Roberts couldn’t restrain himself from grabbing Newton’s jacket front. ‘Tell it now!’ he grated through clenched teeth. ‘Exactly as it happened, Harvey.’ Newton, dazed, told it, concluding:
‘So while Gower was burning that. . . that bloody thing which wasn’t a dog not all of it, anyway — this other dog went by in the mist. But I can’t even swear that I saw it at all! I mean, there was so much going on. It could have been just the mist, or my imagination, or. . . anything! I thought it loped, but sort of upright in an impossible forward crouch. And its head wasn’t just the right shape. It had to be my imagination, a curl of mist, something like that. Imagination, yes — especially with Gower standing there burning that godawful dog! Christ, I’ll dream of dogs like that for the rest of my life!’
Roberts released him violently, almost tossed him across the room. The fat man wasn’t just fat; he was
heavy, too, and very strong. He looked at Newton in disgust. ‘Idiot!’ he rumbled. He lit a cigarette, despite the fact that he already had one going.
‘I couldn’t have done anything anyway!’ Newton protested. ‘I’d shot my bolt, hadn’t reloaded yet . .
‘Shot your bloody bolt?’ Roberts glared. Then he calmed himself. ‘I’d like to say it’s not your fault,’ he told Newton then. ‘And maybe it isn’t your fault. Maybe he was just too damned clever for us.’
‘What now?’ said Layard. He felt a little sorry for Newton, tried to take attention away from him.
Roberts looked at Layard. ‘Now? Well, when I’ve calmed down a little you and me will have to try and find the bastard, that’s what now!’
‘Find him?’ Newton licked dry lips. How?’ He was confused, wasn’t thinking clearly.
Roberts at once tapped the side of his head with huge white knuckles. ‘With this!’ he shouted. ‘It’s what I do. I’m a “scryer”, remember?’ He glared again at Newton. ‘So what’s your fucking talent? Other than screwing things up, I mean. .
Newton found a chair and fell into it. ‘I . . . I saw him, and yet convinced myself that I hadn’t seen him. What the hell’s wrong with me? We went there to trap him — to trap anything coming out of that house — so why didn’t I react more posit —,
Jordan drew air sharply and made a conclusive, snapping sound with his fingers. He gave a sharp nod, said, ‘Of course!’
They all looked at him.
‘Of course!’ he said again, spitting the words out. ‘He’s talented too, remember? Too bloody talented by a mile!
Harvey, he got to you. Telepathically, I mean. Hell, he got to me too! Convinced us he wasn’t there, that we couldn’t see him. And I really didn’t see him, not a hair of him. I was there, too, remember, when Simon was burning that thing. But I saw nothing. So don’t feel too bad about it, Harvey — at least you actually saw the bastard!’
‘You’re right,’ Roberts nodded after a moment. ‘You have to be. So now we know for sure: Bodescu is loose, angry and — God, dangerous! Yes, and he’s more powerful, far more powerful, than anyone has yet given him credit for . .
Wednesday, 12.30 A.M. middle-European time, the border crossing-point near Siret in Moldavia.
Krakovitch and Gulharov had shared the driving between them, though Carl Quint would have been only too happy to drive if they had let him. At least that might have relieved some of his boredom. Quint hadn’t found the Romanian countryside along their route — railway depots standing forlorn and desolate as scarecrows, dingy industrial sites, fouled rivers and the like — especially romantic. But even without him, and despite the often dilapidated condition of the roads, still the Russians had made fairly good time. Or at least they’d made good time until they arrived here; but ‘here’ was the middle of nowhere, and for some as yet unexplained reason they’d been held up ‘here’ for the last four hours.
Earlier their route out of Bucharest had taken them through Buzau, Focsani and Bacau along the banks of the Siretul, and so into Moldavia. In Roman they’d crossed the river, then continued up through Botosani where they’d paused to eat, and so into and through Siret. Now, on the northern extreme of the town, the border crossing-point blocked their way, with Chernovtsy and the Prut some twenty miles to the north. By now Krakovitch had planned on being through Chernovtsy and into Kolomyya under the old mountains the old Carpathians for the night, but.