Goran Skrobonja
RUBBER SOUL
novella

Translated by the author
Edited by Brian North Lee


Belgrade, 1993.





In the beginning there wasn’t a Word.
The toothless old man in a dirty overcoat of the indeterminable colour grinned at me from the murky shadow of the Liverpool waterfront; just a moment or two before this unusual statement, he had counted the bundle of pounds I gave him and hid it magically somewhere inside his pockets.
‘In the beginning there was a Song. And the lads knew it.’
Cold English rain was falling down with renewed gusto, making me shiver. I was thinking about the old man; in ‘65 he might have been thirty or something. Today, fifty years later, he looked like an ancient ritual gravestone from some excavation site in the Middle East. He had the archaic Liverpool accent, but I was able to understand every word. Thanks to “the lads” who had made Liverpool famous.
The lads, of course, were The Beatles.
‘Listen,’ I said, ‘is there some place near, where we can talk without having this drizzle down our necks?’
‘There’s a pub around here,’ the old man said and winked. ‘Great fish ‘n’ chips. Okay by you?’
‘Whatever,’ I muttered, ‘just as long as it’s dry.’
He led me through dark and slippery passages between stacked overseas freight containers. I followed him, suspicious, exposed and helpless in this strange environment. I was trying to hold my fear in check. I had to have this conversation.
The old man led me to the fence of the free-trade zone, grinned again in the weak light of the lamp, and crouched. ‘This way,’ he said and slipped to the other side through the invisible opening in the wire. I followed him with a sigh, expecting any moment now the blinding searchlight and threatening shouts of the port guards. Nothing happened; it only rained harder than ever.
The old man was standing a few steps from me, gesturing impatiently. I hurried to him and he led me on, between the parked lorries.
‘Why are we going this way?’ I gasped.
‘It’s bloody faster, that’s why,’ he replied and melted with the darkness. We soon arrived to our destination, through the alleys in which I wasn’t able to see anything at all — it was a huge parking lot for rigs and haulers. On the other side of the lot I could see the shimmering lights behind the curtain of rain.
‘There,’ the old man showed me, and ran across the lot with the amazing speed. I cursed silently and followed him. My heart was pounding in my ears. For this kind of exertions, I should have been thirty years younger — and the same number of kilos lighter. The old man opened the door of the pub with the unreadable sign above the window, and the mixed odors of tobacco, fish, sweat and alcohol struck me from inside.
My guide used his elbows to push his way through the crowd, saying hello here and there to his friends, while I was trying to keep up with him. The pub was terribly loud, and the background for all this commotion was coming from the automaton placed on the small stage, playing sleazy, empty versions of Beatles standards on the multi-sonic. On the head of the apparatus I noticed the wig and spectacles probably intended to make the automaton look like Lennon, and this travesty made me shiver. Then I looked again after the skinny back and gray hair before me, fearing I would lose the old man in the mob of patrons. The old man suddenly stopped and I saw him shouting something in the ear of the middle-aged man with rosy cheeks. The man nodded, looked up to me over the old man’s shoulder, and turned around and led us to the other side of the bar. The loud bunch of boys kept shooting darts there. The man, supposedly the owner, pushed through them, murmuring apologies, and unlocked the sliding panel on the wall. There was a small cubicle behind, with a table for two, or three people at best. The old man and I sat ourselves down inside; the owner of the pub turned on the lamp on the wall and disappeared to return about a minute later with two pints of light beer and plates of fish, chips and mushy peas. Then he closed the sliding door and left us alone.
‘It was very hard to get to you, Mr. Peabody,’ I said, putting my hat on the only empty chair in the cubicle. It was lazily dripping water down the wooden seat and chair-legs, accumulating in a small puddle on the floor. Within this tight, closed space, the air soon became saturated with moisture evaporating from the two of us.
The old man waved his hand, dismissing my remark, took a fried fish between his thumb and forefinger, swallowed it and washed it down with some beer.
‘So, you’ve found me, haven’t you? And you’ve just told me why. I knew it had to happen, sooner or later. Tell me... your accent? You’re from abroad?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where from?’
‘It’s not important,’ I snapped. After the nocturnal chase under the onslaught of the whipping rain, the smell of fried fish was irresistible, and I joined the old man. Surprisingly, the beer was cold. It felt good.
‘Tell me, Mr. Peabody,’ I said, ‘why was this song never recorded? Why did they retain the album title — Rubber Soul — but they never put the song with the same title on tape, or cut it on vinyl?’
‘Oh, but they did. It had been recorded. The Song, with the capital S — if you know what I mean. The song Rubber Soul was recorded in September ‘65, in the EMI Parlophone studio. But all takes were destroyed the following weekend, including the demo tape recorded by John on his home four-channel tape recorder. Nobody was able to explain that.’
‘Why didn’t they record it again?’
Peabody looked up and grinned, showing me the mouthful of peas. ‘Because suddenly no one was able to remember it. Not even John, who’s made the music, not even Paul, who’s helped him up with harmonies and the final version of the words, not even George Martin, who’s packed it all up. Bloody hell, not even I could remember it, although I’d heard it at least fifty times on rehearsals and recording sessions — well, to tell you the truth, the Song wasn’t ever played and sung by The Beatles in one session: they recorded the parts, music and vocals apart, and George Martin only had to make the final cut by putting the two together in the studio.’
I nodded. I expected something like that. I sipped more beer and took the notebook out of the inner pocket of my coat.
‘You’re some kinda reporter, ain’t you?’ Peabody asked me, suddenly suspicious. ‘Because, if you intend to quote me, it’s no bloody deal. I don’t want to end up like poor Tom did...’
I looked up. ‘Tom? Tom Carmody?’ Tom Carmody belonged to the small team of people attending to The Beatles’ needs while they were working in the studio. Like a few others, Carmody was born in Liverpool, and he used to hang around John and Paul since the days when they were imitating the Everly Brothers as The Nurk Twins, and trying to get laid by picking their guitars and singing. The authorized biographies of the Fab Four mentioned this guy in a couple of places, mainly between shooting the motion picture and recording the album Help!, and Twickenham Studio sessions, where The Beatles made the movie and the LP called Let It Be. I didn’t know what Peabody was getting at.
‘Something’s happened to Tom Carmody?’ I asked him, and the old man turned his eyes from me. His features were pinched, as if he’d already said more than he should have.
‘C’mon, man! I’m not a reporter... and I just gave you a pile of money. What happened to Tom? By the looks of you, I’d say that you wouldn’t like much for the same to happen to you.’
Peabody looked down at his hands and shrugged.
‘Poor Tom,’ he said. ‘They found ‘im four days ago, floating in the Mersey. It took a while to identify him — his head was missing, you know. Anyway, it was all over the newspapers. Eventually, they found his head, too.’
‘Where?’
‘You know the monument on Penny Lane?’ He was talking about the monument raised as The Beatles memorial in the part of Liverpool made famous by McCartney’s song. There were bronze sculptures — Paul seated, with Hoefner violin-bass in his arms, John crouching beside him, holding his Rickenbaker guitar upright, with George and Ringo standing behind, their eyes staring forever into the mists of Liverpool. They were in leather jackets and jeans, The Beatles from the age of Star Club and their Hamburg quests. I nodded.
‘Well, they found Tom’s head under Lennon’s feet. The eyes were missing. And in the mouth...’ Peabody wiped his lips with the back of his hand, rubbed his chin covered with white bristles and swallowed. ‘In his mouth they found something... something...’
‘Something like this?’ I asked quietly and reached across the table.
For a moment, while Peabody was staring at my palm, I feared that his heart would fail him. His face suddenly grew pale like a funeral mask, and his eyes bulged in shock. He didn’t have to answer to my question; his response was quite sufficient. I closed my fingers and put the small object back in my pocket.
‘W-w-where did you find that, mister?’ he stuttered when he found his breath again.
‘It’s a long story. Too long. Here, drink some, so that we can continue. I won’t be bothering you much longer.’
His hand was shaking while he was lifting the glass up to his lips. I waited for a moment or two, allowing him to recover from the shock of recognition; then I read from my notebook:
‘“Michael Peabody, born in Liverpool — date of birth uncertain — met The Beatles while they played at the famous Cavern Club, where he was employed as a bouncer; followed them on their tours as a bodyguard and belonged to the security team during studio sessions. Lost his job with The Beatles after their Apple company in London was founded; current occupation unknown.” Is this correct?’
Peabody nodded.
‘I was able to glean that much about you. I got your telephone number from the social security.’
‘You’re not very smart to pry around like that,’ Peabody said and looked me in the eyes. ‘That bloody song never did anythin’ good for anybody, I say. If you’re not a reporter, why then-’
‘I’ve got my own reasons,’ I interrupted. ‘You say that you don’t remember that particular song. But tell me, do you think you’d be able to recognize it if you, by any chance, heard it somewhere?’
‘Christ, by all means! Among thousands! But it’s impossible, of course, I’ve already told you, all recordings were-’
I took the small chip-player out of my pocket and reached across the table to put it in his ear. He winced, as if I was holding a venomous spider in my hand. ‘Hey, what the bloody hell you think-’
‘Don’t worry. Just listen to this for ten seconds.’
He started to protest, but I turned the chip on. The effect was not unlike the one from a few minutes ago, when Peabody saw the mysterious object on the palm of my hand, but this was much more intensive. His features contorted in the ultimate horror of recognition and he pushed himself away from the table, as if he intended to press himself into the wall of the cubicle behind his back. I turned the thing off and put the small machine back in my pocket.
‘Christ,’ he was shaking his head, ‘Christ... where in heaven did you... oh, Christ!’
‘That’s it, right?’ I said. ‘The lost song of The Beatles? The song called Rubber Soul?’
‘Christ, yes! Now I can remember the tune, as if it was yesterday when I watched John sittin’ by the piano and playin’ it to Paul and others! But the voice... the voice isn’t John’s... It sounds alike, but it’s not John.’
‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Mr. Peabody, just one question more and you’ll earn the hundred pounds you’ve been paid. If I’m not wrong, down there on the dock, where you insisted to meet with me, you said: “In the beginning there was a Song.” Why such a mystical statement? Because of its inexplicable disappearance?’
‘Yeah...’ Peabody said. ‘And because of what that Jeromme bloke said. Basil Jeromme.’
‘Basil Jeromme?’ I took my pen and scribbled the name under my note on Peabody. ‘What about him?’
‘He came to me a few months ago, he did, to ask me about Rubber Soul. He was raving something about some cons... constellation, about Song of Songs, about evil spirits, how the bloody hell should I know... I told him what I could, but he wasn’t very satisfied when he left.’
‘Do you have his address?’
‘Yep.’ Peabody fumbled about his overcoat and gave me a white card. ‘This is the card he gave me. Take it. I don’t need it. Don’t need yours, either. Although you never gave it to me. Maybe you even gave me some phony name...’
‘Maybe,’ I said and took my hat. ‘Good-bye, Mr. Peabody. And thanks. You were a great help.’
‘Hey! Won’t you tell me where did you get-’
But I was already out, pushing my way through the crowd. Outside, I pushed my hat down on my forehead and turned my back to the wind-driven rain. I was lucky: soon I saw smudged yellow lights of a free hovercab and raised my hand. Fifteen minutes later, I was in my hotel room.
I took my wet clothes off to hang them in the bathroom to dry. Then I took the card Peabody gave me and read it again. Professor Basil Jeromme, British Museum, London. There was a telephone number. Maybe that man could tell me something about the puzzling object I brought from Belgrade with me. So, it’s the tiresome railway ride to London again tomorrow... I understood the British insistence on tradition, but in some things it was, if not absurd, then at least ridiculous. Anyway, I had to wait for the telephone call first.
As if reading my mind, the phone suddenly rang, making me jump. I rushed to the nightstand and grabbed the receiver.
‘Hello?’ I said hoarsely into the microphone.
‘Hello, Goran?’ I heard from distance; it was the voice from my audio-chip, the voice so similar to Lennon’s.
‘Rastko? Tell me, is everything okay?’
‘No.’ A single, short word of negation, stabbing my stomach like an icepick.
‘Tell me,’ I said, my eyes closed, my voice strangled. Suddenly, Peabody’s voice whispered in my mind: A head with no eyes... and in the mouth something... something...
‘They’re gone. Sandra and Manja, both. The college authorities are not able to explain that. They were here, in Oxford, until this very morning, and their attendance to classes was duly registered.’
‘In which hotel are you staying?’ I asked. The voice belonged to someone else.
‘Randolph.’
‘Okay, I’m packing and leaving right away. Wait for me there.’
Professor Jeromme will have to wait. Rastko’s daughter and mine have disappeared.

