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Translation from Russian into English. The author of the original: https://ficbook.net/authors/4160636

Have fun reading!

On the ankles in the mud. (

sur les chevilles dans la boue)

— You know what you’re talking about, don’t you?! — The head of the criminal investigation department hits the folder on the table and tensely massages the bridge of his nose with his fingers. It could not have occurred to him that he would have to entrust the task of catching particularly important criminals to a couple of some newcomers who had not even managed to consolidate themselves in the team yet.
— Are you saying that you will disobey an order from above? Go ahead. — The second man rolls back on a chair on wheels and looks out the window. — Then thank you for the heated place for me. — The deputy head grins at the corners of his lips and shrugs his shoulders, pushing his colleague on an adventure from above.

***

Manjiro sits down on the edge of the yard steps and with a cigarette in his mouth tries to read between the deadline in the new assigned case, while his partner — Ken stands somewhere to the side and lets smoke rings out with his lips. The case was really complicated and both newcomers in the department understood this, from which they tried to understand why they got it. Then the taller guy puts forward his idea:
— Maybe it’s because no one knows us by sight? — Ryuguji sits down next to the blond and looks into the case, joining in the reading.
Manjiro makes a deep pull and exhales smoke through his nose.
— They want to get rid of us, that’s all. I don’t know what to do with it and where to start.
— It’s hard to start. It’s easy to continue. Let’s start with this? — Ryuguji takes the case file in his hands, drops the ashes on the floor and begins to think out loud. — Murder on the embankment with a robbery. This is understandable. The guy nods. — There are no signs of rape,

beatings in the ribs and numerous stab wounds. The girl lost her money and all her jewelry. Maybe the killer at first just wanted to rob her, but stumbled and killed her?
— As an option. Let’s go to this place? I want to check something. — Sano with a thoughtful look goes to the official car and throws the bull into the trash on the way.

Walking around the crime scene for the second time with his partner, Sano stops on the asphalt path and looks straight ahead, trying to spot some shops or bars.
— I found something, but I don’t know if it’s a find or just garbage… — Ryuguji picks up a red candy wrapper with the name «Cerises» from the floor and examines it from both sides, finding nothing remarkable.
— Maybe the wind blew it out of the trash? Now people are such pigs that it’s easier to throw them on the ground than to take a couple of steps to the urn. By the way, Kenchik.
— M?
— Let’s go to that club in a couple of hours? It seems to me that it will be possible to look at the surveillance cameras. — The blonde points with his palm in the direction of the nightclub and turns to go to the car. — In civilian life.
— And what’s not right now?
Ryuguji catches up with Mikey and gets into the car with him, clutching the steering wheel in both palms.
— In case of something, I don’t want to scare you off with a form. We’d better not be hanging around like this right now… Let’s forget we’re cops for now and have some fun at that club?
— Funny idea…

***

Sano and his best friend go to the club and look around in an initial attempt to get used to the colored lighting and then to see the administration room. Fortunately, it is easy to find it, in fact, as well as to enter

inside, discovering the owner of this institution.
A man with pink hair and in an elegant suit was sitting on the sofa at that moment and smoking a thick cigar, studying the guys who entered the room with obvious disgust in their eyes. Ken took his ID out of his pocket and showed it to the man, which made him noticeably tense and changed in his gaze.
— I would like to see the surveillance cameras for yesterday. It is also in your interests to help the investigation. — Ryuguji puts his ID in the inside pocket of his jeans and looks at his partner out of the corner of his eyes.
— Such a problem… You see, they stopped working yesterday! — Sanzu shrugs his shoulders and blinks his eyes quite innocently.
— Then we have a reason to close you. Ken, write it down.
And damn it, the method of an evil and kind policeman always works with a bang, just like in some cheap movie. But in fact, this is just human psychology. Both policemen set conditions for the owner of the night establishment: the good, as an aid to the investigation, and the bad, as the closure of his company.
— I’ll show you everything now, just don’t write anything. — Haruchie shushes and gets up from the sofa, taking the guys to another room.

