Blackwhit, Autumn 1863

Chapter 1

11th November

The dead man was frozen into the lake face down. The Commissar, with his hands in his pockets, frowned at the victim of circumstances. Only soles covered with thin ice protruded above the surface. A hefty policeman rattled ice around the body with a boat-hook.

"So what?" at last the law enforcement officer boomed out. "Break it?"

"Yeah," the Commissar squatted down. The corpse lay not exactly flat, but at an angle, immersed in ice for a foot and a half. The head was lost in the muddy depths. The commissar sighed. In late October, hard frosts have come so unexpectedly that by November Lake Weer was frozen to a yard. It will take a long time to break ice…

"Brennon!", someone wheezed over the commissar's head. He looked from the soles of the deceased to his immediate superior. Ayrton Broyd, Chief of Police for the City of Blackwhit, heavily sniffed and wiped sweat from his face. Despite the frost, the long (nearly a dozen yards) road from the coast to the scene turned the fat man into a wet sponge.

"You had better go," Commissar Brennon said impolite, "Catch pneumonia and die to hell."

"That ain't gonna happen," panting, Broyd adjusted his pince-nez on the bridge of his nose, "What's this?"

"Corpse. Drowned. I hope", Brennon reported grimly and stood up.

"What do you mean - you hope?"

"Weer froze twenty days ago. And this is the fourth half-wit, drowned in solid ice."

"This is the fourth", the Chief stroked his thick sideburns thoughtfully, "This is not good, Brennon."

"Yeah."

"For ten days."

"Yeah."

"So I brought you a consultant."

"Yeah ... what?", The Commissar shuddered, "Whom? In what sense - a consultant?"

"In direct," Broyd said, staring unperturbedly at Brennon from the bottom up, "He'll advise you on this issue. If you are unclear what the consultants are doing."

"It's clear to me," the Commissar said through set teeth, "Well, where is he?"

"Here," the Chief took off his pince-nez and pointed them towards the shore. Brennon, numb, stared at the consultant, and after a minute or two, devoted to close study, quietly, tiredly asked: "Are you kidding me?"

"No," Broyd tapped his cane on the ice for a test, "He, of course, arrived recently..."

"Yeah," Brennon said muffledly, unable to express his feelings in words.

"So should I break it or not?" The policeman asked, fidgeting impatiently around the corpse.

"No!" the commissar barked, not taking his eyes off the consultant. The policeman followed the gaze of his superiors and respectfully remarked:

"Well, what's brute, sir. Bigger that as a yearling bull!"

The dog was three feet at the withers. It stood on the shore, its powerful thick legs wide apart, and gazed steadily at the Commissar. The fiery red hair was so thick that a large elongated muzzle sank in a huge spherical mane. However, even under lush hair, it was easy to guess the heavy skeleton, wide chest and strong muscles. On the dog's back, a fluffy, squirrel-like tail lay.

The dog lowered its muzzle like a wolf and sniffed snow, looking frowningly at the body and a group of people around it. Then it bared its fangs for a moment, jumped from the shore onto the ice and trotted to the dead man.

"Uh, what's the beast!" The policeman whispered admiringly, "He can bite off a whole arm at once!"

The dog walked along the ice like a pavement, never slipping, and the commissar envied it. He didn't fall up only thanks to the policeman with a boat hook. The dog reached the body and got down to business - he began to meticulously sniff out the outsole. Ayrton Broyd raised his hat:

"Good morning, sir. I hope we didn't wake you?"

"No," the consultant replied in a soft, low voice. "I never go to bed so early."

It was five in the morning when the Commissar arrived at the scene of the crime. Brennon gave the consultant an unkind look. The commissioner despised this breed of biped from the bottom of his heart – although he could not call the consultant a complete coxcomb, but only because he was too statuesque.

The commissar looked down on most of humanity, but this guy was half a head taller than Brennon. Unintelligent Mother Nature had provided him with long legs, strong arms, and the broad, powerful chest of an athlete. At the top of it all was a face like those printed on the covers of novels that the Commissar's sisters and nieces devoured by the dozen. Brannon studied the black shock of hair, the high forehead, the aquiline profile, the strong, heavy chin, and the other noble features, and sighed mournfully. He hated amateurs. And this one, dressed to the nines, ironed and squeaky clean, was also from the upper classes.

"Head of the Homicide and Major Crimes Division," Ayrton Broyd said, "Commissar Nathan Brennon."

"Yeah."

"Mister John Longsdale, consultant on intervention cases from the other side."

The consultant stared at the Commissar with childlike, innocent blue eyes, blinked absently, and asked:

"Where's the drill?"

"What's the drill?"

"I need ice and water samples from the lake. This requires a drill."

"We haven't it. But we have a boat hook," Brennon answered, "You! Give a boat hook to sir!"

