Valeria Sebastienne.
The name lay there like a prickly, curled-up hedgehog amongst the silver cutlery, the small soup plates and the last glistening traces of olive oil. Out on the terrace, Justin, Justine and Lito stood in a pale rectangle of moonlight and the glow from the doorway, because the Cardinal had allowed them to freshen up a little in the open air after the pungency of the octopus and the equally spicy cucumber soup. Justin had his arms crossed; Justine was speaking quickly and quietly; Lito was listening to her and glancing back into the dining room every now and then. You could see them, but not understand what they were saying.

Brian was sitting further down, with his back half turned towards the terrace, so that he could still see Justin out of the corner of his eye. Emmett had sat up too straight, as if good posture were meant to make up for a lack of certainty.
Fiona folded her hands in her lap. Meghan looked at her plate, on which the soup was now nothing more than a faint memory.

“Valeria Sebastienne,” said Fiona at last. “A French name.”

“Or a pseudonym meant to sound French,” said Brian.
Mary looked at him. “Can you tell the difference? Do you think the dead girl’s parents had a soft spot for the French Revolution? Or do you think Valeria came up with that name herself?”
“I usually can tell whether something is genuine or just sounds genuine. In advertising, I have to be able to sell rubbish too, but I can only do that credibly if I know beforehand that it’s bound to be a lie.”
Vittorio reached for his glass of water. “All we know is that the woman had an ID card on her. Names can be real or fake, or made up for ideological reasons. The police will look into that.”
“The police,” said Mary, “will also investigate why Miss Bak was kneeling next to that woman.”
Wolfgang set his glass down after finishing it. He gave a grateful nod to the cardinal, who was topping up his wine. The sound wasn’t loud, but it was clear.

“She was kneeling beside her because she’d jumped into her lap. We know that the gate to Kapellenweg was blocked; and we know that Sun didn’t jump off the cliff with a parachute.”
“That’s your Polish interpretation.”
“I’m Russian.”

“You live in Berlin, so you’re Polish, regardless of your mother tongue. Even the woman who called herself Valeria could have been a Polish agent, investigating whether this private island could be collectivised,” said Mary, “It’s just a matter of imagination.”

Sun looked up. “I don’t need imagination for the truth to remain the truth.”
Emmett looked at her. He was holding the spoon as if it were a weapon, even though the soup had long since been finished. “Anyone who’s against imagination must come from a grey dictatorship. Without imagination, what would window dressers do—fill in calculation tables?”
Wolfgang turned to him. “What does it look like, then?”

“A woman falls. Another is alone in the courtyard. No one else saw her. No one knows where the dead woman came from. That’s not nothing.”
“And from that you’re making it a murder?”
“I’m making it a suspicion,” said Emmett. “That’s the only logical conclusion, because the rest of us were all together. None of us was away from the group at the time of the fall or the push, except Miss Bak.”

Brian leaned back. “He’s right. It looks bad.”
Wolfgang’s gaze darted towards him.
“Thanks, Brian,” said Emmett, visibly relieved.
“I said it looks bad. Not that it’s true. It could just as easily have been a fall – no push, no jump.”

Mary picked up on that. “And what, in your opinion, would be the truth, Mr Kinney?”
Brian looked at Sun. “That she was either very unlucky, or someone wanted her to be very unlucky.”
Sun met his gaze. She nodded almost imperceptibly. It wasn’t thanks, but rather acknowledgement of a useful way of putting it.
“The gate to the chapel was locked,” said Fiona. “Vittorio checked it.”
“From below,” said Mary.
“Yes.”

“Anyone with a key can lock a gate.”
Mary looked at Sun. “And suspicion is only to be expected in a house where someone has died. Do you have a key to the gate, Miss Sun?”
Meghan took a deep breath. “Please, Aunt Mary, you’re not the police.”
Mary didn’t turn round. “Yes, I am, Meggie. If we all have to stay here until the police arrive, then I’d like to know who I’m sitting at the table with. Wouldn’t you also want to know if Dane’s death wasn’t an accident, but a murder?”

