7:35PM.

Time seemed to suddenly be moving far too slowly.

Irene rubbed her aching head. Part of her wanted to ask Yeri for a couple aspirin, if she had any left. One glance around the room reminded her quite suddenly that in truth she knew none of the people here other than Seulgi – their motives, their beliefs, their relations to each other and to Mr Kim. That any of them could be lying about anything at any time to cover their tracks. That, joke or not, Wheein might be right – they might be working together. Two of them, four of them. All of them. And did Seulgi factor into that equation somewhere? Surely not. But still the minor parasite of a thought about it lingered.

‘Boss,’ Wendy said quietly. ‘What now?’

‘I don’t know,’ Irene admitted.

Wheein finished the last of her drink and set her glass down very neatly and said, ‘So, are you going to arrest Jennie or not?’

‘Arrest me?’ Jennie said. ‘What?’

‘Well, unless you believe her little spiel about actually coming down the stairs and going into the kitchen quiet as a mouse with you sitting right here and still missing it. Do you? You don’t, do you?’

Irene sighed. The truth – again – was that she didn’t know. She hadn’t paid much attention to anyone at all. So she said, with all the honesty she could muster: ‘I don’t know.’

‘Alright. Are you going to arrest Rosie, then?’

‘No. Not yet.’

‘Not yet?’ Rosie said. ‘What do you mean not yet? I haven’t done anything wrong! Nothing at all! I’m completely innocent in all this! What the hell would you even arrest me for?’

‘That’s why I’m not arresting you. Because there’s nothing to arrest you for.’

‘I’m innocent. I don’t know what else to say other than that, because it’s true. I mean, what do you expect me to say? I can’t really say anything else. I just made a mistake.’

‘Yeah yeah,’ Yeri said. ‘Yawn yawn yawn. This is so boring now. Déjà vu. Can we skip to the good part?’

‘ you.’

‘Oh, so you can curse now, too? Maybe you’re not the goody two shoes you cracked up to be. Maybe you have got it in you to get all stabby stabby. I mean, you’ve got access to the kitchen, being a maid-slash-cook-slash-nurse and all. This is what’s funny to me. Either you’re all lying to Irene here, or you’re all genuinely so stupid that you can’t understand how what you’re saying might be seen as suspicious to anyone with even half a brain. Like your about being upstairs and then coming down to the kitchen in the dark. That’s an excuse so terrible that it might just be the truth. Crazy, right?’

‘She’s got a point,’ Sooyoung said.

‘Thank you.’

‘Not you. I meant Rosie. You are – by far – the most annoying person in this room.’

Yeri guffawed. ‘That’s rich,’ she said. ‘If anything, I’m the least annoying person in the room. I’m the straight shooter. The wise cracker. The fun one. And more importantly, the honest one. I smell , I search for that , I call out that . And right now, your stinks. All of yours does. You’re all awful people and you’re projecting by blaming me for things because you’re either too stupid or too malicious to realise that maybe, just maybe, I might be the only decent person here. That’s what this is, isn’t it?’

‘Decent? In what way are you decent?’

‘I’ve got my morals and I stick to them. I help old ladies cross the street with their shopping, I recycle, I never waste water by leaving the sink running while I’m brushing my teeth. Things like that.’

‘And you think that makes you better than us?’

‘Your words, not mine.’

‘Come to think of it,’ Wendy said, ‘how do we know you’re not actually lying to us?’

‘What?’

‘When we questioned you earlier you said you were on your phone all day, refunding Amazon orders.’

‘Okay. So?’

‘In this weather? You really got a good enough signal to do that?’

Yeri laughed. ‘Oh my god,’ she said. ‘Who gives a ? Of all the things to get hung up on, you pick that? Seriously?’

‘Boss, back me up here.’

Irene was silent.

‘See?’ Yeri said. ‘Even she doesn’t think that’s suspicious. See, kids? This is what spending years of your life writing airport paperback fiction does to you. Gives you brain worms.’

