In the dining room, everything was laid out as if the evening had merely been slightly delayed.
The tall doors leading to the terrace stood open. Cool air streamed in through them, strong enough to make the flames in the silver candlesticks flicker. On the long table stood platters of fish soup, tzatziki and bread that was still warm. Small knives lay beside shallow plates. The extra plates had been set out quickly. 
Vittorio stood at the head of the table and waited until even the last of the guests had come in from the garden. Sun stood beside Wolfgang, silent, with dry hands and a face that seemed too composed for a woman beside whom a dead body had just been lying. Mary looked at her. Emmett did too, but differently: accusingly and with a look of horror at having to look at her.

“Benedic, Domine, nos et haec tua dona, quae a largitate tua sumus sumpturi. Amen,” prayed Vittorio before inviting them to eat. “Let’s sit down.”
“Do you seriously think we should eat?” Brian stopped beside Justin.
Vittorio had already sat down. “Sharing a meal has been a virtue since time immemorial. Besides, you’re all suspects, which is why, according to the police, I mustn’t let anyone leave the island. In that respect, we might as well enjoy this delicious meal.”
“There’s a dead woman lying next door.”

“There’s a dead woman outside,” said Vittorio. “And inside, there are living people who have a long night of questioning ahead of them. Weakness, hunger and fear are no good preparation for that.”
Mary was the first to take a seat, as if she were claiming the table before anyone else could. Fiona sat down next to Meghan. Meghan moved slowly, as if she had to be careful with her body so that it didn’t do anything she wouldn’t be able to explain later. Justine chose a seat from which she could see both her mother and Sun at the same time. Lito sat down next to her, Wolfgang next to Sun. Brian pulled out a chair for Justin, casually enough that it shouldn’t seem like a gesture, and that was precisely why Meghan looked over.
Emmett paused for a moment.
“I don’t know where to sit when an aperitif has just turned into a whodunit dinner.”
“Next to me,” said Justine. “I’ve played Miss Marple before, too.”
He sat down.

Vittorio nodded approvingly. He clasped his hands, bowed his head and observed a brief silence.
When he had finished, he was the first to reach for the bread and break off a piece.
He then spread fish cream on it and placed it on his plate. The others followed his example. Fiona took a small piece of bread and some tzatziki. Mary did the same, with such care as if a single wrong move at the table might already be a confession. Meghan didn’t touch her knife.
“Meggie,” said Fiona quietly.
“I’m not hungry. We’ve come here to mourn Dane. And then this woman is thrown off the chapel. Death in Greece again.”
Fiona’s reply was very pragmatic, before she placed a few slices of onion on her bread. “Fasting won’t bring Dane back to life. Nor will the body in the back garden.”
“I can’t eat whilst she—”
She broke off.

No one finished the sentence. No one said “the dead woman”. In the dining room, amidst the silverware, bread and chopped dill, life reigned over death.
Justine took a piece of bread, drizzled olive oil over it, and took a bite. Lito took some fish cream and examined it carefully.
“It’s very good,” he said after the first bite, almost apologetically.
“Greek cuisine has the breadth to weave together antiquity, the Ottoman Empire and modern life in a culinary tapestry,” explained Vittorio.
Brian broke off a piece of bread and passed it to Justin. Justin took it without looking. His attention was still in the courtyard, on the stones, the angle of the body, the shoe. Nevertheless, he saw the table: the lines of the cutlery, the reflections in the glasses, the green stone around Mary’s neck, Sun’s hands on the white tablecloth.
“You don’t have to draw that,” said Brian quietly.
Justin whispered back, “I’ve got the images in my head.”

Brian looked at him from the side. “You’ve been in Europe for ten minutes and you’re turning a private island into an art study.”
“You wanted to turn an entire kingdom into an advertising brief earlier.”
Justin smiled fleetingly. It was inappropriate, but not wrong. Meghan saw the smile. Her face barely changed, but her voice grew sharper as she spoke.
“Some people apparently find opportunities for affection everywhere.”
Brian looked up.
“That wasn’t affection. That was bread I was sharing with Justin – very Christian, by the way.”
“I didn’t mean the bread.”
Fiona put down her cutlery. “Meggie.”

