After he had been phoning for another ten minutes, the two policemen came up the stairs from the basement with Grisha walking between them, holding the sergeant’s hand.

Dimka dropped the phone and ran to him.

Grisha said: “I couldn’t open the door, and I cried!”

Dimka picked him up and hugged him, striving not to weep with relief.

After a minute he said: “What happened, Grisha?”

“The policemen found me,” he said.

Anya and Nina appeared from the stairwell and came running, ecstatic with relief. Nina snatched Grisha from Dimka and crushed the boy to her bosom.

Dimka turned to the sergeant. “Where did you find him?”

The man looked pleased with himself. “Down in the cellar, in a storeroom. The door wasn’t locked, but he couldn’t reach the handle. He’s had a scare, but otherwise he seems to have come to no harm.”

Dimka addressed the boy. “Tell me, Grisha, why did you go down to the basement?”

“The man said there was a puppy—but I couldn’t find the puppy!”

“The man?”

“Yes.”

“Someone you know?”

Grisha shook his head.

The sergeant put his cap on to leave. “All’s well that ends well, then.”

“Just a minute,” Dimka said. “You heard the boy. A man lured him down there with talk of a puppy.”

“Yes, sir, he told me that. But no crime seems to have been committed, as far as I can see.”

“The child was abducted!”

“Difficult to know exactly what happened, especially when the information comes from one so young.”

“It’s not difficult at all. A man inveigled the child down to the cellar, then abandoned him there.”

“But what would be the point of that?”

“Look, I’m grateful to you for finding him, but don’t you think you’re taking the whole thing rather lightly?”

“Children do go astray every day.”

Dimka began to be suspicious. “How did you know where to look?”

“A lucky guess. As I say, we’re familiar with this building.”

Dimka decided not to voice his suspicions while he was still in a state of high emotion. He turned away from the officer and spoke to Grisha again. “Did the man tell you his name?”

“Yes,” said Grisha. “His name is Nik.”

• • •

Next morning, Dimka sent for the KGB file on Nik Smotrov.

He was in a rage. He wanted to get a gun and kill Nik. He had to keep telling himself to remain calm.

It would not have been difficult for Nik to get past the doorman yesterday. He could have faked a delivery, entered close behind some legitimate residents so that he looked part of the group, or just flashed a Communist Party card. Dimka found it a little more difficult to figure out how Nik could have known that Grisha would be moving from one part of the building to another on his own, but on reflection he decided Nik had probably reconnoitered the building a few days earlier. He could have chatted to some neighbors, figured out the child’s daily schedule, and picked the best opportunity. He had probably paid off those local policemen, too. His aim was to scare Dimka half to death.