The darkening sky is filled with a thick leaden blue, with crimson streaks of sunset along the edges, like blood spreading across a canvas. Long shadows from the tall street lamps and the headlights of police cars fall on the withered grass, turning the field into a chessboard of light and darkness. The air is heavy, saturated with the smell of damp earth and the metallic taste of fear. The body has already been covered with black cloth, but its presence seems even more eerie, as if death has left behind not just a trace, but a hole in reality. People in uniform scurry around: someone is clicking a camera, someone is painstakingly collecting evidence in bags. Their voices are muffled, abrupt, as if they are afraid to wake something hidden in the tall grass.

The wind stirs the stalks, and it seems as if the field itself is whispering - either a prayer or a confession. Somewhere in the distance, a lone bird cries out, the sound breaking off as if a noose has tightened. And above all this is the cold, indifferent light of the moon, which has already risen above the horizon to watch this scene, as it has for millions of years before.

Hannibal stood silently to the side, looking at several police officers who were looking for clues, and Will who was trying to come up with an explanation for the crime. His expression was always hard to read, strangely calm and soothing in its gaze. His perverse elegance, as Will called it, was still there.