Now I could feel the magic that permeated the file. A light defensive spell that caused no problems for Light Ones. Dark Ones could have removed it with no difficulty too, but it would have created a real din while they were at it.
When I opened the file ?the Great Geser had tied the laces in a neat bow ?I discovered four fresh newspaper clippings that still smelled of printer's ink, a fax and three photographs. The three clippings were in English, and to start with I focused on them.
The first clipping was a brief article about an incident in a tourist attraction that was called the Dungeons of Scotland. This establishment seemed to be a fairly banal version of the standard 'room of horror'. But a Russian tourist had been killed there,'as ,a result of technical faults'. The dungeons had been closed and the police were investigating to establish whether the personnel were responsible for the tragedy.
The second article was much more detailed. It didn't mention any 'technical faults' at all. The text was rather dry, even pedantic. I grew more and more excited as I read that the man who had died, twenty-year-old Victor Prokhorov, had been studying at Edinburgh University and was the son of 'a Russian politician'. He had gone to the 'dungeons' with his girlfriend, Valeria Khomko, who had flown from Russia to see him, and he had died in her arms from loss of blood. In the darkness of the tourist attraction someone had cut his throat. Or something had cut it. The poor guy and his girlfriend had been sitting in a boat that was sailing slowly across the River of Blood, a shallow ditch around the Castle of the Vampires. Perhaps some sharp piece of metal protruding from the wall had caught Victor across the throat?
When I got to this point, I sighed and looked at Geser.
'You've always been good with ... er ... vampires,' the boss said, looking up from his papers for a second.
The third article was from the yellow press, one of Scotland's cheap tabloids. And of course, in this case the reporter told a terrible story of modern-day vampires who suck the blood of their victims in the dismal darkness of tourist attractions. The only original detail was the journalist's claim that vampires did not usually suck their victims dry and kill them. But, like a true Russian, the student had been so drunk that the poor Scottish vampire had got tipsy too and then got carried away.
Even though the story was so tragic, I laughed.
'The yellow press is the same everywhere the whole world over,' Geser said without looking up.
'The worst thing is that that's exactly the way it was,' I said. 'Apart from him being drunk, of course.'
'A pint of beer with lunch,' Geser agreed.
The fourth clipping was from one of our Russian newspapers. An obituary. Condolences to Leonid Prokhorov, Deputy of the State Duma, whose son has been killed tragically...
I picked up the fax.
As I expected, it was a report from the Night Watch of the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, Great Britain.
The only slightly unusual thing about it was that it was addressed to Geser in person, and not to the duty operations officer or head of the international department. And the tone of the letter was just a little more personal than was normal for official documents.
The contents were no surprise to me, though.
'We regret to inform you... the results of a thorough investi gation... total loss of blood ... no signs of initiation were found... searches have discovered nothing... our best men have been put on the case ... if the Moscow department considers it necessary to send... give my best wishes to Olga, I'm very pleased for you, you old co?
The second page of the fax was missing. Obviously the text on it was personal. And so I didn't see the signature.
'Foma Lermont,' said Geser. 'Head of the Scottish Watch. An old friend.'
'Aha...' I drawled thoughtfully. 'And so...'
Our glances met again.
'Oh no, you can ask for yourself if he's related to the Russian poet Lermontov,' said Geser.
'I was thinking of something else. "Co" ?is that commander?'
'"Co" is... ' Geser hesitated and glanced at the page with obvious annoyance. '"Co" is just "co". That's none of your business.'
I looked at the photographs. A young man, that was the unfor tunate victim Victor. A girl, very young. His girlfriend, no need to guess there. And an older man. Victor's father?