‘Well, I think it is. I think maybe you’re concocting a lie so specific and so strange that people can’t help but be convinced it’s true. I bet Amazon doesn’t even refund orders until you give them a reason to do so.’

‘So…what, then? What do you want from me?’

‘I want to know exactly where you were at every fifteen-minute interval between four PM and the time of the murder, just before six.’

Yeri laughed again. ‘Really?’ she said. ‘Who am I, Herodotus?’

‘What?’

‘You know…Herodotus. Fabled Greek historian, born in the gulf city of Halicarnassus? Famous for writing The Histories, the most preeminent work of Western literature in the ancient world, a record of the wars between Greece and Persia and the history of the Persian empire? No? Nothing? C’mon, seriously?’

Wendy just stared blankly at her.

‘God, read a ing book for once in your life.’

‘What were you doing at four fifteen PM?’

‘I’m not answering that question.’

‘Why not?’

‘I can’t be bothered.’

‘Boss, please.’

‘Answer it, please,’ Irene said.

Yeri sighed and folded her arms. As if to say: I’m not giving you anything.

‘Okay,’ Wendy said, ‘let’s try this again. What were you doing at four fifteen PM?’

‘ing.’

‘Very funny.’

‘What’s funny about ion? Everyone does it.’

‘Just answer the damn question. What were you doing at four fifteen PM?’

‘Procrastinating.’

‘What were you doing at four thirty?’

‘Procrastinating.’

‘What about four forty-five?’

‘Also procrastinating.’

‘And at five PM?’

‘Still procrastinating.’

‘And what—’ Wendy paused and closed her Notes app. As if suddenly aware of what Yeri had actually been saying. Then she said: ‘You’re clowning me again, aren’t you?’

‘Me? Clowning you? No. Never. Impossible.’

‘Good lord,’ Mr Jae said, ‘how did I end up stuck in a situation like this? I should be at home.’

Wheein turned to him, stood behind the sofas. ‘Oh, so now you speak up,’ she said. ‘And come to think of it, how do we know you don’t have a part to play in this? I mean, how can we be sure it was Rosie lying about you visiting the house, and not you?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Because, no offence, I’d trust her over you any day of the week. And I barely even know her.’

‘Me too,’ Lisa said.

‘Again, I’d trust none of you,’ said Yeri. ‘And since we’re all here doing the Cluedo questioning , here’s my big conundrum for you all: why are you all here? No, seriously, I meant it. Why the are any of you here?’

‘Why are you here?’ Wheein said.

‘Nah, that’s not how it works. See, I asked a question, so I should get an answer first. Simple, no? So, why are any of you actually here? I mean, there must be a reason for it, right? Beyond my granduncle being excited for you all to taste his favourite casserole recipe. Even this one over here. Why would he invite you, a private investigator, to discuss business? Or even just for dinner? And then he goes and dies. Seems kinda fishy to me, don’t you think? A little too convenient for my liking.’

‘What are you trying to say?’ asked Lisa.

‘I’m trying to say that maybe my granduncle knew one of you ers was going to kill him sooner or later, and the reason he invited Irene here to come along was because he knew she’d figured things out. But maybe he slightly overestimated her abilities.’

Wheein laughed.

‘What?’

‘So if he knew someone wanted to kill him,’ Wheein said, ‘why the would he invite them to dinner?’

‘Maybe he never actually believed one of you would be ed in the head enough to actually go through with it. I dunno. Maybe it is all one big coincidence. Would be quite a few coincidences in one day, don’t you think?’

‘God,’ Lisa said, ‘You are so full of .’

