1:37AM.

She watched them all very carefully. Sat there like a consortium of rogues playing dice games against each other. For some reason something felt awfully wrong and Irene couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was. Perhaps it was Rosie, perhaps Seulgi. Perhaps neither. For a while she just stood there by the staircase with her hands in her pockets watching them like they were lab experiments. Even Mr Jang was playing. It was a good few minutes until Wendy saw her and excused herself with a smile and came over and said, ‘Hey boss.’

‘Hey.’

‘What’s up?’

‘Nothing. Not much.’

‘Thinking about Seulgi?’

‘What? How did— I mean…what?’

‘Just a question.’

Irene sighed and rubbed her head. ‘I don’t know what I’m thinking about,’ she said.

‘I know what I’m thinking about.’

‘Go on.’

‘I’m thinking, if Lisa is innocent in all of this, why did she want to kick you and Seulgi out of the room? Did she really think you were holding us back in the investigation? And I’m also thinking, if she’s guilty on the other hand, why didn’t she try getting rid of me and Yeri for voting in your favour, too? And I’m also thinking, did Mr Kim know that you and Seulgi used to date? And he invited you here because he knew you’d want to try and impress her? Or maybe he was a secret romantic and he wanted the two of you to get back together. Or maybe he wanted to distract you or something, but then surely he just wouldn’t have invited you in the first place, right? And I’m also thinking, why did this guy like riddles so much? I mean, did he know he was going to die or something? I’ve read pretty much that exact same thing in an Agatha Christie novel. And one of my novels, too. And I’m also thinking, maybe fries on pizza isn’t such a bad idea.’

Irene turned to her. ‘What?’ she said.

‘You never had fries on pizza?’

‘No. That sounds awful.’

‘It’s actually quite good. I had it a couple of times. For some reason I’m starting to crave them right about now. If I had any signal I’d be ordering a Domino’s, like, ASAP. After I rang the police, of course. Very, uh, salty, I suppose. Fries on pizza, I mean. Not the police. But then again, I also like pineapple, so…jury’s out on whether my taste counts for anything or not. You wanna come play some board games? Well, just the one board game, but still.’

‘No. I’m good.’

‘Just gonna stand here and think of Seulgi some more?’

Irene almost cracked a smile. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘I think I am.’

‘Understandable. She’s hot.’

Irene laughed. ‘Yes she is.’

Wendy put a hand on her shoulder and smiled reassuringly and went and joined the others again. Irene watched them for a few minutes longer. Then she wandered off to the kitchen alone. It occurred to her she hadn’t been in the kitchen since Mr Kim had shown it to her almost nine hours ago. It was a long and wide room, the polished worktops, the stoves, the pantry in the corner. The row of windows at the far side of the room that overlooked the pathway down the side of the house and weaving out of sight beyond the conservatory. Rain warping the glass. So that all she could see through it was this contortionist’s image of herself, as if playing tricks on her.

She put both hands on the far worktop and sighed. On the stove beside her was the big pot of chicken stew gone cold with the ladle sticking out of it like a grotesque wooden bone. She scooped up a ladle’s worth and held it up in the light as if to inspect it and almost sniffed it and immediately realised there were better things to do. Maybe morphine, maybe something else. She glanced at the windows again. They were very similar to the ones upstairs, large enough to fit somebody through if needed. She thought of the others. Had any of them been in the kitchen? All of them had. That much was obvious. Maybe not Mr Jang. Then, predictably, she thought of Seulgi.

She thought: I wish she wasn’t so hard on herself. I wish she had more confidence.

They were arguing again in the main hall. Irene’s head ran with Seulgi and it was becoming a problem. Her watch read about 1:45. Seulgi Seulgi Seulgi. Had it always been this bad? One brief recollection of the past told her that it had, indeed, always been this bad. If not worse. Could Seulgi have done it? For some reason that came to her suddenly and with it came a strange pang of dread, like sorcery. Was such a thing possible? They argued and she mused with herself upon the possibilities that Seulgi or in fact any of them could have done such a thing. Stabbed a man to death and poisoned another, and with such nonchalance. With decent acting, too. Wendy’s words came back like a wave and receded and came back again: Maybe Mr Kim was a romantic. Or maybe there was some other nefarious reason.

