The Missing Motive
I had no idea where the client had gotten his Bank of Korea note paper, but one look at it was enough to tell me this had been counterfeit money made with the clear intent of passing it as real currency.
“I don’t see any trace of a special solution used in the forgery process.”
I slowly looked around the room. Aside from the paint smeared on the mold-stained walls, nothing stood out.
Still, I supposed it made sense that the client would hesitate to leave such things in the hands of Sim Oh-han, whom he had only just met. The absence of any workspace that required post-processing told me as much.
“Looks like Sim Oh-han wasn’t part of the team.”
Modern crime was built on specialization and division of labor. Real estate, stocks, and currency counterfeiting were prime examples.
When it came to counterfeiting, there were the people who drew the plates, the people who printed them, the people who procured the paper, the people who sold them—each with a role of their own.
And for the sake of their own safety, there was always an escape route. There wasn’t one here.
If I had to name one, it’d be the window….
Even if Sim Oh-han folded his fairly tall body in half, there was no way he could squeeze through that tiny window. And since there was only one door, he definitely wasn’t part of a team.
“For a man who just paints pictures, this looks like the kind of studio where he was lured in by a commission.”
Had the client planned from the beginning to use one of Sim Oh-han’s highly realistic paintings as a model for a 3D plate?
If so…
Once the counterfeits were discovered, they’d cling to Sim Oh-han as the fall guy, then draw a red line through him and try to turn him into one of their own. After all, the money they chose to forge didn’t have to be won. It could be dollars, euros, yen—anything.
“I can’t decide whether getting caught early was lucky or unlucky.”
A dry laugh escaped me.
“Still, if I use psychometry on this paper, maybe I’ll see its past too.”
I might as well try.
“Hah.”
Since I’d been paid my fee, I focused on the paper for a long while, wondering whether there was anything in it that might help Sim Oh-han.
Static crackled.
- Can it be Korean won as well?
Snap.
The video of two men talking around Sim Oh-han ended in an instant.
Psychometry experience increased.
“I guess it’s a relief I can see about a second more than last time. So the experience really does build.”
I wished I could see psychometry experience points too, but that was asking too much.
I set the paper back on the easel and began rummaging through the shelves, then the bookcases, looking for anything that might count as evidence.
Old oil paints, canvases, brushes.
Textbooks on Western art history and catalogs of famous artists. And then—a black A4 notebook.
Found it.
“If he’s a real artist, he’d have something like this.”
I pulled out the thick sketchbook and flipped through it.
“He’s labeled this section as dollar studies and left it blank. Looks like he cut the paper in advance to insert it, so maybe he still hadn’t started painting.”
A few pages later, the face of the late Queen Elizabeth II aged with each turn.
“Impressive. He understands not just texture, surface, and the direction of light, but also which parts need to be deliberately exaggerated.”
Now I understood why the client had asked Sim Oh-han to paint banknotes.
This was art that looked more real than a photograph.
...Copying, then. Pure and simple copying.
Sim Oh-han’s artistic philosophy was hyperrealism. Emerging in the United States in the late 1960s, hyperrealism often depicted the vulgarity of consumerism, extreme pain, and the poverty of the working class, among other things, and even now it continued to communicate all kinds of themes in all kinds of ways.
“A lot of hyperrealist painters project photographs onto the canvas before painting, but there’s no beam projector or work light here, so I’d say he’s the type who lays the reference out beside him and paints from that.”
This wasn’t grid work, and it wasn’t airbrush work either. He simply painted what he saw with his own eyes.
I turned and studied the whiteboard mounted on the wall.
Completed the exhibition schedule at Suryun Gallery in Insadong from January 20 for ten days.
There was also a mark indicating that he had received a commission.
The client’s deadline for the fifty-thousand-won bill was written as July 10.
The exhibition at Suryun Gallery had been titled The Art of Money.
It was a work covered with dollars, euros, and won slapped all over a vacant face. Beyond that, I couldn’t see any sign that he had painted other pieces after it.
Hmm.
“So he spent about six months working on a commissioned piece? On that tiny sheet of paper? Incredible.”
Even the The Art of Money I’d seen in the sketchbook had been done by someone who meticulously rendered every background detail that most people would have overlooked. So it wasn’t surprising.
“Still, just from the whiteboard alone, couldn’t you infer that he’d gotten the commission after someone saw The Art of Money?”
Why had that fact been left out in the first trial? They’d even searched the studio.
Wait.
“This was a case initiated by the authorities, wasn’t it?”
A case initiated by the authorities meant the investigative agency—the police or the prosecutors—had become aware of the crime on their own through a report, intelligence, or some other lead, and opened a criminal case from there.
So this wasn’t just a screw-up by the investigative prosecutor…
The prosecutor concealed this on purpose? If this was staged, that would make sense.
It was a rotten reality, but even as times changed, the center of the prosecution had traditionally been the so-called intelligence departments, which were dominated by Special Investigation.
Usually, prosecutors who had earned recognition in the Criminal Division were selected for intelligence work.
And in order to catch that opportunity, Criminal Division prosecutors had to rack up results.
If they failed to produce results, they wouldn’t be promoted at the regular personnel reshuffle, so to avoid that, they put together planned investigations.
“Right. August is exactly when they’d be checking whether the numbers are good enough to pass the minimum threshold. From the investigative prosecutor’s point of view, if no additional evidence is submitted, the appeal court would just dismiss the case anyway.”
My guess was that Sim Oh-han’s case, too, was probably the result of a planned investigation cooked up by the prosecutor.
“No wonder the on-site verification and evidence review felt so sloppy.”