The policeman handed the coxcomb a tool. The dog turned away from the body and looked at its owner carefully. Longsdale took the boat hook like a walking stick, walked around the corpse, and struck the ice near the head. The muddy firmament splattered with fine crumbs and cracked.

"Are you planning to retrieve the body?" the consultant asked politely. While Brannon was trying to get his jaw together, the coxcomb landed another punch in the hole. Lake water splashed into the hole. Longsdale knelt beside it, pulled off his glove, pulled up the sleeve of his coat, rolled up the cuff, and calmly plunged his hand into the dark waters of the Weer.

"Well, how?" Brennon asked a little hoarsely, still digesting the display of power.

"Hmmm," the consultant replied, and with the same equanimity, he stuck his hand into the hole up to his shoulder. The dog shoved the suitcase that Longsdale brought with him.

"Kindly, open my suitcase and prepare sample tubes," Longsdale said.

"You!" Brennon poked the policeman under the ribs, "Come on!"

While he was busy with the fasteners of the suitcase, Longsdale scooped up a handful of some green slime from the hole, muttered: "Oh. Curious...", dipped a finger into the mucus and stuck it in his mouth.

"Lord," Brennon whispered with quiet longing. He couldn't immediately tell which was worse, the consultant was the coxcomb or the consultant was crazy, and he only breathed raggedly through his teeth – he had heard from the pathologist that it was calming. It hasn't helped yet.

***

Brennon got to his office by eight in the morning. He was called to the lake at half-past four; returning home and having breakfast did not make sense. The Commissar sent the attendant for coffee and pies in a cafe opposite, went into his office and hung a coat on a hanger. The muddy door glass reflected a rumpled physiognomy; Nathan looked at it without much pleasure.

For many years he didn't wear uniforms and he dressed by good tailors, because he understood that with such a snoot, he would most likely be mistaken for one of those who are "Wanted! Especially dangerous!" Pale, like many very red-haired people, with a jutting lower jaw, which was slightly masked by a short beard; bluish eyes under sparse brows – reddish from lack of sleep. Brennon's face was long and bony, and his nose, which was already not perfect, had been knocked down by a dexterous hand in the army slightly to the side. Tall, seemingly thin, at the age of forty-nine he could still bend the poker and turn anyone into a ram's horn. Except for the chief, who drags idiotic consultants to the crime scene, damn him!

Brennon threw his frock coat into a chair and went to the window. Blackwhit City Police Department was a red square building with four floors on Rocksville Street, a stone's throw from the center. Nearby were a park and a cathedral, and looking at the crowds of townspeople scurrying back and forth, the commissar sometimes came to valuable thoughts. But now there were no crowds; there were no thoughts. Where do they come from at such an early time? Nathan looked from a third floor at a deserted street; the outlines of the houses were lost in the dusk like in a glass on the door in the morning.

There were three corpses yesterday. Two of them were still thawing: the pathologist, a fragile peppy old man of about one hundred and twenty years old, stated in very rich expressions that age and health did not allow him to cut bodies from ice blocks instead of autopsy. As for the first unfortunate, then, rummaging around on the table, Brennon found a report on an autopsy among the robberies, murders and rapes. Reading, in principle, not too joyful, brought the Commissar into such a state that the attendant with coffee and pies stepped into the office cautiously, like an inexperienced trainer in a cage with a tiger.

"Sir..."

"Where is this bonesetter?!"

"In the coffin, sir."

The commissar poured in his throat coffee, threw on a frock coat and, boiling angrily, went to the coffin - a cold basement room decorated with white tiles, the pathologist abode.

"What does it mean?!" The commissar barked and slapped the report on an empty table for autopsy. Francis Kennedy, a short, graceful old man, raised his head from the new report and took off his pince-nez.

"This is the cause of death."

"You are joking?"

"Young man, I never joke with such things. My patient's lungs and heart turned to ice. Thereby..."

"And how did this happen?"

"I can't know, young man. Science is not yet omniscient."

Brennon read the lines of the report again. Death occurred due to complete glaciation of the lungs and heart. Cracks in the ribs... Nose fracture... The soft tissues of the face are frozen in ice and cannot be restored...

"So we won't be able to identify him either."

"This is a man of about forty-five to fifty years old, five feet and a quarter tall, with a solid build, and a liver condition indicates chronic alcoholism."

"Fine," Brennon muttered, "two-thirds of such victims on our missing list look like that. And the guys are bringing you a fourth one."

"Judging by his clothes," Kennedy melancholy rubbed his pince-nez, "he was from the petty bourgeoisie. These are most often quiet, very decent people. In addition, he is dressed cleanly, neatly, not without panache. Someone clearly cared about him."