Or maybe the reason was that there was no reason. That this was just one of those absurd coincidences. The truth was she didn’t know, and that frustrated her more than anything. Irene had always lived with the belief that it was better to be illuminated to the truth no matter what misery it brought with it than to be left in the dark and Seulgi had for years believed the opposite and it was in this way that they had begun to fall apart. This way and many others. She thought about Seulgi again, there upstairs, maybe crying now but maybe not, still unsure of herself. She thought of Yeri laughing at her and calling her names and for some reason it almost broke her heart.

She stood for as long as it took for Yeri to notice her. And it was a long time indeed. She had drunk so much champagne there was barely anything left of the Jeroboam and they were still playing snakes and ladders and even Mr Jang and Jisoo had joined them now for some giant supergame between the entire group. She waited. Yeri laughed and shouted and insulted them all for losing. Irene waited some more. Then, quietly, she said: ‘Yeri.’

‘What?’ Yeri said, without turning around.

‘Can you come here?’

‘No, I’m busy.’

‘Please. Just for a minute.’

Yeri sighed. She turned around and saw Irene there and sighed again and slowly peeled herself off the sofa and away from the rest of the group.

‘What?’ she said.

For a long time Irene was quiet.

‘Well? C’mon, I’m busy here. I’m on a three-game winstreak and I don’t want this ruined for me.’

‘Hey,’ Wheein called, ‘you want me to move for you?’

‘What? No.’

‘Listen, we’re not waiting around all morning for you to get back. We’ve got games to play here.’

‘,’ Yeri said. And then to Irene: ‘Do you want something?’

‘I just wanted to ask you something real quick.’

‘Well, go on, then. Wheein, don’t you dare move my piece!’

‘Yeri.’

‘Yeah, I’m listening. Go on.’

For a moment she was silent. It was her turn to be nervous for once. She had a bad feeling about saying anything but she said it anyway because it was about Seulgi and the truth was she would go to the ends of earth to defend Seulgi no matter the incident, no matter the cost. And then she would go beyond that. She said, in her calmest and most convincing voice, ‘Can you please…you know.’

‘Can I please what?’ Yeri said.

‘Lay off the insults with Seulgi a little?’

‘What?’

‘Just a little.’

‘What are you talking about?’

Irene took a deep breath. ‘Listen,’ she said, ‘I’ve been thinking about this for about half an hour now and I’m just going to come out and say it, and you can make fun of me or laugh and call me an incompetent detective or say I’m whipped or whatever but just listen first, please. The way you talk to people, the way you’ve been talking to us all throughout today – I know it’s your “thing” that you do. I know it’s your brand of humour, or your style, or whatever. I get that. I don’t mind it myself. I think it’s quite funny, if a little harsh at times. I think you’re really smart and you know how to use how smart you are to make your point. To stand out. You know how to not take things too seriously and you use that with everyone else as well.

‘But Seulgi’s not like that. She’s super smart but she doesn’t think she is. She’s always worn her heart on her sleeve and she’s the sort of person that hears the stuff you’re saying and takes it to heart. Thinks you’re being serious. Like you’ve got a vendetta or something. I shouldn’t be saying this because it’s personal and she’d kill me if she knew because she thinks it sounds like I’m babying her, but I care for her an awful lot so I’m just going to say it anyway. She’s always had some pretty bad self-confidence issues, about her appearance and her art and where she’s heading in life, stuff like that, since long before I first met her. She’s always been a bit…what’s the word? Thin-skinned, I guess. Easy to upset. And I don’t want to see her like that, if I can help it. I hate it. I’ve spent most of the past two years wondering whether there was anything I could’ve done to help her and now seeing her all down in the dumps again has kind of upset me too. I’m not saying it’s all your fault or anything, because it’s not. Not at all. But could you just…you know, tone the insults down a little. Please?’

She braced for what was coming next. Yeri was nothing if not sharp-tongued and inherently very perceptive and Irene knew this very well and knew she would not take it lightly. But all she said was: ‘Okay.’

‘Okay? What?’

‘Yeah. Okay. Sorry.’

‘I don’t— I mean…uh, what?’

