The NamSeok Mysteries

Four

Jacquie grabbed her coat and bag and walked straight out the building, heading to her black BMW 1 Series. Namjoon almost missed a step when he saw it, wondering if she was going to be the stereotypical Beemer driver. Something told him she was.

"Whoever sits in the front with me, you've been warned," she said, without even looking at them. Hoseok looked at Namjoon and said, "you'd better sit in front, I had a heavy breakfast." Namjoon did as instructed.

His guess was spot on as Jacquie generally did 20 above the legal speed limit, cursing at all drivers who slowed her down or "drove like grandmothers". To stop his mind from imagining all the ways he could die in this car today, he turned to Jacquie and said, "Father Hoseok didn't get a chance to speak to Maggie's boss earlier, do you know anything about who the last person Maggie might have met or spoken to yesterday?"

Jacquie shook her head. "She didn't say anything to me, but she told Chris that she was going to meet her informant. She'd been given a tip-off about the disappearance of a code guy, someone like you I guess. She'd only just heard about it a couple of days ago so we didn't know anything about her sources or what she was actually working on. All she told me was, the police denied any knowledge of the disappearance which basically means it did happen. I'm just working on a hunch here and nothing else."

Namjoon snorted slightly. She gave him a sharp look and then back at the road ahead, "what was that for?"

"Us code guys don't really work on hunches or guesses. We decipher what's there in front of us, we don't have space for guesswork," Namjoon replied. He may have unintentionally come off as being smug; unfortunately, most people took his straight answers for arrogance, hence his very small circle of friends. "Well, in my line of work, we don't usually have the luxury of facts being given to us straight away, so hunches and intuition are our best guides when we get a whiff of a story," was Jacquie's reply.

Before Namjoon had the chance to be affronted, Hoseok interjected "Well now, this is perfect. Between Jacquie's intuition, Namjoon's deciphering skills, and my unwavering faith, we should get to the bottom of this in no time." He sounded like he genuinely believed what he said so the other two decided to end the conversation there. Hoseok let out a sigh of relief. He knew what Jacquie could be like, but he'd only just met Namjoon and was putting his trust in him based on his own intuition. He wondered whether the three of them would really able to work well together as he declared.

His thoughts were interrupted by the car screeching to a halt in front of a bungalow nestled in a quiet residential area. Jacquie quickly jumped out of the car and marched purposefully ahead. Hoseok and Namjoon quickly got out too before she locked them in (which, looking at her outstretched arm, seemed highly likely).

She rang the bell and knocked on the door knocker of the house at No. 3. Namjoon and Hoseok joined her, and after twenty seconds of impatiently waiting, she knocked again. Soon someone could be heard saying "coming" faintly from inside. The door was opened and there stood a man in his sixties who looked like a typically retired academic. Jacquie wasted no time in introducing everyone. "Hi, my name's Jacquie from the Northern Herald, and these two are my colleagues (she didn't bother with their names). The elderly gentleman appeared to study the odd-looking trio. She continued bluntly, "I'm here because a good friend and colleague, was found dead this morning and I think you'll be able to help us find out who did it."

The gentleman was slightly taken aback by this unexpected statement and declaration and didn't respond at first. Sensing she might lose the co-operation of this gentleman, Jacquie said, in a changed tone, "May we come inside? I'd feel more comfortable telling you everything we know indoors, please. We're only here for some information, which we believe you can give us."