7:27PM.

When they went back downstairs only Wheein was still sat on one of the sofas sipping her whiskey and everybody else had spread out around the room. Lisa was sat by the front door with her back pressed up against the wall and Mr Jang was pacing back and forth and scratching his head and Sooyoung and Mr Jae were talking about something by the kitchen doors and Jennie was in the kitchen and Jisoo and Rosie and Seulgi were stood not talking to anyone and everybody there looked incredibly suspicious, even Seulgi.

‘Alright,’ Irene said. ‘Alright. Can I have everyone back here, please?’

Slowly, they made their way back. Even Yeri. She grabbed one of the bottles on the table and tipped out the last of the whiskey and sat the empty bottle on the floor between her legs and sighed.

‘Okay. I’ve got something I want to say, and someone I want to ask about something.’

‘Is it gonna take long?’ Yeri said.

‘Why? Do you have somewhere to be?’

‘No. But I wanna take a nap.’

‘Well, tough .’

‘Sorry?’

‘You heard me,’ Irene said. Seulgi had to fight to stifle a little laugh.

‘What’s this about now?’ Rosie said.

‘It’s about you, actually.’

‘Me? What?’

‘Yeah. I’ve got something I want to ask you.’

‘But you already—’

‘Yeah, I know.’

The look on Rosie’s face was part concern and part terror and for a moment Irene felt something akin to sympathy for having singled her out all.

‘When we interviewed you earlier, we asked you when the last time everyone in the room was at this house.’

‘Okay.’

‘You said most people had been here in the past month or so. Everyone except Mr Jae. You said the last time he was here was a year ago. But when I mentioned it just now and mentioned that Mr Jae had been here in the past month, you said nothing, and neither did Mr Jae. So, one of you is lying, and we’re going to find out which one of you it is. Jennie?’

‘Yeah?’

‘When was the last time Mr Jae was here?’

She was silent. She looked to Jisoo for support and Jisoo stepped forward and said, ‘About three weeks ago he came by for two nights and stayed in the guest bedroom upstairs. Right at the end of the corridor, past my room. I don’t know why. But he did.’

‘Is this true?’

Jennie nodded.

‘Mr Jae?’

He looked very reluctant to answer, standing there beside the sofas with a drink in hand. He was sweating more than anyone and it wasn’t hot at all. ‘Yes,’ he said slowly. ‘I was here about three weeks ago.’

‘Well,’ Irene said, ‘Rosie? Why did you lie?’

‘God,’ said Wendy with a grin, ‘she’s so good. You’re so good, boss. So good.’

Rosie looked like she might melt into the floor at any moment. ‘I didn’t lie,’ she said. ‘I didn’t. I must’ve just forgotten.’

‘That’s quite a detail to forget.’

‘I mean it! I swear. On my family’s lives, I swear I didn’t mean anything by it. I genuinely just forgot. I don’t know what else to tell you other than that. I really didn’t mean anything by it. I’m not hiding anything.’

‘You’d swear it on your family’s lives?’ Wheein said. ‘Jesus.’

‘No, not Jesus. Just my family. I don’t feel comfortable doing that.’

‘What?’

‘God,’ Yeri said with a sigh. ‘Some of you are so ing superstitious. And this is getting boring. I’m feeling like going for a nap. Or at least to read a book. Anything would be more enjoyable than this.’

‘Stay there, please.’

She looked at Irene for a moment. Then she sighed and slumped back on the sofa, defeated for the time being, like a child without dessert. Irene’s eyes never left Rosie. She was almost crying now, stood there alone and vulnerable and trembling. She glanced at Mr Jae and then at Mr Jang and then at the others in the room and nobody seemed to want to help her at all. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t do anything. It was just a mistake, I promise. Just something I forgot to mention.’

Wendy came up to Irene and whispered, ‘Do you trust her?’

‘I don’t know,’ Irene said. She looked at Seulgi again, stood just off from the group studying things.

‘Look,’ Jennie said, ‘I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding. I know Rosie and I know she wouldn’t do anything bad or anything to hurt the investigation.’

‘Unless you’re both in cahoots,’ Wheein said.

‘What?’

‘I’m just saying. Just throwing it out there as a possibility. How do we know this person is really a person?’

‘What is that supposed to mean?’

‘That came out wrong. What I meant was – what if it’s multiple people? Hell, what if it’s a whole group of people? We just don’t know. Do we, Irene?’

‘No,’ Irene said, ‘we don’t.’

‘Exactly. No idea at all. So, then.’

Irene thought about it for a minute. She looked at all of them. Then she said, ‘I hate to admit it, but she has a point.’

‘A point about what?’ Wheein said.

‘A point that nobody in this room is trustworthy, no matter how much they might look it from a distance. Jennie.’

Now it was Jennie’s turn to look flustered.

‘You said you were upstairs in the spare bedroom when the lights went out. You said you were changing the sheets.’

‘Yeah.’

‘But then I saw you coming out of the kitchen when Sooyoung and I were sat here talking. Right after the lights came back on.’

