Maria chuckled.

“Are the higher-ups on the case?”

“They are.”

“Solve it quicker then. Your clearance rate is twenty percent. Used to be fifty, now you’re down to twenty.”

“It’s a global trend. Can’t be helped.”

“Go on then, tell me where we’re at.”

“How about I don’t tell you?” The investigator hiccupped, threw a cigarette butt to the ground, and sipped his beer.

“Then I’ll turn up knives at every scene we visit.” Maria picked up the butt, extinguished her own and threw both into the bin. “Please don’t throw your cigarettes on the floor. What was the name of the victim again? Andrei. No? Pavel?”

She took a lighter and a pack of cigarettes from the investigator’s breast pocket and lit another. His eyes glistened from the booze and his heavy body swayed slightly. His eyes narrowed with suspicion.

“Pavel Fedorenko. Why are you so curious about this particular case?”

“It’s giving me insomnia.”

“Trust you to have insomnia. You’ve nothing better to do.”

“Quite the diagnostician.” She opened up the notes app on her phone. “So, what have you got?”

“You should’ve become an investigator yourself. Right. So, there are prints.” Maria’s eyes widened. He sipped. “On the lid and keys of the piano. They don’t belong to the deceased or anyone in the family.”

“Which ones?”

“What do you mean ‘which ones’? We don’t know whose they are, I told you. Or are you after a papillary pattern type?”

“I mean the piano keys. What keys did you find prints on?”

The investigator shook his head in confusion.

“What do you mean?”

“What keys were the prints on? On all of them? Every second one? Every fourth? On the left, on the right?

The investigator shrugged. Maria cursed.

“This is such a stupid set-up. Why didn’t you let me collect the evidence? Why am I having to ask you for crumbs?”

“Because this isn’t your job, Maria Alexandrovna. Your job is to state the facts and circumstances of death.”

Maria dragged irritably on the cigarette. She exhaled.

“If I hadn’t found the knife, nobody would have thought to take prints. Nobody would have realised we might be dealing with a murder here.”

“Well, quite,” the investigator said, pointing his thick finger at her.

Maria looked at him reprovingly.

“Fine. Promise me you’ll find out where the prints were, and I’ll leave you alone. What else do you have?”

“Oh, heavens, I don’t envy your husband.”

“What else have you got, Oleg Nikolayevich?”

“There were traces of phenobarbital in his bloodstream. But he had no prescription or medical history to take them. The family had never seen that bottle of pills before.”

“That also proves . . .”