Giving Him My Thanks (3)

“It’s been a while.”

“Nice to see you again.”

Nam Sae-He offered me the seat across from him. The food had already been prepared for us on the table.

With a gentle smile, he followed up on my greeting, “Wasn’t the last time we saw each other in person back at the cruise party?”

“Yes. It’s already been almost two years since then.”

“Why don’t we start eating? The barbeque here is as delicious as ever.”

Even as we picked up our cutlery to start our meal, we continued to exchange meaningless conversation. Things like whether President Go Dae-Man was doing well, or about how Go Min-Guk hadn’t attended many parties ever since that night on the cruise ship.

Then, after some time, the topic of the conversation naturally shifted over to work. In order to focus, I laid down my chopsticks. Now it was time to begin questioning him in earnest.

“Has the redevelopment of Hwanak Neighbourhood been successful? I still have to thank you for your help back then. I’m afraid that we’ve been so busy with cases that I’m only just getting around to expressing our gratitude to you now.”

“Of course it has succeeded. The results are actually even better than we hoped for. Because of that incident, it gained the image of being a crime-ridden area and the public opinion rose in favor of the redevelopment.”

Hissss-

The meat on top of the hotplate sizzled. It was cuts of thick, lean meat covered in a rich marinade that suited my tastes perfectly.

“Although there was a slight delay due to issues of compensation, our advertising campaign for the Hwanak Neighbourhood has fortunately proven effective. And with how often it appeared on the news, there was a lot of buzz on the internet with people asking where such a scenic spot could be found. Haha.”

“So the incident worked out in your favor then. That’s a relief.”

Seeing my opportunity, I slyly steered the topic in the direction of my investigation.

“But about the contractors you use when you’re redeveloping a location, who do you usually contact when you need to hire them?”

“The contractors? Ah, would you like a cup?”

Nam Sae-Ha picked up a porcelain kettle filled with wine and offered it to me. Not wanting to reject him, I held out my cup. After this meal, I would definitely need to head back home and have a nice long rest. After taking a sip, he kept the rice wine in his mouth for a moment before swallowing it, as if savoring the taste.

“I don’t give my attention to petty things like the contractors. Someone below me takes care of that. Ah… who were they again? You’re asking because of them, right?”

“The Fork Gang.”

“Yes, yes. That’s right. I also remember seeing them on the news. You’re talking about the ones from the Thugs and Drugs Party, aren’t you? I believe that I did receive a report on them. I was told that it was difficult to find any other contractors willing to take on the project, because of their intimidation.”

He gave a forced smile at the absurdity of this, a large conglomerate being forced to hire a gang of thugs.

“I know that contractors as a whole can be a bit rough at times, but even allowing for that, they were really too much.”

“They killed a man after all.”

He replied to this in an apologetic tone, “Well, we all need to make a living somehow. Haha. Talking about such a topic in front of a detective, is it strange if I’m feeling a bit nervous?”

“Is there really a need for that? After all, I’m still just a civil servant.”

“I have to admit, I truly am envious of you and how it seems that you’re able to do whatever you want. You should already know how things work at our level of society. From a young age we’re expected to live our lives while being molded into a certain role, whether it’s with our studies or our careers, and even our eventual marriages.”

Reciprocating the favor, I picked up the kettle and offered it to him. Then I filled up my cup as well. Wine drunk before the sun had even gone down really had its own special flavor.

“Are you seeing someone currently?”

“No. If a police officer wants to find a lover while he’s still on the job, then he needs to work twice as hard just to keep up. I don’t have the time for that.”

Good. He had revealed an opening that I could take without seeming suspicious. I laughed so hard that my whole body was shaking, acting as if I was getting slightly tipsy.

“Come to think of it, I’ve heard a rumor. About you hooking up with some celebrity. Now, who was it again?”

“Who indeed….?”

He tilted his head to the side as he pondered the question. It seemed that Hae-Soo wasn’t the only one he was involved with. He appeared to be running through a list of names of female celebrities that he had been involved with.

With a snap of my fingers, I interrupted his reminiscence.

“It was Hae-Soo. The movie actress, Hae-Soo.”

“Ah. Hae-Soo.”

It was only for a moment, but his face had twisted strangely. But considering her unpleasant demise, that might just be his natural reaction to her death.

“Hae-Soo and I, we did have something going on.

“We weren’t dating as such, but you should know how that sort of thing goes, right? We would sometimes meet at parties and, if we were both free, we would go somewhere else to have some fun. And then, if we were both in the mood, what else could we do but enjoy each other’s company?

“Haha. It’s quite the common thing to see at our level of society. Could it be that you weren’t aware of this?”

It was well-known that Go Ji-Hun had been living the life of a reclusive loner until only a few years ago. This bastard, was he looking down on me? However, this current situation made it even easier to bring up the question that I wanted to ask him.

“Doesn’t that just mean the two of you were dating?”

“Not really. After all, she was also seeing a lot of other men on the side. Of course, none of them could compare to me,” Nam Sae-Ha smiled playfully as he said this.

Although it was quite the arrogant thing to say, Nam Sae-Ha did have the qualifications to back this up. He had it all, both the looks and the wealth; but for him to be so proud of the fact that he held the highest status among Hae-Soo’s many lovers, it appeared that he was quite the competitive person.

“Where were you on the day that Hae-Soo was murdered?”

Clack-

Now we had both set our chopsticks down. With neither of us still eating, the room was filled with the sole sound of meat sizzling. Nam Sae-Ha folded his arms and focussed the full weight of his attention on me.

“Ji-Hun-ssi. No, should I be calling you Detective-nim? Weren’t we just supposed to be having a private conversation today, not an interrogation?”

“Blame it on my occupational disease.”

“Hm.”

He wiped his mouth with his napkin and took a sip of water. It looked like he was getting ready to leave.