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scene has had a mental breakdown. My wife then found her brother's severed head in the atrium pool.'
    Well, that explained the funereal cypress trees. And I could see why Laeta and Ganna had omitted this detail.

VII

    I had walked through the atrium when I arrived, but now I knew it was a crime scene I asked Quadrumatus Labeo to show me again.
    While we stood on the marble-clad edge of a twenty-foot basin of water, I took out my note-tablet and stylus. I sketched the scene and indicated with an arrow where the head was found. Behind me, the Lusitanian porter ogled from the narrow, curtained corridor that led in from the entrance door; seeing his master, the lanky creep busied himself looking officious. Ahead, beyond the pool and the square spacious hall with its scatter of plinths bearing pompous fat-faced busts, I could see an enclosed garden. Clipped box globes and a fountain in the form of a clam shell. Two stone doves drank from the shell. A real dove currently perched on one of the stone ones, cooing for crumbs. Classic.
    Not many beauteous patrician atria have severed human heads staring up from their water features. The head was gone now, but I could not help imagining it.
    'When did it happen?'
    'Ten days ago.'
    'Ten days?'
    Quadrumatus looked abashed momentarily, then became petulant. 'I was not willing to have strangers barging about my home, upsetting my family even further, until we had gone through the nine days of formal mourning. I am sure you understand that.'
    I understood all right. Veleda had now been on the run for too long. The trail, if I could ever even find it, would be stone cold. This was why Laeta hadn't told me about the murder. I would have spurned the job.
    'I'll be discreet.' My reply was curt.
    At my feet, clear water lapped almost imperceptibly against black and white marble. The atrium pool, peaceful beneath a classic square rain-hole up in the elegant roof, contained a small base upon which danced a floral female deity, in bronze, about a foot and a half high.
    She looked cute, but I knew my father would have said it was a bad statue. The drapery was too static to be interesting, and the flowers were badly moulded.
    'We had to drain the cistern below completely, afterwards,' complained the senator, talking of a water storage basin that must be fed from the atrium pool. His voice was low. 'None of my staff wanted to volunteer... I had to supervise closely in person. I needed to be sure it was done thoroughly.'
    I was still angry, so I said, 'You wouldn't want to end up drinking your brother-in-law's gore.' Quadrumatus shot me a swift look, but did not rebuke me. Perhaps he realised the position on the ten-day delay. With his rank, he must have been an army officer and he would have held civil posts where he needed to handle crises. Now he ran who knows what kind of property portfolio, with who knows how many interlinked commercial businesses. I could tell from his neat, calmly behaved slaves, he had basic efficiency. When you are dealing with an idiot, you see it in his staff's expressions.
    'Was any weapon found?'
    'No. We assume she took it with her.'
    'Did Veleda come here with companions?'
    'A girl- Ganna.'
    'Yes, I know about her. No one else? And did the priestess have any visitors while she stayed here?'
    'My orders forbade that.' Did he mean the orders he had issued, or orders that had been issued to him by the Palace? Both, I hoped. 'Her presence was, as I am sure you know, Falco, a state secret. I only agreed to give her houseroom on that basis; I could not have tolerated disruption and public curiosity. We are a very private family. But to my knowledge, nobody attempted to see her.'
    'And tell me about your brother-in-law, please.'
    'Sextus Gratianus Scaeva, my wife's brother. He lived here with us.
    He was a young man of exceptional promise--' Inevitably. I had yet to meet a senator who described his relatives in any but glowing terms especially ones who were safely dead. Given