In a criminal trial, the prosecutor normally had to prove the facts of the crime. But in Sim Oh-han’s case, he might actually be found not guilty, so they’d deliberately left out evidence.
For the prosecutor’s performance.
“Once we’re out of the studio, I need to check what led to Sim Oh-han meeting the client in the first place. Since it wasn’t disputed in the first trial, we should still be able to raise it on appeal.”
Just as I was deciding I should probably verify this whole room through psychometry, there was a sudden bang-bang-bang at the front door.
The iron door shuddered violently, then opened.
“Hey, are you almost done?”
“Yes, almost.”
“...What’s even worth looking at in there?”
There wasn’t a single thing he could take with him, but perhaps because he felt uneasy being alone with me in the studio, Sim Oh-han kept grumbling under his breath.
He slipped back inside the studio.
Even when I tell him not to come in, he doesn’t listen worth a damn.
I folded my arms and pointed toward the whiteboard with a tilt of my chin.
“Did the client make his decision after seeing your work at Suryun Gallery?”
“...Yes, I guess so.”
“Be precise. This matters.”
Sim Oh-han’s sullen expression turned serious.
“The client said he saw my work at Suryun Gallery and contacted me after seeing my business card next to the pamphlet.”
“Then why was that motive left out in the first trial? Didn’t you say so when they took your statement?”
Sim Oh-han clenched his fists and burst out in anger.
“I did! But the prosecutor just mocked me, saying things like it wasn’t important and that I shouldn’t try to backpedal.”
“Really? Was it not recorded when you said that?”
“...I don’t think so.”
Something felt off.
Even if this was a staged case, procedures had changed. When a statement was taken these days, there should have been a recording.
Why was this handled so carelessly?
“Then did you later look over the statement and deny it, saying, When did I write that? The interrogation lasted more than eight hours, right?”
“Yes, I kept saying it over and over, but they wouldn’t listen at all.”
“After the statement was written, you stamped it, didn’t you? At that point?”
“They made me stamp it under coercion. When I tried not to, they hit me on the back of the head.”
“...!”
Even if the investigative prosecutor had gone crazy, this was a whole other level of crazy.
At the memory, Sim Oh-han only got more agitated.
“I thought there was no other way, so during the first trial I told the judge I was going to show them what was what. The client had contacted me after seeing my work at Suryun Gallery. He’d met me in my studio to discuss the commission.”
He changed his statement, too!
“Then during the first trial, when you explained all that, did you mention that the prosecutor hit you on the back of the head?”
“No, of course not. Why would I? It would’ve been humiliating.”
Ha. Pride isn’t something you keep for moments like this.
With Sim Oh-han’s suddenly changed testimony, the judge had probably begun to doubt the evidentiary value of the statement record.
If the judge had requested CCTV from Suryun Gallery, this would have been easy to confirm. Did they just trust the prosecutor and let it slide?
The situation was getting troublesome.
I looked at Sim Oh-han, who was letting out a long, weary sigh.
“Then I’ll have to go to Suryun Gallery and get a copy of the CCTV.”
“I was going to do that too, but the director refused.”
“Even after you said you needed it for submission as trial evidence?”
“Yes.”
Well, unless the police or prosecutors request it for an investigation, there’s no real reason a private individual has to be shown the footage.
Except in cases where it was needed to protect the urgent life, body, or property interests of a third party.
Protecting the privacy of distinguished visitors was important, after all.
From Suryun Gallery’s perspective, they may well have seen the whole matter as staining the gallery’s image.
How can I get my hands on a copy of the CCTV?
Then I noticed a poster for the Seoul Emerging Artists Exhibition pasted near the studio entrance.
An idea struck me.
“Aha.”
“...Lawyer?”
“Just thinking for a moment.”
“Yes, of course.”
Is he mocking me?
Whatever my client was thinking, I only had to do my job.
I headed straight into the living room.
“I’ll take care of the CCTV myself.”
“You’ll take care of it yourself?”
“Yes. Do you have a problem with that?”
Sim Oh-han studied me closely. He wore the expression of a man who was uneasy about something but couldn’t quite tell whether he was being too suspicious.
“You’re different from the lawyers I’ve met. ...Huh. Is this what capitalism tastes like?”
“What exactly are you talking about?”
“Nothing. Never mind.”
I could guess what he meant.
He’s probably never met a lawyer who goes out in person to gather evidence. Most of them just sit in their offices and clutch documents all day.
Given the time constraints, it couldn’t be helped. I was no different, really.
At any rate.
“There are sharks who know how to earn their keep, and there are idiots who don’t know their own worth.”
“No, that’s not what I meant at all—”
His answer didn’t matter, so I cut him off.
“By the way, do you have the evidence list the prosecutor submitted?”
“T-the evidence record?”
“Yes. I don’t want to waste time filing a request to inspect and copy the case file. Do you have it or not?”
“Please wait a moment. I brought back everything I could get my hands on, though I didn’t really know what it was.”
Sim Oh-han went to a large basket in the corner of the living room and brought out an old laptop.
“The thing is, I don’t have a chest of drawers in the living room, so I’ve just been dumping all the messy stuff together.”
“That’s fine.”
“Ahem. I think I have the document I saved after taking a photo with my smartphone before I destroyed the papers. Just a second.”
“Take your time. I’ll go back into the studio and look for anything that might be worth submitting as evidence.”
“Ah, yes!”
While Sim Oh-han booted up the laptop, I planned to use psychometry on the studio itself.
But the moment I moved toward the studio, a system window appeared.
...Are you kidding me?
Reminder: all system notifications, comments, letters, status windows, and special in-universe content must use styled
text.