True Only of Me

A software company’s office floor · team-building day · everyone says something that is true of nobody else · Difficulty: Inspector 8 · 16×16

The software company Lumen held its team-building day on its own office floor. Vanda, the trainer, opened with her favourite ice-breaker: “Tell us something about yourself that is true of nobody else here.” By the afternoon she lay dead in the Training Room, beside the lectern. The inspector made the fifteen colleagues – five developers, five salespeople and five designers – play her game once more: each of them had to say where they were at the moment of the murder in a way that is true of them and of no other suspect. One of them was alone with Vanda. Read the statements, find everyone’s square and name the murderer.

Rules

Every statement is true of the suspect who made it and of no other suspect.
A statement of two sentences counts as a whole: it is true of somebody only if both of its sentences are.
The victim is not a suspect.
“Sitting” = on a chair, a bar stool, the sofa, the bench, a beanbag, a pouf or a deckchair, or in an armchair.
Every row and every column holds exactly one person. As soon as you place someone, cross out their whole row and column.
“Beside” = directly left, right, above or below, and in the same area. Squares with objects (the workstations, the potted plants, the coat rack, the tables, the filing cabinet, the big screen, the lectern, the loudspeaker, the safe, the trophy, the painting, the globe, the vending machine, the locker, the sign, the espresso machine, the sink, the fridge, the counters, the server racks, the console, the shelf, the crate, the trolley, the clock, the projector, the bookcases, the reading lamp, the fountain, the statue, the foosball, the VR headset, the arcade cabinet, the pinball machine, the parasols, the herb bed, the lantern, the flower bed) cannot be occupied; the seats – the chairs, the bar stools, the sofa, the armchairs, the bench, the beanbags, the poufs and the deckchairs – and the hammock can. A corner of an area is a square of that area that borders the outside (another area or the edge of the board) on one horizontal and one vertical side.
“The bench was somewhere in his column.” = the bench is on one of the squares of his column, in any area; the same goes for rows.
Directions refer to rows and columns, not to the same line: “Exactly one row north of him was a saleswoman.” = the person in the row directly above his is a saleswoman, in any column; “She was south of Oskar.” = she was in a row below Oskar’s, in any column.
A sentence about the people in somebody’s area never counts that person: “There was a salesperson in her area.” = somebody else there was a salesperson.
The murderer was alone with the victim: nobody else was in that area.

Statements

Arvid (backend developer): Somebody else in his area was beside a workstation.
Bianka (frontend developer): She was sitting. There was a salesperson in her area.
Corwin (database engineer): The bench was somewhere in his column.
Daria (test engineer): She was beside a table. She was in a corner of her area.
Erik (DevOps engineer): Somebody else in his area was beside an armchair. He was in the Library.
Fabiola (key account manager): She was alone in her area.
Gabor (sales director): The pinball machine was somewhere in his column.
Hanna (sales assistant): A beanbag was somewhere in her area. A beanbag was somewhere in her column.
Ingmar (export manager): Exactly one row north of him was a saleswoman. He was in the Atrium.
Jasmin (customer relations manager): Somebody else in her area was beside the clock. She was sitting.
Kenji (art director): Of the people in his area, exactly two were women.
Linnea (illustrator): An armchair was somewhere in her area. She was south of Oskar.
Malte (UX designer): He was beside a potted plant.
Noemi (graphic designer): Somebody else was beside the same table as her. She was not in a corner of her area.
Oskar (animator): The foosball was somewhere in his row.
Vanda (the trainer): The victim. She was found in the Training Room, beside the lectern – alone with the murderer.

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