6:15PM.

They all stared at her dumbly. Half of them seemed not to understand what was going on and the other half seemed just as confused for another reason. Irene stood beside the body with a grimness on her face that looked quite sour indeed. She took a moment to study each of them – to see if any of them changed, if anyone had that typically guilty look about them. But they all just started blankly at the body.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Okay. Here’s what’s going to happen. I need everyone downstairs in the main hall. Nobody leaves this house until further notice. Then I’m going to ring the police. Nobody is to come upstairs at any point during the investigation, do you understand me?’

‘I’m sorry,’ Yeri said, ‘who gave you supreme authority over all of us?’

‘I’m a private investigator.’

‘So? Did someone here hire you to privately investigate?’

‘No, but—’

‘Then leave it to the police.’

‘She’s got a point,’ Sooyoung said.

Irene looked at them. Half of them appeared to be silently agreeing and the other half didn’t seem to be listening at all. Somewhere outside thunder cracked overhead again in great flaring cloudbursts and ceased. She took her phone from her pocket and thumbed in the passcode and began walking around the room with her phone held out in front of her like a metal detector. First by the others at the door, then by Mr Kim’s limpid corpse, then by the window behind him, the rain beating on as she did so.

‘What are you doing?’ Seulgi said.

‘I’ve got no ing signal. What is it with this house and being so goddamn outdated?’

‘Well, not to say I told you so, but—’

‘Someone else try.’

‘Excuse me?’ Lisa said.

‘I said someone else try.’

‘Where are your manners?’

‘Are you kidding? This is an active murder scene and you’re worried about manners. Someone’s here dead, in case you couldn’t tell. With a knife in his back.’

‘A literal knife,’ Wendy said.

‘Yes. A literal knife.’

‘And presumably, considering he trusted everyone here enough to invite them along to his private dinner party, a symbolic knife in the back, too.’

‘Presumably that as well.’

Sooyoung waved her phone at Irene from the doorway. ‘I’ve got no signal either,’ she said.

‘Nor me,’ said Wheein.

‘Same here,’ the maid they hadn’t been introduced to them said. She was wearing the same black-and-white pinstripe apron as Rosie and Jennie and she spoke in a low and almost raspy voice and she had an air about her that seemed almost ditzy, but not quite.

‘Sorry,’ Irene said, ‘who are you?’

‘Oh, I’m—, uh, sorry, yeah. I’m Jisoo. I’m the cook. Well, I work in the kitchen. I think chef is technically my job title. Nice to meet you.’

‘Right. You too.’ Irene turned to Seulgi and Seulgi gave an apologetic shrug. ‘I’ve got no signal either,’ she said.

‘. For god’s sake, I knew something like this would happen. Has anyone – anyone at all – got a signal? Any signal? Even one bar? Even a smidgen of a signal?’

Nobody made a sound.

‘I mean anyone. Literally anyone. Come on, there’s like ten of you here. One of you must be able to make a ing phone call. It’s not exactly the Sahara desert.’

‘Actually you can get a signal in the Sahara desert,’ Wendy said.

‘What?’

‘Yeah, I’ve been. I mean, I went backpacking across the Sahara last summer and I managed to get a signal in a couple places. It’s actually not quite as remote as you think. Well, it is…just not in parts. And not in the parts I was in, I guess, because I was watching Netflix every night. Crazy.’

‘Does that help our current situation?’

‘No.’

‘Well then,’ Irene said. She glanced at Mr Kim again. The blood was already going cold in his shirt. On his desk beside his head was a small letter rack filled with documents and two small glass vials and a syringe that looked as if it had been used fairly recently. She turned to the others in the doorway again. They looked like props in a theatre production. ‘Well,’ she said.

‘Well what?’ said Yeri.

‘Does anyone— you know what? Never mind. Everybody go downstairs. Right now.’

‘Or what?’

‘Or I put you in jail.’

‘You don’t have the authority to do that.’

‘Look, will you please – please – just ing go downstairs? Please. Just for a moment. Let me think.’

They looked at each other. As if deciding whether or not it would be fruitful to continue arguing. Then after a moment they all began to slowly file out of the room, even Yeri. All but Seulgi and Wendy.

‘Both of you too.’

‘We need to talk,’ Seulgi said.

‘Seulgi, now really, really isn’t the time for this.’

‘When is the time?’

‘How about after we’re away from an active crime scene? A man is dead.’

