First the housekeeper pushed the door open with her hip, then came the serving trolley, its wheels making only a faint scraping sound on the stone floor. On the trolley stood a small charcoal grill, low and wide, with a shiny lid beside it. Beneath it, the charcoal glowed a dark red. On the grill lay a whole octopus, already pre-cooked, now crisping up over the heat and glistening with oil, lemon and herbs. The arms had drawn in, the suction cups were lightly browned. A scent of the sea, smoke, garlic and burnt lemon filled the room.

For a moment, everyone looked in that direction.
That was Bianca’s art. She made a funeral dinner give way to a meal.
“The octopus,” she said.
Nothing more.
Vittorio refolded the napkin on his lap, as if by doing so he had marked the transition from bread to the next course. Mary laid her knife on her plate. Fiona sat up straighter. Meghan seemed to turn even paler, but she looked on. Justin noticed that Brian, too, couldn’t look away. For a moment, Emmett seemed almost relieved.

“Oh,” he said quietly. “That’s very dramatic. It gives the octopus carcass one last glorious and fragrant appearance.”
Bianca positioned the trolley next to the table so that the grill remained visible to everyone. Then she took a long knife and a meat fork. Her movements were precise and steady. She carved the octopus as if it had been waiting just to be divided amongst eleven people.
“With olive oil, lemon, oregano and a touch of olive wood smoke,” she explained as she cut the first pieces. “Add a little sea salt. No more.”
“Olive wood smoke?” asked Lito.

“A small twig in the coals is enough,” explained the housekeeper, whilst she continued to cut up the octopus and divide it amongst the waiting fish plates.
Lito acknowledged the answer with a grateful nod. Emmett leaned forward.
Once she’d finished dividing up the octopus, she deftly served the starter plates first, one by one, before setting out the octopus plate and fish cutlery for each person, starting with Mary, so that no one would burn their lips on the piping-hot seafood. The portions were small, almost modest: a piece of octopus, a little oil, a quarter of a lemon, two sprigs of oregano.
Sun thanked her quietly, for the octopus reminded her of Korea, of fresh seafood and of her father, who had displayed a large aquarium in his office. Bianca placed the plate in front of her, without lingering any longer with her than with the others.
Brian cut into the octopus. “This is the first evening of my life when I’ve wondered whether food can be too good for the circumstances.”

“No,” said Emmett. “Good food is never to blame for bad circumstances; it’s only because there are bad people who spoil even good food.” He cast a quick sideways glance at Sun, then looked back at the piece of octopus on his plate. “But as long as we’re all together, nothing can happen to anyone. Then we’ll even have ten arms, not just eight.”
Justin tasted a small piece. The skin was crispy around the edges, whilst the flesh remained tender inside.
 
There was hardly any smokiness – more of a hint than a flavour. He couldn’t help thinking of how the woman’s body had looked in the courtyard, half-twisted on the stone, and put his fork down again.
Brian noticed. “Eleven arms, right?”
Brian, too, instinctively glanced at Sun, and it wasn’t clear whether he meant the housekeeper or the Korean woman.
Brian didn’t reply, but pushed his own plate slightly to one side after wolfing down the whole octopus in three bites, even though he was disgusted by sea creatures of that sort.
At the other end of the table, Mary took a bite, slowly enough that no one could say she was eating greedily, but resolutely enough to show that she wouldn’t let a death spoil her appetite.
“You said,” Fiona began, “that the only way to get to the island is by boat.”
She was speaking to Vittorio, but her gaze drifted to Sun, who was savouring the lemony flavour of the crispy octopus with her eyes closed. 
“Yes,” said Vittorio. “By boat or helicopter. You’d hear either of them from a distance, just as we did with your boats and the cadets’ barge.”
“Then she must have come by boat.”
“Probably.”

“Not on ours,” said Mary.

Meghan shook her head. “No.”
“Not on Justine’s either,” said Fiona.
Justine put down her fork. “I’d have noticed her.”
“Perhaps she did come on the cadets’ barge after all, then changed her outfit and sneaked over to the bandstand,” speculated Emmett.
“Unlikely,” said Vittorio. “The barge was moored at the jetty. And the cadets were clearly visible on board the whole time. Besides, even with their Austrian discipline, they would have noticed if a stranger had been disguised as a cadet – especially someone who was clearly over nineteen. In fact, more your age, Meghan.” Meghan started slightly. Mary, too, stabbed her fork so hard into the last piece of octopus on her fish plate that it made a soft sound.

