Gathering Evidence
Unlike the chaos that had erupted earlier, the hallway was as quiet and cool as ever. If Uncle hadn’t been in that state, it would have been a boring but peaceful dinner.
Gaon walked slowly along the corridor. She had hoped to catch even a glimpse of Lee Yong-hoon and Kim Ju-yeon’s retreating figures, but they had already vanished without a trace.
Director Baek Jeong-hak is receiving his punishment.
Lee Yong-hoon’s memo came back to her. She had never held a long conversation with the gardener. She had simply known him as someone hired alongside Kim Ju-yeon when the woman first came to the mansion. All of them had been brought here by Baek Jeong-hak.
What sort of punishment was Uncle supposed to be receiving? Gaon had never seen him mistreat the staff. On the contrary, whenever she tried to drive Kim Ju-yeon out, Baek Jeong-hak had always shielded her. As an employer, then, he hadn’t been a bad man—yet Lee Yong-hoon’s manner faintly revealed hostility toward him.
I don’t know.
Events she couldn’t understand kept crashing one after another, and Gaon had lost her bearings. In her hand she still held the home camera Baek Jeong-hak had smashed to pieces. Even if Uncle was in that condition, the surveillance had to continue. She couldn’t simply stand by and do nothing about who the culprit was, or how much of Gayoung’s words were true.
But how? If he discovered that cameras had been installed on the second floor as well, wouldn’t Baek Jeong-hak fly into another fit like that? Gaon let out a long sigh.
“Are you truly all right?”
A low voice settled into the quiet hallway.
Gaon, who hadn’t realized anyone was following her, spun around in surprise.
It was Cha Taekyung. She had thought he was still in the dining room discussing what to do next with Cha Gil-ho, yet it seemed he had been trailing after her all along.
“Yes. I’m fine.”
Gaon nodded. The man’s gaze seemed to linger on the crumpled hem of her blouse, so she rubbed at her collar for no reason. One of the buttons had been torn off by Jeong-hak’s rough grip. Cha Taekyung himself, who had actually taken the full spray of Baek Jeong-hak’s spit, had already changed; he was wearing a different knit sweater from before.
As her eyes drifted down his frame, Gaon suddenly came to her senses and jerked her head up. She had remembered the weapon he carried. The plastic bottle between his legs. Why on earth did such a filthy thought have to surface now?
Wondering whether he had caught her impure glance, she studied his face, but it remained perfectly calm, revealing nothing.
“Thank you for earlier.”
She offered the belated, stumbling words of gratitude. When Baek Jeong-hak had seized her by the collar, the only person who had stepped in without hesitation was Cha Taekyung. Cha Gil-ho had been paralyzed with fear, and Han Jun-seok hadn’t dared come near either.
“It’s broken.”
Cha Taekyung murmured, looking at the home camera. Gaon shrugged, forcing an air of composure.
“I must have installed it more conspicuously than I thought.”
“Or someone tipped him off.”
“Who?”
“The culprit could be anywhere. The person who bought you that camera might have told him.”
He spoke as though he already knew perfectly well that the buyer had been Han Jun-seok. Gaon shook her head. She didn’t trust Han Jun-seok either, but far too much had happened today; thinking clearly was difficult. She barely had the energy left to worry about what came next.
“In my opinion—”
Cha Taekyung stepped closer and lowered his voice. A deep shadow fell over Gaon, as if a giant yew were casting its shade. A cool, cold scent brushed the tip of her nose.
“Baek Jeong-hak is the culprit.”
“……What?”
Distracted for an instant by his scent, Gaon failed to catch his words at once.
“The one who killed the rat. He might have done it while drunk. Or he might have done something stupid because of paranoia or delusions of grandeur. Baek Jeong-hak is the most suspicious.”
“……On what grounds?”
“There’s no evidence yet. It’s a hunch. He’s someone who enjoys hunting animals even in ordinary times, so killing a rat would be easy for him. He also seems to be hiding a great deal about Baek Gayoung. The more secrets a person keeps, the dirtier their past tends to be. His excessive reaction today was strange as well.”
Those words pierced something in Gaon’s heart. She had never considered Uncle’s taxidermy hobby in that light. She had simply thought of it as a pastime, yet upon reflection it was a truly cruel disposition. Uncle was a man who casually killed deer, wild boars, and every sort of beast.
“But why would Uncle….”
He wanted to keep the sisters trapped on this island. He simply wanted them to receive treatment quietly and live as if they were already dead. There was no reason at all for him to scatter corpses about to frighten them.
