The Investigation by Jung-myung Lee Page B

look as though he were simply digging to get enough dirt to fill up the first tunnel. Choi carefully observed Sugiyama’s rounds. Finally
the tunnel to the cemetery was complete. The night Sugiyama was assigned to make the overnight rounds, Choi crawled to the cemetery. He came up to ground level, uprooted a stake that marked a grave
and waited, hiding around the corner from the solitary wing. Sugiyama’s route was precise. Choi smashed the stake into the guard’s shoulder as he rounded the corner. He heard bone
breaking. Choi then held a spoon that he had filed down to Sugiyama’s neck, prodding him towards the administrative wing. It was completely dark that night, without even a strand of
moonlight. Sugiyama must have thought the heavens were on Choi’s side. They went through the doors of the administrative wing and through to the inspection office. Sugiyama took out his
bundle of keys and opened the small door; he was pushed along the corridor, past the inspection office, towards the central facilities. The block was deserted and silent. In the central building
Choi led Sugiyama up the stairs to the banister. Sticky blood trickled down Sugiyama’s neck.
    ‘I’m sorry. But there wasn’t any other way, was there?’ Choi whispered.
    Suigyama nodded. He knew there weren’t any rules in war, just that you’d be killed if you didn’t strike first. Choi snapped Sugiyama’s neck, then tied him to the banister
with the rope that he undid from Sugiyama’s belt and stabbed him with his weapon. He was as skilled as a butcher handling a side of beef. He retraced his steps back to the cemetery, avoiding
the blue searchlight that intermittently lit the darkness. Choi then calmly disappeared back into the tunnel.

    Choi seemed spent. I put the pen down and blew on my hands. I was chilled, and not because of the sub-zero temperature in the interrogation room. ‘It would have been
easier to kill him in the cemetery or near the solitary wing. Why did you take him to the central facilities?’
    One side of his mouth turned up in a cold smile. He spoke slowly, as if enjoying my terror. ‘My purpose wasn’t to kill him, but to escape. If I killed him near the cemetery or the
solitary wing, the whole area would have been torn apart. The farthest place from the tunnel was the lobby between the administrative wing and the wards, the centre of the prison.’
    ‘Where did you get the surgical needle and thread that you used to sew up his mouth?’
    ‘I can get my hands on anything in this prison. I have skilled men: the craftiest, deftest pickpocket, an irresistible charmer, a con man who can seduce a nurse. And how convenient is it
that the fancy infirmary is right here in the prison? It’s child’s play to steal a suture set.’
    ‘So the intricate suturing is your work, too?’
    ‘Remember, I grew up on the battlefield. I had to learn how to do many things. That was the only way I could survive.’
    I put my pen down. What he was confessing would lead to his hanging. Why was he telling me this? What was he plotting? I summarized Choi’s statement into a four-page report. I included
everything he had confessed to me, but my report wasn’t the entire truth. Even if everything I wrote down was accurate, it couldn’t be truthful if anything was missing. I didn’t
record Choi’s life as a fugitive or the emotional stand-off he’d had with the man he killed. I didn’t write down the exact point in time when Sugiyama discovered the tunnel, or
the fight over it. My report concluded with a simple cause and effect: Sugiyama Dozan found the tunnel and Prisoner 331 killed him to keep it a secret.
    Things happened quickly after I submitted my report. Choi was thrown into a cell on death-row and a group of selected prisoners was ordered to fill up the tunnel. But unanswered questions
continued to run through my head. Why, when he knew he would fail, when he knew what awaited him, did he put his life on the line,