Vittorio raised his hand in surprise before Mary had to explain anything. “Let’s be clear: none of us saw how she got here.”
“And nobody knows her,” said Fiona.
The statement was very clear.
Justine looked at her grandmother. “What, then, was a stranger doing on your island, Your Eminence?”
Fiona picked up her glass but didn’t drink. “No one will ever know, now that the poor thing is dead.”
Mary dabbed the corners of her mouth with her napkin. “I see no reason to carry on talking about a stranger.”
Lito looked back and forth between the Cleary women. He had stopped eating. Wolfgang had also put down his fork after finishing the octopus on his plate without realising it. Sun drank some water to relive the wonderful flavour once more, but she didn’t take her eyes off Mary.
“I didn’t know her,” said Sun calmly. “But she might have known someone here – why else would she have gone to the trouble of travelling to this remote island? It would be easier to commit suicide in many other places.”

Mary turned her head towards her. “You didn’t even see her before she was lying next to you? We don’t actually know if it was suicide – after all, there’s no suicide note.”
“I didn’t see her face. But she wasn’t on this island by chance. And perhaps there is a letter that the police will find once they search the body.”
“And who would have written that letter before the police arrived? You?” Mary had very skilfully chosen this ambiguous phrasing to put Sun on the spot. Emmett came to her aid mentally.
“A letter that would only be written after her death? That would be an attempt to conceal the true cause of death. We’d have to examine that letter closely to see if the ink is still fresh.”
The small charcoal barbecue crackled. Bianca took the lid off the lower tier of the serving trolley and closed the barbecue before leaving the room with the trolley.

Vittorio looked at Meghan. “Perhaps we shouldn’t speculate any further until the police arrive.”
“The police will ask who she was too,” said Brian.
Vittorio turned to the housekeeper, who had returned to the room. “Bianca?”
“Your Eminence, I must say something.”
Everyone looked at her.
Bianca clasped her hands in front of her apron. Her fingers were reddened by the heat and the washing-up water, but they weren’t trembling.

“When I covered the young woman in the courtyard with the sheet, there was a handbag lying near her. Not under her body. A little way away, next to the wall.”
Mary fell completely silent.
“Did you touch the bag?” asked Fiona.
“I picked it up so the wind wouldn’t scatter the papers. And because the police will ask for her name. I was wearing kitchen gloves so as not to smudge any evidence.”
“And?” Vittorio’s voice was calm, but very attentive.
“There was an ID card in the purse: her name was Valeria Sebastienne.”
The name wasn’t spoken aloud in the room. It wasn’t heavy enough to make a sound. But it changed the demeanour of the four Cleary women.
With Mary, it was almost imperceptible: a glance that, for a moment, didn’t rest on Bianca but on the emerald around her own neck.
Fiona lowered her eyes.
Meghan closed hers.
Justine fell very silent.

Justin and Wolfgang noticed this synchronised change with great astonishment. Emmett noticed it too, and in doing so forgot that he’d been meaning to watch Sun.
“Sebastian Valerienne? So the woman was actually a man? Dressed in women’s clothes?” said Brian.
Mary replied immediately. “You weren’t listening: Valeria Sebastienne. It’s a woman’s name belonging to a female corpse.”
“But that makes the corpse a woman,” whispered Justin, shaken.
Meghan opened her eyes. “Please.”
Fiona took her hand under the table. This time, Meghan let her.
Vittorio looked at Bianca. “Where’s the bag now?”
“In the library, Your Eminence. I didn’t search it any further. Just the ID card and the purse, to see if she was rich. But there was only the ID card in the purse, no money, absolutely no money. How was she going to pay for the return journey?”

Fiona cut into the conversation with analytical detachment: “If she had chosen this island as the place of her death, then money for the return journey would have been a tragic futility, because her body will be transported to the mainland or to Hydra by the police free of charge. Of course, there is also the possibility that the person who pushed her to her death took the money.”
Mary raised her head. “A murderer and a thief?”
Sun looked at Mary. “My family owns the largest bank in Korea, if that’s what you’re implying – that I’d have to steal a stranger’s pocket money. Just last month I lent a friend five hundred million at an auction.”

Mary turned to her. “Careful, Miss Bak, don’t accuse me of character assassination!”
Wolfgang chuckled: “Whilst you, Mrs Carson, have just accused Sun of the robbery and murder of Valeria Sebastienne?”
Wolfgang placed his hand next to his glass, flat on the table. Not threateningly. But close enough to Sun that it was clear which side he was on.
Justine looked at Mary. “Do we really need to think about who Valeria Sebastienne is?”
“Bianca, prepare the soup!”
“Yes, Your Eminence.”

As the door closed behind her, the name remained on the table: Valeria Sebastienne.
Nobody knew her; and all four Cleary women hoped it would stay that way.