Yeri shrugged. There was a change in her demeanour that felt almost off. Like a mask being removed. ‘Sometimes I get ahead of myself,’ she said. ‘Like you said, it’s just my brand. Just the way I do things. I like being honest about everything. Everybody’s stinks and nobody ever thinks it does. Too many fake people in the world to waste time with pretending to be nice, ‘cause where does that get you? Nowhere, because nobody is nice back to you. They’re just putting it on for show. And if you show even an inch of kindness they’ll take a mile of tiness and throw it right back at you. Trample all over you. So it kinda gives me a bit of a kick seeing them squirm around in their fancy suits and their expensive dresses when I tell it like it is to their faces, you know? And I don’t just mean at this party in particular, but in general. Even at university it’s the same thing – all these spoilt rich kids pretending to be nice, desperate to get their own way, only ever caring about themselves. No empathy at all. Makes me sick just seeing it, which is why I do it, I suppose. I enjoy taking them down a peg. I guess there’s a little bit of that sadism in all of us, but a bit more than normal in me. That’s just how I roll, but sometimes I do go over the line with it, and if Seulgi’s not like that then I’m sorry. She seems like a nice girl. A nice catch. You’ve done well for yourself.’

‘I…uh.’

‘You definitely seem to really care for her. Whether she cares for you back or not, I dunno, because I don’t know her, like, at all. But I’m guessing she does, so don’t this up. What is it they always say? You never know what you’ve lost until it’s gone? Something like that, right? Yeah. Love is the greatest feeling in the world when you’re in it and the worst when you’ve lost it. So don’t lose it.’

‘I…I mean—’

‘Don’t tell her I’m sorry, okay? I don’t want any sentimental crap or anything like that. Don’t want her to be all, “Oh, Yeri, I didn’t know you had a heart, why don’t you show it more often?” or, “Oh, Yeri, let’s be best friends and hold hands and put flowers in each other’s hair and knit each other Christmas sweaters.” I hate that . But if you want me to tone it down, I will.’

‘Wow,’ Irene said. ‘I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that.’

‘Hey, what can I say? I might be an , but at least I’m a polite . I care. All people have to do is ask sometimes, you know?’

‘Thanks, Yeri.’

‘Any time. You wanna come play some more snakes and ladders?’

‘No, I’m good. I’m going to go talk to Seulgi. Let her know how I feel.’

‘Alright. And Irene.’

‘Yeah?’ she said, already by the stairs again.

‘Thanks for letting me know.’

It was Irene’s turn to smile. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Sure.’

Seulgi wasn’t in the lounge. She wasn’t in Mr Kim’s office either.

Irene found her in the study, right there by the desk. Mr Kim’s body looked like it had begun to bloat and she could smell him faintly from the door and he did not smell nice at all. The knife there in his back looked like a little lever. Seulgi had the two medicinal vials in her hand and she was holding them up in the cone of ceilinglight to better inspect them when Irene came in.

‘What are you doing?’ she said.

The look on Seulgi’s face was part shock, part excitement.

‘What?’

‘You’re gonna want to see this,’ Seulgi said.

‘See what?’

‘Okay, so…holy . Holy .’

‘What is it?’

Seulgi took a moment to catch her breath. She seemed almost manic. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Okay. You remember what I mentioned earlier about me trapping a nerve in my back last year and having to go to the hospital to get a morphine drip because the pain was so bad?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And I mentioned that it looked like treacle in the little bag they had. Like transparent treacle or something, because it was so thick. For some reason it was thicker than all the other IV fluids and liquids and drugs and stuff.’

Irene nodded.

Seulgi held up the vials so she could see them better and shook them a slight. One of the vials was empty, the other still almost full. ‘Twenty milligrams of morphine,’ she said. ‘Two hundred milligrams of Heparin. These vials hold two hundred milligrams each.’

‘Yeah.’

‘So if he had taken his medicine correctly, the morphine vial would still be almost full, and the Heparin one would be empty.’

‘Sure. But we’ve established that Rosie switched the vials around, so what is this about?’

‘Did she, though?’

‘Did she what?’

‘Switch them around.’

‘Yes. She admitted to it. Seulgi, look, about earlier—’

‘Rosie switched the contents of the vials around, so Mr Kim would have taken the entire vial full of morphine.’

‘Yes.’

She held the them closer to Irene and shook them a little to get the liquid moving. The vial that was nearly full was ever so slightly more viscous.

‘Rosie switched the contents.’

Irene sighed. ‘Yes.’

‘Mr Kim injected the entire vial of morphine, all two hundred milligrams of it, thinking it was Heparin.’

‘Yeah.’

‘So why is this vial still full of morphine, then?’