Yates squeezed his lips tight, refusing to speak. He tried to stem the bleeding, putting pressure on the wound, ignoring the questions. Leo pulled Yates’s hand away: keeping the wound exposed, blood continuing to flow, saying in Russian:

—Did you do that to my wife? Did you pull her hand away? You let her bleed?

Yates’s brow overed with sweat, his body shaking. Leo said:

—You delayed calling the ambulance?

Nara translated, no longer stumbling over the words, levelling the accusation at him. She wanted an answer too. Yates said nothing.

Leo didn’t raise his voice, speaking as though addressing a child:

—Yates, you’re running out of time. If you don’t answer I will watch you die as you watched my wife. I will consider the events before me a replay of what happened in New York, and I don’t need you to speak in order to understand that night. I’m prepared to watch, like this, as you bleed to death.

Yates was the master of reading people’s weaknesses and could surely see that there was no uncertainty in Leo.

—You stayed with her, didn’t you? For twenty minutes, making sure of her death? You came up with the idea of tying the murders together, claiming that Anna killed Raisa, that it was an act of revenge, but not against you.

Yates sat up, regarding his bloody shirt, red all the way up to his chest, spreading out across the patchwork carpet. Leo said in English:

—Speak to me.

Finally, Yates reacted. He nodded. Leo grabbed his face.

—Not good enough. I want to hear you speak. Tell me: did you let her die?

Yates’s teeth were bloody. He said:

—Yes, I let her die.

Leo’s voice was almost a whisper.

—My wife spent the last moments of her life with you. Describe them for me.

Yates had turned ghostly pale. He shut his eyes. Leo slapped him across the face, forcing him to respond. Yates opened his mouth but didn’t speak. Leo said:

—Her last minutes. I want to know.

Yates tried to touch the bullet wound but Leo kept a grip on his hand.

—You don’t have much time.

Yates spoke. His words sounded like a man struggling to keep afloat, snatched breaths, panicking.

—I told her there was an ambulance on its way. She didn’t believe me. She knew I was lying. She tried to call out for help. Once she realized there was no help she became peaceful. Her breathing was slow. I thought it was going to take a few minutes but almost fifteen minutes passed. There was a lot of blood. I thought she was ready to die.

He shook his head.

—She began to speak. Very quietly, like she was praying. I thought it had to be Russian. But she was speaking English. She was speaking to me. So I moved closer. She asked me to tell… her daughter…