“Mary, that’s inappropriate,” Vittorio rebuked her sharply. “Dane’s death was a tragic accident. We’re commemorating him with this meal. Nothing about his death is comparable to the body of Valeria Sebastienne.”
“I don’t have a key, and I wouldn’t know who else but the Cardinal I could have got one from. And why should I have asked him, or why should he have given me one, when I had plenty of space in the courtyard to hold the memorial service for your grandnephew, even though I’d only met him once in Rome at the theatre? But as a Buddhist, I still wanted to pay him the honour and support his next incarnation.”
Emmett briefly lowered his gaze. The remark struck a chord with him, even though he hadn’t meant it to.
Mary didn’t let up. “His resurrection, do you mean?”

Sun growled irritably: “I know I didn’t push her.”
Wolfgang nodded. “I can confirm that. I’ve had enough of this subject for now.”
“Perhaps for you,” said Mary. “But I’m not particularly interested in your standards.”
Emmett looked at Wolfgang. “I don’t mean any harm, but how do we actually know what your standards are?”
Wolfgang slowly turned his head towards him.

Emmett continued, now too quickly, as if he had to get the words out before he felt like a coward. “You said yourself earlier that you’re a petty criminal in Berlin. Or something along those lines. I heard it. Others certainly did too. And now you’re sitting here telling us what’s reasonable because you believe your girlfriend, who was found next to the body.”
“Sun isn’t my girlfriend.”

Emmett had now caught wind of something: “Then why did you come on the boat with her if she isn’t your girlfriend? Berlin and Seoul aren’t that close to each other, neither geographically nor politically.”
Wolfgang was silent for a moment.
Brian gave a wry smile. “Interesting question, Emmett.”

“I’m just trying to understand who we’re supposed to trust here.”
Wolfgang lashed out: “You sleep around with everyone who came here on the boat with you, you shop-window queer.”
Emmett looked hurt, but he didn’t back down. Mary immediately came to his defence: “I won’t tolerate language like that at the table. Apologise to Mr Honeycutt immediately!”

Emmett smiled gratefully, but waved her off. “Thank you, Mrs Carson, but I’ve been called worse nicknames. And just for the record: I think Justin’s too young, but I’d sleep with Brian. Though I wouldn’t cover for him if I knew he’d committed murder.”
Wolfgang’s voice grew quieter. “I’ve done things that were criminal. That doesn’t mean I can’t tell when someone’s lying.”
“Or when someone isn’t lying,” said Sun.
“Stop it,” said Meghan suddenly.

Everyone looked at her.
Meghan was still staring at her plate. “All this making excuses, as if we were already in the courtroom. We don’t know who the woman was. And we don’t know who Miss Bak is, apart from the fact that you seem to have found a kindred spirit in Mr Bogdanow.”
“We know her name,” said Fiona.
Mary set down her glass. “Sometimes a name is enough to know that trouble has arrived.”
The words were too precise.
Fiona looked up. “Mary.”
“What?”

“Do you recognise that name?”
Mary’s mouth remained shut for a moment. She took her time choosing her answer. Too much time.
“I might have heard it.”
Meghan closed her eyes.
Brian noticed immediately. “Perhaps.”

“A household like Drogheda,” said Mary, “attracts many names over the years. Tenants, suppliers, relatives of relatives, supplicants, inheritance hunters. You don’t remember every single one.”
“But these ones? Valeria Sebastienne and Sun Bak?” said Sun.
Mary’s gaze turned cold. “Miss Bak, I’ve just advised you to be careful. I shall remember your name; this encounter is one of the strangest of my life.”
“No,” said Sun. “You threatened me.”
Wolfgang almost smiled.

