When The Snow Falls

Daniel knew there was no time to waste when someone's throat had been slashed that badly. There was still a chance that the actor's life could be saved. He ran up the steps at the side of the stage with Felix behind him.

The actors rushed onto the stage a few seconds later.

"Stop!" Felix shouted. "Unless any of you have medical training."

Daniel used the momentary pause to get as close as he could to the actor's body. The slash was across the carotid artery and the blood was still flowing fast. It was worth calling the emergency services, but unless the island had a hospital, there was very little chance of saving the actor's life.

He took off his jacket and balled it up to step the blood.

"I'll call the emergency services," Amien said. "Do what you can here."

Daniel nodded and Felix donated his jacket as well. Daniel looked at the amount of blood lost and the way the actor's c.h.e.s.t was barely moving and suspected it was too late. He had lost too much blood.

His attention was diverted by the actress playing the character Haruka slumping to the floor.

"It wasn't me. The knife shouldn't cut like that. I just did as we do in the rehearsal. Nothing went wrong earlier."

From that comment Daniel surmised that the gloved hand holding the murder weapon and made the slash was hers. He put the surprise from her character being the murderer to the side and focused on the task at hand.

The blood wasn't flowing as fast now and Felix was busy trying to resuscitate the actor with no success.

"I think… it's not enough. He needs a hospital," Felix said after a round of c.h.e.s.t pumps and mouth to mouth.

Daniel frowned. It had taken them an hour on a boat to get to the island. A helicopter would be much quicker and practical, but it would take time to organise one. He wasn't liking the success rate.

He distracted himself by looking around the stage. The knife was on the stage just out of the range of the pool of blood. He was about to reach out with a handkerchief for a closer look when Ethan came lumbering onto the stage and stepped in the blood.

Daniel grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

"You're contaminating the scene. Stop butting in and stand at the side unless you have a medical qualification."

Ethan sneered at him and stormed off. Daniel dismissed the incident from his mind and focused back on the current issue at hand.

"I will get you the first aid kit," one of the actors said. "There's got to be something we can use to help him."

Daniel waited until they had adhered gauze from the first aid kit to the wound and applied lots of pressure before actually picking up the knife.

It was a regular flick knife with a difference. He could see signs of a plastic coating across the sharp edge and knew it had been prepared for the stage. What had happened was that someone had removed the plastic coating.

He looked around at the stage floor again and saw broken pieces of plastic. He picked them up with his handkerchief and compared them to the plastic still on the knife. They were an exact match.

The actor who had fetched the first aid kit came to lean over him.

"That knife is new for the performance, the coating wouldn't just come off by itself. This was deliberate."

Daniel nodded and looked at the actor again. By now the gauze was soaked with blood and his c.h.e.s.t was no longer moving at all.

"I think this is going to be a murder investigation," he said grimly.

***

The Police arrived at the theatre after the medical services had taken away the body. It had been a tense time. The actor's life hadn't been saved as it had been too late by the time the paramedics had arrived on the island and got to the theatre.

Now they were all waiting around in the theatre to have their statements taken. The actors were all gathered together with the actress playing Haruka still in tears.

"Have you got any ideas yet?" Felix whispered in his ear.

Daniel cast another glance at the group of actors. He had been observing them closely since the medical services had taken away the body.

He didn't think any of the actors were potential murderers. Their reactions had all been completely natural.

"It doesn't seem like it's one of them. They are all as shocked as we are over it."

"They are actors," Felix reminded him. "But you're right, no one is strangely unbothered or too distraught. Yukari is the most distraught, but she was the one who slashed his throat in good faith that the knife wouldn't hurt him- that's a completely natural reaction to this."

Daniel filed away the reminder that he was dealing with professional actors away for future thought.

"So what we know at the moment is that the plastic guard was on the knife during the dress rehearsal which they did roughly an hour before we got here. The broken off parts of it suggest it was probably loosened instead of being taken off so Yukari the actress wouldn't notice anything wrong about it and would cut the carotid artery on Nakajima''s neck."

Daniel had learnt all the actor's real names over the past hour as there hadn't been much to do besides talk.

"They all said they couldn't think of a reason to kill Nakajima," Felix continued on. "I wonder if that was the truth."

Meredith came over to them. Much like them, she had spent time talking to all the actors.

"I've picked up a lot of gossip now," she said in a low voice. "Nakajima-san had gone out with most of the single ladies in the cast and was dating Yukari, but… he was cheating on her with Ami who is married to Nakamura- that's the one playing the undercover Police officer."

Daniel added that information to everything he knew and inwardly smirked the memory of all the actors swearing that no one had a reason to kill Nakajima. He looked over at them again and saw Yukaru being approached by the Police.

"I think she is going to be considered to be the most suspicious person here. It wasn't her fault her character was the murderer," he said thoughtfully. "She didn't know she was going to hurt him."

"We need to find out who wrote the play and decided the casting," Felix pointed out. "There could be a clue in that."

"You mean someone wanted to frame her and kill Nakajima at the same time?" Meredith asked. "I didn't think of that."

"It is worth mentioning that some of them must have been lying about no one having a motive to kill Nakajima," Felix said. "If he had been romantically involved with most of the females and was cheating on Yukari with a married woman, most of them have a motive."

Meredith frowned.

"Can we even do anything with the Police here? We aren't official investigators and this isn't like the case with our school."

Daniel understood her completely. Technically they were just a group of teenagers who had solved a cold case before mainly because the hints had fallen into their hands naturally.

"What do you think?" Felix asked him.

"Are you thinking of solving the case?" Amien asked from behind him.

Daniel jumped slightly. He hadn't noticed Amien's presence.

"What's your opinion?"

Amien sighed. "It's a tough one. We cannot interfere with a Police investigation otherwise we risk being charged ourselves. We also will not know any extra information they find as they will not tell us things like results from fingerprint tests."

"It always works out in stories," Meredith said.

Amien gave her a scornful look.

"That's why they are stories. A story wouldn't be very entertaining if the detective characters never found out a thing as the Police didn't reveal anything."

Daniel knew Amien was right and it brought back memories from his past life. He had been fortunate enough to have a contact within the Police who would feed him information that he needed.

"Daniel?"

The reborn detective blinked and realised Felix was staring at him in concern.

"Yes?"

"I said the decision is up to you on whether or not we try to solve this case," Felix said.

"Oliver is the leader of the Mystery Club," Daniel replied.

Amien snorted.

"In writing only. You're the one that actually does things."

Daniel took a look back at the bloodied stage that had been cordoned off and remembered that they had all come to the island to celebrate the end of school. They probably wouldn't see each other again after this and that made up his mind.

"Let's solve this mystery."