I grabbed, the screaming baby. She stopped crying. No one looked impressed. Against my car she gurgled in a way I' had learned meant she was soon going to be sick down the inside of my tunic. I laid her down in the fine cradle Petronius had made for her, hoping I could pretend any ensuing mess was a surprise to me. Ma began rocking the cradle, and the crisis seemed to pass.

`Hello, Falco.'

`Anacrites! You look terrible,' I told him cheerily. `Turned back from the Underworld because you'd dirty Charon's punt?' I was determined to floor him before he had a chance to get at me. `How's espionage these days? All the swallows over the Palatine are cheeping that Claudius Laeta has put a bid in for your job.'

`Oh no; Laeta's skulking in ditches.'

I grinned knowingly. Claudius Laeta was an ambitious administrator at the palace who hoped to incorporate Anacrites and the existing intelligence network in his own section; the two were locked in a struggle for power which I found highly amusing so long as I could keep myself out of it.

`Poor, Laeta!' I sneered. `He should never have tangled with that Spanish business. I had to make a report to the Emperor which showed him in rather a bad light.'

Anacrites gave me a narrow look. He too had tangled with the Spanish business. He was wondering what I might have reported to Vespasian about him. Still convalescent, a film of sweat suddenly shone on his brow. He was worried. I liked that.

`Anacrites isn't fit to return to work yet.' Ma told us some details that had him crawling with embarrassment. I tutted with fake sympathy, letting him know that I was delighted he had terrible headaches and trouble with his bowels. I tried asking for further details, but my mother soon twigged what I was playing at. `He has taken indefinite sick leave, approved by the Emperor.'