“Blue,” I said, “am I to take it you know these people?”

“Unfortunately yes,” said the Blue Fairy. “May I present to you the Vodyanoi brothers, Russian mafiosi who relocated to London after making Moscow too hot for them. I borrowed a hell of a lot of money from them, when I thought I was dying, and spent the lot on wine, drugs, and two very pretty rent boys. I honestly thought I’d be dead long before the time came to pay any of it back . . . Unfortunately, while all the money is gone, I am still here, and these gentlemen want their money back. Along with a quite extortionate amount of interest.”

“Indeed yes. We are Vodyanoi brothers!” said the thug on the left. “I am Gregor Vodyanoi, and this is being my baby brother Sergei Vodyanoi! We are being very dangerous people.”

“Very dangerous people indeed!” said Sergei, glaring at us all in turn. “Oh my word, yes.”

“Show them how dangerous we are, brother,” said Gregor.

Sergei produced a very large handgun from his coat pocket, put it to his left temple, grinned at us all with very large teeth, and then shot himself in the head. He rocked on his feet from the impact, but didn’t fall. There was no spurt of blood from the wound in his head, and the hole quickly closed. All around us, people were quietly backing away. Sergei gargled a few times, and then spat the deformed bullet out into his hand. He showed it to us, while Gregor slapped his brother proudly on the back.

“Unusually dangerous, I think you’ll agree,” said Gregor. “Now, there is a question of moneys owed to us. Substantial moneys, with much in the way of interest. Due right now, oh my word, yes.”

“Or very much else,” said Sergei. “We are Vodyanoi brothers, and no one is taking the advantage of us.”

The Blue Fairy looked at me. “Help?”

“I should have known you’d be more trouble than you were worth,” I said.

“I suppose an advance is out of the question?”

I smiled at the Vodyanoi brothers. “Any chance we can work this out in a civilised manner?”

“We do not do civilised,” said Gregor.

“Bad for business,” said Sergei.

“Either he pays up, or we eat him,” said Gregor, smiling widely to show off his very large teeth. “Setting an example is being very important, in our line of work.”

I turned to Molly. “Darling, could you take care of this?”

“Of course, darling,” said Molly. She snapped her fingers, and the Vodyanoi brothers vanished, replaced by two small and warty and very surprised-looking frogs sitting on the floor. I looked reproachfully at Molly.

“I meant, take care of the problem financially.”

“Then you should have said,” said Molly, sipping her drink.

I shook my head. “Can’t take you anywhere.”