The morning came clear, with no rain. Carefully tended forests, fields and grassy hillsides were washed and very green. The clouds were dispersing and it looked as if it was going to be a clear and sunny day — quite inappropriate, compared to my state of mind.
I felt the deep fatigue from the sleepless night. I left the hotel in Liverpool at 11:00 p.m., taking the commercial hover to Manchester, where I waited for the train to London. Then, at 3:25 A.M., I left the train in Northampton, to catch the local line to Oxford. I could have chosen a somewhat more comfortable solution — a flight from Liverpool to London, then a bus from Gatwick to Oxford, but the first flight was scheduled for 9:00 next morning. That would be a seven or eight hours delay.
I didn’t have to ask the man at the reception desk for Rastko’s room number. I spotted him in the lobby, with two strangers; for the moment, it was like seeing a ghost — with his beard, round glasses and his face gaunt with worry, he looked just like John, perhaps in his ‘primal scream’ and Plastic Ono Band album period. Then Rastko raised his head, saw me at the door and waved. I rubbed my lids to banish the fog of weariness that was clouding my eyes, and approached the coffee-table littered with cups and ashtrays. All three men stood up to greet me, and Rastko said, distractedly: ‘Hello. You were quick to arrive. These gentlemen are from the police.’
‘Henry Swanwick,’ the smaller and plumper of the two introduced himself, extending his hand. ‘Chief Inspector. This is my colleague, Detective Simon Graham.’
I shook their hands and murmured my name.
‘Please,’ I said when we all set down again, ‘tell me about the details.’
‘I have arrived at St. Hilda’s yesterday afternoon, around four,’ Rastko began; he said that in English, because of the policemen. ‘You know that we’ve spoken to the girls the night before, when we’ve arrived in England, and made the arrangement for me to go and pick them up, while you finish your task in Liverpool.’
The automatic waiter came and gathered the dishes and emptied the ashtrays, so I grabbed a chance to order some espresso. The weariness was squeezing my forehead like a metal ring.
‘Nobody came to open their doors, nor answered to my calls from their rooms when I climbed to their bedrooms. I searched for them some time in the other rooms, and then I looked for the professor in charge. I became worried, because we had agreed upon the exact time of my arrival. The professor in charge wasn’t able to locate them, so she called the Principal, who was kind enough to break her afternoon rest and come to the college. The computer listing showed that they’d attended the classes regularly, that they’d spent their free hours in the coffee-shop and on the tennis court, and then — somewhere between two and three p.m. — they dropped out of sight.’
‘After consulting with the college Principal, Mrs. Lewelynn-Smith, your friend here has called the police,’ Graham said; he was a skinny, red-haired middle-aged gentleman, who was constantly playing with the book of matches during Rastko’s speech. His voice was deep and pleasant. ‘Of course, immediately upon the arrival of the officers, the girls’ rooms were unlocked with spare card-keys, and investigated. The Chief Inspector and myself, we’ve arrived a bit later and took statements of all people who were in position to notice anything.’
‘But nothing,’ Swanwick added, ‘seems to give us a clue to surmise what had really happened. It’s possible — I repeat, possible, in spite of the strict scheduling of the students’ working classes and their spare time — that your daughter, and the daughter of Mr. Ciric, have left the college grounds of their free will... to drive up to the countryside, say, or go to the pictures...’
‘Between two and three p.m.?’ I asked.
‘...But of course, that couldn’t explain the fact that they haven’t returned to Oxford yet,’ Swanwick went on as if he did not notice my interruption. ‘The other possibility is that the girls were forced to leave the premises of the college against their will — that they were abducted — as Mr. Ciric constantly claims, but it’s absolutely impossible — if not in theory, then in reality — that no material clues are left behind, or that nobody sees anything. That’s why we hope that in the end we’ll find out they’ve gone out to have some fun, and that they’ll be very surprised at all the fuss and all the worry. It happened before, you know.’
‘Slim chances for that,’ Rastko shook his head. ‘Knowing Manja, Alexandra too, I am certain that they’d never have done anything similar, especially since we’d already arranged our meeting for the fixed time.’
‘Do you have any enemies?’ Swanwick asked suddenly.
Rastko and I exchanged glances; the reason for this question was obvious. If we are talking about the abduction here, there must be a reason strong enough for such an action.
I was thinking about this for a few moments, then finally sighed and nodded.
The Chief Inspector smiled.
‘Let’s hear it, then, gentlemen. Which enemy of yours could be able at all to arrange the abduction of your daughters?’
We exchanged glances again, and Rastko said, quite openly: ‘We don’t have a clue.’

We had to start at the very beginning — more than twenty years ago. Rastko has allowed me to tell the tale, and interrupted a few times only to add some explanation or detail, while the two policemen were listening quietly and typing from time to time something in the miniature data processor.
So, sometime in the Spring of 1993, Rastko and me met quite accidentally (or so it seemed that way then, but now, after more than two decades, and in the light of recent events, it does not look that accidental anymore). We have travelled to Greece together, to some kind of a fair — Rastko did the design for the whole exhibition of the organizing company, while I was representing the firm in which I was employed then, invited by Rastko’s employers. Anyway, since we spent a few days in the same hotel room, we were forced to get to know each other better — which was a pleasant surprise for the both of us. One of many things in which we had shared our interest was The Beatles. We had both played almost all of their songs in schools, at outings and parties; we had both known almost everything there was to know about their career together and their separate careers after the split-up. And then, Rastko managed to surprise me with one fact that was unknown to me.
‘Did you know,’ he told me one day, while we were strolling the streets of Thessaloniki, ‘that there was a song called Rubber Soul?’
‘No,’ I said, mystified.
‘Yeah, it was supposed to be the title song for the Rubber Soul LP, and then, they excluded it from the completed material.’
I was totally perplexed by this fact. ‘Why would The Beatles do such a thing?’
‘Nobody knows,’ he said, ‘but it’s quite possible that the song had something to do with religion — less than one year after the album had been issued, Lennon said that ‘The Beatles were more popular than Christ,’ thus provoking the worldwide burning of their records, especially in America.’
I had duly noted the fact of the unknown song as another Beatles curiosity, and just before I was ready to stop thinking about it, Rastko said: ‘You see, I intend to make a media project involving this song.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, since neither the music sheets nor the text is available anywhere, I thought it would be good to compose and record the song with the title Rubber Soul. Have you ever read the story “Pierre Menard, the Writer of Quixote”, by Borges?’
‘Nope.’
‘Well, you see, this guy had Menard allegedly decided to write again Don Quixote by Cervantes, in the twentieth century, and the final result was that his text and the one by Cervantes were exactly the same, only their meaning wasn’t, due to the different ages of their origin. This inspired me to think of such a thing. What do you think, eh? The Beatles song, which is not the Beatles song, but nobody is able to say that it couldn’t be a Beatles song.’
Something in it rang a bell in my head. I listened to Rastko’s further exalted explanations of the way he succeeded to find some famous people from the music scene in Belgrade interested in such a project; he said that getting this project off the ground would be a piece of cake if only that song — or the whole album with a dozen songs titled Rubber Soul in all possible variations — was made. He managed to make me think of the way this song could have really sounded — was it really some naughty anti-religious comment (implied by the word Soul from the title), or was it only a ‘soul music’ song (which wasn’t a very tempting idea, but having in mind that on their next album, Revolver, The Beatles had the song called Got to Get You Into My Life, recorded exactly as a ‘soul’ number, it was also possible) — or maybe we were talking about some classic Beatles’ rock’n’roll (rhyming also with ‘soul’)... as the time went by, I became more and more obsessed with this. Finally, that same evening, I wrote the words for the song that was supposed to be the foundation of Rastko’s project.
As it usually happens with good ideas, the first lines began to tumble in my head while I was in the bathroom. Under the hot shower, I was sorting out all English words I knew rhyming with ‘soul.’ Then, just before bedtime, I took a pencil and some paper, and started writing. I think that once, in his letter to Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard wrote that, while writing his stories of Conan the Barbarian, he felt the presence of some invisible entity standing above his head was dictating the sentences right into his pen. After the very first line of the song — Remember the times when you were so small — I had the very same feeling, and I do not think that it took more than ten minutes before the words were complete. Rastko was very glad that his idea came a step closer to realization, and he spent several weeks composing; finally, when I managed to find some spare time and drop by to his place, he played Rubber Soul on piano, and left me mesmerized and unbelieving with that demonstration. The song sounded as if Lennon himself had put it together and — with McCartney’s help — composed a melodic, provocative and philosophical observation that easily found its way to one’s ear and remained in the listener’s mind long after being played. Encouraged by this, we composed thirteen other songs, all bearing the titles that were officially mentioned in various books about the Fab Four, as recorded, but never published. Rastko’s original and attractive project was ready to be presented to media — and then, thanks to fierce political tremors, war and the most elementary existential problems, we were forced to forget Rubber Soul completely... only to remember it more than two decades later.
Recently, while rummaging through the boxes with old books and materials, Rastko came upon the music sheets prepared and printed a long time ago — they even had the caption “Words and Music by Lennon & McCartney” and “Copyright C 1965 by Northern Songs Ltd.” — and called, suggesting the renewal of the whole thing. ‘It would be good to mark the half century after the first appearance of the Rubber Soul album,’ he told me. I admit that, at first, I had some trouble remembering what he was talking about, but after he had reminded me, it did not take long for me to get all warmed up for the project’s renewal. It was all much easier now, since we had both had better contacts in media and among trend-makers than two decades earlier, and the recording of the chip-single with the mysterious Beatles song hit the news.
Then — only four days ago — something happened. Something that had made us travel urgently to England.
‘And what exactly might that be?’ Swanwick asked, with professionally neutral face.
‘I was attacked in my own flat,’ I said.
‘Me too,’ Rastko said calmly, and adjusted his glasses.