As they argued Irene just stood there rubbing her head. The headache wasn’t going away anytime soon and she knew it and knew it well. She wanted to weep again with the frustration of it all. She tried to watch which members of the group interacted with each other and whether there was anything strange about these interactions and whether that could perhaps tell her something but all they did was shout and argue and her head felt like it would crack like a nut at any possible moment. Right down the middle, her swollen, over-stimulated brains dribbling out on the floor. Another grisly victim, this time of her own exertion. Even Jennie and Jisoo had begun arguing and calling each other names. Even Rosie, in some small attempt to redeem herself. Wendy stepped forward and tried in vain to get them to be quiet and stepped away again and put a hand on Irene’s shoulder gently and said, ‘Boss. What do we do?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Where do we go from here?’

Irene groaned. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I really don’t. I’m going to go upstairs, clear my head.’

‘What? Now?’

‘I need to. Sorry. I’ll have a look around Mr Kim’s bedroom, see if I can find anything up there. I doubt it, but we’ll see.’

She went on up the stairs like a penitent ready for holy service, dragging her feet behind her, as if reluctant to go any further. Then the second flight, all the way to the top of the house, a sort of hesitance to her, like a woman about to enter No Man’s Land. The shouting behind her slowly seemed to taper down to a murmur as she climbed. They were still arguing when she reached the top of the stairs and turned right and was greeted with two doors along a narrow hallway. The first was to Mr Kim’s bedroom, the second to his private collection. She went on into his bedroom and looked about. She took her time, opening the bedside drawers and emptying out the contents, opening his wardrobes and pushing clothes and nightgowns aside, scouring the en-suite bathroom for anything more than rubber duckies and bath bombs, getting down on her hands and knees and peering under the dark of the bed to find what secrets may lie underneath. But all she found was spiders and cobwebs.

They were still shouting downstairs. Even two floors up she could hear them, hear Wendy trying to calm them to no avail. After a while she went out and tried the door to the collection room and to her mild surprise it was open. Inside was what looked like a museum, or a library. She stood a second in the doorway catching her breath at the beauty of it. There were long rows and shelves and small stands and precariously balanced racks all brimmed high with ornate Chinese pottery and broaches and plates and delicately detailed vases and items with gold and silver inlays and the room itself had an abnormally high roof and there was one rack of shelves a good twelve or sixteen feet tall and on each shelf sat a row of priceless Qing plates and bowls all neatly arranged and at one end was a golden longsword in a sheath and a handful of paintings hanging from the far wall. It smelt vaguely of dust, of things that were old. Irene standing there lonesome amid this archaic rabble of collectibles took a long deep breath and tried to gather her thoughts. Nothing much helped. Nothing worked at all. The shouting had died down a slight but she could still hear it. She scanned the room, an idle sightseer in this hall of wonders. There were so many items she wondered how anyone could keep track but her eyes were drawn almost immediately to a long cabinet with a sliding glass door and a handful of small pieces of jewellery inside. There were coins, necklaces, a handful of faded jade broaches. And some appeared to be missing, the spaces left curiously untouched and gathering dust. As if something had once been there and no longer remained. Small spaces. And on a velvetpadded plinth just off to the side was a small jade box with a lid lined in gold and ornate stencil markings all down the sides of it, sitting there lonesome and proud, like a sort of crown jewel in his collection. Just underneath it was a small inscription that read:

‘This box was hand-crafted by sculptors of the Wei dynasty in 208 CE and was used to keep the legendary Imperial Jade Seal of China, presented to Cao Cao, King of Wei, shortly after his coronation.’

‘Huh,’ Irene said, ‘Neat.’

‘Hey.’

She jolted around so fast she almost broke her neck.

Seulgi smiled awkwardly at her. ‘Sorry,’ she said softly, playing with her fingers, unable to settle them comfortably.

‘Jesus, you scared the out of me.’

‘Sorry. I thought you heard me come in.’

‘No, I didn’t.’

Seulgi shrugged. She seemed almost too nervous, like Irene had not seen her in many years, since the first time they’d ever had dinner together.

‘Did you want something?’ Irene asked.

