Night Watch 05 - The New Watch (17 page)

‘I get it,’ I said with a nod. ‘Erasmus hasn’t changed his address, has he?’

‘Not as far as we’ve been able to find out,’ said Gesar, shaking his head.

‘And where does he live? Somewhere in the back of beyond, obviously. Amid boundless, grassy expanses and centuries-old trees? The heather-clad wilds of Scotland, the bleak cliffs of Wales . . .’

‘He lives in London,’ Gesar snorted. ‘As the years pass by, you start to appreciate comfort, believe me.’

‘A work trip to London . . . not bad,’ I mused wistfully.

‘Well, that’s where you’re going.’

‘Well, I won’t argue with that,’ I replied quickly. ‘Who with?’

‘On your own. No combat situations are anticipated. We don’t have anybody who’s acquainted with Erasmus – apart from Anna Tikhonovna, but in view of the circumstances under which their contact was broken off . . .’

‘But don’t you know him?’ I asked hopefully.

Gesar shook his head.

‘No, I don’t. And Foma Lermont doesn’t, either. We could dig up some contact at the fourth or fifth remove, but that’s not likely to be any help.’

‘I’ve just had a thought,’ Anna Tikhonovna put in almost timidly. ‘What if Anton took Kesha with him?’

‘You think Erasmus might be moved by a boy whose fate is so much like his own?’ asked Gesar, rubbing the bridge of his nose. ‘What do you think, Anton?’

‘I don’t think a four-hundred-years-old Other is likely to be very sentimental,’ I replied. ‘I’d rather take Svetlana with me.’

‘Just as soon as she comes back to the Watch,’ Gesar chuckled. ‘Go to London, Anton. Have a talk with Erasmus. Perhaps he might tell you something important. If not . . . it’ll blow your cobwebs away for you. I’ve signed off on your trip, the tickets are ready, pick them up in the accounts office. You fly tomorrow morning.’

‘Business class, I hope?’ I joked.

‘Yes,’ said Gesar.

That put a damper on my urge to be witty. Of course, the Night Watch wasn’t a poor organisation, and we didn’t make all that many business trips . . . But why had Gesar suddenly turned generous enough to send me business class?

‘And what’s the per diem?’ I asked.

‘A hundred and twenty pounds a day. And the hotel’s paid.’

Was he being serious, then?

‘Will I be staying in the Radisson or the Sheraton?’ I asked, testing the water further.

‘No chance,’ Gesar laughed. ‘A small, traditional English hotel – what better way to get to know a strange country?’

‘Boris Ignatievich, where’s the catch?’ I asked, giving up.

‘There isn’t one. It’s simply that you really have been doing a pretty good job just recently. Let’s say I’ve invented a holiday on the house for you. If you don’t achieve anything, I won’t criticise you for it, and if you really do find out something – I’ll send you on your next mission in the corporate plane.’

‘Uh-huh, if only we had one,’ I chortled as I got up.

‘I’m just about to buy one,’ said Gesar. ‘Which do you think is best – a Gulfstream or an Embraer?’

‘A Yak-40,’ I answered and walked out of the office.

What bothered me most of all was that Gesar didn’t seem to be joking.

What would the Night Watch of the city of Moscow want with a corporate jet plane?

It would be better if they changed the air conditioners in the office – in summer the heat was so bad that you could hardly breathe!

If there was one thing I was certain of after fifteen years in the Watch, it was that Gesar never did anything without a good reason. He didn’t set any assignments on a purely functional basis, or in sudden fits of altruism.

For instance, take that old business with the boy Egor, the indeterminate Other who was being hunted by vampires. Why did Gesar suddenly decide to send me out ‘into the field’ to catch bloodsuckers who broke the rules? Simply to shift me from office work to the front line? No – or rather, not just for that. It was also to create a thicker smokescreen around the boy and teach me a lesson about the ‘goodness’ of the Night Watch – and the ‘wickedness’ of the Day Watch. And very probably he was also nudging me in the direction of Svetlana, tying our relations together in the knot that would lead to Nadya being born. And perhaps even with the intention of explaining – to me and the other watchmen – what a Mirror is. Could the boss have been expecting a Mirror to appear, suspecting it was Egor and not that poor devil Rogoza, who was fated to turn into it? And incidentally, the Russian boy’s first name and the young Ukrainian’s family name even sounded vaguely similar – Egor and Rogoza . . .