The house was empty without my wife and kids. Even Sandra’s absence during the past seven months was felt as a painful emptiness, something we were not able quite to adjust to. Although Sandra’s been calling us regularly, that emptiness was like a physical hole between us. And now, since Gaga and Theodora, our younger daughter, had travelled to Negotin — my wife’s family has some very good vineyards there — to the traditional grape festival, I felt like the last pea in the can, rattling mindlessly between the walls. Still, I had to stay. I was completing my new book, and I also had a lot of responsibilities because of the promotion of the song and Rubber Soul chip.
That night, I awoke suddenly in the dark, feeling totally disorientated. Reflexively, I groped beside me, but the other side of the bed was empty and cold. I lifted my head and looked around the darkness of the bedroom. Faint moonlight was coming through the windows, and I could not see anything unusual in the dark silhouettes and shadows of the room. Still, I was very anxious, with no visible reason. I reached for the switch of the nightstand lamp, and paused in the middle of the movement.
The smell. I suddenly realized that my sleep was disturbed by the smell that my slowed, waking mind finally managed to register — the smell weird, ancient and utterly out of place here, and now. The smell of the forest.
Amazed and completely conscious, glancing again uneasily into the gloom, I completed my movement and pressed the switch. The light flashed... and immediately disappeared, as if shrouded by black, impenetrable mass of darkness. I sat up.
The rays of moonlight falling steeply into the room now shone upon the strange turbulence in the air. I thought I saw the particles of dust coming together, gaining thickness and becoming a kind of a mist. The smell of the forest was stronger than before.
The wind gusted over me, and it was ancient and awesome. Stifling the scream in my throat, staring into the dark turmoil, I scrambled back until my shoulder-blades touched the headboard.
Then I heard the sound: a tiny hum at first, caressing my eardrums, then gradually stronger, more palpable, in dramatic intervals of the oncoming horror. I heard strides, although my frozen mind was not able to come up in those frantic moments with an image of the creature big enough to make such tremendous strides. With each stride, coming closer and closer, I felt stronger and stronger vibrations in the floor, now magically terminated five feet from the footboard of my bed, where I could see the edge of the dark, lush grass; vibrations found their way over the bed to my teeth which were already chattering. Coming with all this, the deep forest coldness, heavy freshness of the habitat where sunshine was banished forever by the gargantuan, entangled and impenetrable ancient tree-tops, froze my bones and my thoughts, making me shiver helplessly. Soon the noise became a deafening rumble from the bowels of the earth, followed by crashing, tearing and ripping of the trunks that stood in the way of the oncoming thing. Then I saw the first glow of light, rapidly gaining the intensity, but something in its quality made me wish that the forest had remained in darkness. It was an unearthly, murky red light, nuance of red with no place in the spectre, which did not belong to this atmosphere, under this sun. Now I was able to see the dark silhouettes of the trees directly in front of me, against the shifting red glow: it resembled some phantasmagoric dream of hell. I grasped all of that, horrified and unable to move, trying to grab the helpful notion that I was really still asleep, knowing at the same time that it was not true. Then I finally saw my late visitor.
Or rather, I saw his advance guards. The swirling mist was rolling my way and spreading among ancient trees, lit up from inside; its tentacles crossed the clear line between the rug in my bedroom and the grass of this impossible forest, only to uncurl around the base of the bed and rushed up with speed too high for any natural phenomenon, transforming into a spinning wheel of shapes that were there one moment, to be gone the very next — frozen and horrified, I was staring into the impish play of faces and grimaces, now blissful and beautiful, only a moment later demonic, furious and repulsive. Above the rumbling doom approaching, I found myself picking up another sound: the long scream rising up, through the empty space where only minutes ago stood the ceiling of my bedroom, towards silent, black, threatening tops of the titanic trees. Then I realized that this scream belonged to me.
It seemed that the mist-creatures had had enough of this show for the audience of one, however attentive he may be, and turbulent patches and tentacles suddenly melted into a boiling sphere which burst, dissolving in the dark, leaving me with a sticky rivulet of spit running down my chin, with a trembling jaw and wide eyes standing out of my head towards the thing that was slowly showing itself.
It was a huge black skull with the snout of a bull and formidable curved horns at least six feet long; the glowing red embers of its eyes were buried deep under the wide brow, while its wet pits of nostrils were widening above the predatory grin of the jaws filled with ivory teeth. In that frozen instant I was grasping all horrible details of that gigantic head: ancient, lined face covered with dead skin and clusters of small insects, parasites; thick, obscenely playful tongue licking the loose black lips, sending sprays of thick mucus to the left and to the right; deep, nauseous stench coming from its mouth, stench of carcasses and clotted blood; pieces of the chewed meat and old gore between the teeth that looked as if they were able to crush stones. For a moment, it seemed to me that this head floated in the air so close that I could see the spiral lines of its horns, ending in piercing, needle-thin spikes. Then my stunned mind grasped the rest of the creature.
The body — if that dark mountain of muscles moving lithe and horribly articulated, could be called a body — was not resembling a bull. It was humanoid. On its shoulders that were scattering the ancient patriarch among the pines of the world, there were smaller... lower... creatures with reptilian heads. They danced in excitement, twisting their long scaly necks and hissing in travesty of cheering and encouraging. Although the limbs of the giant creature were shaped like human arms and legs, it came from the forest like a panther, or some other predatory cat; for one long moment I forgot that I was supposed to continue screaming, and I looked in fascination into those burning eyes and paws... claws... hands grimed with dirt, clumps and torn bits and pieces of small forest animals unlucky enough to be in its way. Then the creature stood up sending the tremor through the forest floor. A rain of cones and dead branches fell on its head, and it roared in triumph, swinging its huge arm to crush me like a fly.
I think that I was still more than certain I was dreaming all this, that this was just a colourful holo-nightmare, with sound-effects and full simulation and senses stimulants, but the wind raised by that huge movement froze the blood in my veins and sent a short and vital burst of information to my brain: this was really happening. And then, right on the very border between the rest of my normal world and this insanity surrounding me, the movement of the beast stopped in the air with the same suddenness as it began. It seemed that the strike intended for me collided with some invisible obstacle that fully absorbed its kinetics. Where those two forces — the visible and the invisible one — met, a bright golden light flashed and the whole space around me seemed to ripple. The beast was standing there confounded, tilting its head, staring at me with those hellish pits of eyes, while its right limb was engulfed in golden fire that sped towards its shoulder. I gasped, my eyes fixed for the flame which devoured in mere seconds the reptilian abominations shrieking in fear and pain; they simmered and disappeared in the golden fire or crawled in panic away from it, writhing and tumbling over the creature’s vast head and its bloated neck big enough to house a skyscraper.
The beast raised its ‘arm’ and looked at it, unbelieving, and roared with fury and pain. Losing contact with the border between here and there, it buried the burning limb in the ground covered with bushes and deep carpet of dead leaves. The earthquake vibrations caused by that gesture lifted my bed and I barely managed to hold on to it. I was now able to see that border, because of the way it was breaking the meagre light; there was a vortex of pine needles, splinters and rich, brown clumps of soil, and the very air glimmered following the surface of the invisible sphere. I realized that I am inside some strange, protective blob.
The monster turned around and tried again, with the same outcome. I was trembling, pressing myself against the headboard, aware of the fact that I was supposed to feel some kind of exaltation because I turned out to be untouchable for this nightmare, but I was still utterly terrified, reduced to the hare crouching in the middle of the road, transfixed by the lights of the oncoming car. Warm and unpleasant moistness between my legs was telling me that my bladder had joined my other body parts in the total system shutdown.
Then the beast stood up in its full horrible glory, roared high above me piercing me with his ember-eyes like the lowest worm in the universe, turned back — and disappeared.
It was in split a second, and if I had blinked, I would have probably missed it, but suddenly everything vanished — the forest, the mist, the hideous beast; the only living thing left in this room was the quivering fifty-year old man, turned into Jell-O with terror, bathed in calm, silvery moonlight.
‘Aaa... aaa... aaa.’ That was my voice, or rather what was left of it after minutes and minutes of incessant screaming, trying to break the sudden silence, louder and more painful than anything that I had heard just a few moments earlier.
It was only a dream after all, I thought with enormous relief when my heart had calmed down and when it seemed no more that my heart would jump out of my mouth. In awkward, stiff motions, I stepped down from the bed and approached the window. There were no cops outside, no firemen or angry neighbors. The night was peaceful and quiet, which backed my opinion on having a dreadful nightmare and nothing else.
But, what about the wet stain on my pyjamas?
There was a reasonable explanation for that, too. My age. When was the last time I went to my doctor to check my bladder or kidneys? I did not know for sure, but it was surely the time to get it done.
I sighed, ran my hand through my hair distractedly, and went to the bathroom. Then I stopped. I was barefoot, and I have just stepped into something cold and greasy. Feeling dark suspicion, I sat on the bed again and grabbed the lamp switch. After some nervous pressing, the familiar yellow light spilled through the room and I raised my foot to see what I had stepped in.
Soil.
Soil and grass.
Stifling the urge to scream again, I went to the master switch on the wall and turned all the lights on.
Around my bed, the rug was torn and stained with dark green forest grass squashed by giant paws. The line marked with soil and grass was making a perfect arc around the footboard, and a few feet from that spot, in the middle of a large clump, something small and round glimmered. I went there, ducked down and picked up the object, to look at it closely in the light. It resembled a ring, although I was not able to imagine what kind of hand it would fit. It was made from something that was not exactly stone or metal, but some mixture of both. The rough circle of the ring was inscribed with meaningless signs and patterns. After I had spent several minutes peering into it, in futile attempts to recognize its origin or purpose, I left the object on the nightstand. Then my eyes fell upon the advertising portfolio for the Rubber Soul campaign that I had wanted to study closely in the morning, and I felt something like an energy shock in my veins.
I grabbed the phone. Suddenly, it was very important for me to talk to Rastko. I dialled his number and waited for the phone to ring; I felt beads of cold sweat on my brow. It was ringing endlessly, until finally someone picked the phone up on the other side of the line.
‘Huh-Hello?’ Rastko’s voice said from the receiver. I sighed with relief.
‘Rale?’ My voice was a hoarse croak, almost indistinct.
‘Goran... it’s you?’ His voice was shaken, distracted.
‘Yeah... Listen! Something’s just happened here...’
‘Yes! To me, too!’
‘A forest? Freakish creatures? Some monster that resembles Minotaurus?’
‘Yes!’
I closed my eyes and licked my dry lips.
‘Have you... have you been hurt?’
‘No,’ came the answer from the receiver, ‘at least I think not.’
‘What about Vesna?’
‘She’s not here. Lucky me. She went to help Iva with the baby.’ Rastko’s older daughter was living in Italy with her husband, and recently she gave birth to a baby boy. I was silent for a moment, thinking of what would have happened if my wife and my younger daughter were here, with me. My flesh broke into goose-pimples.
‘How is this possible?’ Rastko asked.
‘I don’t know,’ I murmured. ‘I only know that we have to do something.’
‘When can we meet?’
‘How about... fifteen minutes from now?’
‘A deal. I wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep after this anyway.’

I looked up from the espresso that I have not tasted at all; I supposed the coffee was completely cold by now. The New Scotland Yard Inspector and his colleague were looking from Rastko to me and back. They had impressions of the people who have just realized they were conversing with raving and potentially dangerous lunatics.
Swanwick cleared his throat. ‘I do hope,’ he said after a few moments of hesitation, ‘that you don’t expect us to believe such a nonsense.’
I sighed and met Inspector’s gaze. ‘Look, Mr. Swanwick... Mr. Ciric and I have been in contact with all forms of fantasy for more than thirty years, one way or another. I suppose that we would’ve both lost our marbles that night if that was not the case. I’d like to say that I don’t believe it as well, but I simply can’t. Because it happened.’ I paused and made a nervous gesture. ‘Anyway, when we met that night and realized that the identical thing had happened to both of us, we concluded that it had to have something with the song, as well as that if such... protection... functioned for the two of us, it didn’t necessarily apply to our families. In the morning, we immediately checked out if our wives and Iva and Theodora were okay — they were. And we thought of the same thing in the same moment — we thought about the safety of our daughters here, in College. They were alone, far from home, vulnerable. Unfortunately, their disappearance has now only confirmed our deepest fears.’
‘All right,’ the Inspector said in soft voice. ‘So... you have decided to travel to England after this... event?’
‘No,’ Rastko said. ‘We have planned our journey earlier, and this was only the reason to speed the things up.’
‘How come?’
‘We have arranged the promotion of the song with Mr. McCartney,’ I said wearily. ‘A month ago, we sent the chip with demo recording and the advertising portfolio for the animated movie about The Beatles to his office. We have received the reply very quickly — a brief one, with an invitation to visit him in his mansion in Scotland, to start working together on this project.’
‘You are talking about Sir Paul McCartney, aren’t you?’ Graham said.
‘Yes, about Sir Paul McCartney, MBE, ex-Beatle and co-author of the Rubber Soul song.’
‘I suppose that you... ah... still have that invitation?’ Graham said.
‘You can check it all out.’
‘The object you’ve mentioned... the one that was left behind after the departure of that... creature?’
I pulled the strange ring out of my pocket and put it on the table. I knew that Rastko got the same “souvenir” that night. And after what I have found out last night from Peabody, I wasn’t surprised at all by the way the two policemen reacted.
‘Where did you get this?’ Graham said sharply, his eyes gleaming. He was looking at the alien relic as if it was a viper ready to uncoil and spring into his face. Rastko and I exchanged glances again.
‘Do I have to start from the beginning again?’ I asked, tiredly rubbing my eyes. I was feeling the burden of weariness in my neck and shoulders after the hectic night spent travelling and dreading the moment when I would have to face the fact of our girls’ vanishing.
‘May I take a look at your passports, gentlemen?’ Swanwick said. The tone of his voice was more an order than a question. We gave him our travelling papers and he gave them back, after a short check of the Immigration stamp from Heatrow Airport.
‘If you are getting at the murder of Tom Carmody,’ I said, ‘we haven’t got anything to do with it.’ I raised my hand when Rastko looked at me, surprised. ‘We came here two days after he died.’
‘What were you doing in Liverpool?’ Swanwick asked, frowning.
‘I was meeting the man called Peabody, concerning this damned song that had brought us only trouble. You can check that out with him.’
‘Mr. Peabody’, Swanwick said coldly, ‘was found early this morning in front of the door of his apartment... inside... and under the window, in the alley dividing his building from the neighboring block. Among his remains, the exact replica of this object was found.’
I shivered from the unexpected chill. Suddenly, I felt as if I was standing in a middle of the minefield, risking the explosion with each step. The cops have obviously noticed the shock on my face, and Rastko’s expression of gaping surprise clearly showed his opinion on this new piece of information.
‘I...’ My voice was trembling. ‘I spoke with Peabody in a pub near the harbour... I don’t recall its name... and he was alive and well when I left him.’
‘We know,’ Graham said. ‘The owner of the pub had recognized Mr. Peabody and he had described a man looking just like you, having a private conversation. After you’d left, Peabody stayed in for more than three hours, filling himself with scotch. In any case, you couldn’t have committed this crime and arrived here today.’
‘When was Mr. Peabody killed?’ I asked.
‘Approximately two hours prior to your arrival.’
‘Jesus,’ I murmured and rubbed my face. ‘What’s going on?’
‘We still don’t know,’ Graham said. ‘But we are going to find out. What exactly did you talk about with the late Mr. Peabody?’
‘Oh... about the song, about the way it had been recorded, stolen, wiped clean from the tapes... about the sheet-music being destroyed... about how The Beatles themselves had forgotten the song. He seemed afraid when he had a notion that I was a reporter.’
‘Why?’
‘He said he was afraid that he’d end up just like Tom. That’s how I’d found out about Carmody’s fate. And about the fact that one of these rings... was left in his head.’
Swanwick was thinking, tapping his finger on the table.
‘Your story,’ he said finally, ‘however crazy it sounds, indicates that this... Beatle song... and the vanishing of your daughters... are closely connected to these two murders.’
‘Excuse me,’ Rastko said; he was patiently listening to our conversation and wiping his glasses, ‘would anyone be kind enough to explain me what the hell are you talking about? Murders? I don’t understand.’
Graham glanced at him with a tight smile. ‘I am sure your friend here will be able to tell you all about it.’
‘What do you intend to do about the disappearance of our daughters, Inspector?’ I asked Swanwick.
‘Nothing,’ he replied, ‘at least not yet. If they are really abducted — and we are still not quite sure this is the case, are we — you can expect that the kidnappers are going to contact you in the immediate future about whatever they want. The fact that they haven’t been located yet — paradoxically — is very comforting. If the Ring Killer — let’s call him that — got to them, we would certainly know it already.’
I was trying at least to look calm. I had to block out any thought leading to what could have happened to Sandra and Manja in the ‘hands’ of the creature their fathers had seen that fateful night.
‘What is your advice?’ Rastko said.
‘Wait,’ Graham said. ‘Then, if and when they do call you, let us know.’ He pushed their cards over the table. ‘In any case, we have to know about your whereabouts until this case is solved.’
‘And of course,’ Swanwick added, ‘we don’t have to stress that it would be... desirable... if you wouldn’t leave Great Britain until then.’
‘Of course,’ Rastko agreed. ‘We wouldn’t’ think of leaving without Manja and Sandra.’
Silence fell on our table. Then the Inspector cleared his throat again and said, ‘Well, I think this was enough for our first conversation.’ He stood up, and Graham followed him, like an echo. ‘Please, tell us just where you can be found in the next twenty-four hours.’
‘Since the circumstances are as they are,’ I said, ‘I think it would be best, Rale, if you went to Scotland and see Sir Paul McCartney, like we planned in the first place. I am going to try to find the girls in one place we haven’t checked yet — with my old friend living in London. Maybe they have visited him, or called him and left some information on their whereabouts.’
‘What is the name of your friend?’ Swanwick asked.
‘Mr. Zoran Ivanovic. He is the general manager of Simpo UK Ltd., a trading company from London. If you need his home address, it’s 28B North Westchester Road.’ I knew that Zoran was at that time in Spain with his family, but I did not want the policemen to know that I knew such a fact. I had to get myself at least one more afternoon with no cops on my back. ‘Of course, you can check it out.’
‘Of course,’ Swanwick smiled dryly, while his colleague was typing the data in their small gadget. Then he nodded and turned to leave.
‘Won’t you take this as an... I don’t know, evidence?’ I said, motioning towards the ring.
Inspector shook his head. ‘For the time being, it’s quite enough to know that you are in possession of such a thing,’ he said. ‘We’ll be in touch, gentlemen.’
Rastko and I remained standing, staring at their backs, while they were leaving the lobby.
‘You really mean that?’ Rastko said, after a few minutes of silence. ‘That I should go to Scotland as if nothing happened? While you are trying to pick up some non-existing trace in London?’
‘Yes,’ I said softly. ‘But I want to see their rooms first.’

