Quite.' I hid my bad feeling. His junior was a snivelling scrivener called Honorius. It was Honorius who had dealt with me. He looked about eighteen and gave the impression he had never seen a woman naked. How much of the million and a quarter sesterces would Honorius take home to his mother? Too much. The dozy incompetent had been convinced that our witness lived in Lavinium, not Lanuvium; he tried to avoid paying us; and when he did write out a docket for their banker, he misspelled my name three times.

The banker, by contrast, had coughed up quickly, and was polite. Bankers stay alert. He could tell that by that stage anyone else who upset me would have been sodomised with a very sharp spear.

I sensed further stress coming at me over the horizon on a fast Spanish pony.

`So why did you want to see me, Silius?,

'Obvious, surely?' It was, but I refused to help him. `You work in this field.' He tried to make it sound like a compliment. `You already have a connection with the case.'

My connection was remote. I should have kept it that way. Perhaps my next question was naive. `So what do you want me for?'

`I want you to prove that it was not suicide.'

`What am I going for? Accident or foul play?'

`Whatever you like,' said Silius. `I am not fussy, Falco. Just find me suitable evidence to take the remaining Metelli to court and wring them dry.'

I had been slumped on a stool at his table. He had not offered me refreshments (no doubt sensing I would refuse them lest we be trapped in a guest/host relationship). But on arrival, I had assumed equal terms, and seated myself. Now I sat up. `I never manufacture proofs!'