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yours,' I insisted, still the stubborn husband who was yearning for adventure. 'It has to be Greece, for her brother...'
    'No problem with that,' Polystratus assured me. 'We can do you a spectacular Pythons and Phidias circular itinerary.'
    'I really want to go next summer, to catch the Olympic Games.' I glanced at Helena, implying she had refused permission.
    'Oh bad luck! Our Tracks and Temples tour is there at the moment.' For the first time I wondered why, if the Games were not until next year. Still, Olympia has an age-old religious sanctuary, its statue of Zeus one of the Seven Wonders of the World. 'Funnily enough,' Polystratus confided, I had a letter back about that group only today; they are having a wonderful time. Absolutely thrilled with it, all of them.' That would be all except the late Valeria Ventidia, and possibly her bridegroom. He could have no idea we knew about the murder.
    'So how do your arrangements work?' Helena enquired. 'Do you have someone who escorts people, to find good accommodation and organise the transport?'
    'Exactly! For our Greek adventures, that's Phineus. Our best guide. A legend in the trade, ask anyone. He does all the legwork, while you are out enjoying yourselves.' And if a client disappeared, I knew from Caesius, this Phineus legged it back to Rome.
    Helena was frowning nervously. 'So if anything went badly wrong...'
    'Not on our trips!' snapped Polystratus.
    'What if there was a terrible accident and someone died on the journey?'
    Polystratus slurped through his missing teeth. I wondered just how many bar-room brawls a man had to partake in to wreak such dental havoc. 'It can happen.' Changing his tactics, he lowered his voice. 'In the rare eventuality of a tragic accident, we do have expertise in repatriation, both for the living and the not so fortunate.'
    'So consoling! You hear such stories,' Helena murmured meekly.
    'Believe me,' Polystratus confirmed, 'I know of companies who behave quite shamefully. Some old gent swallows a grape pip and chokes, then the sobbing widow finds herself abandoned with no money and no donkey, hundreds of miles from anywhere - I can't even tell you the appalling things that happen - but we,' he pronounced, 'have been organising happy travel for two decades. Why, the Emperor Nero wanted to see Greece on one of our journeys, but unluckily for him, it was booked out. We always say that when he slit his throat with a razor it was out of disappointment that we had no room for him.'
    I gave the agent a sickly smile. 'I met Nero's barber. He does a superb shave. Xanthus. What a character. Now he's working for a retired rebel chieftain in Germany... He was heartbroken that Nero committed suicide using one of his best razors.'
    Polystratus did not know how to take that. He thought I was poking fun. 'Nobody who goes with us ever has any trouble, I can promise you.'
    The Nero line was his official joke. Unluckily for Polystratus, we already knew that his promise of freedom from trouble was a lie.

V

    We put off Polystratus by saying we would think about his Acropolis Adventure, definitely, really soon. I even managed to persuade him to sneak me a copy of the route of Tracks and Temples, implying I would hide it under my mattress then book myself a boy's sporting escapade next year.
    That would have been one way to investigate Olympia. Seven Sights Travel were the link between the two young women's deaths. Caesia and Valeria had both travelled with this pushy team. So we could have sat back until the next Olympics, travelled with Seven Sights ourselves, and just waited to see which female tourist had an adventure too many .
    Falco and Associates were not so irresponsible. Anyway, I was being sent to Greece - assuming I went - this year, to nudge Aulus on his way to Athens. The noble Julia Justa wanted her baby signed up with a rhetorician now. If I failed to arrange it, in a year's time I was likely to find myself divorced.
    Why stick with one sponsor, when