Police Inspector Mikhail is investigating the murder of a young woman whose body was discovered in a forest. As the body was mutilated, the victim's identity is proving difficult to establish. However, when Mikhail attends his friend Viacheslav's wedding some days after the gruesome discovery, he is shocked to recognise the bride from the passport photograph found at the scene of the crime. Although the bride, Yulia admits that she has an estranged sister, the police formally identify the victim as a prostitute and one-time mistress of her husband. Viacheslav is immediately brought in for questioning but, as he appears to have no motive, he is soon released. Zhenya, a reporter who has been conducting her own investigation, discovers that one of the sisters was terminally ill and, when the murdered girl's mother comes forward with a folder of compromising evidence that her daughter had been collecting before her death, the police begin to suspect Yulia.