Then Commander Yi, surprisingly, turned to me. “What do you think, Damo Seol?”
I licked my dry lips, my mouth filled with stammers and hesitation. I only knew how to be invisible before Commander Yi. In a bare whisper, I answered. But he told me to speak louder, more clearly.
“Wherever it is that the inspector went,” I repeated, “he left long after the murder occurred.”
“That is so … That is so…” With each moment, the shadows clouding Commander Yi’s brows seemed to clear, and certainty returned to his voice. “That is indeed so.”
Officer Shim looked over my way, a slight smile on his lips. I returned it, two comrades serving the same officer, recognizing each other from afar.
* * *
Dismissed, I picked up my tray and stepped out of the guest room into the vast shadow cast by the pavilion. We’ll soon find out who Lady O’s lover was, I thought, gripping the tray tighter as I traveled from courtyard to courtyard. He murdered her. Inspector Han had nothing to do with it.
The moment I walked into the kitchen, two pairs of curious eyes fixed on me. Hyeyeon’s and Aejung’s gazes followed me as I set the tray aside and reached for a wooden cup. My throat scratched with dryness, my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. Anxiety did that to me. I dipped the cup into a water bucket, filling it to the brim, and then emptied it in a few swallows.
“Well?” came Hyeyeon’s voice, smooth and calm. “What happened inside?”
The thought crossed my mind that what I knew was confidential, yet Commander Yi had not warned me to keep silent, and so I told her bits and pieces of what had occurred, about Soyi’s confession, about Inspector Han’s testimony.
“I found it strange,” I added. “Commander Yi mentioned that Inspector Han’s rivals might use this testimony to ruin his reputation somehow.”
“I can think of only one rival Inspector Han has, and it’s someone close to this case. Someone whose name starts with an R.”
“Do you mean…” I paused, remembering a name mentioned by Commander Yi at one point. “Kyŏn?”
Hyeyeon arched a brow. “I said, starting with the letter R. I forget you don’t know your Hangul characters. But yes, I was referring to the same person. Kyŏn, the Rat.”
“I’ll wager it is him,” Aejung hurried to say. “I’ve seen him sneaking in and out of the bureau often these days. Like today, I overheard him tell an officer that he’s going to get his hands on something that will bring Inspector Han down. He mentioned ‘false accusation,’ but by then he was too far for me to hear the rest.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “Why is he suddenly going against the inspector?”
“It’s because he’s jealous,” Hyeyeon said.
“Of who?”
“He is jealous of you.”
“Me?”
“Kyŏn is only two years older than you, Seol-ah. He despises you for discrediting him, and he despises the inspector for rewarding you when you saved his life by stealing Kyŏn’s arrow. But above all, he cannot stand you because you are a girl who did all these things.”
“Because I’m a girl,” I repeated. A sickening sensation rolled out from those words, and in that moment, the gravity of his hatred became real before my eyes. A hatred that did not wallow as a mere emotion, but toughened into a blade that would make skin bleed.
Aejung’s face drained of color, too. “Do you think we should actually be worried for the inspector?” she whispered.
“Inspector Han has an alibi. He has someone to prove that he was elsewhere during the time of Lady O’s killing.” There was a solidness to Hyeyeon’s voice, leaving no room for doubt. “He had nothing to do with the killing, so we needn’t worry. Kyŏn can stir up lies, but in the end, the truth will remain.”
I’d always prided myself on my sense of loyalty; I’d had the best of friends at home in Inchon Prefecture because of it. Yet compared to Hyeyeon’s, mine seemed watery.
My voice sounded too light as I asked, “Then who do you think the killer is?”
“Someone without an alibi.”
* * *
False accusation.
The term had blown by me when Aejung had mentioned it, yet now it was all I could think about. Those were the words Officer Kyŏn had uttered in the same breath as his claim that he’d discovered something that might ruin Inspector Han.
I had once been too young to understand this term, but it had stuck to me, and with passing years it had grown in meaning. Hidden truth—injustice, the victim hurting while the criminal went unpunished—a veil of lies and misunderstandings that needed to be torn down. False accusation. Those two words had turned into a sharp bone caught in my throat, digging and piercing, refusing to go down no matter how hard I swallowed.
Whatever Officer Kyŏn was up to, I needed to know. Everywhere he went, I tried to follow. Sweeping the verandas, mopping floors, carrying trays in and out of quarters, delivering letters for clerks and officers. I did anything that would keep me close to him. As invincible as Inspector Han seemed, I knew he was human, his life as fragile as my mother’s. And how easily her life had shattered into splintered bones upon the rocks. Lies could easily topple the inspector off the edge, too.
“I’m convinced of it,” Officer Kyŏn was telling his gang of officers. “This year, I will pass the mugwa examination. I’ve failed getting in each time, because it’s not about skills, it’s about whether you know the right people…”
Nothing about Kyŏn’s behavior seemed out of the ordinary, until evening approached that same day, hours since Aejung had shared Kyŏn’s plan to falsely accuse the inspector.
The purple sky deepened into midnight black. A darkness so deep and quiet, swamped in slumbering silence, that Kyŏn must have thought himself sneaky. But in the western courtyard where I crouched, hiding beyond the screen of blue fog, my eyes widened at the sight of him. He snuck out of the officers’ sleeping quarter and now stood on the pavilion veranda. Sneaking around like the rat that he was. A creaking step forward, stop, another step, pause. He glanced in all directions, except at the shadowy area to his side, where I was hiding. At last, he pulled open the sliding door, then disappeared into the Office of the Inspector.
My straw sandals muted my steps as I hurried along the veranda toward the edge of the stone steps. I opened the door slightly and peered through the slit. Officer Kyŏn took out what seemed to be a tinderbox, and light sparked to life, too bright in the dark office. He seemed aware of this, for his movements quickened, as though time was running out. He rifled through papers inside a box-shaped object and took one. A longer look, and familiarity struck. It was the black-lacquered document box, the pretty one I’d seen sitting on Inspector Han’s shelf.
Officer Kyŏn quickly folded the sheet he’d stolen and inserted it into his robe. He blew out the candle, and at once I withdrew back into the shadows as he rushed out of the office and out of the courtyard.
For a moment I stayed still, my hands and legs trembling. I had to wait for Inspector Han to report what had happened. But then an impulse leapt into my bones.
Follow him.