'He could have sailed straight to Gaul from Novio.' From his couch, Gaius' thoughtful voice proved me right: he had been listening in.

'True. I assumed he would.'

'Would riding off to Londinium seem less obvious to his friends? Less shameful, say?' Maia enjoyed a puzzle.

'Or was he heading somewhere else?' Helena tried. 'No, if you pick up transport in Londinium it always goes across to Gaul. He gained nothing by coming here.'

Petronius spoke, dour as a bad-tempered oracle: 'There is nowhere beyond Britain. The only way is back!' He hated Britain.

So did I. I played it down while I was the procurator's guest. Hilaris had been in Britain so long he had lost his nostalgia for the real world. Tragic.

'If Verovolcus came to Londinium,' mused Aelia Camilla, 'would he have had to hide?'

'From me?' I laughed. So did rather too many of my friends and relatives.

'He thought he was a fugitive, though in fact,' Aelia Camilla said demurely, 'you had not told the governor!' I tried not to feel guilty. 'Verovolcus didn't know that. So he might have skulked in that bad district to lie low?'

'What's the bad locale, Falco?' asked Petronius. A professional question. At home, he was a member of the vigiles.

'A bar.'

'What bar?' At least he had revived and taken an interest. Petro was a big, active man, who seemed cramped in smart indoor locations. He could have relaxed on a padded couch with lion's head feet as I did, but he preferred to ignore what passed for comfort here, hugging his knees uncomfortably and scuffing the striped woollen rugs with his sturdy paramilitary boots.

I felt an odd reluctance to tell him about the crime scene. 'A black little hutment at the back of the wharves.'

'Whereabouts, Falco?' His brown eyes quizzed me. Petronius knew when I was stalling for some reason. 'How did you get there?'