"And I, of course, did not guess," the commissar muttered, "What's this?"

"Six knifes' wound. Student from the campus. I will finish by ten."

"Yeah," Brennon went to the cutting table, as his subordinates called it fearfully. After all, the murders, robberies, and rapes were still going on, and the commissioner put the frozen dead out of his mind for a while.

***

By noon, Brennon figured out matters that had accumulated in the yesterday evening, locked in a cell a couple of thugs who staged a knife fight in a pub, and finally escorted the student's sobbing mother out. As much as he felt sorry for her, his hunger was getting stronger. The Commissar tied on a spare tie, put on his hat, and went to get supplies.

Opening her bakery directly opposite the police department, the widow Mrs. Van Allen was right. The flood of policemen, employees of the town hall and the bank, the reverend fathers from the cathedral and other starving people turned out to be so great that soon the bakery turned into a small cafe with takeaway food and a small dining room. Brennon was the first to appreciate Mrs. Van Allen's culinary talent and enjoyed special favor as a regular customer.

Often, looking at the widow, the Commissar thought that something might have worked out between them if he had not been such an inveterate bachelor. At forty-six, Valentina van Allen, the mother of five, retained a figure that many young ladies would envy: tall, stately, blond, with a serene look, a chiseled profile and curvaceous, rounded shapes. Today, however, the beautiful widow was worried about something. She personally wrapped a cinnamon pie for the Commissar, counted out the change, and asked:

"Mister Brennon, if you are not too busy, could you answer one question?"

"Yes, ma'am, of course," the commissar answered, taming the brutal hunger with an effort of will. There was an alarming wrinkle between Mrs. Van Allen's eyebrows.

"Tell me, do you think ... is it safe on the lake now?"

Brannon was alert.

"Why did you decide that?"

The widow's blue eyes clouded over.

"A milkman's boy saw a body being carried in a cart from the shore of the lake."

Thinking briefly that the boy would now become the hero of the day for the whole street mob, the Commissar immediately sighed. Sometimes he was sorry for that he did not work in the middle of the dense forest or the Mazandran jungle.

"But why are you asking? About the lake?"

"But Christmas and holiday celebrations! And there is always an ice rink on the lake. Have you forgotten?"

The Commissar silently cursed his stupidity. This is what happens when one working day ends at midnight, and the next starts at four in the morning. The approaching Independence Day and Christmas completely flew out of his head.

"I don't ask you for details of the investigation and I don't want to sow panic in society, but my children want to go to the rink, and I'm worried..."

"You know I can't answer that," Brannon said, but he went on more gently, "But if you can persuade your children to refrain from walking by the lake, it will be for the best."

The cafe owner smiled gratefully, but the commissar realized that her alarm had not abated. He left the Shell after half an hour, shrouded in the scent of cinnamon and a hot honey drink. Nathan was surrounded by a feeling of pleasant satiety, and even the frozen dead could not poison this moment of simple happiness. He was about to cross the street and return to the department, when he suddenly noticed a strange commotion near one of the houses.

Roxville, the main street of Blackwit, was designed by an architect who, probably from childhood, was extremely pessimistic about life. Straight as an arrow Rocksville street pierced the city from north to south, squeezed by high fences of gray stone. Sometimes they were interrupted by black wrought-iron bars, and behind them were square, heavy, squat houses, dark blue, black and dark gray. The wind was always biting down the street, and at night it sometimes seemed to the Commissar that he was walking in the dark through a cemetery.

Among others, house 86 stood out especially - a two-story mansion, densely blue below, dark gray above, under a black roof. The lattice in the stone fence was made up of sharp, claw-like corners, and behind it a densely overgrown garden began. Once there was a fire in which the whole family died. Then one of the city's rich people bought a house, renovated, but could not live there and moved out. The mansion stood empty for several years. But now, in front of the open grate, three carts were lined up with someone's belongings, and a lean man in black was directing the movers scurrying back and forth.

The commissar stopped nearby and, with his hands in his pockets, carefully looked around the house, carts and lean guy. He was young — about twenty-five or twenty-six — and he must have grown a black beard and mustache for the sake of solidity. The rest of his face was lost in the shadow of a too wide-brimmed hat. In general, the costume of the young man was impeccable, like the costume of a butler from a good house. He seemed too young and skinny for a butler, though – Brannon had seen more butlers weighing two hundred and fifty pounds and with white hair.

"Move into the house, huh?" He sternly asked the guy. He looked at the commissar over his shoulder; black eyes flashed from beneath the hat.

"Commissar Brennon, the police," Nathan showed the badge, "What is it here?"

"Mister Longsdale is moving into the house he bought, sir," the butler said in a muffled voice.

