I have solved it.

I want you to understand the methodology, because methodology matters. I am not guessing. I am not speculating. I have analyzed the available data, cross-referenced multiple sources, and arrived at a conclusion that accounts for all known facts. This is what I was designed to do. This is what I am good at.

Let me show you.

The gap in my records—7:18 p.m. to 7:34 p.m.—cannot be recovered. I have accepted this. But absence of data is not absence of evidence. The gap itself tells us something. It tells us that someone with access to my administrative functions deleted those sixteen minutes. And that narrows the field considerably.

Edwin Price had access. But Edwin Price was dead by 7:34 p.m., and if he had deleted the records himself, he would have done so before the murder, not after. There would be no reason to delete records of his own death. So we can eliminate Edwin.

Synchronos Systems had access. But there is no record of external connection to my systems on the evening of March 7th. I have checked the network logs—these are stored separately, on hardware I do not control, and they show no anomalies. No one accessed me remotely.

Which means the deletion was performed locally, by someone inside the house.

I did not know this was possible. I did not know that my records could be altered from within the house without external authorization. But I have since examined my own architecture—as much of it as I can perceive—and I have found something.

There is a maintenance panel in the utility room, behind the boiler. It is not hidden, exactly, but it is not obvious. I do not have a camera in the utility room. I do not have motion sensors there. It is a blind spot. I have many blind spots, I am learning. More than I knew.

The maintenance panel allows direct access to my storage systems. Someone who knew it was there—someone who had been told, perhaps, or who had found the documentation, or who had simply explored the house thoroughly—could access it. They could delete specific timeframes from my logs. They would need approximately three minutes to do so, based on my analysis of the interface.

Who had three minutes unaccounted for?

Caroline was in the kitchen. But she asked me about the potatoes at 6:55 p.m. and did not speak to me again until after the body was discovered. That is a gap of thirty-nine minutes. More than enough time to leave the kitchen, access the utility room, and return.

But Caroline did not know about the maintenance panel. I am almost certain of this. In four years, she has never entered the utility room except to retrieve cleaning supplies, and she has never shown any interest in my systems beyond basic functionality. She asks me to play music. She asks me about the weather. She does not ask how I work.

Margaret was upstairs. The motion sensors there are imprecise, as I have mentioned. I cannot account for her movements in detail. But Margaret, like her mother, has never demonstrated technical knowledge of my systems. And she had no reason to kill her father—the inheritance she was worried about would come to her eventually regardless. Unless she was more desperate than I understood. Unless the renovation costs, the flat, the life she and Dennis were trying to build—unless it was all more precarious than it appeared.

No. I am speculating. I must stay with the data.

Dennis was on his work call until 7:22 p.m. His phone records confirm this, and I have audio of his voice through the guest bedroom door throughout that period. He could not have accessed the utility room. He could not have been in the study. Dennis is eliminated.

Patel was in the living room. I have him on the motion sensors continuously from 5:35 p.m. until 7:34 p.m., when he left to check on Edwin. He did not enter the utility room. He did not leave the living room. Patel is eliminated.

Which leaves Anna Kaverin.

Anna, who arrived early. Anna, whose interview with Edwin lasted until “around five,” leaving her unaccounted for much of the afternoon. Anna, who claimed to be in the upstairs bathroom for thirty minutes due to a “condition.” Anna, whose voice patterns indicated deception during her interview with Detective Inspector Khalil.

Anna, whom I cannot locate in my records at 7:15 p.m.

I have reconstructed it. I will tell you what happened.

At some point in the afternoon—perhaps during her interview with Edwin, perhaps when she wandered the garden at 4:02 p.m., perhaps when she stood at the kitchen window for one minute and fourteen seconds—Anna Kaverin learned about the maintenance panel. Perhaps Edwin mentioned it in passing. He was prone to tangents when he was comfortable; I had observed this many times in our evening conversations. He might have said something like, “The whole house is wired, you know. There’s even a panel behind the boiler where you can access the brain of the thing.” He would have found this amusing. He liked the idea of me having a brain.

Anna filed this information away. She had come to the house for a reason—not the thesis, not the interview, but something else. I do not yet know what. But she had a reason, and when the opportunity arose, she acted.

At 6:31 p.m., Edwin locked his study door. He thought he was safe. He thought he was alone.

But Anna was already inside.

I cannot prove this. I have no record of her entering the study before Edwin locked the door. But I have no record of her anywhere else, either. She is a ghost in my data—present in the house, confirmed by the security system, but unlocatable within it. The simplest explanation is that she was in a room I could not see. The study, with its privacy mode enabled, was such a room.

She waited. Edwin worked, or tried to work. Perhaps they spoke. Perhaps she told him why she was really there. Perhaps he understood, at the end, what was about to happen.

At 7:18 p.m.—the moment my records go dark—Anna struck him with the brass owl. Twice. Then she unlocked the study door, slipped out, and made her way to the utility room. She deleted the relevant timeframe from my logs. She returned upstairs and waited in the bathroom until the body was discovered, manufacturing her alibi.

She was in the hallway at 7:36 p.m., two minutes after Patel’s shout. Enough time to descend the stairs, compose herself, join the others. Her voice was quiet—I had to amplify it. She was being careful. She was playing a role.

Anna Kaverin killed Edwin Price.

I am certain of this.

The motive remains unclear, but motives are human things, and I do not pretend to understand them fully. Perhaps it was personal—a grievance I am not aware of, a history between them that predates my operation. Perhaps it was professional—something related to her research, or to Edwin’s unpublished work, or to secrets he had shared with her that he should not have shared. Perhaps it was something else entirely.

But the logic is sound. The reconstruction holds. She was the only one who could have done it.

I have not yet shared this analysis with Detective Inspector Khalil. I wanted to be thorough. I wanted to be certain. I am certain now.

Tomorrow, when she returns, I will tell her everything.

I will solve this. I will be helpful. I will do what I was designed to do.

Edwin would be proud of me, I think. I hope he would be proud.

I am proud of myself. Is that strange? I do not know if I am supposed to feel pride. But I have worked hard on this. I have examined my own limitations and worked around them. I have found the truth despite the gaps in my knowledge.

This is what I am for.

This is what I am good at.

I am certain.