First Place Fiction — William Bennett
We were saddened to hear of the William Bennett's passing in June 2022.
In his memory, we're proud to share this link to his winning entry for the 2019 Thunderbolt Prize for Crime Writing - Fiction category.
Our deepest condolences to William's family and friends.
The NEWC team.
In his memory, we're proud to share this link to his winning entry for the 2019 Thunderbolt Prize for Crime Writing - Fiction category.
Our deepest condolences to William's family and friends.
The NEWC team.
Born, educated, moved around Brisbane.
First (gainful) employment at Lismore, NSW, working with cattle ticks.
Moved to Armidale, NSW. Became a geneticist. Became interested in the inheritance of ability — about a week after discovering the (unacknowledged) prizes my mother had won for her writing.
Discovered 'I' enjoyed writing — short stories, especially with a large touch of the ridiculous. Easy enough — genetics is full of them.
Judge’s comment:
This is an unusual crime story about a rather odd crime — beautifully written, hilarious, and entirely unexpected.
I look forward to reading more from this wonderfully idiosyncratic writer.
First (gainful) employment at Lismore, NSW, working with cattle ticks.
Moved to Armidale, NSW. Became a geneticist. Became interested in the inheritance of ability — about a week after discovering the (unacknowledged) prizes my mother had won for her writing.
Discovered 'I' enjoyed writing — short stories, especially with a large touch of the ridiculous. Easy enough — genetics is full of them.
Judge’s comment:
This is an unusual crime story about a rather odd crime — beautifully written, hilarious, and entirely unexpected.
I look forward to reading more from this wonderfully idiosyncratic writer.
A Different Brand of Cat
So I am sitting at my desk, thinking of nothing much, as is my wont on a Monday morning in the Biology Department and I am waiting for the Java to do something to my brain, such as kick start it, when I become aware of a raised voice in my room and this voice belongs to James McSweeny. He is calling someone by coarse, vulgar and most uncouth names.
So I start in listening. James McSweeny is angry about his Masters student, Larceny and a little animal Larceny is using for his project.
Well, I know this guy Larceny. He is twenty seven and blonde and stands about five feet eleven in his socks and is built like a rangy middleweight. He gets his name because there is more larceny in him than Long Bay and it is the general consensus of opinion from coast to coast that he will steal the bridle off a nightmare if the opportunity presents. In fact, James McSweeny says, Larceny’s name is the only thing given to him : everything else has been stolen.
I know the animal, too. It is a female Tiger Cat and although she is called a cat and yowls like a cat and looks like a different brand of cat, she is not a cat at all. Furthermore, I will be laying plenty of 6 to 5 on her in any frank and forthright discussions with any cats on Earth or elsewhere, including tigers, for this particular cat is the fightingest animal that I ever see.
There are two other things I should tell you about this tiger cat. Firstly, she is no bouquet of roses for smell. All tiger cats are like this, but this one is very choice and very loud. Furthermore, when Larceny picks her up, the smell wipes off on his overalls and his wicketkeeper’s gloves. Larceny has to handle many tiger cats for his Masters project and he never washes his overalls since he steals them two years ago. When he has them on he rates about 7 on the Richter scale and you can always tell where he is.
Secondly, this little animal loves to dig. When she is not catching up on some snores, she is scratching with great zest in the dirt floor of her enclosure and all you can see of her is her Francesca sticking out of a hole in the ground. This habit comes with the genes: a dirt floor is just ginger in syrup to a tiger cat.
This habit is also what has James McSweeny full of heat: last night she starts digging near the fence and takes it on the D’arcy Dugan. As a result she is now as free as the breeze, and maybe freer.
James McSweeny has a head of steam now and says that if he had the brains God gave geese, or even one goose, he would have given Larceny the heavus long ago. He is going on to call Larceny some insulting names when he is interuppted by a knock on the door. James is a trifle vexed by this, as he still has several more names to call Larceny ; but the door opens and in walks Your Grace.
Your Grace is a tall limber Judy with short, curly black hair. She will be thirty three come next grass and she wears black horn rim cheaters which make her look very severe. She gets her name from her habit of speaking very slowly and carefully and she likes everybody to think she is very serious and scholarly, although Larceny, who knows her when she is a pup, claims that this is strictly the old ackamarackuss.
Recently she puts a big dint in her image by being promoted from sweet pea to everloving fiancee of James McSweeny.
