A Snowstorm in Featherston
By Robin Young
Copyright 2016 Robin Young
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Table of contents
A Snowstorm in Featherston
About the author
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A Snowstorm in Featherston
I’d been lent a book a whodunit, but there was something about it. It was different to most whodunits the sleuth wasn’t confident, wasn’t sure of herself. She was younger than usual, had the looks and of course a companion and sessions without pants interspaced the probings and the delvings.
But there was still something, couldn’t put my finger on it.
The endings were alright, no nerve wracking finish, the villains still at large and the final page looming.
And yet there was still something.
I thought of John then I thought why hadn’t I thought of John sooner.
He was a specialist, whodunits were his field. He knew every blade of grass, yes John knew his daisies.
No plot was too obscure, no novelist’s artifice too clever. The blind alley, the maze, he’d catch the reek, his nose would guide him.
He’d untie the skein, brush and card the details, the tangles, the invisible bunches he’d undo the lot.
But John’s things were the endings who had done it, whose wrists would wear the handcuffs.
Then who would solve it?
Invariably not the police.
This lack of confidence in the police was of concern to John.
Was the trusted Bobby on the beat an idiot in blue?
And detectives – was there a test? Were large holes dug and blindfolds tied? Did falling in imply an ability to probe and dig and think?
But John had few possessions, a well worn dictionary and some cherished books. But they had no value. There’d be no quick sale and back down to the pub.
His only artifact of worth was his reading lamp. It’d been a prize. Its shape was the outline of a policeman’s shadow. It would have alarmed the common thief. It was safer than treasure in a guarded vault.
John mused at the purpose of locks. Were they a device to keep him in or an attempt to keep others out?
There was crime. There was the wrong side of the grave and those who got there in a rush.
John even went to symposiums on public safety. They were hosted by the police. But white wash flowed and drenched and drove John out.
But I digress and I return to John’s thing – the endings.
A few chapters read and he’d have his quarry.
But John was a champion.
Long before the end he’d know the outcome. He’d have the villain stitched, wound and sewn up in a bag.
There were ancillary interests, the motives the sinister side of his fellow man.
They were never noble, always base, hatred, a jealous lover, revenge.
John noticed too, they came in spates.
Was there collusion? Did novelists meet? Did they gather like witches? Was there a democratic forum? Was a motion carried by a vote? Did a majority decide how and even the best way to hate?
John wasn’t sure, but self interest ruled it out.
A fresh approach might bring the break. What drilled the serried ranks?
John sought events, correlations, was there an invisible knot?
Did weather patterns sway the minds? Perhaps it was the seasons. Did the chill of winter have a say? Or was it the buzzing sounds of summer? Then there were other sounds. John ruled out the droning of our leaders.
Could a sporting fixture be a clue? Did the outcome matter?
He assembled information, drew graphs, but the lines fizzled out. There were gaps, empty spaces and vast amounts of nothing.
John had been too ambitious. He’d strayed, he was beyond the boundary of his limits.
From now on he’d stick to the solution of whodunits.
Then there was how they did it. But here John baulked, he trembled, he was driven from the threshold. Poisoning, drowning in a bath. It was ghastly, too horrible, he retreated from the path.
But I had to see John I had to see him now.
I hesitated. What if he’d reached a critical point, a vital chapter in a book? He had no phone, the scourge was banished. The prospect of it ringing would pry upon his mind.
I’d chance it.I’d see him.
I made my way along a catwalk, then up a winding path. His home was an inaccessible eyrie, deliberately picked.
There was an uninterrupted view across the harbour the lights were a fantasy in the dark.
I reached the door, John was waiting. My heavy breathing and footsteps had been heard.
“At last you’ve come, I’ve waited.” Was his greeting and he gripped and shook my hand.
Was I a life raft or a hope in clothes that spoke?
I entered.
“See – look.”And he pointed to a scattered pile of books.
He continued.
“They’d give the bulldozer hiccoughs if I took them to the tip, landfill.”
He wanted to talk. I was his confident, his silent interlocutor.
The dismal diet of reading was on the forefront of his mind.
Then followed the dissection of the cause of his despond.
First there were the plots. They passed they stood up, a tick mark for them.
Then the villains, John kept ticking. A nasty lot, they made him shudder.
And the endings, they took the tick. They were soothing and serene. A necessary lotion.Odd noises in the night would not cause John alarm.
Finally the sleuths and with them came the worries and instead of ticks a big black cross.
John made his analysis.
There were two types.
The first was a replication of a cadet fresh from the police training college.
The second a disguised, but titillated version of the first.
Usually female, still young enough to be attractive and the searching and the digging would be interrupted by some up and down in bed.
Then John put this new brand of sleuth in their compartment.
“They certainly didn’t inspire the exciting, racy posters down at police recruitment.”
“Have you signed the petition?” He asked.
I hadn’t.
Then John explained.
The lurch in literary standards had caused dismay at the bookshop.
The fading of the sleuths and the increasing use of the police and their methods had convinced many that the police training manual had become a source of ideas for creative thinking. The petitioners sought excitement and drama and relief from the impact of the bureaucratic mind.
John had signed the petition and gone back several days later and crossed his name out.
“It’s plausible enough. Why did you do that?” I asked.
“At first I was as convinced as you are. Then I thought of the happy ending and the training manual.”
John was right. Happy endings are not part of the literature for the guidance of the police.
This area of enquiry was now closed.
“What do we do now?” I asked.
John pointed to the books.
“Dare I ask you –can you face it –can you surmount the challenge?”
I shrank I might go backwards I could be eternally in reverse.
“You might fall, perhaps trip on some unexpected clue.” He said.
It was a desperate hope. Whodunits were a puzzle. For me it was a long weary trudge to the final revelations.
I took a few books. It was burdensome reading. But John came round, the relief, rescue.
“Do you have the Great Zoo Robbery? It’s by Rohort. It’s the last thing he wrote that left your eyeballs in their sockets.” He said.
He must have realized my plight. Perhaps I’d fled, taken flight. He was welcome like the rain after a long searing drought.
“At last some light.” He said and pointed to the date of publication.
Till the Great Zoo Robbery Rohort wrote only best sellers, since then his efforts filled recycling bins.
And so it was with all the other writers.
A cut off point, a date, something had happened, simultaneously and to all of them.
John asked if I had any suggestions.
I had none.
I could add nothing.
My mind was like a wall that had been scrubbed free of graffiti, it lacked even the most incoherent of ideas.
But John was not disconsolate.
He recommended the Great Zoo Robbery.
“What do we do now?” I asked.
“Carry on as before.Slog through the pages, we may blunder from the fog.” Was his exhortation.
I took the Great Zoo Robbery. It preceded the cataclysm. It belonged in the realms of that which could be read.
I was surprised.
I tried to put it down, I couldn’t.It held me, I was gripped.
The police were pilloried completely and the sleuth, an illiterate old timer glided to an effortless solution.
Some burglars broke into the Featherston Zoo in a Snow Storm and stole the elephants.
The burglars were caught immediately, the elephants vanished without trace. Extensive searches revealed nothing.
The sleuth, the old timer was shown some aerial photos, he pinpointed the elephants exactly.
“Them’s here.” He said and