I nodded. Yes, it was a rare case. It’s not often that people reject all the opportunities that Others have.
‘You might say that I feel guilty about Prokhorov senior,’ Geser said. ‘And though I can’t help his son any more … I won’t let the killer go unpunished. You’re going to go to Edinburgh, find this crazy bloodsucker and reduce him to dust in the wind.’
That was a direct order. But I hadn’t been about to argue in any case.
‘When do I fly?’ I asked
‘Call in at the international section. They should have prepared your documents, tickets and money. And a cover story.’
‘A cover story? Who for – me?’
‘Yes, you’ll be working unofficially.’
‘Contacts?’
For some reason Geser frowned again and gave me a strangely suspicious glance.
‘Only Foma … Anton, stop mocking me!’
I gave Geser a perplexed look.
‘“Co” is the beginning of the word “cocksman”,’ Geser blurted out. ‘We were young then, you know … the free and easy morals of the Renaissance … All right, off you go! And try to catch the next flight out.’ He paused for an instant, and then added: ‘If Svetlana doesn’t object. And if she does, say that I’ll try to persuade her.’
‘She will object,’ I said confidently.
What was it that had upset Geser like that? And why had he explained to me about that word ‘cocksman’?
Svetlana set a plate down in front of me, full of fried potatoes and mushrooms. Then a knife and fork appeared on the table, followed by a salt cellar, a saucer of pickled cucumbers, a little glass and a small carafe with just a hundred grams of vodka. The carafe was straight out of the fridge and it immediately misted up in the warm air.
Bliss!
Every man’s dream when he comes home from work. His wife fusses over the stove and puts delicious things that are bad for you on the table. Was there something she wanted to ask me? My daughter was playing quietly with her building set – at the age of five she had already lost interest in dolls. She didn’t build little cars and aeroplanes, though. She built houses – maybe she was going to be an architect?
‘Sveta, they’re sending me to Edinburgh,’ I repeated, just to be the safe side.
‘Yes, I heard you,’ Svetlana replied calmly.
The little carafe on the table lifted into the air. The round glass stopper twisted out of its neck. The cold vodka flowed into the glass in a thick translucent stream.
‘I have to get a plane today,’ I said. ‘There’s no flight to Edinburgh, so I’ll fly to London and transfer there …’
‘Then don’t drink a lot,’ Svetlana said anxiously.
The carafe swerved and moved away towards the fridge.
‘I thought you’d be upset,’ I said, disappointed.
‘What’s the point?’ Svetlana asked, serving herself a full plate as well. ‘Would you not go?’
‘No, I would.’
‘There, you see, Geser would only start calling and explaining how important your trip is.’ Svetlana frowned.
‘It really is important.’
‘I know,’ Svetlana said, nodding. ‘This morning I sensed that they were going to send you somewhere far away again. I phoned Olga and asked what had happened in the last few days. Well… she told me about that young guy in Scotland.’
I nodded in relief. Svetlana knew all about it, that was great. No need for lies or half-truths.
‘It’s a strange business,’ she said.
I shrugged and drank the forty grams of vodka that I had been allocated. I crunched happily on a pickled cucumber and then asked, with my mouth fulclass="underline"
‘What’s so strange about it? Either a wild vampire, or one who went loco because he hadn’t fed for too long … that’s pretty normal stuff for them. This one seems to have a distinctive sense of humour, though. Fancy killing someone in a tourist attraction called the Castle of the Vampires!’
‘Quiet.’ Svetlana frowned and indicated Nadya with her eyes.
I started chewing energetically. I love fried potatoes – with a crispy crust, and they have to be fried in goose fat – with crackling, and a handful of white mushrooms, fresh ones if they’re in season, or dried ones if they’re not. Everything’s all right, mummy and daddy are talking about all sorts of nonsense, about movies and books, vampires don’t really exist…
Unfortunately, there’s no way our daughter can be fooled. She can see them all quite clearly. It had been a struggle to teach her not to mention it in a loud voice in the metro or on the trolley bus. ‘Mummy, Daddy, look, that man there’s a vampire!’ Never mind the other passengers, they would just put it all down to childish foolishness, but I felt awkward for the vampires somehow. Some of them have never attacked people: they drink their donor blood honestly and lead perfectly decent lives. And then in the middle of a crowd a five-year-old kid jabs her finger at you and laughs: ‘That man’s not alive, but he’s walking around!’ There was nothing we could do – she could hear what we were talking about and she drew her own conclusions.
But this time Nadya took no interest in our conversation. She was putting a red tile roof on a little house of yellow plastic bricks.
‘I don’t think it’s a question of anybody’s sense of humour,’ Svetlana said. ‘Geser wouldn’t send you right across Europe for that. The Watch in Scotland isn’t full of fools, they’ll find the bloodsucker sooner or later.’
‘Then what is it? I’ve found out everything about the victim. A decent guy, but no saint. Obviously not an Other. The Dark Ones have no need to kill him deliberately. The boy’s father once refused to become an Other, but he cooperated unofficially with the Night Watch. A rare case, but not unique. The Dark Ones have no reason for revenge.’
Svetlana sighed. She glanced at the fridge – and the carafe came flying back to us.
I suddenly realised that she was worried about something.
‘Sveta, have you looked into the future?’
‘Yes.’
It’s not possible to see the future in the way that charlatans and fortune-tellers talk about it. Not even if you’re a Great Other. But it is possible to calculate the probability of one event or another: will you get stuck in a traffic jam on this road or not, will your plane explode in mid-air, will you survive or be killed in the next battle? … To put it simply, the more precise the question is, the more precise the answer will be. You can’t just ask: ‘What’s in store for me tomorrow?’
‘Well?’
‘There’s no threat to your life in this investigation.’
‘That’s great,’ I said sincerely. I took the carafe and poured another glass for each of us. ‘Thanks. You’ve reassured me.’
We drank – and then looked at each other grimly.
Then we looked at Nadya – our daughter was sitting on the floor fiddling with her building set. Sensing our gazes on her, she started trilling: ‘La la-la la la-la.’
It was the kind of song grown-ups often use to represent little girls in jokes. Horrid little girls, who are just about to blow something up, break something or say something really nasty.
‘Nadezhda!’ Svetlana said in an icy voice.
‘La-la-la …’ Nadya said in a slightly louder voice. ‘What have I done now? You said Daddy shouldn’t drink before he flies away. Drinking vodka’s bad for you, you said so! Masha’s daddy drank, he drank and he left home …’