The Silver Pigs Read Free Page A

her childhood friends?"
    "I haven't a mother," she interrupted calmly.
    There was a pause while I wondered at her odd way of putting it. Most people would say "My mother's dead', or whatever. I worked out that her noble mama was in excellent health, probably found in bed with a footman and divorced in disgrace.
    "Excuse me professional question any special admirer your family knows nothing about?"
    Suddenly she burst into giggles. "Oh do stop being so silly! There's nobody like that!"
    "You're a very attractive young lady!" I insisted, adding quickly, "Though of course you're safe with me."
    "I see!" she remarked. This time those huge brown eyes suddenly danced in high spirits. I realized with astonishment that I was being teased.
    Some of it was bluff. She had been badly frightened and now she was trying to be brave. The braver she was, the sweeter she looked. Her beautiful eyes were gazing into mine, brimming with mischief and causing serious troubles of my own...
    Just in time, footfalls dragged to a halt outside, then my door was battered with that casual arrogance that could only mean a visit from the law.

IV

    The law settled his breathing-rate after the stairs.
    "Do come in," I said mildly. "It's not locked."
    He was in. He collapsed at the other end of my bench. "Have a seat," I offered.
    "Falco, you villain! This is an improvement!" He gave me a slow grin. Petronius Longus, patrol captain of the Aventine watch. A big, placid, sleepy-looking man with a face people trusted probably because it gave so little away.
    Petronius and I went back a long time. We joined the army on the same day, finding each other in the queue to take the oath to the Emperor, and finding too that we had been brought up only five streets apart. We were tent mates for seven years and when we came home we had another thing in common: we were veterans of the Second Augustan Legion in Britain. Not only that, we were veterans of the Second at the time of Queen Boudicca's Revolt against Rome. So because of the Second's abysmal performance, we both left the army eighteen years early and we both had something we never wanted to talk about.
    "Poke your eyes back in," I told him. "Her name's Helena."
    "Hello, Helena. What a pretty name! Falco, where did you find that?"
    "Running a foot race round the Temple of Saturn." I had chosen to answer with such simple honesty because there was a slim chance Petronius already knew. Besides, I wanted the girl to believe she was dealing with a man who told the truth.
    I introduced the watch captain to my dazzling client: "Petronius Longus, district patrolman; the best."
    "Good evening, sir," she said.
    I guffawed bitterly. Take a job in local government, women will call you "sir"I Sweetheart, there's no need to overdo it."
    Take no notice of this tricky character," Petronius scoffed in his easy way, smiling at her with an interest I did not altogether like.
    She smiled back at him, so I clipped tersely, "We men want to gossip with a wine jug; go into the bedroom and wait for me."
    She shot me a look, but she went. That's the benefit of a liberal education, this little girl knew she lived in a man's world. Besides, she had pretty manners and it was my house.
    "Nice!" approved Petronius, in a low voice.
    He has a wife, who for some reason adores him. He never refers to her, but must care about her; he's the type who would. They have three daughters, and like a good Roman father he is utterly sentimental about his girls. I could see a day coming when the Tullianum jail would be crammed with frightful young sprogs who had cast their beady eyes at Petro's girls.
    I produced two wine cups which looked clean, though I polished up Petro's on the hem of my tunic before I clonked them on the table. In the hole under a floorboard that passed for my wine cellar I had some smoked Spanish poison that was a gift from a grateful client, some new dusky red that tasted as if it had been robbed from an Etruscan tomb, and a well-aged