ODE TO A BANKER

`I like to be impartial.'

`Oh – no viewpoint?'

Avienus looked hurt. `I catalogue events. I do not expect renown myself – but I shall be used as a source by future authors. That will satisfy me.' He would be dead. He would know nothing about it. He was either an idiot or a hypocrite.

`Anything published? I was told you are "respected" in your field.' `People have been kind.' The modesty was as false as a whore's golden heart.

`What are you working on at the moment for Chrysippus?' I pressed him.

`A review of fiduciary transactions since the Augustan period.' It sounded dry. That was being generous.

`Surely that has a limited appeal to a normal readership?'

`It is a small field,' Avienus boasted proudly.

`Thus allowing you to be its pre-eminent historian?' He glowed.

`Whether or not the general reader gives a quadrans about your

subject?'

`I like to think my researches have relevance.' Nothing would put him off. I stopped wasting effort on insults.

`Was Chrysippus paying you?'

`On delivery.'

`When will that be?'

`When I finish.'

I had detected tetchiness. `Was late delivery why he called you in yesterday?' A

`We did discuss programming, yes.'

`A friendly chat?'

`Businesslike.' He was not stupid.

`Reach a decision?'

`A new date.' It sounded good.

`One you were happy with? Or one that suited him?'

`Oh, he makes all the running!'

`Well, he did,' I reminded the grumbling historian quietly. `Until somebody battered him senseless and glued him to the tesserae of his elegant mosaic with lashings of spilt cedar oil.'

Avienus had had an unmoved expression until then; it barely changed. `I am held up by one of my blocks,' he said, ignoring the salacious detail and returning doggedly to the point. Was that his style? The public would spurn it. Anyway, I had no truck with `blocks'. A professional author should always be able to unearth material, then develop it usefully.

`Did you attack Chrysippus?' I sprang on him.

`No, I did not.'

`Did you have any reason to kill him?' This time he merely shook his head. `Would any of his other authors have had such a reason?'

`Not that I could say, Falco.' Ambiguous. Are historians linguistically meticulous? Did Avienus mean he knew no reason – or he knew a reason but would not reveal it? I decided against pursuing this; he was too aware of the questioning process. Nothing would come from badgering.

`Did you see any of your colleagues while you were here?'

`No.'

I consulted my list. `Turius, Pacuvius, Constrictus and Urbanus all visited, I have been told. Do you know them all?' He inclined his head. `You meet them at literary functions, I presume?' Another twist of the head. He seemed too bored now, or too offended by the simplicity of the questions, to bring himself to reply aloud.

`Right. So you were first here and Chrysippus was definitely alive when you left?'

`Yes.'

I paused for a moment, as if considering, then said, `That's it then.'

`And you will be in contact if you need anything else.' That was my line.

Apart from alienating the officer investigating him for murder, he had just lost a potential buyer. I liked history – but I would never now allow myself to read his work.

XXII

I HUNG AROUND quite some time longer. I was expecting five men most of whom had apparently decided to ignore me. Since a no-show would imply guilt, this was intriguing. But I bet that when I did confront the others, they would try the old `never got your message' trick. Maybe a heavy-handed visit from the vigiles was needed to change their minds.

Turius turned up just as I had decided to go home for lunch. He must be the infuriating one of the set.

He looked mid-twenties. An untrustworthy `respectable' visage, with a nasty little buttoned mouth. His dress code was the opposite of the Avienus black. His tunic was vermilion, and his shoes were punched and laced. Even his skin had a bright, slightly hennaed colouring. His hair, under a shimmering oil slick, was extremely dark. The ghastly tunic was bloused over his belt in a way I loathed. While nothing about Avienus had made me consider geography, I decided at once that Turius had provincial origins. Writers tend to home in on Rome from Spain, Gaul, and other parts of Italy. I could not be bothered to ask where he came from, but found him too loud, too cocky, and probably effeminate. Hard to be sure, as I had no personal reason to enquire.

`I was starting to think nobody wanted to talk to me. Avienus is the only other person who has bothered to respond.' `So he said.'

`You two been conspiring?' I took out the notepad, keeping my gaze fixed on him while I set it in front of me and produced a stylus. I smiled, but with unfriendly eyes.

`I happened to meet him-' He was flustered. Perhaps he had never been interrogated before. Or perhaps it meant something. `Where was that?'

`Just the popina at the end of the street. What's wrong with that?' `I didn't query it.' But I was querying whether the writers had met to make sure their stories matched. -`A man can buy himself a snack.