Sandra’s and Manja’s rooms were in the east wing of the old college for girls, named St. Hilda’s, one of the most esteemed among thirty-odd colleges of the university town. Rooms were sparsely furnished, but their windows overlooked the old stone bridge connecting St. Hilda’s with the rest of the town, only a four or five minute bicycle ride from Jesus College, Sommerville or Hertford. The girls had decorated their rooms with ease and given them a breath of life. While standing in the doorway of Sandra’s room, I felt a short, sharp sting in my chest: I recognized the yellow raincoat casually thrown over the back of her chair, the one in which she was so proudly posing a month or two ago, when she had sent us her photo in a letter. The room was also furnished with a wide bed, desk, massive wardrobe and simple book-case. There was a nice little rug on the floor, and the side-window of the room overlooked a small yard with impeccable English grass and a brass sign on one wall, reading: QUARRELS ROOM. I recalled Sandra writing about that — about a college room reserved for discussions and arguments between the students and their tutors.
While I was entering her room, I was followed by the gaze of the tutor in charge, a middle-aged English lady with expressionless face, in strict black and green uniform required of all the staff in St. Hilda’s, including the Principal, Mrs. Levelynn-Smith, who was talking to Rastko the day before.
There was a whiff of Sandra’s favorite perfume in the room; I did not know its name, but it was something light and flowery. On her desk there were some books and writing pads, close to the keyboard and terminal of the college computer network. Among them, I could see the framed photograph taken two years ago, on summer holidays: Sandra and Teddy in front, smiling and happy, my wife and myself behind.
I left the desk as it was and went to the wardrobe. I started to rummage through her blouses, T-shirts and jeans, although I knew I would not be able to find any clue there. But I needed to smell her, to touch the things she was wearing, to sense the aura of her presence in this little room that was supposed to be her home for the next two years. At the bottom of the wardrobe I saw the edge of the old bag covered with stickers, a battered veteran from Sandra’s and Teddy’s travels, the one she wanted to take to her studies in England when she was leaving Belgrade.
I scanned the bookcase. There were some text-books, some works of fiction in English, German and French, and colourful trinkets that, I supposed, all the girls around the world found common — figurines, decorative boxes, tiny dry flower arrangements of various colours, notebooks with little golden padlocks. On the wall, near the bookcase there was a framed watercolor depicting sunny Oxford roofs; in the corner of the frame there was something white. It was an envelope, addressed in familiar writing. A letter from Teddy.
I put the letter back where I had found it, took another look around and went outside, to the hallway where Rastko was waiting with the woman who had unlocked Sandra’s and Manja’s room for us.
The room belonging to Rastko’s daughter was similar to Sandra’s. We came in together and looked around, uncertain, peering into things, furniture and clothing. I noticed a tennis racket and a pair of old tennis shoes, old fashioned chip-player on the desk, abstract posters on the wall and a collection of Manja’s drawings prepared for the annual Art Festival at St. Hilda’s.
‘There’s nothing here,’ Rastko said finally. ‘Let’s go.’
‘Okay,’ I sighed and turned to leave. ‘We should now-’ I stopped. Something has just caught my eye, but I needed — probably thanks to my weariness — a very long moment to register that fact.
I turned back, went to the racket and crouched.
‘What’s that?’ Rastko asked.
‘Here, take a look,’ I said and stood up with a popping sound of my tired, old bones. Between my right thumb and index finger I was holding a long blade of grass.
Rastko raised his eyebrows. ‘You think it has something to do with-?’ He stared into the blade in my hand. ‘That blade could have come from some meadow in the vicinity, if they had gone to the country, or from the tennis court.’
I shook my head. ‘I can bet anything that you wouldn’t be able to find such a high grass anywhere near. And I’ve noticed on my way here that the university courts are hard. A part of tradition, I suppose.’
‘But,’ he said, ‘the police had searched both rooms thoroughly. They would have noticed this for sure, and made the same conclusion.’
I shrugged. ‘Maybe they’d overlooked... or maybe they hadn’t been able to see it.’
We were standing for a few moments, staring with suspicion at the dark green blade rich with chlorophyll. Then Rastko took it, broke it and grounded it between his fingers. He sniffed his fingers and nodded. He gave me the blade, and I did the same. It had the same, ancient smell of the forest, and each and every cell in my body reacted fiercely to it, urged by the memory of the race.
I looked into Rastko’s eyes. I saw a reflection of my own feelings there — a mixture of knowing, horror, despair and hopelessness.
‘If nothing else,’ he said a second or two later, ‘now we know.’
I nodded. I put the broken blade of grass in my overcoat pocket and left Manja’s room. I waited for Rastko to come out after me, walking slowly like an old man and pausing at the door to look around the whole place once again. Then our silent guide closed the door and led us outside.
We didn’t have to talk to the Principal once again, nor with other girls from the college or boys who knew our daughters. No one was able to tell us the fact we knew thanks to a single blade of grass, obviously left there on purpose, for our eyes only.
‘Listen,’ I told Rastko while we were walking down the steep street towards the Inter-City hoverbus station. ‘This way, the kidnappers have already contacted us. We shouldn’t doubt that they are tracking our moves now, and that they are going to approach us directly very soon with their request, whatever it may be. Swanwick was completely right about that. But before this happens, I’d like to find out a little more. Any little piece of information may be of crucial importance when...’ I did not finish; there was no need. ‘Anyway, I want to find the man who was talking to Peabody recently, about the song. He’s in London. And he works in the British Museum.’
Rastko scratched his head. ‘Are you sure that I should go to McCartney’s place? Don’t you think we should stick together?’
‘I have a hunch that all of this is about that damned performance that we’d arranged as a promotion, and that time is running short.’ I paused and looked at him. He smiled nervously.
‘Me too.’
‘Okay, then we got it straight,’ I said.
‘Are you sure that you can travel again?’ Rastko asked. ‘You look as if you’re barely standing.’
‘I’ll have about an hour and a half to take a nap in the hoverbus. It’ll have to do.’
‘What are we going to do about Vesna and Dragana?’ he said. ‘Are we going to call them, tell them anything?’ Our wives knew we were going on this trip to arrange the things with Paul McCartney, but they still have not heard about Manja’s and Sandra’s disappearance.
‘No. Not yet.’ My voice was soft and resigned. ‘There’s always time for that.’
Rastko nodded and we looked at each other again: two men whose best years were long gone, confused and afraid strangers in a strange land, in the midst of events they cannot control, desperate and half-crazy with worry because of the disappearance of their daughters. Suddenly, without any warning, grey and murky English sky hit us with cold drizzle, an appropriate answer to our dark foreboding. We walked on.

