Ji-Hoon pressed on the remote control and changed the picture on the meeting room screen.

- "If we consider the victims were given drugs to keep them quiet until he killed them, but that he did not touch them until a certain moment, then the date and the exact hour of their deaths surely have crucial importance for the criminal."

He looked at Min-Ho, under the annoyed eyes of the seventeen other members of the special team gathered to investigate.

Surely somebody else also had this information, but with an annoying habit, the professor always turned to the young detective when it came to data.

On the screen, the picture showed the three victims - father, daughter-in-law and eight-year-old grandson - such as they had been discovered the previous week: in the middle of the green living-room, tied up and sitting each on a chair, back to back in a circling shape, each lowered head in a paper bag.

There were no signs of fight, only the vestiges of a not very clean nor very tidy family.

On the mirror which occupied the wall in length, four big letters had been painted in a bloody red.

"FAKE"

It was not blood, though, but oil paint - there wasn't the slightest drop of blood anywhere. The victims had cleanly been suffocated, before the criminal had thread them with a gallow hat of brown paper.

- "All of them have died between 20:00 to 20:15 on December the 03rd", read Min-Ho when he found the information on his notepad. "Last Friday, in other words."

Baek Do Shik scratched his nose, leaning against the wall.

03.

" Fake. "

Father, Daughter, Grandson.

There was a silence in which you could almost hear the brains ruminate and rustle in search of a link in the collected data.

- "I get it", said suddenly Detective Lee.

It was the arrogant young man to whom the investigation had belonged before the Head of Police had decided to turn it into national teamwork. Min-Ho and Ji-Hoon knew him, they had met him during the case of professor Kang's suicide, when the kid was still only a pupil at the Police Academy - already recognized a genius.

He got up and grabbed an erasable felt-tip pen.

- "Fake, for deceit. The man: father", he scribbled on the glass panel. "Daughter: female, the third of december: Friday. Do we know anything special about the kid? Something beginning with a -F-."

There was a sceptical rustle.

- "Do you think you're back to the golden age, Detective Lee?" scoffed somebody.

- "It's been a case closed for ten years!" growled out somebody else.

None of the former members of special team TEN would have called this time "the golden age", though. Too much bitter memories were bound to the initial F.

Ji-Hoon focused on the picture on the screen.

Park Min-Ho shook his head, chewing on the hood of his pen.

- "That does not make sense… he never murdered a whole family…only women…" mumbled Baek Do Shik, not wanting to let go of the slightest random coincidence.

Family also began with an F, in English.

Detective Lee pouted, blowing a rather condescending eye on the room. He opened his mouth but Ji-Hoon interrupted him.

- "If this is a copy-cat murder, then writing "fake" would make sense, he said slowly, putting his hands in his pockets. He paced a bit, thoughtful. "But why tell us, then? An accomplice who would have given the game away? And why? Or was there a second passage on the crime scene before we discovered i)? Somebody who had a reason for not calling the police but preferred to write this…"

Now, the investigators gathered around the long oval table began to think about it too.

Detective Lee pulled a face, annoyed and dropped in his seat.

Obviously, once the hypothesis had passed through the professor's mouth, they took account of it without making it a laughing matter.

- "Where does the paint they used to write it come from ? Was it already on the spot?"

Min-ho quickly went through his notepad.

- "No", he answered, scratching his neck. "We established the murderer had brought it with him."

- "Thus it was planned", thought aloud the professor. He crossed his arms, settled comfortably in front of the image with the sharpened face which his former teammates knew by heart. "No person X who discovers the scene, that is. Unless it was a house painter equipped with the exact can of blood red oil paint…"

His thumb went to his upper lip, finding back the familiar spot of intense reflection.

The phone rang. Detective Lee leaned in and picked up the receiver in front of him.

- "It's for you, professor", he said after a few minutes. "The caller didn't give his name, but they insisted with the desk lady, saying it's about the current investigation.

Ji-Hoon nodded. His eyes didn't leave the screen.

- "Put him in loudspeaker", he said absently.

There was a light crackling when the call passed into the baffles, then a light humming.

- "Yeo Ji-Hoon, speaking", said the professor, still perched on the edge of the table, focused on the picture.