And fortunately, the same murder victim was seen on the cameras, having a nice conversation with some white-haired guy at the bar. Only now she went out without him and according to the cameras he still remained sitting in the club last night.
— Who is this guy? — Manjiro looks closely at the white crown on the video and tries to make out a face barely visible from the quality.
— And I take pictures of everyone who comes here, write them down, create a questionnaire of best friends and interview them from the zodiac sign to their favorite dish. Sanzu rolls her eyes. — You got what you wanted, so what are my problems? I can’t help you any more, goodbye.
Manjiro goes out into the hall lit with bright neon colors and looks around. Ryuguji rubs himself somewhere nearby and pushes the guy through the crowd to the bar.
— I think I saw him. Come on, baby, you can do it! Pick up this handsome guy and find out everything. — With some laughter in his voice, Draken says and already stops touching his comrade’s back.
— What the fuck? Have you completely fucked with the oak tree? What a hook… — But there was no one to turn to, since Draken was already having fun somewhere among the crowd, and Manjiro himself, seeing the same guy from the surveillance cameras, sat down with him. — Boys.
The blond man coughs into his fist and raises his eyebrows questioningly, distracting himself from the cocktail at the blond man who sat down to him. — What, I’m sorry?
— Boys. Do you like them? Boys? Well, like me, you know? — Realizing what a shame it is, Sano just almost falls into the ground and smiles quite stupidly.

— Dude, do you need something? I’m not a peddler anymore, if you’ve been recommended… And if you came to make fun of me, then I can fuck you to prove that I like boys. — Izana leans her chin on her hand and swallows the strong contents of her glass with a very vile expression on her face.
— no… I see you here a lot and I liked you very much, can we get to know each other? — Manjiro puts his palm on top of someone else’s and smiles with his teeth, but not with his eyes. Insincere.
— Well… Call me Izana then. What do you call yourself?
— Mikey. Listen, can we go outside? It’s so stuffy here … — Pulls the interlocutor by the hand and leads him out of the club, not leaving him at all for safety reasons. It was also clear to the ram that now it was impossible to trust anyone from this area, and especially this guy.
Kurokawa is very puzzled by this arrangement of affairs and puts his palms on the policeman’s waist, squeezing his thin sides with his palms under the thin fabric of the T-shirt.
Manjiro abruptly kisses the guy on the lips with a quick peck and makes a completely stupid boy of himself.
— What kind of girl was next to you yesterday?! I’m jealous, honey!
— What did you call me? — Kurokawa focuses on both the action of the guy and his endearing word, instantly changing his face from a nasal expression to a positive one.
— I called you cute. You’re very handsome, you know that? — The blonde runs his fingers along the cheek of the interlocutor and somewhere inside himself bursts with shame, and in his thoughts he is already doing hara-kiri. So far, in fact, he’s just smiling stupidly at the boy. — So who was it with you?
— A client. I can’t say more…
— Why?
— You can’t trust anyone. Who knows, maybe you’re from the police and will put me in jail for drug trafficking? — Izana laughs it off and grins.
And Manjiro is straining at this moment so that perspiration appears on his temple.
— Well, for you, I can be a policeman, a doctor, and a plumber… Depends on what kind of role-playing games you like.
Translating everything into a joke turns out to be the best solution, because it rolls perfectly.
— I prefer to at least try sincerity first.
— Do you want me to do something to gain your trust and give you all the sincerity? I’ve really been watching you for a long time…
This time, after such words, Mikey had already shot Ken in his thoughts, and then shot himself. He has never said this to anyone before, especially to a stranger who is the first on the list of suspects, despite his alibi.
— Then take a walk with me on the embankment in a week? — Kurokawa puts Manjiro in a stupor with such a proposal and watches his reaction.
And it turns out to be a damn bad idea for the investigation, because you need to find more material, you can’t let suspects out of sight, you can’t take a break…
Manjiro sighs heavily and only agrees with a silent nod.
— Why is it taking so long? — Sano takes his phone out of his pocket and goes into contacts. — Will you give me your number?
— I will. Come here, I’ll write it down. — Kurokawa picks up the policeman’s phone and leaves his number with the name in the contacts of the interlocutor. — In a week and I’ll tell you why it took so long, if you don’t run away.