‘I just wanted to talk. I figured now was as good a time as we’re going to get tonight, so what the hell.’

‘Seulgi—’

‘Let me talk. Please.’

‘I don’t think now is the right time. There’s an active murder investigation going on. I think it can wait until tomorrow, honestly.’

‘Please, Irene. Please.’

She tried to gauge the severity with which Seulgi pleaded this from her and eventually relented and with a sigh said, ‘Alright.’

Seulgi picked at nails. It took her a long time to say anything. Then, slowly: ‘I just want to apologise for what happened. Before, I mean. Back when we broke up. I know I kinda ghosted you and I really shouldn’t have done that. That was stupid of me. I’ve had a lot of time to think over these past eighteen months. Well, twenty months. And some days. Yes, I’ve been counting. Kinda. But yeah, I’ve had time. And in that time I’ve realised that everything I said, everything I did, was wrong. It was ed up of me.’

‘You didn’t do anything.’

‘Exactly. That was the problem. I let work come between us. First it was your work and then it was me with finding a buyer for my art and juggling that and working in a ing grocery store and it all just got too much for me. I don’t know why. I just couldn’t handle it at the time. I guess it was because I’d never had anything like that before – any sort of commitments overtaking my personal life like that – so I didn’t know how to deal with it. It felt like this weight on my shoulders, you know?’

Irene smiled an exhausted smile.

‘I should’ve said something. When I realised we were drifting apart I should’ve stood up and put my foot down and put a stop to it. Mended us. It was my fault. You tried and tried and I really didn’t and I wish I could go back and put that right but I can’t.’

‘Yeah.’

‘So, I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I know I hurt you.’

‘I hurt you too.’

‘We hurt each other,’ Seulgi said, a quiet voice, barely her own. ‘But I genuinely did think we were right for each other.’

Irene nodded. For a long time she was silent and it was far too awkward and so she eventually settled on, ‘How’s it been since?’

‘What?’

‘Your dating life?’

‘Oh, you know…been great, actually. Been really great. I haven’t been able to keep the girls off of me for two minutes. I go home and it’s like there’s three, four girls in my bed to pick from. Every week is a different one. Yeah, it’s crazy. Just, y’know…es like crazy. I get all the es.’

‘So, no luck, then?’

Seulgi smiled. It was the first genuine smile Irene had seen all night. ‘No,’ she said. ‘No luck.’

‘Me neither.’

‘I miss you.’

‘I miss you too,’ Irene said.

‘Sorry about, y’know…being so forward with you earlier.’

‘It’s okay. You know I would’ve done the same if you didn’t.’

‘Yeah,’ Seulgi said. ‘Man, this is crazy, huh? This room, I mean. I didn’t think it was actually real.’

‘Yeah.’

‘How much do you think all this costs?’

‘Well, it’s priceless. But “priceless” isn’t a cost, so…. many, many millions. Dollars, I mean. Billions of won. I don’t even want to hazard a guess.’

‘Do you think she did it?’

‘What?’

‘Rosie. Do you think she killed him?’

‘Honest opinion?’

Seulgi nodded.

‘No. I don’t.’

‘Neither do I.’ Seulgi paused. Then: ‘Who do you think did?’

‘Colonel Mustard, in the library, with the lead pipe.’

‘Very funny.’

Irene shrugged shyly. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. And then, softer: ‘I wish we could’ve met again under different circumstances. I should’ve called.’

‘Me too. Sorry for, well, not doing that.’

‘Yeah.’

‘We should head back downstairs. They’ll probably be getting suspicious.’

‘Yeah,’ Irene said. Neither of them moved. Seulgi played with her fingers. It took Irene a great deal of courage to finally say: ‘Why are you here?’

‘What?’

‘What’s your reason for being here tonight?’

‘Are you seriously asking me that? Do you think I’m suspicious?’

‘I wanted to ask you away from the others. Away from where they could hear.’