‘Yeah. I was in the kitchen.’

‘You just said you were upstairs. In the spare bedroom.’

‘I was.’

‘You said you stayed there when the lights went out because you were scared of knocking something over.’

‘I did. And then I moved.’

‘Are you gaslighting me?’

‘What does gaslighting mean?’

‘It means— never mind. The lights were out for roughly six or seven minutes. Are you telling me that in that time, first you stayed there in the bedroom upstairs, and then while the lights were still out you decided that you should come back down to the kitchen instead? And so you did?’

‘Yeah,’ Jennie said. ‘I mean, that’s what happened. What else do you want me to say?’

‘She was in the kitchen,’ Rosie said. ‘I know because I was there too. Well, I was upstairs as well, but then I came down and went into the kitchen. And then the lights came back on. But I came down.’

‘Under the cover of darkness.’

Rosie nodded. As if this were the most normal thing in the world.

‘And you weren’t worried about, I don’t know…falling? Slipping on this enormous staircase behind you here?’

‘No, not really. I know this house very well.’

‘I didn’t hear you come downstairs. Either of you. And I was sat here the whole time. So either you came down right as the lights came back on and I just wasn’t paying attention, which means you would’ve barely been in the kitchen at all, which gives you less of an alibi and more chance to have slipped into Mr Kim’s study, or…’

She paused. They waited for her to reply and after a while she did not.

‘Or?’ Lisa asked.

‘Or I don’t know. , I’m so— never mind. Why does this all have to be so complicated?’

‘Isn’t it your job to sort out complicated things like this? As a private investigator?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Well then.’

Irene sighed. She put a hand to her throbbing forehead and turned back to Jennie and Rosie. ‘Either both of you are lying to me,’ she said, ‘and you were in the kitchen the whole time, or I just wasn’t paying attention enough.’

‘No chance of that, is there?’ Yeri said.

‘Funny. But this is serious.’

‘So am I. Well, sarcastically serious. Anyway, I think you should arrest them both.’

‘What?’

‘They’re clearly bullting. I mean, look at their faces.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Jennie said.

‘What? You offended or something?’

‘As a matter of fact—’

‘Save it for someone who cares, Brainiac. Look, the harsh truth is this – nobody in this house is even remotely competent at anything.’

They all looked like they were ready to argue and so as to pre-empt this Yeri continued anyway. ‘It’s the truth,’ she said. ‘The bitter truth that none of you wants to acknowledge, sure, but still…the truth. Even you, Irene. No offence, of course. But if you were sat here the whole time the lights were out and you didn’t realise either of these two muppets coming down the stairs behind you at any point, maybe you’re not all you’ve cracked up to be.’

‘Come to think of it,’ Mr Jae said, ‘how do we know you were down here at all?’

Irene turned to him. The look in her eyes was of great intolerance and it almost made him pause.

‘I’m just putting it out there. How do we know you have nothing to do with it? You seem to be the only one glossing over your own alibi, in fact.’

‘Are you seriously asking that question right now?’

‘He kinda has a point,’ said Wheein.

‘No, actually, I don’t think he does.’

‘He does. Did anybody else see Irene down here at all?’

‘Yeah,’ Sooyoung said. ‘I came out of the bathroom and saw her. We’ve been over this already.’

‘How do we know you’re not lying as well? I mean, you could be working together on this.’

‘I’ve never met her in my life.’

‘Well, that could be a lie too. It could all be lies. Who even knows?’

Irene just stood there. After a moment they all began arguing again, even the maids. Throwing insults, pointing fingers at each other. Literally, too. Even Wendy had joined in, if only meekly and from a distance. Irene closed her eyes and rubbed her head. The truth as she saw it was that unfortunately she had not been paying enough attention at all and maybe that was a problem but maybe it was just one of those things. Jennie and Rosie could have come down the stairs just as they could have never been there at all. And Irene would have no idea regardless. Things didn’t add up. But when do they ever?

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Okay. I said okay! Settle down.’

Like schoolchildren, they did. They all turned to her. She paced around in front of them slowly. Things just didn’t quite make sense. Everybody was guilty and nobody was. She picked up one of the glasses from the table and poured a small portion of Wheein’s whiskey and set the bottle back deliberately off centre and drank the whole thing down in one awful mouthful.

‘Jesus,’ Yeri said. ‘You good?’

She wiped and put the glass back. ‘I thought that would help with my headache,’ she said.

‘Did it?’

‘No. Not at all.’

‘You want some aspirin or something?’

‘No.’

‘Well. Suit yourself.’

Irene glanced at her watch again. It had just gone seven thirty and she was beginning to grow impatient. ‘Seulgi,’ she said.

‘Yeah?’

‘Anything yet?’

‘No. No signal, no nothing.’

‘With the phone lines cut you’re not gonna get anything,’ Mr Jang said. ‘You’d be the damn luckiest person in the whole word if you did, I’ll tell you that. Don’t think you’re gonna get any of that 4G stuff up here. Is it 4G? Some other G?’

