ODE TO A BANKER

My father owned two properties that I knew of, although he was both well-off and secretive so there were probably more. His warehouse-cum-office was at the Saepta Julia, the enclosure inhabited by all sorts of double-dealing jewellers and hangdog antique frauds. It might be too early to catch him there. Auctions were held out on site, in private homes or sometimes in the Porticoes, but I had spotted no adverts for sales by Didius Geminus chalked in the Forum recently. That left his house, a tall edifice with a fine roof terrace and a damp basement down on the river frontage of the Aventine. It was the nearest place to look for him, though I always felt uneasy going there because of the redhead I mentioned. I can handle redheads, especially the elderly faded kind, but I preferred to avoid the trouble it caused with my mother if she ever heard I had met Flora. In fact I had only ever talked to the woman once, when I called in for a drink at a caupona she ran. She might have lived for twenty-five years with my father, but that gave us nothing to say to each other.

Climbing down to the river from the Aventine Hill is difficult, due to the sheer crag that faces the Transtiberina. I had a choice of descending via the Lavernal Gate to the bustle around the Emporium and then turning right, or going up past the Temple of Minerva, down a steep path towards the Probus Bridge, and walking back along the riverbank the other way. Pa's house had a view across the water roughly towards the old Naumachia, had he been interested in tantalising glimpses of mock sea battles when they were staged at festivals. For the average real-estate crook it would probably count as a selling point.

This was a noisy, bustling area with the smell of exotic cargoes and the yammer of sailors and wharfside stevedores. If the wind was in the wrong direction a faint pall of dust from the huge granaries behind the Emporium hung in the air. Being so close to the river produced its own disturbing excitement. Being down amongst the cheating whelks who worked there kept me on my guard.

I risked a strained tendon manoeuvring the doorknocker. This hunk of bronze looked like part of a horse's leg from a multiple sculpture of some tangled battle scene. The door itself had an imposing size and importance that would better suit the secret shrine of a very snobbish temple. Not so the pallid runt who eventually answered; he was a timid slave who looked as if he was expecting me to accuse him of a particularly vile incestuous crime.

`You know me. I'm Falco. Is Geminus in? Tell him his charming son is asking if he can come out to play.'

`He's not here!' squeaked the slave.

`Neptune's navel! When did he go out?' No answer. `Buck up. I need to speak to him, and not next week.'

`We don't know where he is.'

`What? The old beggar's disappeared again? Who do you think he has run off with this time? He's getting rather ripe for fornication, though I know he does not reckon to be stopped by that -'

The slave trembled. Perhaps he thought my father's lady love was about to appear behind him and overhear my rude remarks.

I was used to being fobbed off with excuses on doorsteps. I refused to give up. 'Do you know where my dear papa has gone, or when that most excellent piece of muledung is expected back?'

Looking more frightened than ever, the fellow then whispered, `He hasn't been here since the funeral.'

This quaking loon was determined to flummox me. Obstruction was usual in my profession, and also a regular reaction from my family. `Who's dead?' I chivvied him cheerfully.

`Flora,' he said.

It had nothing at all to do with me, and yet I knew I would end up becoming involved, despite myself.

VI

THERE WAS no escape. I now had to trek across town to the public building complex alongside the Field of Mars where Pa kept his warehouse and office in the Saepta Julia. That was a double-storeyed edifice, set around an open area, where you could buy any kind of junk jewellery and bric-a-brac or be fleeced over furniture and socalled art by masters of the auctioneering fraternity like Pa. Unless you were desperate to acquire a fifth-hand general's fold-up throne with one leg missing, you left your arm-purse at home. On the other hand, if you hankered for a cheap reproduction Venus of Cos with her nose glued on crookedly, this was the place to come. They would even wrap it up for you, and not laugh at your gullibility until you had almost left the shop.