‘Do you think I’m suspicious?’

‘That’s not what I said.’

Seulgi sighed. For a moment Irene thought she might not get an answer. But then Seulgi said, ‘I just got an invite in the post. I dunno why and I dunno how. It just showed up asking me to come along to this dinner. Same as you, right?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well, there you go.’

‘You’re not here on business like the others?’

‘I haven’t seen the guy in, like, two years. Not since he bought my artwork. I don’t even know where it is. It’s clearly not even in this ing room, so did he…you know.’

‘What?’

‘Did he sell them?’

‘Your paintings?’

Seulgi nodded.

‘I don’t know,’ Irene said. ‘Maybe.’

‘Man. Maybe he was an .’

‘What?’

‘That’s what they were all saying downstairs. They said he was an . The maids, I mean.’

‘Well, he was a businessman. Comes with the territory.’

‘Suppose so. Eat the rich, right?’

Irene laughed. There was a smile on Seulgi’s face that was almost too cute and Irene couldn’t help herself. So much to say and so many questions and so many pressing concerns but none of them mattered when Seulgi was in the frame. She stepped forward and closed the gap and cupped Seulgi’s face with her hands and kissed her deeply and Seulgi kissed her back. Irene kissed and kissed. They were still fighting downstairs or maybe they’d broken apart now but what did it matter? Seulgi was here and Seulgi had been sorely missed and now Irene would savour every moment of her, as if she might be reduced back into some apparitive state should Irene let her go again, back and out of her life forever, a woman of no real object permanence.

‘Damn,’ Seulgi muttered against her lips. ‘I forgot how good of a kisser you were.’

‘Shut up.’

‘And kiss you?’

Irene closed her eyes and met her lips again and giggled.

‘God I’ve missed— ow. Ow, .’

‘What?’

Seulgi pulled back with a grimace. ‘I’ve got cramp in my foot. . . Why do I always have to ruin at the perfect—’

‘Watch where you’re going,’ Irene said, but it was too late. Seulgi stepped back a slight and brushed one of the tall racks on the shelf to her right and that was that. Irene watched it in slow motion. Teetering, toppling, falling, gone. She lunged forward to grab one of the Qing vases as it seemed suspended in mid-air and accidentally bumped into another rack and slipped and fell against the shelf and then they were all coming down around her like ceramic rain.

‘,’ Seulgi said. ‘Oh my god.’

Do something, Irene wanted to say, but it was pointless. She closed her eyes. As if it might erase this nightmare. But it did not. She heard them crack, smash, explode. A billion won, twenty billion won, more. All shattered on the floor, bits of pottery and Qing history strewn like ruined shrapnel on the marble flooring. The sound seemed to carry on forever, like gunfire. Downstairs they’d stopped arguing for good. Irene wouldn’t open her eyes.

‘Oh my god,’ Seulgi said. She seemed to be in shock too. When Irene looked at her she confirmed this and almost laughed.

‘Oh my ing god.’

‘Seulgi.’

‘What have we done?’

‘We? That was you.’

‘Me? You knocked half of them off! Don’t blame this on me! I had cramp!’

‘Seulgi.’

‘Oh my god, what are we gonna do?’

‘Seulgi—’

‘I mean, we can glue them, right? We can get some superglue and stick them back together? Someone might notice but it’s better than this. Surely, it’s better than this. , I mean, anything’s got to be better than this. Oh my god.’

She closed her eyes and put one hand over her face like a child would. When she opened them again the pottery was still there, the plates too. ‘Oh my god,’ she said again.

‘Seulgi.’

‘What?’

‘We should go downstairs.’

‘What? Are you kidding me? Look at what we’ve done!’

‘Who cares? He’s dead, Seulgi.’

‘Jesus. Do you have any idea how much damage we’ve just caused?’

‘A lot,’ Irene said. And again, for some strange reason, she almost laughed.