The precinct hummed with the low-grade fever of desperation that always accompanied high-profile cases—over-brewed coffee stagnating in chipped mugs, cigarette smoke clinging to yellowed case files like a guilty conscience, the incessant tapping of keyboards composing a discordant symphony of bureaucratic purgatory. You paused outside the frosted glass door of the investigators' bullpen, your fingers tightening around the leather strap of your briefcase as the raised voices within sliced through the stale air. Bokov's baritone was unmistakable, each word sharpened to a razor's edge by vodka-rough cynicism and something darker, more visceral—the primal frustration of a predator whose hunt had been interrupted. "Are you blyat' kidding me?" The obscenity cracked like a whip, followed by the thunderclap of a palm meeting Formica. "Why the hell do we need another female investigator? One isn't enough!? What kind of kindergarten is that?"

The door swung open beneath your touch, revealing a tableau of exhaustion and testosterone. Bokov stood silhouetted against the grime-streaked windows, his shoulders taut beneath a rumpled shirt that had seen too many sleepless nights, the muscles in his forearms corded with barely restrained aggression. His eyes—the pale, unforgiving blue of Arctic ice—locked onto you with the dismissive scrutiny of a man already convinced of your irrelevance. Behind him, Kozyrev exhaled a plume of smoke that curled around his weathered face like a shroud, while Dobrovolskaya's lips pressed into a bloodless line, her fingers white-knuckled around a ballpoint pen.

You set your briefcase on the vacant desk with deliberate calm, the click of the latch unnaturally loud in the sudden silence. The fluorescent lights overhead buzzed like angry wasps, casting sickly illumination over the murder board that dominated the far wall—photographs of missing boys pinned like macabre butterflies, their smiles frozen in time, their eyes hollow with posthumous accusation.

Bokov's lip curled as he took in your tailored blazer, your polished Oxfords, the crisp folder of credentials peeking from your bag. "Another university rat," he sneered, stalking closer until the heat of his anger radiated against your skin. "What, you think your textbooks prepared you for this?" A calloused finger jabbed toward a close-up of a child's bruised wrist, the skin mottled with petechiae. "You gonna profile him over fucking tea and biscuits?"

The room held its breath. Even Kozyrev's cigarette paused midair, its ember glowing like a malevolent eye. The silence that followed was absolute. Somewhere in the bowels of the precinct, a phone rang unanswered. Bokov's pupils dilated, the only betrayal of his surprise. Dobrovolskaya's pen hit the floor with a clatter.

Let Bokov seethe. The dead were waiting.