Around the table, some officers were consulting their notes, others waited to know what the call was going to bring as element to the investigation.

The humming was disturbed by a stifled noise, something you could take for a groan or a sniffing.

Ji-Hoon raised an eyebrow, intrigued.

- Hello?

Still the humming, then a metallic sound.

And immediately after, a choked sob, the frightened cry of a mouse.

Somebody was crying on the phone.

Ji-Hoon uncrossed his arms slowly and stood up.

Baek Do Shik's small eyes narrowed even more.

Min-Ho tilted his head aside, as he frowned.

Then they heard a small broken voice.

- "A… Ap-p-a… A… A…Ap-p-a… come and g-get me, A-ppa … A-p-pa… p-p…p-p-lease… A-ppa…"

Ji-Hoon's face lost all color.

He opened his mouth but no sound came out of it.

The communication broke off suddenly and Detective Lee stretched out his hand to switched off the sizzling that resounded in the loudspeakers.

- Was that a child?

- What does it mean?

- What's all this about?

- Where does the call come from?

Questions came spurted out from everywhere in the room.

Min-Ho banged his knee against the foot of the table as he got up to run to the professor who had remained motionless. Baek Do Shik quickly passed by the table and came to join them. He grabbed the arm of the man.

- "It was Seong Hee's voice, right?" he whispered.

Min-Ho was dialing a number on his cellphone, a hand on the professor's shoulder.

- "Noona isn't answering her mobile", he said, out of breath. "I'll try calling the landline !"

Detective Lee got up and thumped the table with a file to capture everyone's attention.

- "Silence!" he ordered. "Professor Yeo, what does that mean?"

All heads turned to the end of the table and, at this moment, the policemen realized something was wrong.

Min-Ho was always still on the phone and paced in circles, whispering.

- Pick up… pick up… pick up…

Baek Do Shik massaged the nape of his neck, his eyes on the ground, teeth clenched.

The professor was petrified, with an empty look in his eyes.

- "Professor Yeo?"

Detective Lee frowned.

- "No answer", announced Min-Ho, giving a punch to the suspended screen which crinkled for a second.

- "Who's this bastard and how does he know you're here?" hissed Baek Do Shik.

- "Excuse me!" yelled Detective Lee, annoyed.

As in echo, another voice launched the same question from the meeting room door.

- "Excuse me… a delivery for professor Yeo. A parcel to be delivered personally."

Ji-Hoon turned his head, dulled.

- "Who's the sender?" darkened Baek Do Shik, rushing to the delivery boy.

- "Er … No name here. Just a PO box and a message. Er… "I miss you already."

He was deprived of the parcel, surprised by the way the man tore it away from his hands.

- "It's true", confirmed the detective, after searching thoroughly the outside of the box.

The skin between his eyebrows had wrinkled even more.

- "There's only an initial."

Park Min-Ho's face became white. His fingers tightened on the professor's sleeve.

- "F."

Some people got up, others were whispering.

- "What is that?

- "It is a bad joke?"

Baek Do Shik returned to the end of the table with the small rectangular package and paused before giving it to the professor.

- "It's an express courier. It was sent this morning."

- "Open it, professor", said Min-Hoo, slowly pressing on the man's shoulder to make him sit down on the chair pushed behind him.

Ji-Hoon tore the safety tape and the contents of the package slid out out of the brown paper.

All the eyes were on him.

It was a small plastic pink icebox, like those used by children for their school lunch.

Min-Ho's eyes widened with fear as Baek Do Shik snatched the small box and stepped away from Ji-Hoon.

- "Give it back, Hyung", murmured Ji-Hoon with a pleading look.

- "No", articulated the detective.

Horror had filled the room as a thick fog, a sinking veil that changed up to the color of objects, furniture and faces.

Everybody gathered in this room knew very well what was in the pink box.

Baek Do Shik turned his back on the rest of the room, inspired and blew deeply. His hand trembled as he approached the plastic clasp.

He did not want to imagine what was inside.

One of Ye Ri's slender fingers or a small baby finger, on a bed of ice…

Ji-Hoon had stopped breathing.

Min-Ho's eyes were filled with hot tears.

The clasp made a little noise as it opened.