Victoria Tait - Fowl Murder: A Cozy Mystery With a Determined Female Amateur Sleuth

Through our eyes we observe the fabric, the skin, the cover of the world, and we do not question the reality presented to us. So look! Scrutinise what lies beneath the surface, for there the truth exists.

T he bullet merely grazed Roses arm, but it tore through her peaceful existence. On the surface, Rose was a respectable European woman in her early sixties, with frizzy white hair, grooved skin and a lanky frame. She lived contentedly with her husband Craig in Nanyuki, a small town two hundred kilometres north of Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. But below her consciousness, the ghosts of her past haunted her. Only occasionally did she remember the young man whose life she had taken, but the guilt of her action drove her to support and protect people and animals alike in her local community.

By March, the rains had been absent for three months and the scrubland around Nanyuki shrivelled, the ground baked hard. Wispy grass had long since been consumed by roving herds of ragged sheep and goats. Amongst a variety of cactus plants, a dusting of trees and bushes survived, twiggy in nature, with small parchment leaves and spikes. Rose squatted beside one such bush, the milkweed, collecting its leaves, roots and pods for her herbal medicines.

She half stood, froze, her senses alive. Shed heard a thwack. A gun? She grabbed her left arm as something punched it. Something she could neither see nor hear. But gradually she noticed a burning sensation along her upper arm. Would there be more shots? No point running. She couldnt outrun a bullet.

Oh my God! Are you all right? shouted a female voice, familiar, calling out from her past.

Turning cautiously, clutching her arm, Rose confronted an oval face, topped with a yellow and brown turban, peering at her, wide-eyed, from above a thorny hedge.

Rose! My friend. Heavens, did I hit you? I heard your cry.

Rose could not remember uttering a sound and now her voice dried up.

Thabiti, shouted the woman beyond the hedge. Quick, go and help Rose, I think Ive shot her.

Chapter Two

O ne question at a time! Aisha raised her hands in surrender.

Rose, regaining the use of her voice, peppered her assailant with questions. Surprisingly, most pressing was not why she had been shot at. She took a deep breath to settle the bombardment in her mind.