Early in the morning, sports agent Andrei Petrov was stabbed to death in an apartment in the center of St. Petersburg. The day before, he married Varvara Voronova. The newlyweds were getting ready for their honeymoon; Varvara left the apartment for a short time to visit a neighbor, and when she returned, she discovered her husband's corpse. The murder was committed with particular cruelty; Panov counted eleven stab wounds on the victim's body. The mother of the murdered Petrov believes that Andrei was killed for his professional activities; some of his football players were very unhappy with him. Meanwhile, Maria Sergeevna meets a new criminologist - Arkady Bashmakov.