Ding-dong.

Ding-dong.

Thump thump thump thump.

In the quiet of the dead of night someone pressed the bell and knocked urgently at the door.

Paeng-seop Park, a reporter with the Silla Ilbo, went out to the entrance still in his pyjamas.

Ding-dong.

Ding-dong.

"I'm coming. Coming."

Reporter Paeng-seop Park screwed his face up and made for the front door.

"Really. If you come calling in the middle of the night you might at least look sorry about it. Who on earth is it…"

Grumbling, Reporter Paeng-seop Park opened the door, found nobody standing in front of it, and was puzzled.

"What's this? Why is there nobody here?"

Paeng-seop Park craned his head out further and looked down the corridor.

Nothing blew along the long corridor but a cold wind; of the person who moments before had been pressing the bell and knocking at the door there was no sign.

"Really. Who plays a prank like this in the middle of the night?"

Nettled, Paeng-seop Park shouted down the empty corridor.

"If I catch you, you'll be sorry. Do you know what time it is…"

Paeng-seop Park had been shouting for some while, thoroughly worked up, when a document envelope lying on the floor caught his eye.

"What's this?"

Feeling there was something out of the ordinary about the envelope, Paeng-seop Park picked it up and shut the door.

"Was it to give me this that they knocked at my door in the middle of the night?"

Paeng-seop Park turned on the living room light and carried the envelope through to the kitchen.

Setting the envelope on the dining table, Paeng-seop Park poured water into a glass.

And as he drank he took out what was inside the envelope.

The first thing to come into Paeng-seop Park's hand was a photograph.

"Who's this? President Sang-jong Lee of Ilhyeon Construction? Why is there a photograph of President Lee…?"

Still holding the glass of water, Paeng-seop Park turned the photograph this way and that, then set it down.

Because however he looked at it, he could make no sense of the photograph.

And…