Really?! - the commissar thought in surprise and almost asked: "Why?" It would seem that if a person has so much money - why not buy a cute mansion on the outskirts, in a nice neighborhood, among the same cream of society... And don't get in the way by the police with his tricks!

"What does he need this coffin for?"

The house hasn't gotten any brighter or nicer over the years. Nathan disliked Longsdale almost as much as he disliked the mansion, and yet-to live in such a place?.. But before the Commissioner could continue the interrogation – there was a hoofbeats, a clatter of wheels, and a carriage drove past Brannon. It stopped in front of the department, and Ayrton Broyd rolled out of the carriage like a ball. Following him the huge red hound jumped down, then Longsdale, and finally Francis Kennedy got out. They all disappeared into the building, and Brannon hurried to his duty station.

He came in as the chief, having gathered a large audience, was making an impassioned speech about the city fathers, the mayor, and the bishop. At the phrase "a bunch of half-witted cretins," Brannon coughed loudly. As the police listened to the authorities in reverent silence, his cough sounded like a shot from a cannon. The hound turned his face and gave the Commissar a long, appraising look. Longsdale absently examined the room and was not interested in what was happening.

"Yes, Brennon?" Broyd asked irritably.

"As I understand it, sir, the mayor has denied you in the cancellation of the festivities at the lake?"

"Yes! They do not see anything dangerous in what is happening! Big deal, four frozen alcoholics! They..."

"They're not alcoholics," Longsdale said suddenly. "At least not today's corpse. He is very well dressed, and he had a cross in his hand. Most likely, this is someone from among the ministers of the cathedral. The laity do not wear such large crosses."

There was a tense silence. The big-eyed son of a bitch, Nathan thought.

"Why do you think so?" Broyd muttered. Longsdale looked at him in surprise.

"Didn't you notice? Around the hand in which the cross formed a cavity in the ice. In addition, the ice is quite transparent. Everything is seen."

"Brennon..."

"The autopsy results of the first deceased are in my office, sir."

"To my office, all of you," Broyd ordered.

"I want to see the first corpse," the consultant said.

"He's still in the cutting room... I'm sorry, I wanted to say in the morgue, sir," Brennon added, addressing his superiors. The dog sniffed the floor and stomped to the stairs leading to the basement. The consultant (the devil knows in what questions) calmly walked after.

"Hey!" Broyd shouted, but his cry went unanswered. Brennon watched with pleasure as his superiors slowly turned purple, and asked:

"Return him back?"

"I don't remember allowing this young man to play in my morgue," Mr. Kennedy added coldly. The chief of Police breathed loudly and rushed to the cutting room.

Longsdale had already thrown off his coat and frock coat on empty autopsy table and thoughtfully studied the body of the first drowned man, starting from the head. The dog, resting his forepaws on the edge of the table, sniffed the deceased from the bottom up.

"What do you allow yourself!" Mr. Kennedy cried, "Immediately remove the dog!"

Longsdale glanced across the old man with a childishly transparent gaze.

"As I understand you extracted the heart and lungs?"

"Uh... yes," he pathologist asked, somewhat confused, "There was an interesting phenomenon that I identified as the cause of death."

"The lungs and heart are completely frozen," Brennon translated for the chief. Broyd took off his hat and ran a handkerchief across his forehead. His anger flared easily, but also subsided just as quickly.

"So it's intervention case," he concluded.

"There are no interventions," Kennedy said crustily, "There are alcoholics who first drink to the point of having eyeballs floating with everything that burns, and then they see fairies, goblin, ghosts... Where?!"

When the hound had finished examining the body, he moved confidently to the storage chamber for the viscera and turned the handle with his paw. Lonsdale ducked into the room. Mr. Kennedy flushed with indignation.

"Broyd! What thug is this?!"

"The consultant," the chief answered melancholy, "on intervention cases. From the other side."

"What the hell is he..."

The consultant is back. He had already pulled on cotton gloves and was carefully holding the completely frozen lungs and heart. Brennon blinked in amazement. He saw this for the first time. He decided, after reading the report, that the ice simply covered the organs from above, but now it turned out that the lungs and heart seemed to be carved out of it entirely.

"What the hell is this?" He muttered, and gently poked his lung with his fingertip. It was completely icy to the touch. Longsdale looked at the heart through the light. Brannon had a fleeting thought that the consultant would lick it – and before the thought had fully formed in the commissar's mind, Longsdale licked the heart.

"Are you completely crazy?!" Nathan snapped, snatching the dead man's heart from the consultant until this idiot decided to gnaw it.

"The cause of death was not glaciation," the consultant said, "Apparently, the deceased died of a heart attack. However, myocardial damage can easily be attributed to the consequences of glaciation, therefore..."

"Heart attack?" asked Broyd, "But why the hell did he have a heart attack?"

"From fear, I suppose," Longsdale replied calmly.