‘Evidently.’

‘This is so cool,’ Wendy said. ‘Well, not cool, of course. And definitely not for Mr Kim. Poor guy. But in a general sense, it’s kinda cool, don’t you think? A proper murder mystery. God, I’ve spent half my adult life writing about these things and now I actually get to witness one first-hand. I think that’s pretty cool. C’mon, don’t you?’

‘No,’ they both said.

‘Well. Whatever you say.’

‘Can you please go downstairs?’ Irene asked.

‘I wanna help.’

‘You can help by joining the others downstairs.’

‘I wanna be your assistant. Do P.I’s have assistants?’

‘Not usually, no.’

‘Are you just saying that to stop me asking?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can I help? Please?’

Irene rubbed her head. The headache was coming on even worse. ‘,’ she said. ‘Why does this have to happen to me? Of all people. Of all days.’

‘Oh, woe is me,’ Seulgi said. ‘Oh, poor, poor me. I’ve got a widdle baby headache. Boo hoo.’

‘What?’

‘And here I was thinking that we could just kick things back off like they used to be. Be all good again and stuff. Like the old days. But I forgot about this. It was always about you, wasn’t it?’

‘Seulgi.’

‘Korea’s seventh richest man is sat dead in his chair there and somehow it’s still all about you.’

‘Seulgi—’

‘You were always so selfish.’

‘Please—’

‘Always taking, never giving.’

‘Seulgi, can we please not do this right now?’

‘You were always such a pillow princess too.’

‘Let’s save it for— hey, what the ? What did you just say?’

‘You heard me.’

‘Okay, first of all, how dare you. And second of all, pillow princess? Are you kidding me? You know I—’

‘Sixth,’ Wendy said.

‘Excuse me?’

‘He’s actually the sixth richest man in Korea. Well…he was. Not anymore, I suppose. At least once his assets are transferred to whomever he’s left them to. Which I expect won’t be instant or anything. Or maybe it won’t happen at all now. I dunno how the law works when it comes to murder and inheritance.’

‘It’s complicated.’

‘Yeah, I bet. Thank god I’m not a lawyer. You know, I wanted to be one once?’

‘A lawyer?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What happened?’ Seulgi said.

Wendy gave a frank shrug. ‘I couldn’t get into law school,’ she said.

‘Why not?’

‘Actually I never even tried. Maybe I could’ve. Dunno why I said that.’

‘Please,’ Irene said, rubbing her head. She was close to crying with frustration and she knew Seulgi could tell and in some small way she thought perhaps Seulgi was doing it on purpose, twisting the metaphorical knife deeper, making her suffer. As if to get some measly form of payback. And boy, was it working. She gave a tilt of the head that she knew Seulgi would understand and then maybe out of whatever sympathy remained Seulgi turned to Wendy and said, ‘Come on. Let’s go downstairs.’

‘Don’t let anyone leave the premises.’

‘Yes ma’am.’

‘And take everyone’s phones.’

‘What?’

‘That’s an order, Seulgi. Please.’

Seulgi sighed petulantly. ‘Sure,’ she mumbled. ‘Whatever you say, boss.’

‘Thank you.’

Irene waited until they were already by the staircase to let out the biggest sigh she’d ever sighed. The rain spattering against the window at the far end of the room in metronome did nothing to ease her headache and neither did the sight of Mr Kim’s dead body beside her in his chair. She stepped back and studied him. Studied the room. There wasn’t much to go on. The lone window at the far end, two bookcases on either side, a small chest of drawers on the left with a table lamp on it, the clock hanging from the wall, Mr Kim’s desk, a framed photo of presumably his daughter. Just by his legs under the desk was a big metal safe with a four-digit knob on the front. Irene took it all in.

‘,’ she said. ‘Just my luck I get stuck with something like this.’

Lightning broke soundless outside the window again. The storm looked fit to hound down all night long. She took a moment to catch her breath and then she went out without looking back. The others were all sat around downstairs in the main entrance hall where they’d been sitting before. Irene watched them from the balcony for a moment. Seulgi had collected a handful of cellphones in a plastic tray and sat them on the big glass table and Jennie was still crying and Lisa was pacing back and forth and biting her nails and the rest looked terribly suspicious and Irene didn’t like it one bit. When she came down the stairs they all turned to her, like the condemned awaiting their executioner.

