ODE TO A BANKER

`Yes,' answered Petro immediately, not needing to consult his notes. `He grabbed the last piece when I was trying to get my hands on it.' I saw Helena resisting a giggle, while the vigiles grinned at one another.

I strode over and bent down to the old dame. `Can I make a suggestion? I think Diomedes came here around lunch time and then breezed back later, heading towards the Temple of Minerva, looking a little too innocent?'

`Oh, I remember now.' She too grinned through toothless gums. She was a game old duck, thoroughly enjoying this. `I did see him go in when I was fetching some lentils for my dinner. When I was getting a bit of onion later, I watched him come out again. I thought it was peculiar because he was wearing different clothes.'

'Aha! Why was that?' I demanded of Diomedes. `Was there blood on the first set?'

`She's got it wrong,' he scowled.

I signalled to Aelianus. He moved those who were seated on the furthermost bench; Fusculus went to help him kick the seating aside, fling the doors open, and wheel in the great trolley that bore Diomedes' property.

I crossed the room towards the heaped baggage. First, I pulled out a scroll from a chased silver container. `Helena, glance at this, please. Tell me if you recognise the handwriting from the tale you and Passus hated so much.' She nodded almost immediately. Fusculus came up behind me, probably intending to hint at where I ought to look in the cart, but I managed without any help from him. `Diomedes, you agree that all this is your personal property?'

Shoved roughly inside a knee-high boot I could see papyrus. `What have we here? An interesting boot-shaper. Two very crumpled sheets that purport to be – let's see: the title pages to Zisimilla and Magarone and also Gondomon, King of Traximene. What's that about, Diomedes?' I dragged him to his feet. `Looks like proof of who wrote Gondomon – this title page is written on the back of a used popina drinks bill.'

`Mine!' Diomedes blustered recklessly. `I often drink there -'

`Urbanus, it says.'

Urbanus looked unfazed then told me, `I leave the bills behind. Philomelus tucks them in his pouch. He has no money for equipment and I'm happy for him to reuse them for writing.'

Lysa, resplendent in maternal wrath, swept to her son's side. `Foolish boy,' she reproved her son. `Now tell the truth!' She turned to me. `These prove nothing!' she snorted at me. `Blame Chrysippus. He wanted to exchange the title page on the scrolls he stole from the shipper's son. He was planning to publish the story under our son's name. Diomedes was far too sensitive and honest to agree… In fact, Diomedes removed and kept the original, so he could prove what had happened if his father went ahead -'

Oh, she was good!

`Very generous!' Among the swathes of rich brocaded curtaining, pillows and floor rugs, lay one cushion that looked extremely lumpy, ill-stuffed and quite untypical of this house. It was nothing like the smooth, fat items I had thrown on the floor from Vibia's couch that time. I dragged it from the pile. `This is from your room too?' Deeply perturbed, Diomedes gave a brief nod.

Wrenching open some loose and amateur stitchery that cobbled one seam on the slipcase, I flung the innards across the floor at his feet. People gasped.

`One heavily bloodstained tunic. A pair of bloody shoes. A scroll rod finial, with a dolphin riding on a gilded plinth the exact match of the finial on the rod you forced so crudely up your father's nose.'

Diomedes leaned across me and grabbed a spear from his pile of belongings. Helena cried out.

`Jupiter!' I muttered, as I grabbed the shaft. I went hand-over-hand up it in a couple of swift moves, until I was leaning on Diomedes' chest. `Where exactly were you planning to shove that? I demanded sarcastically.

We were inches away from each other, but he hung on to the spear. Petronius had reached us. He and Fusculus grabbed Diomedes. I wrenched the spear from his grasp. They twisted his arms up his back.

I took hold of his fancy tunic, either side of his miserable neck. `I want to hear you confess.'

`All right,' he admitted coldly. Lysa burst into uncontrollable and hysterical wails.

`Thank you,' I said in a polite tone. It was worth a fee bonus to me. `Details would be useful.'

`He refused to take my work, although I was his only son. Mine was as good as anyone else's – but he said he had found something wonderful. He was going to pretend Philomelus' story was worthless so he could pay nothing for it. He would even make Pisarchus pay the production costs, and then take all the profits. He was beside himself with excitement. Then he said that as the publisher of a high-class work, he could not afford to soil his name by selling mine alongside it.'

`So you killed him?'

`I never meant to do it. Once we started to fight, it just happened.'

His hysterical mother was now battering me, as she tried to fling her arms protectively around her boy. I let go of him and pulled her away.