I had arrived to London a few minutes before Big Ben announced noon. The sky had cleared and the capital now looked clean, washed and tidy, the way I liked. April sun had bathed old stone facades and green parks so the whole city radiated freshness from its bustling centre. I was blinking uncertainly for a few moments at the terminal, looking at the busy traffic. Then I went to the “Imperial”. The British Museum was just a few minutes walk from the hotel. I tried to improve my looks a bit in the room: I found two bloodshot eyes in the mirror, underlined with heavy, dark bags of skin; my face was sallow and lined with ugly two-days’ stubble, with lips thin and dry, cornered by deeply carved lines. What was left of my hair was standing untidily in spikes above my wrinkled brow. I took a shower, shaved and pulled out a clean shirt from the small travelling bag I carried with me. I was trying to concentrate on the mechanics of that, trying not to think, but I could not do it very well. Finally, partly resembling a decent human being again, I took the lift down to the lobby, went out to the hotel driveway and passed between the windows of the shops displaying electronic gadgets and toys, stepping out finally to the sunny street. I glanced at my watch. It was quarter past two, and the lunch break was over for the working people. I took a deep breath and went across, through a small park, towards the great building where I expected to find Mr. Basil Jeromme.
There were a few visitors on the wide staircase of the museum; the big parking lot bordered with old iron lamps was almost empty. While I was entering the vestibule, it seemed that I was traversing from the world of light and sun to a zone of half-shadows and deep shade, dark enough to hide anything. I stood for a few moments, undecided, and I finally spotted the guard in the uniform. I asked him where I could find Professor Basil Jeromme, who worked there. The guard, a short and bold man, shrugged and sent me to the secretary of the administration. I followed his instructions, and I went straight ahead coming to the spot where British and medieval antiquities display were bordering the archeological relics from Eastern Asia. Then I turned left, surrounded by dead silence where even the settling of the dust on the deep red carpet was too loud. There was a staircase leading up to the first floor and I saw a small sign on the marble wall. To the right side of the top of the staircase, I found the administration office’s door. I knocked and entered.
‘Yes, Sir?’ the girl behind the desk said, almost invisible behind the computer monitor. ‘Is there anything I can do for you?’
‘Well...’ I started reluctantly. ‘I am looking for Professor Jeromme, Basil Jeromme. I have an appointment with him.’
‘Oh?’ she said suspiciously and looked at me more closely.
‘Yes,’ I continued. ‘You know, I have just arrived and it’s very important for me to see him. You see, he gave me his card the last time we’ve met... Here, see? “Professor Basil Jeromme, British Museum, London.”’ I gave her the card and she looked at it carefully. Then she looked up at me again.
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ she said, ‘but Professor Jeromme is not here today. Can some other expert in Pre-Celtic civilizations working for the Museum help you?’
Pre-Celtic civilizations? ‘Well, no... Actually, this is a matter of personal nature. And, like I’ve already said, it’s rather urgent. Can you tell me where Professor Jeromme might be right now?’
She has probably noticed disappointed look on my face, because she smiled and typed something on the keyboard. ‘Do not worry, sir. Professor Jeromme has taken a few days off, but I suppose that you will be able to find him at his home address.’
The hidden printer hummed under the desk and the girl reached below, pulling out the sheet with printed data.
‘Here, you have his telephone number. Is it enough? It is in the telephone book, anyway’.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Thank you very much!’ I left the kind secretary and followed the same route out. Then I looked up the address in the first telephone booth and sighed with relief. The professor was living in Harley Street, not very far. I flagged down the first hover-cab and gave the address to the driver.
Pre-Celtic civilizations... I was trying to recall anything I had ever stumbled upon, connected to the cultures that had preceded Celtic culture in Europe, but the only things that came to my mind were druids, forest cults, Stonehenge... forest cults! Maybe there lay the answer to the origin of Rastko’s and my night visitor, the creature that has obviously abducted our girls. But, what the hell did-
‘We’re here, sir,’ the driver’s voice startled me from my thoughts. The ride had lasted less than three minutes. I gave the driver a banknote and left him a generous tip. I looked up at the narrow Victorian three-storey house with gray stone facade, short marble staircase and tall windows. I was staring at the indifferent window-panes of the ground floor for a few moments. Then I climbed the five steps and rang the bell. Above the massive black door with engraved brass plate and street number, I could see the built-in camera. I expected someone to address me from the intercom, but nothing happened. Impatiently, I rang again. No reply. Nervousness seeped into my bones. Hell, it was possible that Jeromme had left, maybe to visit someone out of town, while I had only this afternoon to track him down and talk to him, before Swanwick and Graham come to the conclusion that my alleged visit to Zoran was only my feeble attempt to get some time. Desperate, I had already turned to leave, when I heard the characteristic hum and click of the electronic lock behind my back. I whirled and saw the door ajar. Without thinking, I grabbed the knob and hurried inside.
‘Professor Jeromme?’ I called in the narrow hall, while the door was locking automatically behind me. ‘Professor Jeromme, I have to speak with you!’
The only answer was my own echo. I looked around.
The hall had a Spartan, simple look, with a dark oriental rug and a few framed photographs on the wall. I saw three doors, and a narrow staircase leading up. Nothing moved.
‘Professor Jeromme?’ I called out again and stepped forward. Dark foreboding was screaming in my skull, urging me to turn back immediately and run from this silent house, but my feet were carrying me towards the first door on the left, as if they belonged to someone else. I suddenly remembered all the times I was watching a horror movie hero — or, rather more often, heroine — climbing down to a dark tomb or up to a tower full of cobwebs, feeling disbelief and knowing that no one in his or her right mind would ever do such a thing in real life; no, sir, they would have to drag them there screaming and kicking. But now, while I was looking at my own hand turning the knob and opening the old, well-oiled and carved oak door, I knew that even in “real life” things often go the way logic does not approve.
Books were piled from the floor to the ceiling. The furniture in the room consisted only of an old Chesterfield armchair and loveseat set around a small coffee table on a featureless gray carpet. I could also see a few low glass-cases displaying roughly chiselled artifacts looking genuine and ancient. I glanced at the book lying on the table: it was a huge, hard-cover volume written by Jeromme himself. A thin, ornamented ivory page-marker was jutting from the thick book. I looked quickly over my shoulder, opened the book and looked inside. The marked page showed Stonehenge, several sketches in black and white, resembling some of the artifacts displayed in Jeromme’s glass-cases, and small-type text in three columns. Somewhere near the bottom of the third column, one word was circled with red felt-pen. I looked closer. The word meant nothing to me. It sounded like some strange, alien name from ancient times: Belathukodrusus.
Something thumped in the house.
I winced, closed the book and put it back on the table.
‘Professor Jeromme?’ I called out loudly.
No reply.
I left the library and returned to the hall, approaching the door on the right. It was slightly ajar, and there was a small, functional, empty dining room with a tiny kitchen behind. That left only the third door, at the very end of the corridor, and rooms above. While pressing the knob, I ordered myself — if I did not find Jeromme here — not to climb up there at any cost. Then I saw I would not have to do that after all.
I don’t know exactly how many humans and other living beings I had killed in my books, in the most brutal ways, trying very hard not to leave out any visceral detail; but I knew that it was in inverse proportion to my violent physical sickness at any sight of blood in the real life, even if it’s only a minor cut. Therefore, the way my stomach reacted in those moments was not surprising at all. But, just before that, there was a long moment when this little man hidden in my head — this dangerous fellow obsessed with anatomic voyeurism and pornography of violence, really alive and really content only when I write — had more than enough time to record it all, to the smallest horrible photographic detail.
The third room was Jeromme’s study; there were more books, more archeological findings, but the room was dominated by the antique, precious desk. And by Jeromme. Who was behind the desk. Beside the desk. On the desk. Above. And under... oh, yes, under the desk, too.
Red stripes, stains, wide, generous strokes and sprayed fans of drops were not a whim of some eccentric interior decorator, nor modern design intervention on the rug, walls, furniture and ceiling. The room looked as if someone had brought buckets full of blood and splashed them around. I inhaled the heavy, nauseous stench of a slaughterhouse. Something recognizable — with a lot of imagination and good will — as a leg, stood casually dipped into a puddle of red liquid clotting on the sofa. An ornate chandelier was additionally decorated with intestines gleaming sickly under the rays of the afternoon sun. The biggest piece of the mutilated torso, with bare ribs and backbone, was lying over the high back-rest of the chair behind the desk, while the central place on the dark leather stationery box, next to the marble inkwell, was reserved for the head; antique pens jutted from the empty eye-sockets. The skin had been flayed, exposing torn facial muscles hanging around the grinning jaw where the ring glinted. Jeromme’s head was laughing at me.
I made a half-turn, doubled over and vomited. My stomach heaved, emptying itself in a warm spray of liquid and small pieces of half-digested food. Shaking with violent spasms, I was vaguely aware that I was vomiting on somebody’s shoes. Then three things happened in rapid succession:
Something struck the top of my head; I plowed through my own vomit with my nose; and I sank into a black vortex that had suddenly appeared under me, sucking me into unconsciousness.

Waking up, I felt the pain in my head. There were smells all around me, entangled and confusing, and if not for the presence of more urgent and intensive sensation that made me feel like my skull was ripping apart at its seams, the smells would have absolutely dominated my senses during those long moments when my consciousness was still squirming at the end of the fishing-hook driving me quickly to the surface. I thought I finally knew how a fish felt while some skilful fisherman was rolling up the line, pulling it out of the water. I will never forget the explosion of the flash, and twin blades of light stabbing my eyes when I made the first trembling effort to open them and look around. I quickly closed my eyes again, let a few moments pass, empty of thoughts, gathering strength and courage to try once more. This time, it was a bit easier. Baffled, I stared at a dim, meaningless picture that finally began to sharpen and return into focus, after the rest of my senses had also started showing some signs of life. I realized that this painful, intensive flash was actually just a narrow, dim strip of moonlight.
I felt the insipid taste of vomit in my mouth, making me remember all that had preceded the hole in my memory, and my stomach contracted again, this time mercifully empty; someone was kind enough to wipe the products of my body-chemistry from my face, but my muscles were so sore that only a surge of pins and needles informed me I still had something called torso, arms and legs.
I fully opened my eyes and immediately felt all other sensations disappear, cancelled and banished by what I had seen. I was lying on some old leather sofa, cracked and thinned with use. To the left there was a huge table shaped as a horse-shoe, with chairs set so that two dozen people might sit behind it simultaneously. On the wall behind the horse-shoe, a big painting was hanging, depicting the fox hunt and raised stones of Stonehenge far behind, in the foggy background. There were tall windows on side-walls, covered with heavy curtains, but the curtains were pulled open for a crack, allowing enough moonlight to spill in and enable me to see all of this, as well as what was lying directly in front of me.
I was aware that I was producing some kind of noise, something between a squeal and hysterical giggle, while I was sitting up on the sofa and approaching this big, strange object slowly and carefully, in order not to break this fragile illusion with some sudden or careless gesture.
It was a kind of a circular slab, almost four feet thick, and approximately seven feet in diameter. It was lying on the carpet directly under one of the windows, so that the moonlight was illuminating the transparent matter from which the slab was made. It was glowing dimly, like amber — amber filled with two curled bodies turned one against another like twin-foetuses in the womb, like some weird, human yin and yang symbol. I shook my head in helpless negation, fell on my knees and ran my palms over the smooth surface of the amber slab. The initial hysterical giggle now turned into a sob and tears welled in my eyes, running silently down my cheeks, falling on the transparent matter imprisoning two girls. Our little girls.
My mind was empty; I did not care where I was, who had brought me here, or how it was possible that Sandra and Manja were within my grasp, but at the same time inaccessible as if they were in another dimension. I did not even want to wonder if they were alive, if anything could survive such an imprisonment. I knew, I felt they were alive with every nerve in my body, and the only sensation left in me in these short seconds of discovery was the feeling of triumph oddly mixed with an overwhelming pain which comes only after a long, long search, when you lose even the last hope. I have found them. I have found our girls.
The door screeched behind me.
I whirled to the source of the sound, feeling adrenaline being pumped up in my system, and I suppose that I had resembled some beast in those moments rather than a man, eyes staring and bloodshot, snarling and baring my teeth, ready to tear the throat of anyone who dared approach what was behind my back. Then a crystal chandelier high overhead blazed and I reflexively covered my eyes, blinded by the light, trying to see what was going on through my eyelids.
Someone was entering the room. People, vague shapes twisted and featureless under the pitiless glare that was attacking my corneas, were quietly coming inside and taking places behind the horse-shoe table. While my eyes were adjusting to the new intensity of light, I heard only quiet, unhurried steps, pulling of the chairs, an occasional creaking of a body taking a seat and suppressed coughing among the newcomers. The door closed then, loudly, the lock clicked, and dead silence shrouded the room.
I was staring at the faces behind the table while things were slowly losing their blurred appearance. Simple faces, young, middle-aged, old, faces of both sexes, faces with only one thing in common: the coldness with which they were looking at me and at the monstrous amber prison behind my back. Then one of the faces, the one behind the very arc of the horse-shoe, under the big old painting, cleared its throat and broke the silence.
‘Seems like our guest finds this strong lighting rather unpleasant.’
I turned my attention to the speaker. It was a little bald man of indeterminable age, with rosy skin like the skin of a small child; what was left of his hair limply fell on his shoulders, completely white. His eyes were small, dark and restless behind the thick glasses, his lips under the sharp beak of the nose full and smirking. The little man nodded slightly and I saw two young men standing in the far corner of the room, with similar crew-cuts, in dark suits and ties. They left the wall they were leaning on and adjusted something on the switches. The lights started to dim, and after a few moments long shadows dappled the room. The effect was weird: it was as if the faces around the table were lit up from below, with a glow of their own.
‘Who... who are you people?’ I asked. My voice was a hoarse grinding of a tin sheet over a concrete slab. The little man smiled.
‘Mr. Skrobonja... We “people” are the very ones you’ve been searching for these past few days in England. I have to say we are very content that you’d found your own way to Professor Jeromme... poor Professor Jeromme, who had found out too much for his own health. You saved us some troubles.’
‘Who are you?’ I repeated, a bit calmer. The first wave of confusion and mixed feeling was gradually leaving me. I was acutely aware of the presence of the girls behind my back and the state they were in, but I did not let despair take firm hold of me. I could not allow myself such a luxury.
‘Our names are not important,’ the little man waved dismissively. ‘It’s enough that we know your name — and everything else about you, and your friend, Mr. Ciric. It is also sufficient for you to know that I am talking on behalf of this whole group.’
‘This is all about the song, isn’t it?’ I said, tasting sour spit and vomit in my mouth. ‘This all about that damned, damned song!’
‘But of course,’ the little man replied. ‘And you did describe it very well: a damned song it is, yes...’
I looked over my shoulder at the girls, but I winced back at the sound of the little man’s voice, suddenly filled with icy tone.
‘We know your greatest concern at this moment,’ he said. ‘Do not worry. Your daughter and your friend’s daughter are fine... Let’s say they are, temporarily... displaced from this universe — where they can easily return, depending mainly on your actions.’
‘What do you want?’ I asked, feeling the drums of pulse in my temples. ‘Tell me, what the hell do you want?’
The little man sighed and stood up — he was actually very short, more a midget than a man — and walked around the table to come near me. Two young man were watching closely what was going on, holding their hands under their coats, ready to act.
‘It’s not that simple, Mr. Skrobonja.’ He stopped, looked down at the girls behind my back and shook his head. ‘But, if it can comfort you, I’ll tell you that you’re not guilty or responsible for anything that happened. You are just a helpless executor of the will of Belathukodrusus, just like others before you, in the last half of the century.’
‘Bela-’ I tried unsuccessfully to repeat the name I had seen for the first time in my life circled in Jeromme’s book.
The little man tapped his lower lip with his fingertip and looked at me. ‘You see... if you are really to know what — and why — we have to ask something from you, as well as the reason for all these... rather radical methods’ — he waived at the amber slab — ‘I must first tell you about something that happened a long time ago... but nevertheless very connected to recent events. Therefore, please, take your seat and listen.’
He motioned me at the sofa where I came to my senses some ten minutes ago. After some hesitation, I went there, knowing that the boys beside the wall would help me do it if I resisted.
‘I believe you must be thirsty. Would you like something to drink before we go on?’
‘I could use a glass of water,’ I said. Indeed, my mouth was dry, and I felt burning in my throat. The dim ache at the back of my head never left me.
One of the little man’s aides immediately brought me a glass and I drank it thirstily. I did not pause to check its contents — they had already had more than enough time to do with me anything they wished. The water was fresh and clear. I put the glass aside on the table by the sofa, and the little man smiled again: ‘Okay?’
I nodded.
‘So...’ he began, and his voice became deeper, as if he was well used to tell the story he was about to give me:

When Saman, the Lord of the world of the dead, the ruler of Ifurim filled with poisonous and dangerous creatures, had seen the thirtieth Abraxas since the day when he turned to cinder the golden Atlantis and the misty Mu with his burning breath, three winds came to him with a sweet story about the way Saman could conquer other gods of the World and make them his servants. One was called Pertrios, and he told him about the weaknesses of Smertrios, god of earthly progress and various crafts, as well as about the weaknesses of Mogon, and boar-god Mocus; he explained to Saman — or Sukelus, as the faithful still call him — how to enslave these three easily. The second wind, Tarvos, whispered in the bear-like Saman’s ear secrets which would help him make Artio, Ardion, Dan, Dana and Mother Anu herself kneel before him in the heavenly court, and become Sacred Harlots for the legion of his freaks from the fetid bowels of Ifurim; but Saman liked the most the words of the third wind, Trigaranos, which made a plan to banish from the World into the Non-World — or Nul — Bran, son of Laire (with whom Saman had already had old feuds), Borvo — god of thermals, warriors and magic, and even Belathukodrusus himself, with all the sun armies he commanded.
‘Saman, who was furious with other gods because they had banished him from the heavenly court and stopped visiting him after his unruly destruction of the World, believed the seductive whispers of the winds, and did as they advised. The winds, who wished to wipe out the numerous Pantheon from the World and let Saman rule alone — the way they would instruct him — told him what to do. And that he did.
‘Following advice of Pertrios, Saman let his abominations from Ifurim attack Mogon and Mocus while these two were returning from the court of Smertrios in Ireland; in dense oak forest the battle began, drawing Smertrios himself with its fierce noise to come to his friends’ aid. Saman used the opportunity to attack Smertrios from the ambush and send on him the arrow forged in the deepest caves of Ifurim by the undead dwarf-masters, thanks to Smertrios who had given them that knowledge when they were alive. Saman’s dark Chinodaxes had dipped the arrow in the unholy water of the Pranno geyser, and Smertrios’ godly attributes could not resist such a power; Saman’s aim was true, and the arrow struck from behind, breaking the bronze helm of Smertrios, flying out from his right eye and off, piercing both Mogon and Mocus, drenched in the blood and puss of the hellish demons. It was a day of celebration and feasting for Saman’s abominations who ripped the flesh from godly bodies with their filthy teeth, and drank the blood of the fallen gods, tasty as the drink called Graal, which goddess Kerridwen prepares from the sap of six herbs.
‘The battle shook the Isles with its noise and cries, and the screams of the mutilated gods went high up to the heaven. Flattinis, where Belathukodrusus, who dwells there, recognized the evil deed of Saman and raised the sun soldiers in indestructible armour made of light, sending also messengers to Borvo, on land, and Bran, in the sea, to gather their troops and help him defeat the lord of the world of the dead. The three armies arrived on the battlefield, but where earlier was an almost impenetrable forest, they found only the vast clearing that is now called the Salisbury Plain.
‘So, just like the second wind, Tarvos, had told Saman, the court of Flattinis remained undefended. and Saman destroyed its shiny walls and towers, capturing Arduin, Dana, Artio, Kerridwen and beautiful Arianrod; Mother Anu did not allow herself to bear such a burden of shame and stay with other goddesses to be a harlot for Belfegor and other demons like him, so she fled to the earth and transformed herself to Aybe, the holy tree hidden in the heartland of Britannia, and waited there for inevitable defeat of Saman from the fist of Belathukodrusus. Furious, Saman ordered all children from the heavenly court — gods, demigods and humans alike — to be boarded on the magic galleon and banished to the Non-World, which we today call Space. These children are still flying among the distant worlds, bringing life to them.
‘And then, encouraged by the drunken and bloodthirsty cheer of his demonic cohorts, Saman forgot the advice of the third wind, Trigaranos: he attacked the armies of Belathukodrusus on the earth, not waiting for him to besiege the conquered Flattinis. Blinded by the wish for victory and destruction of his loathed rivals, he attacked the encamped troops of Belathukodrusus from all sides, on the site north of Kerkaraduk. The three winds were forced to help him in that foolish task, and so began the battle that lasted forty weeks, forty days and forty hours.
‘Saman was in of a tremendous power, and he thought himself invincible with the of Pertrios, Tarvos and Triganaros. But, the sun-army shone on the earth like a fallen star, and frantic demons were not able to force it into retreat. The three winds tried to scatter the camp of Belathukodrusus, but there they found the troops of Lug, Kernunus and Mannan, that had joined the gods of heaven after the news of the fall of Flattinis. Bran rode out of the foaming ocean, leading the awesome army of sea-creatures; he rushed from behind, protected by the blessing of Belathukodrusus, to the left flank of Saman’s legions, while Saman’s hordes on the right suddenly found themselves in the midst of Borvo’s hot geysers. The three winds saw that the luck of war was changing, and they changed sides with no second thought, scattering the main masses of Saman’s troops, pushing them back into Ifurim through the vast hole that had opened in the ground to admit them, and swiftly closed back over their helpless screams. Since that day, Ifurim was called Anvil.
‘And Belathukodrusus rode out from his camp on the beautiful white horse named Bemilunius, to meet Saman, who was wielding his awful hammer called Ilmior. The hammer struck Bemilunius’ head and the divine horse fell to his death, but his rider, the sun-god, pulled Saman off the back of his mount, a demon called Peppenut, struck him to the ground, thus causing a tremendous earthquake that separated Ireland from the land of Britons, making it an island.
‘The fate wanted Belathukodrusus to strike down Saman at the very spot where he had slain treacherously Mogon, Smertrios and Mocus. So Saman, who was at that time wearing his favourite shape of a bear with head and tusks of a boar, bearing three bull-horns, squealed and begged for mercy from the very same gods he had already condemned to death and oblivion. The victorious gods gathered around and banished him to Ifurim, to stay there for five thousand Abraxases; after that time had passed, he would be able to come out to the World only if the creatures inheriting it summoned him. Then they resurrected fallen gods and rebuilt the heavenly court, more beautiful and shining than ever, while the evil and defeated god finished imprisoned in his own hell and stayed there, earning among the alchemists the name Yaldaboath — The One Who Waits. And the three winds were punished, too: since that time, they are blowing on the Salisbury Plain only when the gods in Flattinis allow it, and then they seize the opportunity to blow with all their might, never knowing when their newly gained freedom will be terminated.’

The little man stopped talking and looked at me with a smile. ‘You do know, of course,’ he said, ‘that one Abraxas is actually one year, a period of 365 days. You see, the five thousand Abraxas’ since Saman’s defeat will be completed this year, on the day of Belthan, which means on the 1st of May.’
I shook my head and the little man sighed.
‘Belthan is the celebration of Spring, when we make fires and burn Aybe, the holy oak, the embodiment of the soul of Mother Anu. At that time we burn the image of the vegetation spirit, we cut mistletoe and make human sacrifice. On this Belthan, the five thousand Abraxas’ of Saman’s imprisonment will pass, constellations will be in harmony with the magic aspects of the Sun and the Moon, so the Lord of Hell will be able to come out to the world freely — if someone summons him, at the very precise moment, on the very precise spot!’
‘But, I really don’t underst-’
‘I know,’ the little man interrupted me. ‘If you are really to understand all of this, we have to spend a few more minutes on another short, ancient story, directly connected with what I have just told you.’
‘Ah.’
The little man smiled again. ‘Don’t worry. We will soon get to the thing you are most interested in — the girls lying there, behind you. But first, you have to know the following...’
His voice was flat, the room was gloomy, but since Sandra and Manja were that close, and since I was aching all over, it wasn’t very hard for me to stay concentrated on his words.
‘You see... immediately upon Saman’s defeat, his surviving demons took up dwelling on the earth’s surface, far from the eyes of the gods in Flattinis, founding and spreading cults and beliefs in the return of the lord of the dead. Whole religions sprouted and withered around Saman’s second coming, but only a handful of these ancient cults was able to resist the perils of the ages and survive the time of new, Roman gods, as well as the presence of the selfish and lonesome Christian divinity.
‘The earliest tales about the way Saman should be summoned after the five thousand Abraxases had passed contained the required harmony of constellations with magic aspects of the Sun and the Moon, as well as the special incantation to reflect this harmony in rhythm and sound; the tales also mentioned the place it was supposed to happen in a precisely chosen moment. Jehovah had banished old victorious gods long ago, and there is no doubt that, alone, he would be an easy prey for Saman. However, all the tales were certain in one thing: if the incantation was performed too soon, or at some other place than the one that was meant to be, not only Saman would not be freed, but his imprisonment would continue for the next five thousand years. Even worse than that: if the incantation is performed at the right place, but at the wrong time, Saman will stay enslaved twice as long, so the next opportunity for his release will come after the next ten thousand years!
‘The place, of course, is the Salisbury Plain, where Saman was defeated. The very spot where the temple known as Stonehenge is still standing.
‘Many men had studied and written about Stonehenge, and — truth to be told — some of those esteemed scholars had come very close to the true nature of the temple — beginning with Henry of Huntington, who had mentioned Stonehenge for the first time in his Historia Anglorum, in the 12th century, Geoffrey of Monmouth, whose tome titled Historia Regum Britanniae had seen the light of day in 1135, or Inigo Jones, the chief architect of King James I, and many others, to the astronomer Fred Hoyle, Professor J. C. Attkinson and Professor Jeromme himself, whom you, alas, did not have the opportunity to meet... exactly. The interesting thing is that, in spite of all the means of modern science used to determine the age and origin of the sarsen and blue stone of this dolmen, the version that had approached the truth the most, was indeed the theory of Geoffrey of Monmouth, smirked upon in this modern age because of its mysticism and supernatural arguments.