—How’s it going?» — Draken gets behind the wheel and looks at the very annoyed partner next to him, who even blushed with anger.
— I’ll kill you! Bitch! — Beats his knees with his fists and growls with anger. — We need to run through his number and name, find out everything about him. It seems like this girl is his client, and he’s dealing drugs. Fuck knows, he didn’t answer clearly. God, take me home to wash off this horror. I’ll be able to meet him in a week and find out more.
— We’ll break through. As I learned from the dolls, this girl used to also dance on a pole and ride an order, but then she changed dramatically, became nervous and left. They told her to contact her friends at this address. — Draken hands a piece of paper with a girl’s handwriting to Manjiro and drives out on the night highway.
— And I thought you were just fucking there… ha…
— We’re partners and we have to do everything together. Relax, bro, you need to have a good rest today. And you need to gain strength for the next meeting with this dealer.
Mikey lays his head on the car window and closes his eyes, relaxing to the sound of the engine and wheels.

by the knees in the mud. (

par les genoux dans la boue)

It was quite difficult to fall asleep with thoughts about this incident. The idea that the investigation would have to be postponed for at least a week until the circumstances were fully clarified did not fit into my head. It was even more maddening to think that the more time is wasted on nothing, the greater the chance that the crime will repeat, that this is not just a killer, but a real maniac.

Manjiro runs through a field overgrown with thick grass and tries to make out the dark silhouette of a man running through the broken windows of a large abandoned building, who was several times faster than him. He stumbled over the rebar, fell into the mud and wounded his palms on shards of dirty glass that burned to tears with cutting pain. Sano was ready to swear that a couple more meters of continuous running and he would spit out his lungs. The blond man rises from the damp ground and sees this siluet in an abandoned entrance of a building overgrown with greenery, without taking his eyes off it. He couldn’t see the face, but it was as if he saw this look that was looking right at him. He looked with mockery, arrogance and probably a big smile from ear to ear.
— I’ll fucking kill you… — Manjiro hisses and rushes to the entrance, literally jumps over the steps and grabs the stranger by the neck, falling with him into the abyss.
— Do you want some sweets?

Manjiro woke up with a loud shortness of breath and turned on the night light to recover. A disgusting dream was playing in my head and this unknown voice was spinning in my head like a jammed tape. With thin hands, the guy slaps his face and looks straight at them through the long, flowing golden waterfalls of hair that covered his face.
It’s all clear. It’s all good… But what does this voice and the phrase about sweets that do not fit the context at all mean?

— You look shabby. Didn’t sleep well today? — Ryuguji takes a drag on his cigarette and flicks the ashes down, holding a blue umbrella over his partner, who was not himself this morning. Quite nervous, with bruises under his eyes, mostly drooping and silent. — Will you be flying in the clouds for a long time?
—I’ve been having nightmares all night. Then the bloody corpses of prostitutes, then the chase, then… Forget it, in short, I thought up too many bad things for the night, so the consciousness was rebuilt under the negative. — Sano reaches for the cigarette in Ken’s hands and borrows it for a couple of pulls— — we need to quit smoking, otherwise it will be harder later.
— I should. Have you even seen the prices of cigarettes? — He takes his cigarette back and finishes it, throwing it into a trash can nearby. — Try to drink sedatives before going to bed, you will stop suffering.
— It’s not soothing anymore.

— Go to the doctor for a prescription for sleeping pills, to a neurologist. By the way. — Ken opens the door to his car and climbs inside with one foot, taking a bunch of printed documents from the glove compartment and sitting down with him in the driver’s seat. — Jump. Otherwise you’ll get wet.
— It’s true. The rainy season. — Manjiro gets into the car and sits down next to his friend, trying to look at the documents in someone else’s hands.
And for this he gets a click on the nose.
— What about the curious Varvara at the bazaar? Ken laughs.
Rubbing his nose with furrowed brows, Mikey continues the saying. — The nose was torn off. What by the way?
Ryuguji silently passes the sheets into Manjiro’s hands, and the latter, reading the first couple of lines, is already surprised and reads with interest, sometimes commenting.
Izana Kurokawa, 23 years old. Education: general on the basis of 11 grades, a former student of the Economic Institute.
No criminal record.
He has been registered with a psychologist and a narcologist for the third year, the latter was last observed a month ago.
There are no parents, he was brought up in an orphanage.
— I even feel a little sorry for him somehow… Do you think it’s him? — Manjiro looks at Ken with upset eyes and turns his head to the side, seeing a completely tinted car on the other side of the parking lot, right down to the windshield. — What the fuck… Kenchik, let’s go from here, I need to check something.
Ken starts the car without further ado and drives out of the parking lot, also noticing this car out of the corner of his eye that followed them literally a couple of minutes later.