When Your Grace finds that James McSweeny is talking about Larceny she becomes very terse, because she does not approve of Larceny any more than she does of leprosy. In fact she makes no bones about considering the very sight of him revolting to her. So she leaves, telling James McSweeny to be sure he has nothing on the books on Friday afternoon because she has friends coming to tea and wishes James McSweeny to help with the shopping.
So Larceny is putting up notices in the local paper and hither and yonder asking anyone who is seeing the small dark brown party to phone James McSweeny’s number and leave a message. He is feeling burned up too, because James McSweeny is leading him a dogs life for the rest of the week. James McSweeny is going around saying Larceny is the worst case of scientific halitosis in the history of civilization and would probably be saying a lot worse except for what happens on Friday.
Now, to understand what happens, I will have to tell you a little of the setup at this University.
The Vice-Chancellor of the University lives on campus in a large, old fashioned home with trees and hydrangeas around and about and especially hydrangeas. Just lately the stonemasons are measuring up among these hydrangeas for some vitreous tile paths. The tiles are to be made of a local blue clay and Dave the Boss is putting up a loud gripe about parting with many large, coarse notes for same. When the first stack of these tiles arrives, he is looking at them wondering how they could possibly cost three litres of heart’s blood and Mrs Dave the Boss says he is nothing but a Philistine.
James McSweeny tells me the home stands A1 with the National Truss and this is why people are always walking through it. Such action is water on the wheel of Mrs Dave the Boss, who feels she is promoting the finer things of life, although anyone who wants to weigh in for the finer things of life and be married to Professor David Venables at the same time is looking at a tough proposition. As a matter of fact, Dave the Boss likes nothing better than to get out of said home and pursue his hobby, which is getting around the racetracks.
Mrs Dave the Boss is still embarrassed more than somewhat over comments following a large social error her husband commits last week. It seems that Dave the Boss is coming back from another trip to Sydney and has just enough time to climb into his academic pants for the first off address by a new professor. Dave does not have any notes, but as he has only to introduce the professor to the customers, he decides to wing it. Normally this is no big deal, because he has done this before : Mrs Dave the Boss tells him what is coming off, then Dave makes his speech. He puts the zing on declining standards, includes a few boosts for culture, introduces the party, winds up his face to Refined Rapture and gets some rest behind it.
Well this time, Mrs Dave the Boss tells him that it is the new Professor of French Drama and he is giving out on Some Little Known Aspects of Racine and Dave gets up and starts his introduction by saying how nice it is to have someone else on staff who is interested in the horses.
Now, Mrs Dave the Boss owns a small dog called Sterling. This dog is a Corgi, which is a short-haired, stumpy half-portion such as dolls always love to lug about on a leash. Mrs Dave the Boss is always walking him here and there and chalking him up as an exclusive pedigree and worrying out loud because, she says, the district is infested with low-class dog stealers, all waiting to put the snatch on such a valuable animal.
Well, on Friday afternoon Larceny is passing James McSweeny’s office when the phone rings. So he answers same and finds himself listening to Mrs Dave the Boss and what is more, she is almost hysterical. She is saying that her pedigree dog is injured for life by a savage, dark brown beast in the hydrangeas.
Now, the Vice-Chancellors wife is trying to stay calm and she is speaking very distinctly, like someone else Larceny knows. In fact, Larceny figures that this is James McSweeny getting in with the old harpoon and that he is listening to Your Grace putting herself away as Mrs Dave the Boss. So Larceny is becoming somewhat heated at this and says as follows: --
“So its the everloving wife of that big doorknob who is such a standout as a French scholar, hey? It's the devoted spouse of that retread who thinks that culture is something found on old mangoes and whose signature appears on all the Easter buns, is it? Well, lady, my sympathies. It can't be easy living with an extra nothing who is also dead from the neck up!”
Larceny is really getting his rushes now and is about to continue, when into the office walks Your Grace followed by James McSweeny, both hefting large shopping bags.
Well, this is most unexpected, indeed, and Larceny is sitting there, wondering what goes wrong, when James McSweeny, who is a fast thinker under all circumstances, takes a swivel at Larceny’s map and then removes the phone from his duke.
Your Grace is not rapping to Larceny because she still considers him a churl and is having no part of him in any manner, way, shape or form. Larceny figures the best he can get out of this is the worst of it, so he shuts up and mooches around the office and listens as James McSweeny starts in to straighten out what comes off. Larceny is saying later that James McSweeny tries to mark the incident down to a passing student.
