“So, what do you think? Murder?”

Maria looked up.

“What?”

“My brother. Do you think he was murdered?”

“Do you think he was murdered?” Maria responded.

“I don’t know.” The man lowered his gaze. “I don’t even know what to think. Maybe it would be easier for Mum if there was somebody to blame. Otherwise she’ll just blame herself.”

He was sad and scared, like a big, helpless child.

A phone vibrated in her inside pocket. Andrei was calling. Maria didn’t answer. It was all a haze still. The body was ready, neatly laid out in the corridor by the door. She studied it once more, took a photo of the trace of the wire on the neck and asked for it to be covered. The keening from the bedroom intensified. Maria went into the kitchen and sat at the table.

The lieutenant opened his mouth to make one of his sarcastic cracks, but Maria cut him off.

“You ready, Alexander Yegorovich?” she said and began dictating her section of the report without waiting for a response.

“The death of—insert surname, name, and patronymic—is presumed to have occurred around 0600 hours as a result of mechanical asphyxia caused by compression of the neck with a wire, as evidenced by a strangulation groove on the front left-hand side of the upper third of the neck, a narrow and deep silvery strip embedded under the upper edge of the superior bruising area, haemorrhages in the superficial and deep neck muscles, punctate haemorrhage, including on the inner eyelid. Blood is fluid. No traces of a struggle were found on the body. No traces of a fight were detected at the scene.”

The brother entered the kitchen and handed Maria a slip of paper.

“So, I got the door to my room open. The money, my gold ring, all my papers, all gone. Just this receipt from the pawnbroker. He probably gambled it all away, but I thought we’d been robbed.”

“So?”

“I mean, he did it to himself . . . He must have been ashamed.”

“Very well, thank you,” said the lieutenant and took the slip.

The man opened his mouth but then quickly fell silent again, shuffled his feet on the threshold and left.

“What do you say, Maria Alexandrovna?” asked the lieutenant.

Maria, lost in thought, lifted the items on the table and set them back down again and then fell silent for a while. She shrugged.

“The trace of the wire would be horizontal or near-horizontal if it was murder. And more pronounced on the left side if the killer was right-handed. Here we see it going up. Most domestic killings take place in the evening. Here we have death in the early morning. And this receipt from the pawnbroker? . . . It seems like you were right, probably a suicide.”

But suddenly, she paused and picked up another item from the table. A kitchen knife. She raised it to eye level and frowned.

“Looks like we have a fresh clue, Alexander Yegorovich.”