“Before Dima I talked to the woman in the tobacco kiosk,” said Bisat. “She’s quite an attractive woman, but very thin . . .”

“No, wait,” I told him. “Bisat, when Pastukhov got stomach cramps and he went into the airport building—remember? You stopped a man coming out of the arrivals hall . . .”

“But he wasn’t a man,” Bisat objected very calmly.

“Then who was he?” I exclaimed.

“I don’t know,” Bisat said as imperturbably as ever. “But not a man. There aren’t any people like that.”

“All right, tell me what this not-man looked like,” I said to him. “And what you talked about.”

“He . . .” For the first time Bisat thought about his answer. He even displayed a certain degree of animation, reaching out his hand and scratching his stomach. “He had light hair. Very tall. A short beard. Blue eyes. I asked him for his ID. He said there was no need for that. He put his hand on my shoulder and looked into my eyes. I . . . I was going to ask him what he thought he was doing. But I didn’t.”

“Why not?”

“What difference does it make?”

“Your partner Dima described this . . . not-man . . . differently.”

“I don’t know how he described him,” Bisat replied calmly.

I sighed, gathered together a little Power in my hand and cast the Socrates spell—a temporary but irresistible desire to tell the truth, and nothing but the truth—in the policeman’s direction.

Hurtling through the Twilight, the hazy blob of the spell passed straight through Bisat and carried on through the wall out into the street. Uh-oh, now someone was in for it . . .

“Try the ‘Dominant,’ ” suggested Las.

I shook my head, looking at the man lying on the bed. A normal man, who couldn’t care less about anything now. He had no aura. And spells passed clean through him.

“That won’t help. Let’s go, Las.”

“But . . .”

“Let’s go,” I said.

Bisat turned back to the screen again. The presenter was happily explaining: “And so, in these delicate folds and wrinkles . . .”

The policeman’s wife was waiting for us in the hallway. The music was still playing, only more quietly now.

Howl if you like, it won’t change a thing,

You must pay the price for your luck.

Water won’t save a shriveled-up garden

And money won’t buy my life back.

“We’ll be going,” I said awkwardly. “You know . . . you’ll probably get more phone calls. And people will call round . . . from work.”

“I want to take him away,” the woman said suddenly.

“Where to?”

“Home . . . To Azerbaijan. There’s an otachi there—Yusuf. He cures people with herbs. He cures everything. He’s not just a herb doctor, he’s a gam.”

“A wizard?” I asked.

The woman nodded and pursed her lips tightly.

“Take him,” I said. “Only first show him to our healer, all right?”

The woman looked at me suspiciously.