Ten years after Vesuvius destroyed communities around the Bay of Naples, Albia and Tiberius are asked to restore a buried villa and identify human remains. The work exposes the practical problems of abandoned property, missing owners and families who never learned how relatives died.
One body, identified as the former owner Publius Primus, appears to have been deliberately arranged before the ash covered it. Albia investigates whether a murder was concealed by the eruption and whether survivors have preserved a false account for a decade.