Ken receives a call from his superiors on the phone, and Manjiro notices an instantaneous change of expression on his partner’s face, his tense muscles through the outlines of an autumn coat and tightly clenched fingers on the steering wheel, which did not bode well. Ryuguji only turns towards his partner with a quiet «understood, aha, aha» with a worried expression on his face. Sano understands everything without words and with a loud sigh falls back on the back of his chair, looking through the windshield at the raindrops beating loudly against him.
— Another murder with a robbery in the park area. We need to go there.
— We’re being followed. — Manjiro takes off his seat belt and gets out of the car, saying last to the salon. —We’d better walk through the crowd. We’ll discuss it on the way. Come out.
— Fucking. It’s all very strange. — Ken locks the car with a key after getting out of it and goes with his partner through the mall to the back exit, circling through narrow alleys to the park.
The road from here was short, only about twenty minutes, besides, the area was painfully familiar, which helped to reach the scene safely.

The park itself was closed and all entrances and exits to it had been blocked for a long time, and both men managed to get inside thanks to certificates.
And the theory that one person committed the murders has now been confirmed. Not far from the bloody girl was a wrapper of the same candy as the last time. And in my head, that voice from the dream once again about the sweet.
The blonde swallowed a lump of vomit that rose to his throat from what he saw and, having gained strength, Sano stepped closer to the victim, squatting next to her. He looked at the pale face and smeared lipstick of the deceased and tried to compare it with the previous one. Both were blondes with plump lips and dark eyes, worked in the same place, and, according to the latest information, were good friends.

— The last one who could give us information was killed today. It’s fucked up and a fucking dead end. Sano slams his fist against the trunk of a tree and grins, pressing his forehead against it. He was afraid of his own helplessness, at least from simple time.
— Calm down and take a deep breath. You can think of something else. For example, to find out from that guy about these two, to contact their pimp, but we just have a lot of things to try.

— Ryuguji stops next to the guy and looks after the ambulance outfit, which was already carrying away the girl’s cold body on a stretcher.

— Who could know her better than the last remaining girlfriend? Who was fucking killed today… I couldn’t persuade this Dodik to meet me earlier to find out everything and prevent the murder… I’m scared that there might be another victim. Yes, even the motive is fucking incomprehensible to me…
Draken grabs Mikey by the collar and shakes, pulls on himself, lifting the young man into the air and pressing him against a tree with his back, which knocks a loud groan out of him.
—You’re not the Mikey I know. What the fuck are you whining ahead of time? Take your balls in your fist and fuck with your brains, think and just wait. Yes, we have lost the last witness. Yes, we have little time and a lot of risk. But we have a prime suspect, a master key. And he’s in your hands. So just try to grunt something again. Ryuguji shakes Manjiro one last time and lets go.
The latter hisses and nods silently, realizing that his partner is damn right.

It turns out that there are still four days to wait…

To the waist in the mud. (

à la taille dans la boue)

Late in the evening, when there is absolutely nothing to do, it is already completely dark and cold outside. It is so cold that the fingers of the hands become uncomfortable and cramps. But Manjiro still doesn’t want to go home, even though he’s frozen to the bone. And this gaze, empty of thoughtfulness, was directed into the dark sky, in which white flakes could be seen slowly falling down. Snow at the end of October, the very first and white, innocent and pure. A relaxed smile appears on his pale face and Sano gets up from the bench, shivers and chatters his teeth, heading at a walk to his house. The idea that after such a cold he would be able to warm up at home, drink hot coffee and go to bed really pleased him. In addition, it was best to think in the cold. I was thinking not only about the future, but also about what is happening around me now.
The blonde pulls the warm scarf tighter around his neck and exhales a clot of steam with his mouth, already approaching his house. He takes out his keys and stops in a stupor when the dark road and himself are illuminated by the yellow, bright headlights opposite. He turns his head, looks at the car and drops the keys from his hands, swearing under his breath. He squats down and picks them up, looks at the license plates and realizes that this car is painfully familiar. Because… he was being followed again.

