TIME TO DEPART by Lindsey Davis

Author:Lindsey Davis [Davis, Lindsey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: det_crime

XXXVII

PORCIUS WENT OFF to fetch Scythax and report to Petronius the bad developments.

Porcius and I had exchanged a few thoughts: `If you're right, and I have every confidence in your judgement, Porcius -' he blushed happily – 'we now know that some of the Balbinus men are back in Rome. That probably means they all are.'

`That makes them suspects for the Emporium raid,' offered the young recruit. A fast thinker. Good material. Even in the aftermath of a fight he was piecing together the evidence.

I was thinking myself. Interviewing Lalage, I was with Petro as a member of the cohort. She has no reason to single me out for special treatment. Apart from Nonnius – who's out of it the Balbinus females are the only people I've visited on my own. The fact that it's the Miller and Little Icarus who were sent to put me off does point to this being in the family.' I was convinced this had happened because I had asked too many questions of Flaccida and Milvia. The speed with which they had tracked me down was worrying. I kept that to myself. `Maybe we can forget the other gangs. Maybe Petro cut the head off the Balbinus organisation but the body's still active. We'll have to find out who's running it now, Porcius.' For the safety of my household, we needed to find out fast.

`Do you really think it could be the wife or the daughter, Falco?' `Or the son-in-law. I haven't met him yet.'

`Or Lalage,' Helena put in, refusing to give up her theory. `She could easily have taken over the services of the Miller and company.'

Porcius and I exchanged a surreptitious glance. Face it: it was easier for us to accept that the Balbinus organisation had been hijacked by his deadbeat thugs themselves than that it was masterminded by women. Even women as hard-baked as Flaccida and Lalage.

Neither Porcius nor I were intending to say this to Helena Justina. She came from the same stern mould that had produced the warrior-queen Tanaquil, Cornelia, Volumnia, Livia, and other tough matrons who had never had it mentioned to them that they were supposed to be inferior to men. Personally I like women with ideas. But you have to be genteel when you're teaching a recruit about life on the streets.

`The Miller and Little Icarus can't be very bright,' Helena said. `They were frightening, but if they have sneaked back to Rome to run the show they ought to lie low, not draw attention to themselves. Flaccida struck me as clever enough to realise that.'

`Right! So we're back with Lalage as the queen of intelligent activity!' I smiled at her.

Or with somebody we had not thought of yet.

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