There was certainly no chance of anyone getting free drinks now Hilaris and I were here. We were official. I mean really official. One of us held a damned high rank. It wasn't me. I was just a new middle-class upstart. Anyone of taste and style would be able to sniff out my slum background instantly.

'I'll avoid the bar,' I joked quietly. 'If their water is full of dead men, their wine is bound to be tainted!'

'No, I'll not try a tasting,' agreed Hilaris, in a tactful undertone. 'We don't know what they may stuff in their amphorae.

The centurion stared at us, showing his contempt for our attempts at humour.

This event was even more inconvenient for me than it was for the soldier. All he had to worry about was whether to mention the awkward 'developments' on his report. I had to decide whether to tell Flavius Hilaris – my wife's Uncle Gaius – that I knew who the dead man was. Before that, I had to evaluate the chances that Hilaris himself had known the calked corpse.

Hilaris was the important one here. He was procurator of finance in Britain. To put it in perspective, I was a procurator myself, but my role – which involved theoretical oversight of the Sacred Geese of Juno – was one of a hundred thousand meaningless honours handed out by the Emperor when he owed someone a favour and was too mean to pay in cash. Vespasian reckoned my services had cost enough, so he settled up remaining debts with a joke. That was me: Marcus Didius Falco, the imperial clown. Whereas the estimable Gaius Flavius Hilaris, who had known Vespasian many years ago in the army, was now second only to the provincial governor. Since he did know Vespasian personally, then (as the governor would be aware) dear Gaius was the Emperor's eyes and ears, assessing how the new governor ran the province.