“No, Mum. I haven’t said anything that everyone here isn’t already seeing. Those two are a couple!”
Justin looked at Meghan. “We didn’t mean to disturb you.”
“I hope you’re not doing that on purpose.”
Brian leaned back slowly. “What’s the problem?”
Justine leaned forward. “Mum, don’t start.”
Meghan looked at her daughter, then back at Brian and Justin. “I’ve just learnt that men who mean too much to each other rarely stick to what they’ve promised.”
It grew quieter.
Vittorio said nothing. He gave Meghan enough space to realise that she’d revealed more about herself than about Brian and Justin.
Emmett lowered his gaze to his plate. Lito looked at Wolfgang, and there was something in that look that was more than just a look.

Wolfgang heard him before Lito spoke. No. It wasn’t Sun. I know. It wasn’t a sentence in the room. Not a word that others could hear. It was the deep certainty that arose between them, calm and strange at the same time. Wolfgang didn’t look at Sun. He knew all too well how quietly she was sitting beside him. Lito sensed her tension like a string stretched too tightly to snap.
Sun took a piece of bread. Her fingers were steady. She didn’t spread any tzatziki on it. She simply broke it in two, then placed onions on one half and spread only butter on the other.
Mary watched this movement.
“You have remarkably steady hands, Miss Bak.”
Sun looked up. “Should I be trembling?”

Mary touched the emerald briefly. “Many people in your position would be. You were found next to a dead body, having only recently lost your father.”
“The one has nothing to do with the other,” Sun replied, before eating the onion bread.
Mary didn’t smile. “You say that very calmly.”
Wolfgang set down his glass. “She’s told you what happened. Why would Sun kill a woman she doesn’t know? And why was that woman on the island in the first place? I thought this was a private matter.”
Fiona analysed the situation with her razor-sharp mind: “Sun has given us an account, but even if you had pushed the woman, how did she get onto the island in the first place? Mr Bogdanow’s question is key.”
“You can only reach the island by boat,” said Vittorio.
“And she wasn’t on our boat,” Mary stated
Justine turned pale with anger, but Sun beat her to it.

“I have no reason to tell you anything other than the truth.”
Brian now began to take an interest in the Korean woman as well: “You didn’t know this woman?”
Sun replied curtly, before tucking into her buttered bread: “No.”
Emmett pressed the point: “I don’t want to make a big deal of it: so you’ve never seen her anywhere, alive?”
Sun shook her head. “She wasn’t on our boat either; perhaps she came with the cadets and sneaked onto the island whilst Eminenz was handing out the caramel slices.”
“Baklava isn’t a caramel slice, Miss Bak,” Fiona corrected.
Mary spread a little tzatziki on her bread. “It’s still an extraordinary stroke of bad luck that she fell to the floor right next to you.”

“Even if it might sound rude whilst we’re having this starter, I’ve never seen that woman before. And even if I’d wanted to throw her out of the chapel, I’d never have made it back down in time for you to find me in the courtyard behind a locked gate. Unless you’re implying that I jumped off the cliff before I’d pushed the woman, so that I could then be waiting for her at the bottom. And only my Far Eastern meditation techniques would have saved me from breaking any bones.”
That simple remark left Mary at a loss for a moment. Emmett looked from one to the other, then reached for his glass and drank too quickly.
“I think,” he said, “I’d imagined European dinners to be rather different.”
“How so?” asked Fiona, perhaps just to get away from Sun.
“More chandeliers, fewer corpses. Though the chandeliers are excellent.”

Mary turned her head towards him. “You’re quite the observer yourself, Mr Honeycutt.”
“I’m the host. It’s an occupational hazard. You notice who’s not eating enough, who’s drinking too much, who hates someone, and who suddenly claims the flowers are pretty because they don’t want to talk about the obvious.”
Justine tilted her head as she spread fish cream onto another slice of bread: “And what’s obvious here?”
Emmett glanced briefly at Sun. Then at Meghan. Then at Mary.
“That nobody wants to talk about the obvious.”
Vittorio reached for the water carafe and poured Meghan a glass. “About motives and possibilities?”
Brian took his glass. “That’s why we’re talking about bread.”
“Bread connects continents and eras,” said Vittorio.