The guy is blown up from the spot with the first realization of this fact and breaks into a run to the entrance, hysterically typing the code from the intercom with his fingers. Only now his movements stop when a wet cloth covers the lower part of his face, and before his eyes it fades and it becomes very, very dark. The body weakens and the voices behind it are heard quieter and quieter.

***

— Where am I … — Manjiro sleepily opens his eyelids and tries to see everything he sees in front of him in a bound position, and then quietly wheezes from the pain in his knees, lowering his head down and realizing that in addition to being naked, he is also covered in bruises.
What the hell…

Sano raises himself to a sitting position and pulls his hands behind his back in an attempt to remove the rope from himself. But it is unsuccessful. With pain in his legs, the blonde rises from the cold floor and examines the room in which he is locked. At the same time, trying to listen and hear the presence of someone in the house, some voices, rustles, anything that can become a so-called «shoo-in» to stop wandering around the room in order to find a knife or other sharp object.
Creak.
A couple of guys similar to each other in appearance walk into the room and smile complacently, holding a long and obviously perfectly sharpened knife in their hands. One had long braids thrown behind his back, and he was painfully thin and pale, and the second had his hair dyed in bright colors.
And, nevertheless, on their faces there was not a drop of surprise at what was happening, as well as not a gram of embarrassment from the nakedness of their «prisoner» in front of them.
Manjiro shies away and takes a couple of steps back, presses his back against the wall and tries to quickly analyze their behavior and take cases of outcome in his head if a fight starts. In both cases, he will lose at least because of the hands tied behind his back, the number and the uncertainty of his location. He doesn’t even know how many people there are in this house.

— Our toy has already woken up… And you look very adorable, it’s really a pity that the owner hasn’t allowed us to play with you yet… We played a little with your legs, but you don’t mind, do you? — The long-haired man goes deep into the room and bends down to the same level with Manjiro’s face, looks through into the pool of black and frightened eyes, grabbing the guy’s hands behind his back and leading him to the exit.
— Who are you and what do you want from me? What kind of host? — Sano hisses and barely restrains the urge to vomit from such dirty words of a stranger, trembles from his touch and attentively watches his partner, looks at the movement of his hands with a knife in his palms and obediently passes with the guys into a large and dark hall full of luxury.
Beautiful renovation, hinting at great wealth, but scattered throughout the room bottles of alcohol, condoms, some of which were used. A little more and this picture will be complemented by vomiting on the floor.
— And here we meet again, baby. Then at the club you were not so lost and constrained. Something happened? — The man rises from the sofa and approaches his victim, circles the outline of the chin with his fingers and leans towards the guy’s ear. — I haven’t had anyone like you yet. Maybe you can show me your character here, too, bad cop?

***

— So you want to say that the girl stole a large amount of money from you after the order? — Draken listens attentively to the man in front of him and writes down his information in a notebook. — How much are we talking about?
The man takes a notebook from Ken’s hands and draws an impressive amount with a lot of zeros in it. Ryuguji’s eyes almost fell out from this, and he himself was ready to become a nice prostitute himself for this, in order to steal such a sum of money.
— Are you aware that the girl was killed a week ago? — Without taking his dark eyes off the face of the man opposite, Ken tried to psychologically calculate his behavior, because with such a replenishment of information, the circle of suspects increased.
— Really? That’s what this whore needs. Where’s my money, then? — The brunette does not express a drop of compassion on his face and taps his shoe on the floor with a nervous rhythm, expecting to see a self-pleasuring answer.
Ken just sighs heavily and closes the notebook. Apparently, the man really does not relate to this case in the circle of suspects.
«The girl was murdered and robbed. There was nothing of value on it. Her friend was also brutally murdered and robbed. The apartment of the murdered girls is turned upside down, every drawer and shelf is emptied. I believe that a sum of money was found among their belongings and taken out.
— But you will find this money, right? The furrowed brows on the wrinkled face did not indicate good intentions in case of refusal.
Plus one task for a criminal case.
— I’ll do my best. Thanks for the information, I have to go. I have your contacts, I will contact you as soon as I find out something about your problem. Thank you for helping the investigation. And… I’m sorry for your wife, think about what would happen if she found out.
Ryuguji gets up from his chair and takes his jacket from the hanger, leaving the elite house on the street. It’s already late in the evening, and his partner hasn’t been in touch since yesterday, which definitely doesn’t mean anything good.