It seems that Sterling is walking with Mrs Dave the Boss when he runs into a shower of dirt. He looks about and sees that the dirt is coming from the back end of a chocolate item that is digging under the hydrangeas. So he moves up closer to see what is doing and, during a lull in the action, gives this back end a nudge in the vestibule.
Well, the tiger cat is greatly surprised by this and furthermore, she is most indignant about being nudged in the vestibule when she is digging under the hydrangeas, so she backs out and resents this familiarity.
Larceny says that it looks like she gets in two left jabs and a right cross before Sterling retrieves his face. She also gets in two under the chin with her back legs and Larceny is unsure how to call these; but if they are coming from the front legs they are uppercuts or maybe haymakers. Furthermore, Larceny says, it looks like she is biting in the clinches, because the imprint of some of her crockery is there on one ear. All these injuries are leaking more than somewhat, and it is this that has Mrs Dave the Boss yelling bloody murder.
When Larceny arrives at the Vice-Chancellor’s home, Mrs Dave the Boss recognizes his voice and knows that this is the party who is exceptionally guilty of character assassination on her everloving husband, so she looks at him in great disgust and is saying later that you can see by his face that he is nothing but a degenerate type. She then steps forward to put the blister on Larceny when the breeze changes and she gets both barrels of his overalls.
Well, Mrs Dave the Boss gets that look on her face that some economics students get when you ask them which way is south and she holds tight to the door until she stops floating and her head clears, then she just points to the hydrangeas.
I am curious to know just how Larceny puts the arm on this little chocolate item, because I figure that, after attending to Sterling, she will attend to further interruptions to her digging with very, very, severe dispatch. But Larceny simply puts down the calabozo that he keeps for carrying her where she can get a good sniff of whats inside it, which is a large piece of canned bamboo shoot.
How Larceny could possibly know that a female tiger cat, conceived, born and bred to be a carnivore on the floor of an Australian rainforest, would drop to canned bamboo shoot I fail to see, but drop she does. She stops digging, looks at Larceny, squints at the bamboo shoot and then marches at lively pace into the slammer, where she proceeds to surround the nourishment. Actually, Larceny says, she is making more noise than is altogether necessary, even for canned bamboo shoot.
Larceny is also stating later he will take a paralysed oath that he hears her mutter as he hauls her out the gate. This surprises one and all, as tiger cats do not have a licence to mutter. Larceny says she stops eating and is staring at something and that something is Sterling. It is clear she regards him as nothing but a fellow and if the play comes up again, the chances are she will annihilate him.
So James McSweeny is happy to see the tiger cat back in custody. Secondly, he is more pleased than somewhat to hear Larceny say he will spend the weekend covering the floor of the enclosure. In fact, he is so pleased that he does not wonder out loud why Your Grace should be ringing him in a state of great agitation to tell him that she is losing a tin of bamboo shoots she is positive she has when she leaves the store and to be sure to drop in somewhere and get another tin or the meal she is preparing will be ruined.
The tiger cat is pleasured up too, because when Larceny covers the floor he does not have the heart to deprive the little animal of the chance to commit digging when she feels the urge, so he leaves her a large square of dirt uncovered in the centre.
Furthermore, there is no denying that vitreous blue tiles add some tone to her enclosure and they are very warm when she wishes to catch up on some snores in the sun.
So I start in listening. James McSweeny is angry about his Masters student, Larceny and a little animal Larceny is using for his project.
Well, I know this guy Larceny. He is twenty seven and blonde and stands about five feet eleven in his socks and is built like a rangy middleweight. He gets his name because there is more larceny in him than Long Bay and it is the general consensus of opinion from coast to coast that he will steal the bridle off a nightmare if the opportunity presents. In fact, James McSweeny says, Larceny’s name is the only thing given to him : everything else has been stolen.
I know the animal, too. It is a female Tiger Cat and although she is called a cat and yowls like a cat and looks like a different brand of cat, she is not a cat at all. Furthermore, I will be laying plenty of 6 to 5 on her in any frank and forthright discussions with any cats on Earth or elsewhere, including tigers, for this particular cat is the fightingest animal that I ever see.
There are two other things I should tell you about this tiger cat. Firstly, she is no bouquet of roses for smell. All tiger cats are like this, but this one is very choice and very loud. Furthermore, when Larceny picks her up, the smell wipes off on his overalls and his wicketkeeper’s gloves. Larceny has to handle many tiger cats for his Masters project and he never washes his overalls since he steals them two years ago. When he has them on he rates about 7 on the Richter scale and you can always tell where he is.