‘Alright,’ Irene said, ‘here’s what’s going to happen. Nobody here, in this house right now, is to leave until further notice. Now that may be when the police turn up, or it may be sometime after that, I don’t know. But nobody leaves. Do you understand me?’

Nobody replied.

‘Anything?’

Seulgi held up the tray of phones and shook her head. ‘Nothing,’ she said.

‘Okay. . Well, keep trying.’

‘Sure.’

‘It looks like this storm’s going to last until tomorrow morning at the earliest—’

‘Oh, are you a weather woman now?’ Yeri said.

‘So until one of us can get a signal, we’re all sitting put. Capeesh?’

Again, nobody replied. Irene glanced at Seulgi, stood there with the tray of phones. She studied the others. Wheein had poured herself a glass of whiskey and set the bottle neatly down at a perfect angle and she began drinking it like it was water.

‘Question,’ Yeri said.

‘Fire away.’

‘Can I go to the bathroom?’

‘At regularly scheduled intervals, yes.’

‘What? What sort of bull is that? What are you, my schoolteacher or something?’

‘It’s to stop people getting any funny ideas.’

‘I need the toilet.’

‘The point remains.’

‘Jesus. Is this what authoritarianism feels like?’

‘You don’t seem too shook up by this,’ Lisa said. She’d stopped pacing the room and now she levelled her inquisition at Yeri with a great deal of suspicion.

‘Neither do you. Any of you.’

‘What?’

‘None of you seem to care too much. Well, apart from that one blubbering over there, I suppose. What’s your name again? Genie?’

‘Jennie,’ said Jennie, blubbering.

‘Right. Jennie. Well, apart from her, you all seem quite calm and composed. Oddly calm, considering a man’s just been killed upstairs. And not just killed, either. Stabbed in the back. Literally, yes. With a big knife, too. That’s some seriously pre-meditated psychopathic .’

‘Your granduncle,’ Wheein said over her whiskey glass.

‘Yeah, he’s my granduncle. Thanks for reminding me, genius. And yeah, he’s my family, but you all knew him. You’re his business partners.’ She nodded towards Mr Jae and said, ‘He considered some of you his friends.’ Then to Wendy: ‘He confided in you.’ Then, to Rosie and Jisoo: ‘He trusted you to cook him his meals, make his bed, clean his house. In a way he trusted most of you, certainly just as much as he trusted me. And yet none of you seem to really care that he’s dead. So don’t give me about not being “shaken up” about it. I know what you’re trying to do, and it’s not gonna work. Don’t even think about it.’

‘I wasn’t trying anything,’ Lisa said.

‘Yeah, I bet you weren’t.’

‘God,’ Seulgi said, ‘you are such an .’

‘I’m just honest. Which is more than can be said for any of you.’

‘Did you kill him?’ Sooyoung said.

‘What?’

‘Did you stab him?’

‘Oh, yeah. Sure.’

‘She’s got a point,’ Jisoo said, the most she’d talked all night. ‘You’re his grandniece.’

‘So?’

‘So you stand to gain a lot from his death,’ Irene said. ‘Possibly so.’

‘I’m estranged. I told you that.’

‘Just because you said it doesn’t mean it’s true. Why would he invite you along – and let you have a room in his house to sleep in – if you were estranged?’

‘So, what, then? You think I did it? You think I killed him?’

‘I never said that.’

‘But you have motive,’ Wendy said, almost too enthusiastically.

‘Nice,’ Yeri said.

‘You kill him, you get his cash in the will.’

‘Slayer rule, genius.’

‘What?’ Seulgi said.

‘If you murder somebody and are found guilty of it, any and all possessions, money, whatever else left you to through inheritance is nullified. And so is the will.’

‘You sound like you’ve been researching this stuff carefully.’

‘It’s common knowledge.’

‘I didn’t know it.’

‘That’s because you’re as dumb as a sack of rocks.’

‘What did you—’

‘No offence, of course. Not everybody can be bright. Fifty percent of the population are below average intelligence. Don’t be ashamed of being in that fifty percent. Be proud of it. Own it. It’ll make you feel better, champ.’

‘You are such—’

‘Student,’ Irene said.

‘Well, yeah, that. And also—’

‘Okay, okay. Stop. All of you. Just be quiet for a minute.’

Somehow, they were.