Another attempt to reach Mikey turns out to be unsuccessful, and a female voice on the other side of the phone keeps saying «leave a message after the beep.»
«Look, I don’t know where you are, but I’m really worried. Call me as soon as you can. If you don’t do it by tomorrow afternoon, then I will try to find you. Hold on.
Ken turns off his phone and walks to his car, looking around. Exactly from that moment they stopped following him, as his partner disappeared. There were only two assumptions in my head: the stalkers changed the car, or everything is much worse — they got to his partner and Ken is no longer interested in them.

Already sitting in his car, the man remembers the situation in the man’s house, a glass vase with flowers, a plate with sweets and … the same sweets as at the crime scenes. Shaking his head negatively and taking a deep breath, Ken pressed the DVR button in the car and got out, deciding to leave the car at this place. Still, the circle has not narrowed.

***

— You bastard… You did it all, didn’t you? — 

Manjiro hisses and turns away from the persistent stroking of his interlocutor, not even wanting to see this face. — Now it’s clear to me that you fought so hard for these checks and the closure of your hangout. What’s the point if you have the same hangout at home?
— Relax, today you are the main whore of this hangout. — Sanzu wraps his hand around the blond’s neck and squeezes it until it wheezes from someone else’s mouth, throwing the guy on the sofa. — What exactly did you fuck? I just wanted a whore like you in my collection, that’s all.
— You’re so disgusting… — Manjiro sobs and tries to pull his hands out of the grip of the rope on his wrists, is already going to go to extreme measures and break his thumb so that the rope falls off his hands. But this act is interrupted.
— Haitani, hold our sweet policeman’s hands. I want him to try something really cool. You liked Izana, didn’t you? He really likes to do it.
Fulfilling the request of their master, the Haitani tightly squeezed the blond’s hands, lifting them.

Heating the mixture over a candle and placing it in a syringe, Haruchie smiles like a Cheshire cat and substitutes the syringe to the pale skin on the young man’s arm, from which he breaks out from side to side and even begins to cry, begging not to do it.
The syringe slowly and without obstacles enters under the skin, and with thin fingers Sanzu presses on it and the liquid is injected directly into the vein.
There is no dry place on Sano’s face anymore — everything is in tears. They make a heroin whore out of him.

Stress goes away and the body becomes completely wadded up, this feeling of euphoria covered my head, everything swam before my eyes, the voice of these assholes seemed like honey to my soul, but somewhere inside there was still the same anxiety, hatred and fear. Fear of what will happen to him next, whether he will be the same victim as those prostitutes killed by merciless stabs in the stomach with a knife. Will death come and he won’t even notice? And he won’t understand?

Sanzu sprinkles white powder on the pale thighs of the young man and strokes his buttocks.
— Just try to move and drop it all. Otherwise, I’ll put him in your blood instead of heroin. You don’t want to die of an overdose, do you, slut? — Haruchiyo nods to his subordinates and they stay to watch this spectacle, and Manjiro himself feels that his hands are no longer in the shackles of the rope.
Road after road and it stops after a while. That sober part of the Manjiro exhales, and the exhausted body is turned over on its stomach, pulled by the hips and put cancer, roughly, even with lubrication inserting a penis into it.
Sanzu moans softly and squeezes the blonde’s sharp hips in his hands, looks at the thin back and bursts into laughter while the boy sobs in pain under him, roughly pressed into the sofa.
— I’m fucking a cop, what a thrill it is, fuck-I-yat… Rin, Ran, I promise that you will feel what it is after me. What do you think, whore? — A kick in the ass and Haruchie is already choking the guy under her, moving her hips inside him and knocking out hoarse sighs. — How do you like this test? Not my «fucking» establishment, but your ass, which will be visited by so many today? Do you like it?

***

Draken inserts the key into the door of Sano’s apartment and goes inside. Right from the doorstep, he notices that there is no winter jacket on the hangers, no shoes either, which means that the partner is definitely not at home since yesterday. Ken took off his shoes and went into his best friend’s room, examined every item on his shelf and in the closet and noticed that his cigarettes were lying on his desk. And, knowing full well that Manjiro leaves them in sight only if he intends to go out for a short time. The habit of hiding something like this since childhood.
It turns out that he should have been home a long time ago. Something definitely happened.