Could it really be?
A sudden doubt rose in Gaon. Baek Jeong-hak shouting that he had left her alone because of Gayoung. Baek Gayoung shuddering that Uncle was a bad man.
Looking closely, it seemed that ever since Baek Jeong-hak had returned to the island, every part of their lives had come unraveled. Was there something more beyond the facts Gaon already knew? She could not bring herself to trust her own judgment.
“First, securing evidence should be the priority.”
As if offering direction to the confused Baek Gaon, Cha Taekyung spoke in a neat, decisive voice. She quietly looked up at him. His pitch-black gaze met hers without flinching. Something strange churned in her stomach. She firmly crushed that odd feeling. All of this abnormal undercurrent was because of his obscene body. In the present situation, as he said, gathering evidence came first.
“How…? The camera has already been discovered….”
“Now we install one secretly so it won’t be found.”
“I don’t have any spare cameras left.”
“I have one. A camera.”
Cha Taekyung smiled. It was that familiar cool smile in which the eyes never joined.
Cha Taekyung’s room was next to the counseling office. Cha Gil-ho used the room connected to the counseling suite, while Cha Taekyung occupied a completely separate guest room. The layout of the guest rooms was largely the same: a window facing the garden, an old wooden wardrobe, a bed, a dressing table, and only the most basic furnishings. Cha Gil-ho’s room likely had its own bathroom, but this one did not. Taekyung had to use the shared guest bathroom in the hallway. Of course, with only the two of them as guests, it hardly seemed inconvenient.
As expected, Cha Taekyung’s room was filled with potted plants. Gaon’s gaze was caught by the feast of greenery crowding the table, the floorboards, and the space beside the bed. Realizing she was examining it too closely, she stepped back. This was a man’s private space. Simply looking inside already felt strange.
“This is it.”
Cha Taekyung brought out one of the pots—a small, ordinary-looking black one.
Gaon stared in bewilderment.
“This is….”
Was he about to say something absurd again just to provoke her? The moment she began to brace herself, Taekyung pointed to the tiny holes in the pot. Arranged in a regular pattern, they looked at first glance like mere decoration.
“The lens is inside.”
“……It’s completely undetectable.”
Gaon murmured. It was true. Even with Taekyung pointing it out, the naked eye could barely confirm it.
“Why did you install something like this in a flowerpot?”
It was hardly an everyday item. The home camera Gaon had set up was child’s play by comparison. The price was probably far higher than she imagined.
“You never know when or how it might be needed. I used them as CCTV in the clinic. Of course I informed the patients’ guardians. For certain patients the very presence of a camera can be a sensitive trigger, so these were for concealed use.”
Gaon remembered that this man had once been a psychiatrist. She still found it hard to believe.
“Could it be….”
She started to ask and then closed her mouth. Cha Taekyung owned several of these pots, and he had even given one to her. She had left that pot sitting neglected in a corner of her room for days. If a camera had been hidden inside it, Taekyung could easily have watched her every move.
“I know what you’re imagining, but no.”
There was a hint of laughter in Cha Taekyung’s voice.
“Though of course it would have been quite enjoyable.”
Crazy bastard.
Gaon held back the curse with desperate patience. Despite his clean, cold appearance, Cha Taekyung was vulgar. The way he displayed his lust without the slightest concealment, and felt not a shred of guilt for his rudeness, made it even worse.
“Install it somewhere visible. Freely.”
While Gaon was still speechless, Taekyung casually pressed the pot into her hands.
“If you aren’t coming in, you may leave now.”
An unmistakable dismissal laced with subtle invitation made for an excellent tease. Gaon no longer even had the strength to get angry; she simply turned away. Worried that her cheeks might be burning in a mess, she quickened her steps.
She set the pot in a suitable spot in the hall—on the sofa table. Amid the many taxidermied specimens displayed in the center of the hall, the black flowerpot blended in without the slightest sense of incongruity. No one looking at it would ever imagine a camera was hidden inside.
Gaon did not return to her room at once. She went out into the garden and walked straight to the grave beside the shed where she had buried the rat’s corpse. The Seokgok still nestled in its blue porcelain pot was alive and vibrant. Without hesitation she smashed the pot. She examined every shard of blue porcelain one by one, checking for any hidden camera. The Seokgok, now homeless, tumbled carelessly onto the weed-choked ground, but she paid it no mind. Damp soil and moss. Porcelain fragments that broke with dull sounds. Her white hands were quickly soiled with earth.
There was no camera.