The English ability to pride themselves on what other nations would prefer to forget is a remarkable trait …
As I drank my beer, surrounded by noisy tourists and scurrying young waitresses, I gazed at the park and wondered what to do now.
I had delivered Gesar’s mysterious gift to Erasmus. I had obtained information from him – all that he was willing to impart, at least. And I had also acquired an oak chalice in which Erasmus’s prophecy was supposedly stored.
After I’d left the old Other’s home I had travelled as far as the shop Fortnum and Mason that Semyon had told me about and had bought him the honey he was lusting after. Surrendering to the herd instinct, I got some for myself as well. Then I set out for the toyshop Hamleys (if the shop sign could be believed, the oldest shop for children in the world) and, after jostling my way through five storeys of clamouring children and their parents, I chose a present for my daughter. At first I tried, like an honest spy, to make out what girls of her age were buying, but then I realised that all those beads, stickers and glittery things wouldn’t bring her any joy at all. And then I went down into the basement, where I found something like a toy maze with two tiny electronic beetles that were supposed to run through it. The toy was so astoundingly absurd that I bought it without a second thought, and at the checkout I picked up a teddy bear as well.
The true horror of the situation was that I had carried out the entire programme for my visit to London in a single day! Whisky and other alcoholic souvenirs could be bought more easily in the airport. I could devote the whole of the next day and half of the one after that to tourist pastimes – museums, parks, pubs, bridges … and shops too, of course.
But somehow I didn’t fancy any of it. Neither the gloomy severity of the Tower, nor the magnificence of the royal parks, nor the glitter of London’s shops. I had already been on Piccadilly. I had gazed at the Thames and tossed a two-pence piece into the murky water. I wanted to go home!
I was probably insane.
I finished up my mug of beer and fell into thought for a brief moment. I didn’t want to go to the hoteclass="underline" the only entertainments there were the tiny bar and the TV in my room. Basically, there was nothing to prevent me having another pint … I started rising to my feet from the wooden bench that is traditional for all self-respecting pubs.
‘I’ve already got it in.’ A full mug of beer appeared on the table in front of me.
First I lowered myself back down onto the bench. And then I looked into the face of the woman who had shown such unexpected solicitude for me.
Although there really wasn’t any need for that. I had recognised Arina from her voice.
The former witch and present Light Other had another mug of beer in her hands. The old woman preferred Guinness.
But then, the old woman also preferred to look like a woman ‘under thirty’: full-figured, beautiful and dressed in haute couture. Elegant grey skirt and jacket, high-heeled shoes, a pink blouse so simple in style that it had clearly cost a monstrous amount of money, a little Louis Vuitton handbag and a silk scarf round her neck. And in all this she didn’t look like a spoiled rich bitch whose purchases are funded by her husband, but more like a serious businesswoman, a top manager in some major corporation or bank.
‘Glad to see you,’ Arina said with a smile. ‘You’ve … matured, Anton.’
One thing I had always liked about her was her precise way of expressing herself. Not ‘you’ve aged’ – what question could there be of age? Not ‘you’ve grown up’ – from the extreme vantage point of her long years I was a veritable infant, but for Arina to say that would have been to admit her own age. Not ‘you’ve changed’ – experienced Others know that very few individuals are capable of genuinely changing.
Although Arina had done it.
‘Are you aware of the fact that the Inquisition is looking for you?’ I asked. ‘And that all members of the Night Watch and the Day Watch in every country of the world, regardless of their level of Power and specialisation, are obliged to summon the Inquisition when you show up and take measures to detain you?’
‘Yes, I am,’ Arina confirmed. She thought for a second and decided not to provoke me. ‘I hope we can manage without that?’
‘We can,’ I agreed.
For a minute or so we drank our beer and looked at each other. She was a strange Other. Once she was a Dark One who often committed good deeds. Then she contrived to change her colour and become a Light One – but in the process she caused worse grief and disaster than some werewolves or vampires. I even had a sneaking suspicion that fundamentally it was all the same to Arina what she was called and how she was regarded – at any moment she was capable of abominable meanness or noble generosity. And it was entirely possible that in working evil she would appear to be a hundred-per-cent Light One, and in doing good would look every inch a Dark One, from her head to her feet.
I even suspected that, contrary to the general opinion, Arina was capable of changing her colour over and over again.
It wasn’t exactly that for her there was no difference – she could see the difference all right. It was just that she regarded the path from the Darkness to the Light as a well-beaten track, not a narrow little path that crumbled away behind you.
‘Strangely enough, I’m glad that you got away that time,’ I said. ‘Despite all the mischief you got up to.’
‘I had to help the departed to find rest,’ Arina said, with a shrug. ‘And I think the outcome justified that. And Saushkin the elder ended his … activities. And Edgar found rest too. The world became a better place. Your nerves suffered a bit, I admit that, but it all turned out well in the end … Peace?’
‘Peace,’ I said after a brief pause. ‘That’s all in the past now. I’ll mention in my report that I met you, but I won’t do anything rash.’
‘Thank you,’ said Arina. ‘That’s precisely the right decision! And anyway … I came looking for you for a reason.’
I said nothing. I didn’t ask how she had found me and what she wanted me for. She wouldn’t tell me how, in any case: a witch has her own cunning methods. And she was going to tell me what for without being asked.
‘Have you already met Erasmus?’ Arina asked.
I smiled and didn’t answer. Arina’s sources are pretty good, but not omniscient.
‘I assume you have,’ Arina went on. ‘Are you going to share the news?’
‘What for?’ I asked.
Arina sighed. ‘Now that’s the right question. Anton, how do you intend to deal with the Tiger?’
‘I don’t. He’s gone.’
‘And when he comes back for you?’
‘Why would he do that?’
‘You’ve always tried to avoid actions with irrevocable consequences, Anton. I don’t believe the boy’s prophecy was simply lost in the void.’
I shrugged.
‘Arina, if I had heard the prophecy, the Tiger would have come after me, right? That’s the first thing. The second is that I was physically nowhere near him. The boy was egged on by Nadya. And then she left him too. Surely you don’t think I would have left my daughter unsupervised if I had even the slightest suspicion that she had heard the prophecy … and was therefore in danger?’
A shadow of doubt flickered across Arina’s face.
‘Yes, that’s true … that’s right. I understand that. But something doesn’t fit! You must have tried to save the information and keep it for yourself. You wouldn’t be you if you hadn’t!’