A dinghy drifts across the Black Sea to Odessa Beach, with the body of a naked young blonde woman on board, one of whose arms was severed postmortem. Sent to the scene, Captain Serheï Franko seeks to identify the corpse. Shortly after, in Warsaw, a young couple is attacked by a masked man armed with a baseball bat, who flees, abandoning his car. Commissioner Maria Sokolowska discovers a severed arm there. The vehicle was stolen from an insurer named Bronisz. On the stage of a Prague theater, two actors are in turn confronted with a severed female arm. Two months away from retirement, Inspector Viktor Seifert would have done well without this macabre affair. In a Czech van, Maria finds a second naked woman with a slit throat and severed arm.