Secondly, this little animal loves to dig. When she is not catching up on some snores, she is scratching with great zest in the dirt floor of her enclosure and all you can see of her is her Francesca sticking out of a hole in the ground. This habit comes with the genes: a dirt floor is just ginger in syrup to a tiger cat.
This habit is also what has James McSweeny full of heat: last night she starts digging near the fence and takes it on the D’arcy Dugan. As a result she is now as free as the breeze, and maybe freer.
James McSweeny has a head of steam now and says that if he had the brains God gave geese, or even one goose, he would have given Larceny the heavus long ago. He is going on to call Larceny some insulting names when he is interuppted by a knock on the door. James is a trifle vexed by this, as he still has several more names to call Larceny ; but the door opens and in walks Your Grace.
Your Grace is a tall limber Judy with short, curly black hair. She will be thirty three come next grass and she wears black horn rim cheaters which make her look very severe. She gets her name from her habit of speaking very slowly and carefully and she likes everybody to think she is very serious and scholarly, although Larceny, who knows her when she is a pup, claims that this is strictly the old ackamarackuss.
Recently she puts a big dint in her image by being promoted from sweet pea to everloving fiancee of James McSweeny.
When Your Grace finds that James McSweeny is talking about Larceny she becomes very terse, because she does not approve of Larceny any more than she does of leprosy. In fact she makes no bones about considering the very sight of him revolting to her. So she leaves, telling James McSweeny to be sure he has nothing on the books on Friday afternoon because she has friends coming to tea and wishes James McSweeny to help with the shopping.
So Larceny is putting up notices in the local paper and hither and yonder asking anyone who is seeing the small dark brown party to phone James McSweeny’s number and leave a message. He is feeling burned up too, because James McSweeny is leading him a dogs life for the rest of the week. James McSweeny is going around saying Larceny is the worst case of scientific halitosis in the history of civilization and would probably be saying a lot worse except for what happens on Friday.
Now, to understand what happens, I will have to tell you a little of the setup at this University.
The Vice-Chancellor of the University lives on campus in a large, old fashioned home with trees and hydrangeas around and about and especially hydrangeas. Just lately the stonemasons are measuring up among these hydrangeas for some vitreous tile paths. The tiles are to be made of a local blue clay and Dave the Boss is putting up a loud gripe about parting with many large, coarse notes for same. When the first stack of these tiles arrives, he is looking at them wondering how they could possibly cost three litres of heart’s blood and Mrs Dave the Boss says he is nothing but a Philistine.
James McSweeny tells me the home stands A1 with the National Truss and this is why people are always walking through it. Such action is water on the wheel of Mrs Dave the Boss, who feels she is promoting the finer things of life, although anyone who wants to weigh in for the finer things of life and be married to Professor David Venables at the same time is looking at a tough proposition. As a matter of fact, Dave the Boss likes nothing better than to get out of said home and pursue his hobby, which is getting around the racetracks.
Mrs Dave the Boss is still embarrassed more than somewhat over comments following a large social error her husband commits last week. It seems that Dave the Boss is coming back from another trip to Sydney and has just enough time to climb into his academic pants for the first off address by a new professor. Dave does not have any notes, but as he has only to introduce the professor to the customers, he decides to wing it. Normally this is no big deal, because he has done this before : Mrs Dave the Boss tells him what is coming off, then Dave makes his speech. He puts the zing on declining standards, includes a few boosts for culture, introduces the party, winds up his face to Refined Rapture and gets some rest behind it.
Well this time, Mrs Dave the Boss tells him that it is the new Professor of French Drama and he is giving out on Some Little Known Aspects of Racine and Dave gets up and starts his introduction by saying how nice it is to have someone else on staff who is interested in the horses.
Now, Mrs Dave the Boss owns a small dog called Sterling. This dog is a Corgi, which is a short-haired, stumpy half-portion such as dolls always love to lug about on a leash. Mrs Dave the Boss is always walking him here and there and chalking him up as an exclusive pedigree and worrying out loud because, she says, the district is infested with low-class dog stealers, all waiting to put the snatch on such a valuable animal.
Well, on Friday afternoon Larceny is passing James McSweeny’s office when the phone rings. So he answers same and finds himself listening to Mrs Dave the Boss and what is more, she is almost hysterical. She is saying that her pedigree dog is injured for life by a savage, dark brown beast in the hydrangeas.