‘So, in the year 490, AD, the British King Vortigern went to see the convent near Kerkaraduk — today called Salisbury — where four hundred and sixty British chieftains massacred by the Saxons were lying, their bodies mutilated and hacked to pieces. The King, who barely managed to recover a week before that from the ghastly news that his only son was killed by the Picts who came from Caledonia for plunder and looting, vowed himself to mark somehow this time of great evil that had fallen on his country. Tremorinus, the Archbishop of the City of Legions, advised the grieving King to ask help from his own prophet, Maerlyn or Merlin, whose life was later closely entwined with other British kings, Uther Pendragon and his son, Arthur. In that age, the memory of the titanic battle of pre-Christian gods had been very much alive, and Merlin, who was himself a mystic and a master of secret druid arts, supported the cult of Saman. Called by King Vortigern, he listened to his Lord’s wish and saw an opportunity to please the King and, at the same time, leave a shrine that would last forever — or at least, until five thousand of Abraxases passed.
‘“Allow me to speak with the spirits of dead chieftains, King Vortigern, and I will then choose the monument appropriate to their courage,” Merlin told the King, and he ordered a young white bull to be brought before him and slaughtered. Then he entered the smoking bull’s gut and hid there to wait for the spirits to appear around the carcass, in order to surprise them and make them give him the answer that would satisfy the King. And so it happened, and Merlin came before the King with the response of the bravest warrior Britain had ever had:
‘“Your brave warriors want a monument to last as long as there is the Sun and the Moon in the sky, a temple visible from afar in this wasteland, a temple that no nation can build without divine help.’ Asked by the King how he intended to build such a monument, Merlin stroked his beard lost in thoughts, and finally said: “Far from here, in Ireland, lives the immortal sorceress called Naas, the mistress of giants. I will talk to her, and she will help.”
‘So, indeed, Merlin sailed to Ireland, found Naas and told her what he wanted from her. The sorceress agreed to do as he wished, if he did as she wished, and Merlin remained in her silk tent standing in the midst of swampy and misty land near Kildare, for seven days and the eighth night. Then, on the eighth morning, Naas took him to a hillock and said:
‘“Now we have to return through time, because I command the giants, and they live only in the past.” She cast a spell, and they found themselves in a dark forest, although they had started this journey at the very beginning in the day. And there, on a clearing, Naas found forty giants dancing, celebrating the destruction of the nearby human settlements and dwarves’ dwellings; she and Merlin spotted men and women turned by the giants on the spits over the fire, and the sorceress shrieked and stomped the earth, furious, petrifying all forty of them in less then a second. They became great stones standing in a circle around the fire, so Naas said to Merlin: “Take this Chorea Gigantum and take it through time and space where you wish; I owe you no more.”
‘And Merlin summoned his magic and transferred himself and the Ring — or the Wheel — of Giants back to the future through more than a thousand years and across more than five hundred miles. Since then, The Ring of Giants stands in the midst of Wiltshire, and no one, except a few initiates and members of Saman and Merlin cults, knows its origin, its builders or its actual age. Modern methods of age determination were not able to point out the exact time of the making of Chorea Gigantum; petrified giants had come from a time long, long ago.
‘Thus providing the appropriate place for the summoning of Saman when the time comes, Merlin had put all his efforts into preserving the incantation for the future. It was carried through time among the cultists, from generation to generation, from mouth to mouth, and this tradition contained magic words, their exact order and rhythm. Our small... group that you see here, consists of the last followers of Saman. Knowledge needed for his summoning is alive and burning in our memory and our thoughts... so you can imagine how confused, crushed and furious we were when we’d found out that some-’ He paused and grimaced in disgust. ‘—pop group had, in some unimaginable way that can only be ascribed to some trick of Belathukodrusus himself, written a song with melody, rhythm and words that represent a copy and profane use of our holy incantation!’
I was gaping at him, unbelieving. ‘You don’t mean...’
‘Rubber Soul,’ the little man said with disgust. ‘Somewhere around the time when that album was recorded, our acolytes had sensed the disruptions in the forces activating with each partial pronouncing and studying of the incantation. Since our order — or our cult, if you like — is existing, no such thing has ever happened. We had summoned mystic forces that responded by sending us Asmoth the Headhunter, a demigod-demon whom you have already had a chance to meet.’
‘Yes... but not that closely like Peabody, Carmody and Jeromme,’ I murmured.
‘Asmoth had found out that these disruptions originated from the EMI studios where those... beatniks... were recording their new album. We’ve had some difficulties to infiltrate some of our acolytes into the usual crowd swarming around the studios, but when one of them managed to do that, he was horrified to hear that one of the songs they were preparing was the embodiment of our holy incantation. We were saved from the premature summoning only thanks to the fact that the music background was recorded apart from the vocals, and that the material wasn’t put together and played in public yet. We couldn’t afford losing any more time. That song simply had to disappear. Unfortunately, The Beatles were too big an attraction, and the whole task asked for extreme discretion. And again we had used Asmoth, who first tried to eliminate Lennon, then McCartney as well. But, they had...’
‘...a protective force-field around themselves, which stopped Asmoth from getting near them or hurting them,’ I finished.
‘Exactly,’ the little man said in a dry voice. ‘We were left with only one solution: we have destroyed, with Asmoth’s considerable help, all sound recordings and written traces of that song. Then something very interesting happened: after the sheet-music and the recorded tapes had gone, even the authors themselves started forgetting the song; they knew that it had existed, that it was supposed to be the title song of the album, but no one who had participated in the first place in its recording was able to remember the tune, or the words. Finally, the album was released, without the title song, and we were able to calm down. The Beatles had started doing other things, and the song called “Rubber Soul” went to oblivion.’
‘But?’ I said. The little man pressed his lips into a thin line. Now he looked very old, as if the story about the events that had happened half a century ago, had carved deep lines into his face.
‘But, this oblivion wasn’t final. John Lennon, who had been the author of the music, was incessantly returning to this melody, as if obsessed. Since we were using Asmoth to watch closely if that song was bound to surface someplace, and we knew that “Rubber Soul” still had a great influence over them all, at first there were Lennon’s suicidal urges which remained unknown to the public, urges that led to the title of their next album — Revolver; then Brian Epstein, their manager who had insisted on the Beatles re-doing that song, died, and The Beatles went to India, trying to use transcendental meditation with Maharishi Mareshi Yogi to relieve themselves from the deep guilt they were feeling because of Epstein’s tragic end. It was something they were never able to explain to themselves.’
‘Epstain’s death was also arranged by... Asmoth, wasn’t it?’ I said.
‘Of course. Finally, after more than one decade of silence, Lennon had decided to record “Rubber Soul” again, for his second album with Yoko Ono, probably under the influence of the very same force that had inspired him in the first place, and afterwards protected him from us. That left us with no choice.’
‘So, Mark Chapman...’
‘Mere executive of the will of Asmoth, since the demigod-demon still wasn’t able to harm the singer protected with Belathukodrusus’ blessing.’
The little man paused, wiped his glasses and stared at me over the table, his eyes enlarged behind the lenses.
‘Why us?’ I said, after a long silence. ‘Why Rastko and me?’
The midget stood up again and walked to the slab where our girls were imprisoned.
‘We don’t know,’ he said finally. ‘Since we have once again registered strong disruptions, this close to the day of the summoning, we were trying to find the connection. Our... ah, experts for paleontology have found certain connections between the Paleolithic culture in Britain and the one that had existed in pre-historic times in the vicinity of your city...’
‘Vin~a,’ I said.
‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘There are still some traces — for example, the same number of letters in the original title of the song — “Rubber Soul” — and your translation.’
‘Gumena du{a,’ I murmured.
‘Yes... and also the same number of mystic letters E and U in both titles that can indicate some runes from Merlin’s age... but, when you get to the bottom of it, it really isn’t that important. Obviously, the force left by Bellathukodrusus that had been guarding you, had found in yourself and your friend the best possible mediums for the last effort to prevent the incantation and Saman’s second coming.’
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘Although the whole story you’ve just told me sounds completely insane, I have to believe it, because I have to believe what my eyes are telling me. Now, can you finally tell me... what... do you...want from us?’
The little man beamed at me.
‘Nothing special,’ he said. ‘We are offering you the life of the girls if you refuse a suspicious glory you’d maybe gain by following through with this project of yours with the surviving Beatles. At least until the 1st of May has passed. After that, all other things won’t be important anyway.’
‘What happens when... Saman is finally free?’ I asked. The little man, turned around, shrugged and gestured towards the silent congregation in the room.
‘Then... our age will begin.’
I tried to imagine what ‘their age’ would look like, but that image was, somehow, escaping me. I felt thankful for that. I sighed with resignation.
‘All right. I accept. And I know Rastko will accept, too. But, how are we to rest assured that you are going to keep your word and let the girls go free?’
‘No problem at all,’ the little man smiled. ‘As a sign of good will, I am prepared to let one of them go. We only have to melt the time-altering amber slab. Let’ say, we can let your daughter go right now. The daughter of Mr. Ciric will be retained and... protected... the same way as she is protected now. Asmoth will do that for us. Then, you are going to surrender yourself willfully to Asmoth, thus cancelling the protective force that makes you inaccessible right now. Asmoth will wipe your memory clean from all things connected with the “Rubber Soul” song. Then we will get your friend here and repeat the same procedure. What do you say? Do you agree?’
‘Certainly,’ I said, after the briefest moment of hesitation, and nodded tiredly. ‘I’m no hero, especially if my daughter’s life is at stake. I’d rather let the others care about the salvation of the world, the others whose job it is in the first place.’ I looked at the peaceful, dreaming Sandra’s face in the amber and felt a jolt of pain.
‘Excellent,’ the little man said and clapped his hands; it cracked like a pistol shot in the silent room. ‘Let’s call Asmoth, then.’
He took his place in the high-backed chair and began murmuring unintelligible lines. Soon the voices of other cultists joined him and the room echoed with a weird, melodic chant in language that could be anything — from Phoenician, which even today, supposedly, lives in the language spoken by people in Wells, considering it the very language spoken by man before the Flood, to old Celtic or corrupted medieval English. I stood up, ignoring their empty faces ruddy and sweaty in the stuffy room. I approached the thick amber slab where Rastko’s daughter and mine were lying asleep — frozen in time — with calm faces, curled and immobile. I put my hand to the smooth surface of amber and quickly pulled it back. It was hot.
The room filled with a deep and ancient forest-smell, and somewhere far behind my back I heard the first hollow echoes of the demon’s strides.
But I did not look over my shoulder; I was not able to pry my eyes from the amber slab that had suddenly begun melting and thinning with a loud, high hiss. I felt the rush of hot air and took one step back. I gasped when Manja’s hand appeared above the melting amber substance, standing in the air, small and white, surreal like all the rest in the red-tinted gloom.
Then, while the substance where our daughters were imprisoned was slowly disappearing, I caught a movement at the edge of my vision and I looked up from the girls to the window under which they were lying in the diminishing puddle of molten amber. Heavy curtain moved slightly and I spotted for a moment a human figure outside, in the moonlight. Suddenly, a scream rose, high, long and piercing among the Saman cultists. Without any thought, I lunged over the girls and covered them with my body.
I will try to describe the things that had happened in the next thirty minutes or so, but even now, while I am writing this, I am not quite sure how much of it all I have really seen, and how many blank spaces were filled by my imagination. While lying over Sandra and Manja, trembling and trying to shelter them somehow, I looked over my shoulder and saw one of the tense young men screaming under the slashing attack of a thin, dazzling beam similar to an industrial laser that was burning his flesh and slicing his body parts off. The fabric of his suit burst into flame and the poor man practically decomposed, falling through his sleeves and trousers on the floor, in a shapeless heap. Frozen in amazement, the little man and other cultists stopped their chanting, staring into the young man’s remains and the other guard who had already pulled the heavy automatic pistol from the holster under his arm-pit and who was now trying to watch all sides at the same time, looking for the source of the attack. The young man looked down to his own chest, suddenly illuminated by the clear red circle; the beginning of a shriek sounded from his throat, but the very next instant his chest burst out and splashed over the men and women around, standing up from their seats. His body was flung directly to the high two-winged door and broke them with the force of impact, ending somewhere behind, in the lighted corridor.
The little man tried to shout something, but panic swept through the room. The cultists rushed to the door, ignoring the midget’s furious cries barely heard in the pandemonium, forgetting the huge hole hanging in the air in the middle of the room like a crack in the fabric of the universe, the opening through which the blurred red light of the summoned demon shone into the room. Asmoth’s advance guard, vague misty shapes, scattered around and fell upon the midget’s followers like sticky and poisonous candy-floss. I watched in horror how his faces were altered and deformed into blood-thirsty beastly grimaces, with bared teeth gleaming with froth. The armed ones pulled out their cold or shooting weapons, wishing to stand against the unknown attackers. The unarmed used their own bodies like weapons. I saw one figure in a dark armour falling under the boiling crowd of screaming, frantic followers of Saman.
My eyes were fixed to the cult leader; the little man succeeded somehow in stopping one middle-aged woman and a gaunt, tall man in a pin-striped suit, waving his hands, covering them with spit and pointing his finger toward the girls and me. They looked at me, and the man, whose human nature — probably protected within the aura of the overwhelming horror — somehow refused to accept the demonic possession, shook his head; but the woman pressed her lips together and pulled a long, curved knife out of her purse, to sprint toward us. Then the whole wall fell behind their backs and figures in dark clothes emerged from the cloud of dust and bricks, deadly and sharp-eyed. The woman, who had barely managed to make a step, was cut in half at her waist, smooth and clean. Her upper half balanced for a moment in the air, with a comic look of surprise on her face, and fell to the carpet, together with her twitching legs, splashing the floor with thick and sticky blood. The tall man was watching this, petrified with terror, only to turn to flee the next moment to the window on the far wall, away from the exit door where there was a throng of panicked Saman’s followers. He managed to get to the pane, and then some dark figure splashed his head from the outside with a wide green beam of light. I watched in awe while his head turned to slag, allowing his body to walk aimlessly in a tight circle before it crashed down beside the horse-shoe table. I held Manja and Sandra tighter, feeling goose-bumps from the cold radiating from their bodies.
The cultists at the doorway seemed to be crushed by the wrath of God; they were screaming, trampling one another. Their hair was on fire, their bodies fell apart under the laser crossfire from the men in fighting armour. The world stank of sizzling human flesh, spilled excrement and scattered intestines, blood, blood, blood...
And then, suddenly, the little man somehow gained an inhuman strength and roared above the clatter and cries in the room. He was standing, his arms thrown wide open, his head far back on his neck, staring at the huge crystal chandelier swinging from the ceiling. The beams of several plasma-guns modified to slow action were covering him gradually with their thick orange glow from his feet up; behind the midget, who stood there like a living statue of fire, the crack in dimensions was widening and I was able to see Asmoth’s huge body waiting to spring out and destroy us all. Then the cult-leader became a flaming ball and burst into bits and pieces covering the room like some unholy soot. The giant chandelier fell to the floor from the blast and I felt a wave of tiny glass fragments on my back, shoulders and arms.
I was trying to shout something at the armed men who were slowly finishing the massacre at the door, I was trying to warn them of the demon’s arrival, but my throat wasn’t able to produce any sound. Then I saw one of the uniformed men waving, and several technicians in grey coveralls entering the room through the hole in the wall. They quickly put together the parts of machinery they were carrying in their hands and came up with a gadget shaped like a dull black cube. They laid it down under the crack in the air. Ectoplasmic apparitions were coming closer and closer, but the cube hummed and only a moment later the hole suddenly began to heal itself, closing, becoming smaller. The wraiths rushed out with a deep whooshing sound and attacked the people that were still alive in the room. I was staring at the shifting shapes curling around the heads of cultists and their executors, strong reptilian limbs armoured with thick scaly skin with long claws materializing from nowhere, becoming strong, lithe and deadly matter, tearing heads in shiny black helmets and throwing them around. One of the newly formed members of the Asmoth’s suite was crouching on the back of a technician in grey coverall. His long crocodile jaws snapped and tore the shoulder from the unfortunate man’s torso. His scream rose above the deafening noise, and his body fell under the weight of his demonic attacker whose jaws were incessantly working on his mangled upper body; the severed arm was still clutching the handle on the black cube, quivering and bent at the elbow. Then, slowly, it fell down too.
I thought then that this rescue operation, obviously arranged by Swanwick and Graham whose men must have followed me after I had left Oxford, was futile and hopeless: in the pulsating red of the hole in the air which had stopped closing, I could see the raised mountain of Asmoth’s body.
A terrible sound of tearing suddenly engulfed the room, and another wall fell down in a heap of broken, blasted bricks, plaster and old-fashioned wallpapers torn and curled like the captured and disgraced flags of some ancient army. Black silhouettes were quick and perfectly trained. Bright strips of light filled the air that crackled with energy. I closed my eyes on instinct and I buried my head in Sandra’s hair; I could still see the ruby-red prints on my retinas, dissolving and paling after a second or two, first to flaming orange, then to the colour of lime, white and finally grey, spotted with tiny sparks resembling a star field in the clear night sky. When I dared look up again, the creatures that had passed through the gap before Asmoth were disappearing in flame devouring them where it found them. Their bodies were becoming black, charred, contracting spasmodically, only to explode silently and scatter around in a fine dust. I moved my head a bit to look at the girls. Their faces had a slight golden sheen. I managed to raise my hand and take a look with renewed incredulity at the golden aura glimmering around it and following its every movement like an obedient protective force-field. Then the tremendous quake lifted us from the floor. I turned my head towards the gap and saw Asmoth’s paw big as a caterpillar claw; it was blindly feeling its way around and destroying everything in its path. Since the gap was smaller now, only a part of Asmoth’s right limb had managed to break through. By sheer chance it had missed the black cube that was visibly vibrating as if straining to maintain the energy input required to prevent the new widening of the hole. Almost insane with terror, I saw the deadly paw turning towards us like an inevitable doom. I trembled and held the girls tighter, grinding my teeth and expecting the final blow that might squash us as easily as I could have squashed a fly. But the golden aura flashed and sent out golden, swift tendrils, forestalling Asmoth’s attack. His crooked claw stopped there, engulfed in a glowing nimbus, like a miniature sun there, above the smoke, stench, dust and remains of lower demons still floating and slowly settling down in the room. Then the whole building — or what was left of it — shuddered with the roar I had already heard before, an eternity ago: it was easy to recognize the pure, distilled rage in that roar, the rage of helplessness, failure and unsuccessful revenge, the most intensive rage possible, characteristic only for creatures gifted — and cursed — with the spark of reason.
Asmoth’s paw retracted quickly and the gap suddenly disappeared; only a second later, the black box jumped in the air and exploded, cutting down a few armoured fighters left standing after the deadly sweep of monstrous claws. Tiny fragments of plastic, metal and silicone rained over our protective force-field that bent slightly inward, and bulged again, spitting out the caught pieces over the cracked floor. I am not certain if I will ever be able to describe properly that closing of the thing whose very existence was physically impossible: the air had filled the empty space with the final loud pop sounding like a cork flying out of the champagne bottle. I managed to keep my head raised until I was positive that the gap was tightly sealed, and only then I allowed myself to put it down in a delicate hollow between Sandra’s neck and shoulder. And suddenly I felt my heart jumping out of my mouth: there was a small, tiny shudder under me. Sandra’s body suddenly tensed, and she took a breath, sudden, deep and loud. Beside her, I saw Manja frowning and opening her mouth. I was staring intently at them — to be sure, completely sure, damned sure — and then I fell on my side, covered my face and sobbed in shock, relief, hysteria. I surrendered to the tears, hoping they would be able to cleanse my soul.

