“You are Okay to answer a few questions, aren’t you? Doctors told me you’d died several times on the way here. I can come back later.” Chain touched the video icon on his handheld and hunted for the right clip.

“Yobany stos! Get on with it.”

Chain glanced up. “I know that one. Just so you know, yeban’ko maloletnee.”

Petrovitch chuckled, then grimaced at the discomfort. “Ask your questions, Detective.”

“This,” said Chain, “this is you, early this morning.” He passed Petrovitch the handheld.

Petrovitch watched himself, identified with a floating yellow tag, crawl along the pavement at Green Park. A red tag moved into view, and the two crossed briefly. The screen went blank.

“Where’s the rest?” he asked.

“The cameras over the whole block went down.” Chain took the handheld back. “Very professional. But we know what happened. We know where you went, and we know how it ended.”

He opened up another file, and showed Petrovitch a picture of two bullet-ridden gangsters lying in a mutual pool of thick red blood.

Petrovitch looked, then looked away. “If you know what happened, why do you need me?”

“We—I—was hoping you could tell me why. Why would Samuil Petrovitch risk his scrawny neck intervening in a kidnapping that has nothing to do with him? Or at least, seems to have nothing to do with him. You weren’t some sort of Plan B, were you?”

“Why don’t you ask them?” Petrovitch nodded at the screen. “They look like the sort of guys who could come up with a really good Plan B.”

“Point taken.” Chain reamed an eye with his finger until it squelched. “Do you know who it was you saved?”

“No. Never seen her before in my life.”

Chain pressed his lips together and ruminated. “If I had a euro for every time someone said that to me. “Oh, Detective, I have no idea whose body this is in the boot of my car. Never seen her before in my life.” You genuinely don’t know?”

“No.”

“Don’t keep up with the celebrity news?”

“Do I look like someone who uses celeb porn?” Petrovitch grunted. “I study high-energy physics.”

The detective sighed. “She’s Sonja Oshicora. Ring any bells now?”

“No.”

“Oshicora Corporation?”

“No.”

“You heard what happened to Japan, right? The whole falling-into-the-sea thing?”

“I heard. It wasn’t my fault, though.”

“Very droll, Petrovitch. So, let’s just recap.” He dropped the handheld in his lap and held out his sausage-like fingers. “One, you were minding your own business, proceeding in a westerly direction on Green Park. Two, you witnessed the attempted kidnapping of some woman you don’t know or recognize. Three, you drop one of the kidnappers—good work, by the way—and run for it, keeping this woman with you despite the fact you’re now being shot at.”

“How many?”