`I'm sobbing into my napkin.'
`Don't upset yourself too much – I'm still not certain we'll net his whole empire. Some of it must be in hidden hoards.' `I bet! Was he expecting to be put away?'
`He wasn't even expecting to be put on trial! This has taken me months of planning, Falco. There was only ever going to be one crack at him, or he'd be screaming "persecution of a citizen!" and I'd be out of a job. But he didn't believe I'd ever find anybody prepared to prosecute.'
`So, Lucius Petronius, how did you arrange. it?'
`Marcus Didius, there was only one way possible. I found somebody even greedier, and even more of a bastard, than him!'
III
SMILING, PETRO PASSED one big hand over his brown hair. He seemed too have been having it styled more snappily. (Well, it was shorter; that was his barber's creative limit.) His other great paw lay lightly at his waist, where the staff of his office was stuck behind a wide, creased leather belt that I remembered him buying from a shifty Celt in Londinium. Otherwise, apart from the flash haircut, he did not trouble to priss himself up like a man of fashion. On duty it was better to be protected by a leather jerkin that might deflect a knife blade and a thick wool cloak which would shrug off the mud if he hurled himself to the pavement when tackling a runaway. His boots had come up hard on quite a few doorframes too by the looks of them.
`So who was the high-principled, public-minded citizen who squealed about Balbinus?' I asked.
`A donkey's turd called Nonnius.'
`Not Nonnius Albius? I thought he was a racketeer himself?' `He had been. He actually worked with Balbinus, was his chief rent collector. That was what appealed to me.' `Of course! You needed an insider.'