The Other might be a vampire or a werewolf . . . or he might not.'

I nodded.

'He might be a Dark One,' said Gesar. 'Or he might turn out to be a Light One.'

I didn't say anything. I'd been thinking the same thing.

'And most important of all,' Gesar added, 'remember – "He intends to turn this human being into an Other" could be a bluff.'

'And maybe not?' I asked. 'Gesar, is it really possible to turn a human being into an Other?'

'Do you honestly think I would have hidden something like that?' Gesar replied. 'So many Others with broken lives, so many fine people condemned to live only their short, human lives . . . Nothing of the kind has ever happened before. But there's a first time for everything.'

'Then I'll assume it is possible,' I said.

'I can't give you any amulets,' Gesar advised me. 'You understand why. And you'd better not use magic. The only thing that is permissible is to look through the Twilight. But if the need arises, we'll be there quickly. Just call.'

He paused and then added:

'I'm not expecting any violent confrontations. But you must be prepared for them.'

I'd never parked in an underground car park before. It was just as well that there weren't many cars, the concrete ramps were flooded with bright light and the security man sitting there watching the monitors politely pointed out where my parking spaces were.

Apparently it was assumed that I had at least two cars.

After parking, I took my bag out of the boot, set the car alarm and walked towards the exit. The security man was amazed, and he asked me if the lifts were out of order. I had to wrinkle up my forehead, wave my hand around and say I hadn't been there for about a year.

The security man asked which floor I lived on, and in which block. Then he showed me the way to the lift.

Surrounded by chrome, mirrors and conditioned air, I rode up to the eighth floor. I actually felt rather insulted that I lived so low down. I hadn't been expecting the penthouse exactly, but even so.

On the landing – if you can a hall with thirty square metres of floor space a landing – I wandered from one door to another for a while. The fairy tale had come to an abrupt end. One door was completely missing, and behind the blank aperture there was a gigantic, dark, empty room – concrete walls, a concrete floor, no internal divisions. I could hear the faint sound of water dripping.

It took me a long time to choose between the three doors that were in place – none of these had numbers. Eventually I found a number someone had scratched on one door with a sharp object, and the remains of some figures in chalk on another. It looked like my door was the third one. The most unprepossessing of them all. It would have been just like Gesar to put me in the apartment that didn't even have a door, but then the cover story would have been shot to pieces.

I took out a bunch of keys and opened the door fairly easily. I looked for a light switch and found an entire array of them.

I started switching them on one at a time.

Once the apartment was flooded with light I closed the door behind me and looked around thoughtfully.

Maybe there was something to this after all. Maybe.

The previous owner of the apartment . . . okay, okay, according to the cover story, that was me. Anyway, when I started the finishing work, I'd obviously been full of truly Napoleonic plans. How else could I explain the custom-made patterned parquet, the oak window frames, the Daikin air conditioners and other distinctive features of a truly sumptuous residence?

But after that I must have run out of money. Because the immense studio apartment – with no internal dividing walls – was untouched, virginal. In the corner where the kitchen was supposed to be there was a lopsided old Brest gas cooker, which could well have been used for cooking semolina in the days of my infancy. Nestling on its burners, as if to say 'Do not use!', was a basic microwave oven. But then there was a luxurious extractor hood hanging above the appalling cooker. Huddling pitifully alongside it were two stools and a low serving table.

From sheer force of habit I took my shoes off and walked over into the kitchen corner. There