was pressed it had elongated and begun to rotate. But the electric motor had burnt out long ago, and nobody had taken the trouble to repair it, so the fang was permanently frozen in a position between concealed and operational.
'I was too hasty with my conclusions,' I admitted. 'It's my fault, Mr Lermont.'
'It's nobody's fault, you simply didn't want any Others to be involved,' Foma said generously. 'If you'd familiarised yourself with the results of the autopsy, you'd have realised that your version was wrong. So now what do you say?'
'If the vampire was very hungry and he sucked the man dry' ?I frowned ?'he could have puked up afterwards. But not all the blood. Were there any traces of anaesthetic serum in the water?'
'No, there weren't,' Foma said, with a nod of approval. 'But then, that doesn't mean anything, the vampire could have been in such a hurry that he didn't bother with the anaesthetic'
'He could have been,' I agreed. 'So either he puked or he bit and then held the victim until he bled out. But what for?'
'To confuse us all and mislead the investigation.'
'That doesn't make any sense,' I said, shaking my head. 'Why confuse things? Why leave the marks of a vampire's bite and drain away the blood? They're very careful with it, they wouldn't just pour it away. Our vampires even have a saying for novices: "Blood spilt on the ground is mother's milk wasted".'
'You can always find a way to make sense of anything,' Foma declared didactically. 'For example ?the killer vampire needed to make us suspect a young, hungry vampire. So he bit the boy but he didn't drink, just poured the blood away, hoping that it wouldn't be found. Or the vampire was hungry, but as soon as he bit he realised what he'd done and decided to pour the blood away, to create the impression of falsified evidence...'
Completely carried away now, I fluttered my hands in the air, as if I was talking to Geser.
'Oh, come on, Bo?Foma! You can come up with lots of theories, but I've never met a hungry vampire who would leave the blood once he had his fangs in. This argument isn't getting us anywhere. What's far more important is why the boy was killed. Was he a random victim? Then we really do have to look for a tourist or a novice. Or did someone have a special reason for killing Victor?'
'A vampire can kill a man with a single blow,' said Foma. 'And without even touching him. Why would he leave any clues behind? Victor could have died from a heart attack, and no one would have suspected a thing.'
'Agreed,' I said, with a nod. 'Then... then your Master is right. It's some vampire from out of town, and the boy just happened to be in the wrong place. He bit him, then got frightened and puked up the blood.'
'It looks that way,' Foma agreed. 'But there's still something bothering me, Anton.'
We finished our beer without another word.
'Have you tried testing traces from the body?' I asked.
I didn't have to say that I meant traces left by an aura.
'A dead aura from a dead body?' Foma said, with a sceptical shake of his head. 'That's never been much help. But we did try. No traces were found... Tell me, watchman, what else did you see that was unusual in the Dungeons?'
'There are Others working there,' I said. 'There's no blue moss, although the place is overflowing with emotions. Someone cleans it out regularly'
'There are no Others working there,' Foma snapped. 'The blue moss just doesn't grow there.'
I looked at him uncertainly.
'Out of interest, we tried bringing it in from outside. It withers and falls off in an hour. A sort of natural anomaly'
'Well... it happens, I suppose,' I said, making a mental note to check in the archives.
'It does,' Foma agreed. 'Anton, I'd like to ask you not to leave the investigation just yet. There's something here that really bothers me. Try having a word Victor's girlfriend.'
'Is the girl still here?'
'Of course. The police asked her not to leave town. The Alex City hotel; not far from here. I think it will be easier for you to make contact with her.'
'Do you suspect her of something?'
Foma shook his head.
'She's just an ordinary person... It's something else. She's taking her lover's death very hard, cooperating willingly with the police. Hut maybe a fellow Russian will find it easier to get through to her. A gesture,