— Please tell me a little about the latest events in your house. Was there someone on the landing? — Ken moves away from the door of the resident of the entrance of the murdered girls, an old woman, who is open for him.
— Oh, yes, someone goes to these prostitutes all the time! However, recently some woman came, there were some noises in the apartment, as if something was falling. But it’s not surprising, they’re like pigs thumping there and dropping everything! — Granny confirms her speech with a synchronous nod. — And a youngster from the lower floor pissed all the walls! And he smokes right at the entrance! No, well, this is completely arrogant, you’ll forgive me! And why don’t you deal with anything? You don’t care about ordinary people! — Stamp with your foot. — And you suck the oligarchs and the authorities! But in my time everything was different!
Ken had a headache from such a load on his poor soul. Too much of this granny.
— Wait! Quiet! I’m asking you about something else!
— And what to wait for, granddaughter? While you deign to catch the tomboy?! Yes, there is no peace in this world! At least let me die in peace, since you can’t do anything!
The elderly woman slammed the door, and Ken remained standing for a couple of minutes in disbelief.
Although he received a voluminous load on his brain, he was able to filter out the information and therefore decided to visit the apartment of the murdered girls again.
He went inside and went into the most cluttered room in the apartment — the living room, which was turned over the most. Squatting down and shoveling garbage with his hands, Ken managed to find a pair of thin strands of black hair that were not particularly long, but clearly feminine. It means that some woman definitely came here and forgot to clean up such obviously bright traces.

— Exactly… the registrar…

***

Izana enters a poorly lit room and sees a guy lying on the couch, who was making quiet sobs and looked disgusting to put it mildly. Either from the injuries on his body, or from a blank look and a face glistening with tears.
Coming closer, Kurokawa realized that this was the same acquaintance from the club.
— What’s wrong with you?.. Izana sits down next to him and puts her hand on Manjiro’s trembling shoulder. — Where are you from?
— Water… I feel really bad, please…
Immediately understanding everything without detailed explanations, the blond man takes a bottle of water out of his briefcase, lifts Sano by the shoulders and puts him back on his chest, gently singing him from the neck of the bottle.

— What are you doing here? Are you with them? — Sano rubs his face with his hands and sighs heavily, wipes dried tears from his face and covers the lower part of his body with a sheet.
— Not completely. I just bring them drugs, I get paid and I leave. Will you answer my question? — Izana understandingly helps Manjiro to take cover and cover the exposed areas of the skin with a sheet, uncomprehendingly examining him. Even in spite of the shabby appearance, he seemed beautiful.
— I was knocked out, and when I woke up, they drugged me and… let me go around in circles. An abomination… I want to fucking kill myself… — Covering his face with his hands, the blonde sighs and shivers from another influx of hysteria. The realization of this simply killed everything alive from the inside, leaving only dust behind.
—Is there anything I can do to help you?»
— Please…
— I… can only find out their further actions and inform you… You can’t go through them, there’s also security everywhere. — Izana looks with some disappointment from her helplessness at Manjiro and lowers her head on his shoulder.
— You can’t turn…to the police? So they can cover this place?
— They’ll give me a deadline, too. I’ve been in a reform school and I don’t want to go to jail anymore.
— They won’t, I swear to you. — Manjiro with a pain in the lower back turns to face the guy and takes his hands. — You will be covered, and if my family notices my loss, they will dig through everything here and then they will put you in jail for sure. You don’t want that, do you? Listen, I have great connections in the police, everything will be fine.
Izana purses her lips and looks away.
— Do you even know where we are?
— Where.
— 200 kilometers from the city, in the wilderness. There’s not even a connection. To me… It takes time and I will come to the city and try to apply. — Izana at this time takes out a clean T-shirt and pants from her briefcase. — Get dressed. Just try to hold out… and… Do you really like me?
Manjiro looks down at the floor and drops his head on Kurokawa’s shoulder. He’s already lied to him so many times and he can’t stand another one. He sees before him a person in need of the same help as himself, so fragile inside…
— Really.

***

Ken connects a USB cable to his computer and enters a video taken from the previous day by a DVR camera in his car, which was filming the house of the man who, even after his honest answers, remained in the circle of suspects.
And a short woman enters his house with her keys. The brunette. With short hair.
— Plus one in a circle.

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