Cut Short

by M.W. Craven

Genres: Crime Fiction; General Fiction

Synopsis

A collection of seven short stories, recorded here for the first time.

In The Killing Field, Poe and Tilly are having breakfast, wondering how to spend the rest of their holiday, when their presence is requested at a Cumbrian airfield. An airfield that, during the 2001 foot and mouth crisis, was known as the killing field . . .

In Why Don't Sheep Shrink?, a global pandemic forces Poe and Tilly to self-isolate together. Things don't go well. They're bickering and on the verge of falling out until Poe finds an old case file: a locked room mystery he's been mulling over for years. Step forward, Tilly Bradshaw.

Dead Man's Fingers sees Poe, Tilly and Edgar, Poe's English springer spaniel, enjoying a picnic at a nature reserve. When Edgar chases a rabbit, and Poe and Tilly chase after Edgar, they stumble upon a twenty-year-old mystery, a mystery that couldn't be solved until now . . .

In Strange Ink crime fighting duo, Tilly and Poe solve a mystery from inside a pantomime horse in a short story that first appeared in the Halloween anthology Afraid of the Shadows

In A Permanent Solution Poe and Tilly are on an HR course in Wales when a murder is committed in their hotel. But, maybe not everything is as it seems. This story first appeared in First Edition: Celebrating 21 Years of Goldsboro Books.

Mondo Bizzarro sees Tilly drag Poe to Durham to meet her favourite fantasy author, Aldridge Fowler but when they arrive, he's already dead - killed by his own hand. Despite the overwhelming evidence though, Poe suspects the bookshop staff might be hiding a terrible secret.

In Once in a Red Moon, whilst on a murder-mystery evening in deepest darkest Northumberland, Poe manages to annoy everyone whilst simultaneously solving a mystery - what happened to a five-carat red diamond called the Red Moon of Coonowrin

Release date: September 3, 2020

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 15000

Sample

Animals don’t die of old age.

Well, some do, of course.

The occasional Galápagos tortoise might make it all the way to the end.

Or one of those ageless jellyfish.

Maybe a beloved pet.

But that’s not many. Not when you consider how many animals aren’t tortoises or jellyfish or beloved pets.

For most animals, old age is a terrifying, hungry existence. Predators starve to death. Prey animals get eaten. Beef cows get slaughtered. Dairy cattle stop producing milk and become a financial burden. Elderly, incontinent pets become an inconvenience.

But sometimes, just sometimes, something far worse comes along.

More brutal than old age. Indiscriminate. Unforgiving. Devastating.

And, in a roundabout way, it occasionally kills humans . . .

Detective Sergeant Washington Poe wasn’t thinking about a terrifying and hungry existence that morning; he was thinking what a nice day it was. He and his friend and colleague, Tilly Bradshaw, were breakfasting outside and he was thinking he might have another piece of toast before they drove to the Sellafield Visitors’ Centre.

He hadn’t wanted to go to the Sellafield Visitors’ Centre. He’d told Bradshaw that he’d rather set his teeth on fire than go to the Sellafield Visitors’ Centre. But she’d insisted. Said he should see it before it was demolished. She’d been three times and she lived in Hampshire, she’d told him. He hadn’t been once and he only lived half an hour away. Poe had told her that was everything she needed to know about his interest in nuclear fuel.

In the end he’d compromised. That is to say, he gave in. As he always did.

In truth he didn’t mind. They had a whole week off and he enjoyed her company. And there was a lovely pub nearby. It did steak and kidney pudding with buttered mash. Real gravy. If they didn’t hang around in the science place, which was what he called it, they could get to the pub before it stopped serving lunch.

‘It’ll be great, Poe,’ she’d said. ‘They have these interactive games where you can dress up as an isotope.’

He’d looked at her. ‘Don’t make me change my mind,’ he’d said.

Before they could leave, Poe had to navigate his way through their ongoing discussion about his diet. This one was about wholemeal bread, specifically Poe’s refusal to eat it.

‘Life’s too short to not eat white bread, Tilly,’ he said as he reached for the last piece of toast. He slathered it with salted butter and took a bite.

‘You keep saying that, Poe,’ she said. ‘But all you’re doing is stacking up problems for tomorrow.’

He held it up. ‘It’s one bit of toast.’

‘That is one bit of toast, Poe. But so were the other seven bits you’ve eaten.’

‘I thought you’d be pleased,’ he said. ‘You’re always saying I eat too much meat.’

‘You do eat too much meat, but eight pieces of toast is too much toast.’

He sighed, tried to throw it back on his plate but only succeeded in dropping it on the ground. Luckily Edgar, his English springer spaniel, was off chasing curlews somewhere, so Poe was able to safely retrieve it. Grabbing food off the floor was the quickest way to get bitten on the hand.

‘Typical,’ he grunted. It had landed butter side down and was now covered in dry grass and dust. Probably sheep shit. Poe was a keen proponent of the five-second rule but he had limits. He put it on his plate in disappointment. Now all he’d be able to think about was toast. He picked it back up. Considered scraping off the worst of the muck.

‘What is typical, Poe?’

‘Huh?’

‘You said something was typical?’

‘My toast, it always lands on the buttered side when I drop it. It’s typical of my bad luck, I suppose.’

She gave him a look. One he recognised well.

‘It’s maths, Poe, not luck,’ she said without a trace of irony. ‘Toast usually falls from the table and is almost always butter side up when it does. Unless there are outside factors involved, the spin rate is rarely fast enough for it to go through a full revolution before it reaches the ground. If tables were ten feet high, we would say that toast always seems to land butter side up.’

Poe said nothing.

‘Actually, I wouldn’t say toast always seems to land butter side up, but people who don’t understand fundamental physical constants would. I can show you the maths if you want.’

‘I’d rather dress up as an isotope.’

She didn’t respond.

‘What is it?’ he said.

‘Someone’s coming.’

Poe didn’t get casual visitors. His isolated former shepherd’s croft was on the wind-ravaged, sheep-heavy Shap Fell. It was two miles from the nearest road and could only be accessed on foot or by all-terrain quad bike. Even with directions most people couldn’t find. . .