Damn it! Now I was really going over the top! Inventing my own conspiracy theories. Gesar’s an arch-intriguer, of course, and all his actions have double and triple agendas, but latching onto the fact that two names have similar sounds – that’s a sure step down the path to paranoia.

What did Gesar really have in mind, sending me to London like this, and on such sensationally good conditions – a paid trip, a business-class flight and a safe, hassle-free assignment? We had plenty of less powerful but highly professional members of the Watch, male and female, who could have met Erasmus and tried to find out something from him.

Either Gesar suspected that the assignment could turn out more dangerous than it seemed . . .

Or he saw some special qualities in me that would allow me to handle the assignment better than the others . . .

Or the whole deal was phoney, to distract someone’s attention from the real business. Say, Gesar believed that Zabulon was following me and would now go dashing off to London to see Erasmus too.

I sighed. I could carry on thinking up any number of theories. But somehow I had the feeling that I was missing something very simple and very logical – and therefore missing the most logical explanation.

‘I wouldn’t bother my head about it if I were you,’ Svetlana said as she packed a little suitcase for me. ‘Gesar’s being devious, of course. But he needs you, and in general I think he’s very fond of you. He had to send someone to London to see Erasmus for form’s sake – so why not you?’

‘But he clearly thinks this business with the Tiger case isn’t over yet,’ I said pensively. We were in the bedroom. Nadya was watching TV in the sitting room and we could talk frankly.

‘I don’t think it’s over, either . . .’ Svetlana froze over the suitcase for a moment, with a pile of clean shorts in her hands. ‘Anton, is there anything you’re hiding from me?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Anything to do with the Tiger and the prophecy?’

‘I told you everything I knew,’ I said, prevaricating slightly. I really didn’t know what had been dictated into the toy telephone. I wasn’t even sure that anything had been dictated into it at all . . . ‘Sveta, how many days are you packing my suitcase for?’

‘Three . . . five . . . seven. For a week.’

‘What for? I’ve got a return ticket after just two days.’

‘Obviously for some reason I felt it was right to put in seven sets of underclothes for you,’ Svetlana said thoughtfully. ‘And I’ve put in five shirts . . . and two warm sweaters as well . . .’

‘London’s sweltering, just like Moscow,’ I remarked.

‘I know,’ Svetlana sighed. ‘Unfortunately, I’m an intuitive clairvoyant.’

I nodded. Most Others, even when they feel a need to act in one particular way and not any other, can’t explain the reason why. And Svetlana didn’t know why she was packing me a bag for a week. That boy Innokentii would be able to explain it – when he learned to manage his gift.

‘And I’ll put in a raincoat for you,’ Svetlana said unexpectedly. ‘And an umbrella.’

‘Will it fit?’ I asked doubtfully, looking at the suitcase.

‘I’ll stretch it on the inside.’

The funny thing was that the spell which made it possible to pack a whole heap of junk into a small volume had only appeared fairly recently. It had simply never occurred to a single Other that it could be done – until people started describing magical bags and suitcases in books of fantasy and fairy tales. Naturally, the path from concept to realisation was not long. But even at that time not every magician was capable of casting the ‘handbag’ – aka ‘nosebag’ – spell.

Svetlana could, of course.

‘I’ll expand your suitcase for two weeks,’ said Svetlana. ‘You never know . . . if you really did get delayed, there’d be shorts and shirts spraying out in the middle of the airport.’

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘What can I bring you from London?’

Svetlana brushed that aside.

‘Don’t you try choosing any clothes for me . . . London has the oldest toyshop in the world: Hamleys. Drop in there and buy something for Nadya.’

‘Clothes?’ I asked.

‘Toys.’

I harrumphed. I reckoned our daughter was pretty much indifferent to toys already. If I’d had a son, everything would have been simple enough. Buy him some radio-controlled helicopter, or some fancy kind of construction set.

‘Barbie?’ I asked, straining my imagination.

Svetlana sighed, smiled and explained. ‘Look what girls her age are buying and get that.’

‘I’ll do that,’ I said happily. ‘Still, what shall I bring you?’

There was a moment’s awkward silence, with just some dialogue in squeaky cartoon voices from the TV in the sitting room: ‘I want to know what the meaning of life is!’ – ‘Then you need Cusinatra, who gives meaning!’

‘We need a food processor for the kitchen,’ said Svetlana, laughing at something. ‘But you don’t have to drag it all the way from Great Britain. Bring what the English do best of all.’

‘A global language or an empire?’

‘Good whisky.’