After a while, sitting on the lawn in front of the large Victorian structure that had housed Saman’s cult, wrapped in a blanket with a cup of hot black coffee in my hands, I was watching the orderlies putting Sandra and Manja into the ambulance. I felt dull and drained. They still did not regain consciousness, but they were breathing regularly and the preliminary examination proved that all body functions were normal; in other words, the girls were in deep, sound sleep. A kind police doctor had told me he expected them to spend just a day or two in the convalescent ward before being discharged and returned to St. Hilda’s.
Swanwick left Graham in charge of procedure and command over the team of policemen rummaging through the smouldering wings of the house. He came to me and sat on the grass. He was looking at me for a few moments without speaking, while my gaze followed the tail-lights of ambulance hovers disappearing in the night. Then he smiled.
‘You know, I feel sorry because it all happened this way.’
I looked at him without understanding.
‘You didn’t really think that you have deceived us about your real intentions, did you? That you were going to London to see your friend? Or that our men wouldn’t follow you? You were under the strict surveillance of our department from the moment we’d left you at the hotel in Oxford. That is how we were able to organize this... rescue operation.’
I waved at the house, trying to find the words.
‘That... inside...’
‘The slaughter?’
I nodded. Swanwick shrugged.
‘We have been tailing these fanatics for quite a while now. They were all in our dossiers, and we’d had them on our lists of suspects in various criminal cases involving killing... mutilations... rape... you name it. The abduction of the girls served us well... if I may say so. Still, all’s well that ends well, isn’t it? Those were hardened psychopaths and killers in there.’
I remembered the woman with a knife... the man in the pin-striped suit.
‘Did you really think they would have let your daughters go?’ he said softly. I looked at his kind, friendly face and shuddered.
‘That... cube...’ I said.
‘Ah,’ Swanwick said with a smile. ‘You have seen our special unit in action. It’s a kind of... commando squad whose task is to fight against the things that contemporary science calls “supernatural.” You would be quite surprised if you only knew what kinds of weirdest cases we have to deal with. That unit was formed approximately twenty years ago, with an extremely low profile. Only recently the police journals in the United Kingdom were able to get to some more accurate information, and they broke the news to the public. There are a lot of official reasons for the existence of this squad quoted in the magazine stories, but essentially, there’s only one. I am going to tell you what that reason is, since I think you deserve it after all you’ve just been through: The Supernatural Crime Unit — that’s its official name — was formed to solve once and for all the case which has been the ugly spot on the clean face of Scotland Yard for more than two centuries. Of course, I am talking about The Ripper, the unsolved mystery from the end of the 19th century.’
It took a few seconds for what Swanwick has just told me to sink in. ‘So?’
‘So what?’
‘So, did you solve it?’ I asked. ‘I mean — that thing with The Ripper?’
The Scotland Yard Inspector smiled tightly. There was not much humour in that smile. ‘No... not yet. But one of these days for sure... one of these days.’
‘Inspector,’ I said. ‘You say that you have been on the track of this group for a long time. Were all of its members, according to your files, present here tonight?’
Swanwick frowned slightly. ‘I think that one or two members of the cult are missing, but we are eventually going to get them too.’
I suddenly felt my blood rushing through my veins. I grabbed Swanwick’s arm and closed my eyes under a sudden dizzy spell. ‘Mr. Swanwick,’ I said through my teeth, frowning from pain burning in the back of my head. ‘What date is it?’
He looked at me, confused. ‘The date? Today? Why, it’s the 29th of April and-’
‘Help me up, please,’ I told him. The time was suddenly the world champion in sprint, vanishing far down the race track.
‘All right,’ Inspector Swanwick said. ‘But I suggest that you take a good rest now. This nightmare is finally over for you.’
‘No.’ I shook my head, limping toward the police hover. ‘Nothing’s over yet.’

It was a cold dawn over the Salisbury Plain; the dark of the night paled with the starglow into the gray light of a new day. There were a few clouds in the sky, but they were not a serious threat. Two huge carriers had floated to the vicinity of the silent silhouettes of Stonehenge and the semi-mechanical started unloading the equipment. At the same time, three old-fashioned black limos drove down the well-kept, but rarely used road and parked in a rough semi-circle. The shining road vehicles had elegant, long lines, and rubbers white as snow. I was watching them from the place at which I had arrived just about ten minutes earlier, in one of the dozen police hovers, accompanied by Swanwick and Graham and their Demon Squad. The doors of the limos started to open and familiar figures emerged from within. The driver of the third limo brought some gleaming thing out, and I saw what it was only when he had assembled it, with chrome wheels, leather cushions and comfortable back-rest — the wheelchair. The driver ducked down to the interior of the limo and carried a small figure out, with no effort. He put it gently into the ready wheelchair. I was not able to see Ringo’s face clearly, but I knew very well that it was him, and I felt a lump in my throat, the one that is most difficult to swallow, the lump of comprehension about fragile human existence. I walked down the path, my eyes fixed on the hand that had played the drums in She Loves You, Help! and all other unforgettable songs that had made my youth almost bearable. While approaching, I noticed that these hands were now crooked and lumpy from arthritis, shaking and lying on the expensive wool-blanket covering Ringo’s legs. For a moment I felt the rush of anxiety and dark certainty that this was not going to work — that there was no chance for it work — and then I saw Ringo’s hands moving and pulling two brand-new, white drumsticks from the leather pouch of the wheelchair. Ringo drummed a bit in the air on the imaginary drums, and he finally nodded. There was nothing uncertain or clumsy in these movements. the wheelchair hummed and started slowly down the gravel path toward a small group of people gathering a bit further.
George came out of the second limo, carrying a guitar-case, in the serious dark suit of an English lord (which he actually became some fifteen years ago, by the decision of King Charles, just like the other two surviving Beatles). He looked around and pushed a lock of grey hair from his forehead. He saw Ringo, waited for him to get near and friendly squeezed his shoulder. Ringo smiled, and I could swear that he looked fifty years younger than his seventy-five. The two men who had emerged from the remaining limo went to them, and I quickened my step.
I recognized the instrument in McCartney’s hands: it was his ancient Hoeffner violin bass guitar, and I did not have to guess much about the guitar carried by Rastko. It was Lennon’s Rickenbaker, well-kept and polished, gleaming on the meager light of the dawn and the first spotlights being switched on behind by the technicians. Paul said something to Ringo and George, motioned to Rastko who was blinking and watching them as if embarrassed. Then all four turned to the sound of my steps.
‘I suppose this is our second friend from Yugoslavia,’ Paul said. I managed a silent nod while he was shaking my hand. My mouth was too dry for me to speak.
‘You-go-slavia?’ Ringo squinted up at me. ‘I think I had me holidays there once or twice.’
‘And so you did, Sir,’ I said. ‘On a small island, called St. Stephen’s.’
‘Yes, yes... that’s right... a long time ago that was...’ He was frowning, trying to remember the past. Then he waved his hand dismissively — with a slight wince — and brought the sticks closer to his eyes, examining their lines and smoothness.
‘You’ve done a