Pastukhov wiped the sweat off his forehead and shrugged. “Then a wolf walked past . . . well . . . that’s nothing unusual. I see dogs and wolves at the airport every day. And then this other one came out . . . that was when I really freaked.”

“Another ‘wolf’?” I asked.

“No . . .” Pastukhov hesitated and started shuffling his feet. “I’ve never come across any like him before. To myself I called him a ‘tiger.’ That look in his eyes—as if he could gobble up anyone he wanted on the spot . . . And I . . . somehow I thought he’d see right through me, realize I could see who he was and kill me on the spot. That very second. So I decided to beat it. I told my partner I had stomach cramps and I was going to the toilet. I thought, what could happen to Bisat? He can’t see your kind! But as I was walking away I saw Bisat . . . stopping that tiger!”

“Can you describe him? The tiger?”

Pastukhov shook his head.

“I only saw him from a distance. Male, middle-aged, average height, dark hair . . .”

“I really hate people who fit that description,” I said, frowning. “How could you make out the look in his eyes from so far away?”

“I can see the eyes from any distance,” Pastukhov replied seriously. “I don’t know why.”

“Nationality?”

Dmitry thought about that. “Standard, probably. Native European Russian.”

“So not from the Caucasus, or Asia or Scandinavia . . .”

“No, and not black, either.”

“Anything else?”

Pastukhov closed his eyes and frowned. He was making a genuine effort. “He didn’t have any luggage. When he was standing beside Bisat, I noticed his hands were empty. He probably wouldn’t have flown in like that, would he?”

“Thank you, that’s interesting,” I said. Of course, the luggage could actually have been invisible. I once lugged an invisible suitcase onto a plane to avoid the excess-baggage charge . . .

The policeman sighed and said: “Probably I should have gone back, only my stomach really did cramp up. It was so bad, I was afraid I wouldn’t reach the toilet in time, even at a run—” He broke off and then went on: “And I didn’t make it. But you probably know that already.”

“Yes,” I said, and nodded.

“I shat myself,” Pastukhov said miserably. “Well, if it had been some kind of digestive trouble, dysentery—anyone can get that, right? But this came straight out of the blue. Anyway, I cleaned myself up as best I could, and then called in to the duty office—I took a change of trousers from an old uniform there. The duty sergeant was roaring with laughter, naturally—by evening everyone will know about it . . . Then I came back to my post.”

“And then?” I was much more interested in this than in Pastukhov’s health problems and concern about his good name.