When The Snow Falls

Daniel pooled the new information with the remaining Mystery Club members who hadn't been present for the questioning. As he had been expecting, Oliver was the most optimistic about the new information.

"The Police took all of our shoe prints so if someone out of us has the shoe- they will be found," Oliver said enthusiastically.

"Oliver, we know they took the shoe prints off everyone present and as we've found out the only people on this island are us, the other school, Yamamoto, the cook and the theatre group," Amien disagreed. "I don't think they found any matches out of anyone there which is why they checked Nakajima's shoes."

"Someone changed their shoes then," Daniel said. "It is a shame we can't see an inventory of what was found at the theatre."

Oliver held up his hand.

"Just to confirm, we all have alibis don't we?"

"Oliver, we were together for most of the time. We know the timeframe now- Meredith went off to get her coat and came back within two minutes- that doesn't match what we know and Daniel and Felix were together. We would have heard them leaving as well," Amien summarised neatly. "None of us did it. However I do appreciate your thoroughness."

"That leaves it as the other school…" Oliver trailed off. "We don't really know them, it's going to be awkward to us."

"There's the cook as well," Meredith reminded him. "We don't know about her connection to the theatre troupe."

"Who are we sending to the kitchen then?" Amien asked. "Felix is obviously going, he can charm anyone."

***

Daniel knocked on the door of the lodge kitchen and held it open for Meredith and Felix. The cook turned out to be a friendly older woman.

"Where was I at six o'clock yesterday?" she repeated once they had got past the greetings and to the first question. "Yamamoto said you would be coming to question me at some point. I'm just glad you came before I started dinner preparations."

Daniel was grateful for the event organiser's passion and faith in them, it made questioning a lot easier.

"Were you here at that time?"

"I was," she confirmed. "I was organising everything for dinner. Some things need more prep than others so I was here preparing quite early on."

"Did you hear anything?" Felix asked.

"Someone left close to six. They closed the front door very quietly, but I have quite sharp ears. I didn't see anyone out the window so they must have taken the path on the left that goes to the theatre. I heard a group of people leave a little later, then someone came in. Then a few minutes later, another group of people left."

Daniel tensed when he heard that information. It seemed even more likely that the murderer had been in the lodge. The first group of people she heard would have been them and the second would have been the other school.

"Can anyone confirm your whereabouts?" Felix asked.

She shook her head. "No. I like working alone."

The reborn detective looked around at the kitchen. It was a newly refurbished kitchen judging by the state of the stainless steel tables and the appliances. It was also very clean with no stains or mess. The only thing out of place was the nearly overflowing rubbish bin with plastic packaging on the top.

The cook followed his gaze and said something too quickly in Japanese for him to pick up on. She approached the bin with a confused expression.

"Someone must have come in here whilst I was having a smoke break outside. It was only halfway full with the plastic on top," she told them. "I knew there was something strange when I came back in."

Daniel had already guessed what she would find before she picked off the plastic wrappers and pulled out a shoe.

It seemed like they had found the incriminating pair of shoes.

***

Daniel managed to get a good look at the shoes before they handed them into the Police. They were a pair of white trainers that hadn't been worn much and had suspiciously clean soles. The branding hadn't meant anything to him, but Meredith had found an online listing for them and quoted a very expensive price.

"Do you think those are the shoes that made the muddy footprint?" Felix asked after they walked back from the theatre.

They had handed the shoes over to the Police officer guarding the door and explained the situation. From the look on his face, Daniel had guessed that the Police had spent a while looking in the theatre for the shoes.

"They were large shoes and if they were looking for ones in a large size, it probably is those. They were very clean bottoms, but they had definitely been worn before."

Felix sighed for a reason Daniel couldn't work out.

"The murderer is unfortunately someone from the other school," he stated.

"What makes you so sure?" Daniel asked with keen interest.

Whilst he was almost sure from all the evidence they had gathered, he wanted to know Felix's reasoning.