Emmett looked back and forth between them. “That doesn’t help.”
“It helps me,” said Sun. “I understand threats better when they aren’t disguised as politeness.”
Vittorio placed his hand on the table. “Enough.”
He didn’t say it out loud, but this time the room had no choice but to comply. Through the open doors, Justine’s voice could be heard outside, a snippet of Lito’s reply, then the soft scraping of Justine’s shoe on stone. The light on the terrace made the three absent figures visible, like characters in another universe.
“We’re not the police,” said Vittorio. “And we’re not the court either.”

“We don’t need to be, after that confession,” said Mary.

Fiona looked at Sun again. “Let’s clarify the confession: when the woman fell, were you sitting on the bench or standing?”
“I was standing. I’d just finished a movement. And I want to put on record: this is not a confession.”
“What movement had you just finished?” Fiona didn’t let up.
Sun set her glass down. Then she rose slowly.
Wolfgang tensed, but she didn’t look at him. She took a step back from the table, to where there was a bit of space between two chairs. Her hands hung loosely at her sides. Then she raised her arms, not high, but fluidly, as if she were opening a circle. One foot stepped back, her upper body turned; her breath guided the movement more than her muscles. 
Everyone watched her.

“There,” said Sun. “I’ve moved slowly and without force.”
“That looks to me like a martial art,” said Mary. “Is that how you pushed Valeria off the cliff: gently and with self-control?”
“It’s an exercise for the body, not for fighting, even if untrained eyes see it that way.”
“Martial art,” Mary repeated. “Because, school or not, my eyes can see that you’re capable of it, Miss Bak. If you’re capable, why shouldn’t you do it?”
Sun let her arms drop. “Anyone in this room can push someone; why shouldn’t someone else do it, just because they’re capable of it?”

Fiona dabbed her mouth with a napkin. “Not everyone is as effective. As rarely as I agree with my sister-in-law, she’s right on this point.” Mary looked at Fiona in astonishment.
Meghan agreed absently, “And not everyone would need to.”
Brian let out a short laugh before he could stop himself. “A point for the Cleary family.”
Mary looked at him. “Your loyalty shifts quickly.”
Emmett shook his head. “But Mary isn’t entirely wrong. Someone who’s trained can do things others can’t.”

Wolfgang’s voice hardened. “And someone who’s rich can do things others can’t, because afterwards they can afford a solicitor or a crime scene cleaner. I know families like that.”
Vittorio said, “That’s exactly why we’re not playing it.”
Fiona looked at him. “But the police will.”
“Yes. With Greek authority. Later, once they’ve arrived.”
“Perhaps too late.” The words came from Meghan. Quietly, almost against her will.
Mary turned to her. “What do you mean?”

Meghan shook her head. “Nothing, but if someone has killed one person, they might do the same to others.”
“Meggie.”
“I just mean, if someone brought that woman to the island, then that person might still be here and kill us all like a hydra.”
Silence fell once more. No one had previously linked the island’s name to the Greek demoness, but now everyone at the table froze, their faces turning to stone.
Outside, Lito let out a brief laugh, far too bright for the situation. Then he fell silent, as if he himself had sensed that it didn’t belong in the room.

Brian looked towards the terrace. “Justin should come back inside.”
“Why?” asked Emmett.
“Because he’s a better observer than all of us put together, men and women.”
Sun sat down again. 
“Miss Bak,” said Vittorio, “I’m going to tell the police what I saw: that you were standing next to the woman, yes, but also that the gate to Kapellenweg was locked and that no one here can explain how you could have come back from up there, even if you had managed to walk up to the chapel in the short time it took us to pray.”

Mary opened her mouth, but he raised his hand.

“And I shall also say that suspicion is not proof, and that you did not wish to make a confession.”
“Has she retracted her confession from earlier?” asked Mary, dismayed.
Emmett looked down at his hands. “Nobody took a statement.”
Wolfgang replied immediately. “We’re having dinner, not an interrogation.”
Emmett swallowed.
Sun looked at him. “How I wish the police were here already!”