It was good to unload my anger, but there were better things to talk about. `Come to dinner when we get settled back in – bring Silvia and the girls. We'll have a gathering and tell our gripping travellers' tales.'

`How's Helena?' Petro remembered to ask when I mentioned his own wife and children.

`Fine. And no, we're not married, or planning it; nor quarrelling and planning to separate.'

`Any signs of impending fatherhood?'

`Certainly not!' I retorted, like a man who knew how to handle his private life. I hoped Petro would not notice I was bluffing. `When I'm honoured, you'll be the first to know… Olympus! Talking to you is like fending off my mother.'

"Wonderful woman,' he commented in his aggravating way.

I carried on with a feeling of false confidence. `Oh yes, Ma's a credit to the community. If everyone on the Aventine was as stiffbacked as my mother, you'd have no work to do. Unfortunately some of them are called Balbinus Pius -about whom you still owe me an explanation or two.'

This time the distraction worked. With a glow of satisfaction Petronius threw back his great head and stretched his long legs under the table. Beaming proudly, he settled down to bring me up to date.

`You realise,' Petro began, with mock-heroic grandeur, `we're talking about the most vicious, seditious operator in organised crime who ever fixed his claws on the Aventine?'

`And now you've caught him!' I grinned admiringly.

He ignored the jesting undertone. `Believe it, Falco!'

I was enjoying myself. Petronius Longus was a stolid, patient worker. I could not remember that I had ever heard him boasting; it was good to see him thrilled by his own success for once.

Inches taller than me to start with, he even seemed to have grown.