There was nothing else I could do. I thought about sleeping here overnight, to listen to noises and absorb the atmosphere. But I had had enough of the dreary, stultifying aura of this unhappy home. I could not determine exactly what was wrong, but there were remnants of old miseries everywhere. I thought there was something worse too. Something terrible they were all hiding. I just hoped the Pomonalis had been right when he claimed it did not concern Gaia.
I walked for one last time into the peristyle garden. No one was there now. Holding Gaia’s little twiggy mop, I strode slowly around the central area, then sat on the marble bench, leaning my elbows on my knees. I had not eaten all day. I was filthy and knocked about. Nobody here had ever thought of offering me refreshments or the facilities to clean up. I was long past being able to complain or say what I thought of them. Still, this was everyday fare for an informer. I was not yet so nicely respectable that I would shriek if I noticed my white tunic had turned nearly black and that, not to be too dainty about it, I stank.
Somebody came out behind me. I was too stiff and too depressed to move.
“Falco.” Hearing the voice of the ex-Flamen, I did force myself to turn around, though I would not rise for him. “You have done well. We are grateful.”
I could not help sighing. “I have done nothing.”
“It seems she is not here.”
I looked around again, helplessly. She was still at home. I felt convinced of it. My voice sounded husky. “Forgive me for not finding her.”
“I am aware of how hard you have tried.” From him that was gratitude. Rather to my surprise he came and placed himself at the table where the workmen’s crumbs had once been squabbled over by the sparrows. “Do not think us harsh, Falco. She is a beguiling, sweetnatured little girl, my only grandchild. I prayed with all my heart that you would have found her today.”
I was too weary to react. But I did believe him.
I stood up. “I’ll find out whether the vigiles have discovered anything.” If so, it could only be bad news now. The old man looked as if he knew that. “If she still fails to turn up, may I come back here tomorrow and see what else can be done?”
He pursed his lips. He did not want me here. Yet he inclined his head, allowing it. Maybe he really did love Gaia. Or maybe he sensed that this loss of the small child could be the incident that split apart his family when all else had failed to break his dominance.
“I know what you feel about the vigiles, sir, but I would like to bring in one officer, my friend Petronius Longus. He has vast experience-and is the father of young girls. I want to walk the ground with him, and see if he turns up anything I missed.”
“I would prefer to avoid that.” It was not quite a refusal, and I kept it in reserve. “A woman is here to speak to you,” he then told me. “You are wanted elsewhere.”
Nothing much seemed to matter to me at the moment, but I still had it in me to be curious. As I dragged myself to my feet and turned to leave the garden to find my personal visitor, the other curiosity prevailed.
“It had seemed to me,” I told Numentinus somberly, “the best hope of finding Gaia would be if she had mischievously crept into some hole from which she could not escape. But we seem to have disproved that.” Numentinus was walking slowly alongside me. “The most likely alternative,” I commented, determined not to spare him now, “is that she has run away because of family problems.”
I had expected the ex-Flamen to be furious. His reaction turned everything I assumed on its head. He laughed. “Well, we would all like to run away from those!” While I was getting over that, he tossed the suggestion aside with a sneer of contempt. “Now you have lost my confidence, Falco, after all.”
“Oh, I don’t think I deserve that, sir! It’s fairly plain something came to a head here after the death of Terentia Paulla’s husband. Well, look at it-a man who was not even a blood relative, a family friend, yes-but one who had been abusive towards your womenfolk-” Although they had told me Numentinus did not know, I reckoned he was well aware of it; at any rate, he showed no surprise now. “Next minute, you are consulting everyone, including the widowagain, only a relative of your late wife’s, and a woman with whom you yourself have been at odds regularly. Even your estranged son was in on the debate. He spun me a wild story about that! So tell me,” I insisted heatedly, “for whom is the legal guardian really needed? And why, exactly?”
Shocked by my vehemence, Numentinus stayed silent. And he was not intending to answer me: he dodged it all. “I cannot imagine what my son has said to make you think this way. It simply shows how unworldly he is, and proves me right to continue to hold him in my patriarchal power.”
“He wants to help his aunt. That seems commendable.”