‘In the first place, whisky is either Scotch or Irish, and not English. And in the second place, when did you start drinking?’

‘I’ll try it,’ said Svetlana, smiling again. ‘And you’ll have a drink with your friends. And your conscience will be clear, because you’ve brought me a present.’

Gesar was feeling so benevolent that I didn’t even have to book a taxi – Semyon called round for me at seven.

‘There’s your present for Erasmus,’ he said, waving one hand towards a tightly packed plastic bag, crudely sealed with sticky tape, that was lying on the boot of the car.

‘What’s in it?’

‘I don’t know. What kind of presents do people take from Russia? Vodka, caviar . . .’

‘A matryoshka doll and a balalaika,’ I said in the same tone. I opened the suitcase and stuffed the plastic bag into it. In defiance of all common sense it fitted easily into the tightly packed case.

‘Did Sveta put a “nosebag” on it?’ Semyon asked.

‘Uh-huh. She has the strange idea my trip’s going to last a whole week.’

‘I’d trust what Svetlana says,’ Semyon said seriously.

‘I do.’

Along the way, after we’d made the turn onto Leningrad Chaussee, Semyon unexpectedly asked: ‘Anton, do you mind if I ask you a personal question?’

‘Go ahead.’

‘How are things with you and Svetlana?’

‘In what sense?’

‘The most direct sense possible. How’s the relationship?’

‘Just fine,’ I said. ‘Best friends and comrades. Complete mutual understanding.’

‘That’s not exactly what’s required in family relationships,’ Semyon said didactically. ‘You and I are the ones who should be best friends and comrades – we fight together. But in bed and at the family table comradeship is inappropriate.’

I said nothing for a moment, then lowered the window on my side of the car, took out a cigarette and lit up. Leningrad Chaussee was already packed with cars, but Semyon was driving easily and quickly.

‘What made you suddenly bring this up?’ I asked. ‘You lousy psychotherapist . . .’

‘I want to help you,’ Semyon explained. ‘I’ve lived in this world for a long time, after all, and I’ve seen a lot. It was hard to make everything fit together at first, right? You and Sveta are both strong individuals, it’s hard for you to adjust to suit someone else, even if you want to. And then somehow it all came together after all. You had a daughter and everything was really good, right? But afterwards, when she grew up a bit – everything got a bit messy again. Comradely.’

‘So?’ I asked, taking a greedy drag.

‘You need shaking up a bit,’ Semyon said imperturbably. ‘For instance, you need a good row about something, the real thing, with smashed plates, or a fight. Separate for a while, get really miffed with each other. But that’s hard for you, because of your daughter . . . And it would be good if you were unfaithful to her. You’ve never been unfaithful to Svetlana, have you?’

‘Listen, you, sod off . . .’ I said, starting to get really wound up. ‘When you were a kid, didn’t your mum tell you not to poke your nose into other people’s family business?’

‘No, my mum just loved sticking her nose into other people’s squabbles,’ Semyon replied. ‘Anton, don’t go taking offence, there’s no one else who’ll tell you this. But I love you and Sveta very much. And I really want everything to be fine for you.’

‘So you advise us to have a fight or be unfaithful to each other!’

‘Well, I’m a simple soul and my methods are simple,’ Semyon chuckled. ‘You could turn to a therapist for help instead, go to sessions for a year or two, spend a bit of time on the couch, talk about life . . .’

‘Screw you,’ I said crudely, flicking my cigarette out of the window.

‘Anton, there’s something big brewing,’ said Semyon. ‘Trust my intuition on that. Hard times are on the way and it would be good if we can all be in good shape to meet them. With no discord in our hearts or our families . . .’

‘You get married then, set up a durable social unit of your own . . .’

‘My love was a human being. She died,’ Semyon replied simply. ‘I told you about that. And it seems like I’m the one-woman kind. Like yourself. Okay, don’t go getting upset, don’t make a big thing of it.’

‘Oh, sure, first you lay all this on me, then it’s “don’t make a big thing of it”,’ I muttered. ‘Shall I bring you something from London? Whisky . . .’

‘I can buy whisky here,’ Semyon said dismissively. ‘You know what, drop into Fortnum and Mason’s, that’s on Piccadilly. Buy me a jar of Yorkshire honey, I really love it and you can’t get it here.’

‘The world’s gone crazy,’ I said. ‘I asked Sveta, she told me to bring whisky. And a healthy drinking man like you wants a jar of English honey!’