DESERT ISLAND FLUTE GIRLS

Interviewer: Welcome to a new series of Classic Interviews - and where better to start than with the man critics have described as 'the Roman investigator with the mediocre past and the murky present'? I mean, of course, the smart aleck, streetwise wise- cracker to whom funny things happen on the way to the Forum, Marcus Didius Falco. Falco, you have also been described as 'louche and lovable' and 'iconoclastic', some of which I had to look up in a dictionary.

Falco: Showing off is part of provincial critics' trade. Not many people I know call me 'lovable', especial/y the ones I am investigate.

Interviewer: How about praise for your 'honour, humour and humanity'?

Falco: They must have seen me on a bad day! Is an interview like screwing the truth out of witnesses? Or do I have to spin very old jokes, while you adopt an ingratiating manner and carefully avoid my private life? Incidentally, I was told I would be given eight exotic flutegirls who would play my favourite tunes.

Interviewer: Your publisher couldn't afford them. All we can offer is being alone on a desert Island.

Falco: Always a good way to rid the Establishment of political bores and bad poets -but why me for the exile treatment? I may be a republican but I know the price of democracy: you can think what you like, but be wise and never say it.

Interviewer: Well, let's begin there. Does your republicanism have anything to do with growing up in the Rome of the Caesars- who were Claudius and Nero in your early years?

Falco: Nice types to take home for lunch when you are expecting your frail, easily frightened aunty!

Interviewer: Can I suggest that when they were succeeded by Vespasian, both Rome and you acquired a new maturity?

Falco: How fanciful! Still, I am old enough to have learned a few lesson, younger enough to forget them when a pretty girl or a tantalising commission comes my way.

Interviewer: What's your family background? Any decent ancestors?

Falco: All rogues.

Interviewer: Your father was an auctioneer?

Falco: My father's life is his own; he made sure of that.

Interviewer: So are you a bit of a mother's boy?

Falco: I stopped that when she started giving me good advice about girls. Who wants good advice on that subject?

Interviewer: I have heard you sometimes spend more time sorting out your private life than investigating?

Falco: Investigating holds plenty of surprises, but the rules are straightforward. My private life has the surprise without the rules.

Interviewer: Yet your public life started conventionally. The army - and your first service in Britain. Did life disillusion you?

Falco: Life anywhere tends to do that. But the Great Rebellion, when Queen Boudicca nearly annihilated us had a profound effect. The story is well known. The dismal part my own legion played has been hushed up officially - not that that makes it a secret, of course.

Interviewer: So the rebellion created your cynical social attitude? It was followed by what must have been a formative and sometimes dangerous period as an army scout. Will your memoirs ever cover that time?

Falco: Maybe. It had its moments of cheap excitement.

Interviewer: Preparing the way for Falco the informer. Can I quote something to you: "Who's next? An informer. He turned in his noble patron, and soon he'll have gnawed away at that favourite bone of his, the aristocracy. Lesser informers dread him, grease his palm with ample bribes, while the wives of trembling actors grease him the other way." That's from Juvenal, a Roman satirist. A poet.

Falco: A parasite. All lip and libido.

Interviewer: So how do you describe what you do?

Falco: I do things my way.

Interviewer: Ah! It must be a seedy life. People like you are thought of generally as cynical, irreverent, foolhardy and above all improverished - but I hear that wealth and status have now come your way.

Falco: My banker knows -but I hope he's not saying. People like me are good at their jobs, though it may suit us to give a different impression.

Interviewer: And financial reward?

Falco: We work for the money except when injustice makes us so angry we act on principle.

Interviewer: And you also accept commissions from the Emperor?

Falco: Obviously I cannot talk about that.

Interviewer: Would you call yourself an ethical man?

Falco: Why waste time insulting myself 'Ethical' men are the worst bastards.

Interviewer: What us your attitude to violence?

Falco: Practical. I try to avoid it. Life is not a theatre farce where all the clowns who have hit each other over the head jump up again giggling at the end. I have had a broken leg I don't now kick thugs with. Every knock takes time away from your peaceful retirement.

Interviewer: What happens in a fight that you really cannot avoid?

Falco: I reckon to be the one left standing at the end. If you hired me as a bodyguard you would feel safe.

Interviewer: Ever killed anyone?

Falco: Yes

Interviewer: Did you enjoy it?

Falco No. And I did I regret it? Generally, yes.

Interviewer: It's a tough job. Do you ever want to stop?

Falco: People should work because they want to - yet plan for the day they can give up. You need dreams to console you - though they generally come expensive. So you need money for your dreams.

Interviewer: And your recent fortune derives from working on the Census with Anacrites? I hear he has gone back to being Chief Spy. That makes him once again your dangerous enemy. Does his opposition hamper your work?

Falco: I was always able to dodge Anacrites - even when we were partners. But he's a vindictive manipulator; he'll probably dog my entire career.

Interviewer: Are you taking on new partners now?

Falco: A couple of senatorial hicks have selected me to harrass. I'll teach them what I can.

Interviewer: I believe they are brothers of your life partner, Helena Justina? Will you tell us something about her? Such a superior and sensible woman - after your terrible early reputation with Tripolitanian dancing girls!

Falco: You seem to know the situation. Why don't you just say that she's out of my class? That's the challenge - for us both.

Interviewer: I am hoping to ask her this directly, but what do you reckon is going to happen between you two?

Falco: We have to stick together. We are middleclass parents, stuck with an off-colour temple sinecure and a nagging debt of gratitude to the Emperor; several houses we never manage to make decent, family troubles, and no time or energy for indulging in divorce.

Interviewer: Are you thinking of escaping on your travels again?

Falco: No, I need to stay in Rome.

Interviewer: As someone once wrote, "Down these mean streets a man must go, who is neither tarnished nor afraid."

Falco: Try that on the Via Ostiana on a hot August day in the middle of a festival! Who was the outlandish scribe?

Interviewer: After your time, Falco.

Falco: Well I won't be on the streets. Helena and I are having a bathsuite installed, by the usual dopey contractors, and besides, the dog is pregnant. I may finally spend some time with my writing - I'm a bit of a spare time poet and I hope to give a few recitals.

Interviewer: That sounds a gentle occupation where you won't be stumbling into trouble.

Falco: True. You don't find bodies lying dead in libraries often.

Interviewer: If the corpses turn up, you will be the sleuth to solve the mystery. We have to end there, I'm afraid -

Falco: There was talk of free books.

Interviewer: Yes, on the hypothetical island exile we shall provide you with Pliny's Encyclopaedia and Virgil, of course.

Falco: I heard a nasty rumour you hand out the collected works of some duff British playwright - not the one who features in my current case, I sincerely hope.

Interviewer: And you can select one luxury.

Falco: I'll just take the flutegirls, provided my girlfriend never gets to hear about it. Does the contract for this cover them taking their clothes off? I brought my list of favourite songs for them to play - but I need to know where I should submit my expenses claim.