"Culturally people from the west have larger shoe sizes than the Japanese," Felix explained. "That shoe was a larger size than mine and I have trouble finding shoes here. We know none of us are the murderer- that leaves the other school. Most of them are from western countries."

Daniel appreciated that insight and was able to add to it.

"It's someone sloppy and nervous as well. Hiding them in the kitchen bin shows they wanted to get rid of them fast and lacked the ability to find a better hiding place. They also used the front door which led to them being heard."

"Where would you have hidden the shoes then?" Felix enquired.

Daniel considered the island carefully.

"I would have sneaked out the back door last night and thrown them in the water. By the time they had washed up- they wouldn't have any evidence on them."

"The back door is likely to be locked- that's probably why the murderer didn't use it," Felix pointed out.

"I would have picked the lock," Daniel replied.

Felix nudged him. "Not everyone can pick locks Daniel."

They walked back to the lodge in a thoughtful silence. Daniel was going over the possible reasons for murdering Nakajima and was failing to come up with any that fitted in. Felix appeared to be in deep thought as well.

They rejoined the rest of the Mystery Club in the boys room and relayed everything.

"It has to be someone in the other Mystery Club…" Meredith said in horror. "But we're all 18 or under. That's really bad."

Daniel hadn't considered that angle before. It was true that if they missed the murderer, they were likely to kill again if they had started out this young,

"It is likely that the Police are going to come and search the lodge from top to bottom," Daniel said. "I don't know if they have worked out anything we haven't had access to. The cook said she had given her statement to the Police so they should be working along the same lines as us."

"We need to work this out before we get suspected ourselves," Amien concluded. "We all have alibis, but Daniel and Felix technically have the shakiest as they are dating and one could have covered for the other- that's in the eyes of the Police, not me."

"Isn't it dinner soon?" Meredith asked. "We can ask the other club about the alibis then. They don't know what we've found so they won't realise that we suspect them."

"We can slip in some other questions as well like who has been here before and any connections with the actors," Daniel agreed. "Let's hope the Police don't start questioning them before we do."

It was easy to say that they would question the other students about their abilis, it would be another thing to do it. He was anticipating some issues.

"We need someone who is good at being social and at twisting conversations to ask these questions," Amien said out loud. "Oliver and Harry aren't capable of it."

All eyes turned towards Felix.

"Yes?" he said. "I can't do this single handedly you know. It's going to be strange if the only person talking is me. Daniel can help and I guess Amien can if he can rein in the attitude."

"I don't know what attitude you mean," Amien said with a smirk. "But if you meant you wanted me to become charming, I can do that."

***

"What was I doing before the play started?" one of the girls in the other club said doubtfully. "I was in my room with my friend listening to music."

"We were," the girl next to her spoke up. "We were listening to all the latest hits and then we met up at the bottom of the stairs like we had arranged."

That was those two girls out. Together they had made a list of the number of students in the other club and Daniel could see Oliver ticking them off under the table. Whilst they didn't know most of their names, they had pooled a list of appearances.

"Who could have thought at the same time we were doing that, someone was setting up to murder that actor," the first girl continued on. "It's scary."

Felix moved onto another member of the club.

"What were you doing before the play?" he asked the next person at the table, a boy with brown hair.

"I was watching videos on youtube," he replied with a shrug. "At least I wasn't on tiktok like the other two."

He pointed at another two boys across the table and Daniel guessed they also had a three membered room on their side of the floor.

"Please, we weren't late to the meeting downstairs like Ethan was," one of the other boys commented. "For someone who was keen to get to the theatre before the other club, you were quite late and we ended up being beaten to it."

Daniel's eyes went to Ethan immediately. His self proclaimed rival was very pale with a bead of sweat visible on his forehead.

"So you were planning to get there before us?" Oliver asked with a grin. "You should have left earlier."

"We wanted to, Ethan didn't turn up at 7 so we had to wait."

Ethan flinched and Daniel suspected that they had found the murderer.