Justin tore off a piece of the warm crust. “It’s good bread.”
“Bianca doesn’t bake it herself, but she claims she can tell from the crumb whether the baker is a decent person,” explained Vittorio.
The conversation didn’t break off, but it returned to the surface. For a few minutes, one could hear knives on small plates, the tearing of bread, the quiet pouring of water. Lito carried on eating, slowly, as if in spirit he were in Manama, also by the sea, but with more jewellery and even more poison. Wolfgang ate because his body couldn’t help the circumstances. Sun drank only water with her bread.
Meghan stared at Brian’s hand, which lay next to Justin’s plate. Not touching it, just close enough that the proximity remained visible.
“My husband,” she said suddenly, “always claimed it was nobody’s business either.”
Fiona froze.
Justine closed her eyes. “Mum.”

“What do you mean? It’s true, isn’t it? One shouldn’t pretend there are no consequences when people mistake their inclinations for fate.”
Brian looked at her for a long time. His face had grown calm, which unsettled Justin more than any quick reply.
“Your husband hurt you,” said Brian. “I’m sorry about that. But I’m not your husband.”
“No. You’re just a man teaching another boy how to grow out of attachments.”
Justin put the bread down.
“I’m not a boy any more; I’m an art student now.”
Meghan looked at him. There was no cruelty in her gaze, rather something wounded that behaved roughly because it could find no other way.

“Then I hope you’re treated with artistry.”
Brian was about to say something, but Justin briefly touched his wrist. Not as a plea for silence. More as a reminder that not every attack was merely a defence.
Mary saw that brief touch. Her eyes narrowed.
“In my day,” she said, “one wouldn’t have done such a thing at the table, whether one was a woman, a man or a student.”
“In your day, dear Great-Aunt Mary, King George still ruled over Australia,” said Justine. “Things change.”

Mary nodded in acknowledgement. “King George was often very gracious. And not everything has improved under his daughter. After all, he established the Union Treaty as the new constitution.”
Justine didn’t let up: “Some people regard the Union as a disguised empire.”
“Justine,” said Fiona.
Lito cleared his throat. “In Mexico, someone would now be calling for music to celebrate the conquest or liberation of British Honduras.”
“In Australia, we’d simply carry on working, as is our duty,” said Fiona.
Wolfgang looked at her. “In Berlin, someone would go out, steal something and then smoke a cigarette.”
“Brian’s already done that,” said Justin.

Emmett tentatively raised his hand. “I’d like to point out that I find music, work and smoking equally understandable at the moment. But just to clarify: Brian smoked on the island; he didn’t steal any of the precious silverware.”
Vittorio exhaled slowly. “And I’d like to point out that we’re staying at the table. Between courses today, smoking is permitted on the terrace.”
His voice wasn’t loud. Nevertheless, everyone stopped looking at one another.
“No one is being forced to be friendly this evening,” he continued. “That would be asking too much after everything that’s happened. But I insist that no one uses another person’s hurt to hurt a third person.”

Meghan lowered her gaze.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
It wasn’t entirely clear to whom.
Justin replied nonetheless. “I also apologise for my inappropriate behaviour at the table.”
Brian looked at him as if that weren’t enough, but he let it pass.
Mary picked up her bread again. “How refreshing. So let’s not talk any more about the woman in the courtyard.”
“Until the police arrive,” said Vittorio, “let’s only talk about what we know for certain.”
Fiona analysed the situation: “We know she’s dead.”

Wolfgang continued: “We know she fell next to Sun and, thank goodness, didn’t hurt her.”
Lito’s face hardened. “Anything could have happened.”
“That’s what Miss Bak says.”
Sun looked at Mary. “I’ve told you what I heard, saw and felt, but I’ll tell the police all of that exactly the same way.”
Mary wondered what that would mean. Emmett saw this and grew even quieter. He’d stared at Sun at first because he couldn’t help himself. Now he felt ashamed that he hadn’t questioned her properly sooner, before the Cardinal had forbidden them from cross-examining one another.
Fiona was the first to notice. “Is the soup coming soon?”
Vittorio looked towards the door. “First we’ll have grilled octopus, then the soup made with gherkins, radishes and honey.”

It was a short sentence, dry and matter-of-fact. Meghan looked at her mother and breathed more calmly for the first time in minutes.
Outside, the terrace lay bathed in moonlight. Behind it, the courtyard. Behind that, the chapel. Inside, pieces of bread were being broken and fish soup was being served with silver spoons.

No one spoke of the dead woman any more.