‘I think we’re up to 5G now,’ Jisoo said.

‘Oh. I see. What’s the difference?’

‘Well, about one G, I think.’

Lisa turned to Mr Jang. ‘What about you?’ she said, tone accusatory.

‘What about me?’

‘Where’s your alibi?’

‘I’m sorry? Alibi for what?’

‘For Mr Kim’s murder.’

‘Oh…right. I forgot about that.’

‘You don’t seem too beat up about the fact that you’re out of a job. Almost as if you knew it was coming or something.’

Mr Jang shrugged. ‘He was an ,’ he said. ‘Had it coming.’

‘Did you kill him?’

‘Kill who? Oh, Mr Kim? No. I was outside, sweeping the path.’

‘Did anyone see you out there?’

‘No, I don’t expect they did.’

‘Do you want a towel?’ Jisoo said.

‘Nah, I’ll dry okay.’

Irene listened to them. She glanced at each of them in kind and then at the big glass table and Wheein had put the whiskey bottle right again on the surface, at a perfect angle. ‘Okay,’ Irene said. ‘Lisa here has a point.’

‘Point about what?’

‘Nobody saw you outside, Mr Jang.’

‘What do you expect me to say? I’m just the groundskeeper. I was getting ready to go home and then I notice something weird with the lights on the outside breaker panel and that’s when I realise that something’s not right. So I figured I’d come in and let Mr Kim know about it and that’s right around when you tell me someone’s stabbed him. I was never in the house.’

‘Do you stay here?’

‘What?’

‘Normally, do you stay here?’

Mr Jang shook his head. ‘I just work here three days a week,’ he said. ‘Monday, Thursday, Sunday. And occasionally other days, if need be. I live about half an hour from here.’

‘And you were getting ready to go home.’

‘That I was.’

Irene groaned and rubbed her head. Seulgi glanced at her with something akin to worry but Irene refused to look because she knew that would lead to nothing productive or helpful to the investigation at all. Just a desire to cuddle Seulgi again. And that wasn’t really an option at all. ‘Right,’ she said, ‘time to get this straight. At the time of the murder – we think sometime just before six PM, when the lights were out – I was down here, and so was Sooyoung, and so was Wheein, in her room over there. Then Lisa, Seulgi, Wendy, Mr Jae, and Yeri, you were all upstairs. Then Rosie and Jennie, you were  apparently first upstairs and then down here. Mr Jang, you were outside.’

Nobody made a sound. As if they were all satisfied by this, at least in passing.

‘And where does that get us, exactly?’

‘I’ll answer this one,’ Yeri said. ‘It gets us nowhere. Right back to square one.’

Irene groaned again.

‘I’ve got a question, though. What about you?’

‘Me?’ Wendy said.

‘Yeah. You.’

‘What about me?’

‘What’s your deal here? Apart from being invited to…what, exactly? Write an article about my granduncle for your ty newspaper outlet? What company do you even work for?’

‘Seoul Gazette.’

‘That’s not even a real company.’

‘It is.’

‘You just made that up.’

‘No I didn’t.’

‘Alright. And what about your little book thingy?’

‘I’m under contract with Front House Publishing company.’

‘Never heard of them.’

‘Are you just gonna argue with everything I say?’

‘Everything dumb, sure.’

‘It’s always the loudest ones.’

‘What?’

‘You heard me,’ Wendy said.

‘Alright,’ Irene said. ‘Stop. Both of you.’

‘Sorry, boss.’

‘She’s right – you don’t have an alibi. You just have your word that you were upstairs, looking at Mr Kim’s collection of artefacts. But nothing else.’

The look on Wendy’s face wasn’t quite betrayal, but almost. As if she had been forced to confront something rather left unearthed.

‘Sorry,’ Irene said quietly. ‘I just need to get everything out in the open. I need everybody to be as transparent as possible.’

‘I was upstairs,’ Wendy said. ‘Sorry, boss, but I don’t have a better alibi than that. He told me about the collection earlier, mentioned all this stuff he had up there, so I figured what better time to go and see it for myself.’

‘So you went up there without permission?’ Lisa said.

‘What? I mean—’

‘Did he say you were welcome up there?’

‘No, but—’

‘So you were snooping.’

‘I mean…I guess so. But that doesn’t mean I killed him.’

‘Well, no. I never said it did.’

Wendy looked to Irene again. She looked quite lost and for some reason it hurt Irene to see her like that. Thinking: Either she’s a great actor or she’s telling the truth. I can’t tell which.

‘You know what?’ Yeri said, and almost laughed. ‘I was thinking something earlier to myself, something I thought was quite cynical and stupid of me.’

‘Thinking what?’ Wheein said.

‘I was thinking that every single person in the room is up to no good. That they’re all out for themselves. And then I changed that around. I told myself there was no way that literally all of you were shady. That’s just impossible. But now I’m starting to think that maybe I was right after all.’

Wheein huffed.

‘Maybe none of you can be trusted,’ Yeri said. ‘And that makes things way, way more interesting, don’t you think?’