‘Okay,’ Irene said, ‘here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to take each of you into one of those rooms over there, one by one, and I’m going to ask you some questions. Who you are, why you’re here, how long you’ve been here, when you last saw Mr Kim. Things like that. And then I’m going to run through some other things, too. My assistant here will be present to help me with this investigation.’

She glanced at Wendy. The grin that appeared on Wendy’s face was almost comical and childlike. ‘Me?’ she said. ‘You mean…me? Really? Seriously?’

Irene sighed. ‘Yes, you.’

‘Oh my god. Are you serious? Are you, like, seriously serious? I can help?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why her?’ Mr Jae said. He’d been quiet for a while and now he stepped forward from behind the sofas and vaguely shook his champagne glass about and said, ‘Sorry for asking and everything, but why her? How can you trust that she doesn’t have a part to play in this?’

‘I can’t.’

‘Then, why?’

‘Because if she did it, I’ll know about it.’

‘What?’

Irene sighed. In truth she didn’t quite know why she’d said that or why she’d even picked Wendy to help her but there was something about her that felt innocent, like a doe caught in the enormous mouth of a wolf. Or several wolves. So she said, ‘You just let me focus on that part, alright?’

‘But—’

‘Okay, who’s up first?’

They looked at each other warily.

‘Nobody? Is nobody going to volunteer?’

‘What do these questions entail?’ Rosie said, rubbing Jennie’s shoulder to try and calm her down.

‘I can’t tell you that. If I did, it’d be unfair to everyone else. They’d get time to prepare answers.’

‘This is actually crazy,’ Wheein said. ‘You’re all crazy. I’m leaving.’

‘You’re not going anywhere.’

‘What legal right do you have to keep me here?’

‘I can put you under citizen’s arrest.’

‘No, I don’t think you can.’

‘I’ll shoot you.’

‘You got a gun?’

‘Do you want to find out?’

Wheein eyed her up for a moment. Then without another word she sat back down on the sofa beside Sooyoung and adjusted her jacket and was silent.

‘,’ Yeri said. ‘I definitely picked the wrong week to stop smoking weed.’

‘So, who wants to start?’

‘What’s the point? Nobody’s gonna tell you anything.’

‘Why not?’

‘You kidding me? C’mon, don’t play dumb. I know how the law works. What happened to “Answer No Comment to everything, no matter what?” Does that not still hold up?’

‘You’re not being interrogated.’

‘Well, you coulda fooled me.’

‘I just want to ask some questions.’

‘Oh, well excuse me for me thinking that’s what an interrogation was.’

‘I was just going to ask.’

‘Well I don’t feel like answering anyway. Sorry.’

‘Nor me,’ Wheein said.

‘Great,’ said Irene. She turned to Seulgi, then to Wendy. ‘This is going to take a while,’ she said. Wendy nodded in agreement.

‘Well?’ Yeri said, folding her arms.

‘The first thing we need to do is establish a timeline of events. Things that happened and when, where people were, where people went. Then we can focus on eliminating potential suspects.’

‘Suspects?’ Sooyoung said. ‘So we are suspects, then?’

‘For the time being, yes.’

A general murmur broke out between them and Irene rubbed her forehead and winced at the noise. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Okay. I said okay! Be quiet! Please. Jesus Christ, what is it with you people?’

‘You people?’ Yeri said. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘I didn’t— god, you’re hard to talk to. All of you. Okay. Alright. Here’s what’s going to happen. Rosie…that’s your name, right?’

The maid with blonde hair nodded.

‘Okay, Rosie, we’ll start with you.’

‘Why me?’

‘I don’t know. I just picked someone at random. Is there a quiet room we can go to discuss things without people hearing?’

‘Uh, we can go in the dining hall. We were just getting ready to put the food out.’

‘Alright. Lead the way. Wendy, come with me. Seulgi, can you—’

‘Oh, so she’s working with you now as well?’ Yeri said.

‘Yes. For the time being. Is that okay with you?’

‘No.’

‘Well.’

‘I suppose it makes sense. Keep your friends close, your enemies closer, and your freaky public- partners even—’

‘Alright,’ Irene said. ‘Rosie, please. Seulgi, make sure nobody leaves the house. Or the room, preferably.’

‘Sure,’ Seulgi said.

‘Okay, good. And people, be careful.’

‘What?’ Yeri said.

‘Yeri, you were right.’

‘Right about what?’

‘Nobody here is friends, and nobody is as they seem. One person in this room is a murderer. And tonight, we’re going to find out who.’