Now, the Vice-Chancellors wife is trying to stay calm and she is speaking very distinctly, like someone else Larceny knows. In fact, Larceny figures that this is James McSweeny getting in with the old harpoon and that he is listening to Your Grace putting herself away as Mrs Dave the Boss. So Larceny is becoming somewhat heated at this and says as follows: --
“So its the everloving wife of that big doorknob who is such a standout as a French scholar, hey? It's the devoted spouse of that retread who thinks that culture is something found on old mangoes and whose signature appears on all the Easter buns, is it? Well, lady, my sympathies. It can't be easy living with an extra nothing who is also dead from the neck up!”
Larceny is really getting his rushes now and is about to continue, when into the office walks Your Grace followed by James McSweeny, both hefting large shopping bags.
Well, this is most unexpected, indeed, and Larceny is sitting there, wondering what goes wrong, when James McSweeny, who is a fast thinker under all circumstances, takes a swivel at Larceny’s map and then removes the phone from his duke.
Your Grace is not rapping to Larceny because she still considers him a churl and is having no part of him in any manner, way, shape or form. Larceny figures the best he can get out of this is the worst of it, so he shuts up and mooches around the office and listens as James McSweeny starts in to straighten out what comes off. Larceny is saying later that James McSweeny tries to mark the incident down to a passing student.
It seems that Sterling is walking with Mrs Dave the Boss when he runs into a shower of dirt. He looks about and sees that the dirt is coming from the back end of a chocolate item that is digging under the hydrangeas. So he moves up closer to see what is doing and, during a lull in the action, gives this back end a nudge in the vestibule.
Well, the tiger cat is greatly surprised by this and furthermore, she is most indignant about being nudged in the vestibule when she is digging under the hydrangeas, so she backs out and resents this familiarity.
Larceny says that it looks like she gets in two left jabs and a right cross before Sterling retrieves his face. She also gets in two under the chin with her back legs and Larceny is unsure how to call these; but if they are coming from the front legs they are uppercuts or maybe haymakers. Furthermore, Larceny says, it looks like she is biting in the clinches, because the imprint of some of her crockery is there on one ear. All these injuries are leaking more than somewhat, and it is this that has Mrs Dave the Boss yelling bloody murder.
When Larceny arrives at the Vice-Chancellor’s home, Mrs Dave the Boss recognizes his voice and knows that this is the party who is exceptionally guilty of character assassination on her everloving husband, so she looks at him in great disgust and is saying later that you can see by his face that he is nothing but a degenerate type. She then steps forward to put the blister on Larceny when the breeze changes and she gets both barrels of his overalls.
Well, Mrs Dave the Boss gets that look on her face that some economics students get when you ask them which way is south and she holds tight to the door until she stops floating and her head clears, then she just points to the hydrangeas.
I am curious to know just how Larceny puts the arm on this little chocolate item, because I figure that, after attending to Sterling, she will attend to further interruptions to her digging with very, very, severe dispatch. But Larceny simply puts down the calabozo that he keeps for carrying her where she can get a good sniff of whats inside it, which is a large piece of canned bamboo shoot.
How Larceny could possibly know that a female tiger cat, conceived, born and bred to be a carnivore on the floor of an Australian rainforest, would drop to canned bamboo shoot I fail to see, but drop she does. She stops digging, looks at Larceny, squints at the bamboo shoot and then marches at lively pace into the slammer, where she proceeds to surround the nourishment. Actually, Larceny says, she is making more noise than is altogether necessary, even for canned bamboo shoot.
Larceny is also stating later he will take a paralysed oath that he hears her mutter as he hauls her out the gate. This surprises one and all, as tiger cats do not have a licence to mutter. Larceny says she stops eating and is staring at something and that something is Sterling. It is clear she regards him as nothing but a fellow and if the play comes up again, the chances are she will annihilate him.
So James McSweeny is happy to see the tiger cat back in custody. Secondly, he is more pleased than somewhat to hear Larceny say he will spend the weekend covering the floor of the enclosure. In fact, he is so pleased that he does not wonder out loud why Your Grace should be ringing him in a state of great agitation to tell him that she is losing a tin of bamboo shoots she is positive she has when she leaves the store and to be sure to drop in somewhere and get another tin or the meal she is preparing will be ruined.
The tiger cat is pleasured up too, because when Larceny covers the floor he does not have the heart to deprive the little animal of the chance to commit digging when she feels the urge, so he leaves her a large square of dirt uncovered in the centre.
Furthermore, there is no denying that vitreous blue tiles add some tone to her enclosure and they are very warm when she wishes to catch up on some snores in the sun.
