The Ides of April by Lindsey Davis Read Free Book Online Page A

you.
    ‘How good to see you.’ I took my seat and indicated the couch for him. ‘Somebody called last night when I was unavailable . . .’
    ‘Not me.’ I thought Andronicus wanted to hide how keen he was. ‘Where were you then?’
    He had a slight frown between those wide-set, almost over-intense eyes. I felt too cheerful to worry. It was just
conversation anyway. ‘With family.’
    ‘No lover?’ This man took the direct approach. He gave me a twinkle to show he knew it was an impudent thing to ask.
    Long practised, I parried with humour. ‘Oh, the one with the yacht is out of town, detained for customs infringements last I heard, and they reckon he won’t get away with it this time. The actor let me down as well; he was getting all frothed up with a group of rich old widows. He’s given himself a hernia, lifting the contents of their jewel caskets . . .’
    ‘You read a lot of satirical poetry?’
    ‘No, I write my own lines.’
    I had no lover at the moment. I had had no one for a long time, but a girl should never sound too available. Not on a first tryst. I had my self-respect.
    Andronicus abandoned the grilling. Opposite me, he settled in a relaxed pose, one arm along the couch’s backrest. I liked the way he had made himself at home. We assessed one another, both pretending not to. I still found him delightful.
    ‘Sorry,’ he said, reading my mind. ‘Of course you ask the questions here!’
    I kept it light. ‘Indeed I do. I would not want to waste my carefully learned interrogation skills . . . What brings you?’
    ‘She goes straight to the point!’ He leaned forward earnestly. ‘There has been a development. I wanted to be first to tell you.’
    ‘You care! I’m thrilled . . . So what’s the news?’
    ‘Salvidia is dead. Someone from her family − a nephew − came to inform Faustus yesterday evening.’
    I chose not to enlighten my new friend that I knew of the woman’s death already, nor did I correct him on the real status of Metellus Nepos. I liked Andronicus, but did not know him well enough − yet − to break my rules. Say nothing that you need not say.
    ‘That’s shocking, Andronicus. She was hardly old. What happened?’
    ‘Just reached the end of her thread, apparently. Must be annoying for you to lose a client. That’s why I thought you would like to know – no point wasting any more of your time on her.’
    ‘Yes, thank you.’ I thought he could not have been present when Nepos and Manlius Faustus were talking. The Nepos I met would undoubtedly have mentioned to a magistrate his nagging doubts about how his stepmother died. I wondered how Faustus had reacted. Tried to put him off?
    ‘This “nephew” came to the aedile’s house? How did you come to be there?’
    ‘I live there.’ He had been a slave there, presumably. You can deduce a lot from what family freedmen prefer not to tell you. Some are brazen about their origins; well, slavery is not their fault. Yet I could tell Andronicus was quite sensitive. He was never going to say the words ‘slave’ or ‘freedman’ in connection with himself. ‘It is his uncle’s house; on and off, Faustus has lived with his uncle since boyhood.’
    ‘He is not married?’
    ‘Divorced.’
    ‘A parting for mutual convenience, or was he caught out with a kitchen maid?’
    ‘There were rumours . . . He left his wife rather quickly, and had to surrender the dowry. I’ve never been able to squeeze out of him anything to explain what happened; there’s a conspiracy of silence in the family.’
    ‘Read his diary?’
    ‘Bastard doesn’t write one.’
    ‘The man’s a disgrace – tell him he has responsibilities to clarify matters for his caring household!’
    ‘Well, if he strayed from the marriage, he behaves like a sanctimonious prig now,’ Andronicus grumbled.
    ‘No mistress then?’
    ‘Never even fingers the girl who makes his bed.’
    ‘So she thinks he has lovely manners – but she’d rather he tried it, so