In 1968, Burringbar was a town where the heat
cracked the road and secrets ran deeper than the
waterhole. Mabel Thorne, an eccentric inventor
with a knack for clockwork and a disdain for
small talk, had spent decades tinkering in her
shed behind the old schoolhouse. Her latest
project — a selfwinding radio transmitter — had
drawn the wrong kind of attention.
The day the police arrived, it wasn’t for a
breakin or a missing goat. It was for protection.
A syndicate from Sydney, led by a former soldier
with a taste for vintage suits and a grudge,
believed Mabel’s device could track down a stash
of gold hidden during the bushranger wars. They
wanted it. She refused. So they made her
disappear.
Mabel was relocated under Witness Protection,
dropped into a new identity and a new town — but
not before leaving behind a single clue: a brass
gear stamped with her initials, hidden inside
the transmitter. The local cop, Detective Frank
O’Shea, found it buried in the sand near the old
cemetery. He didn’t believe in ghosts, but he
did believe in loose ends.
Frank had a reputation for chasing leads that
didn’t lead anywhere — and for making jokes
about the constabulary’s lack of resources. His
superiors had assigned him to the case as a joke,
but when Mabel’s new identity began to unravel —
a woman named Margaret Pritchard who couldn’t
remember her own address — Frank started to take
it seriously.
The town had its own rules: no questions asked,
no strangers welcomed, and certainly no
inventors. But Mabel had left something behind —
a blueprint for a device that could disrupt
radio signals across the region. Someone else
had found it.
The pressure mounted when the syndicate’s
enforcers began turning up in town, asking after
“Miss Pritchard.” Frank, armed with nothing but
a rusted wrench and a halfbaked theory, tracked
Mabel to a disused railway tunnel on the
outskirts of town. There, he found her — working
on a new invention, one that could fry a car’s
engine from ten paces.
The showdown was brief. The syndicate’s men
arrived, expecting an easy handover. Instead,
they got a demonstration. Mabel’s machine
sputtered to life, sending sparks flying and
engines coughing. One man fell to his knees,
clutching his ears. Another turned tail.
Frank, ever the joker, tossed the brass gear
back to Mabel. “You’re safe now,” he said,
grinning. “But if you ever try to invent
something that can fry a Holden, I’m not helping
you again.”
Mabel laughed — a sound like gears clicking into
place — and handed him a new blueprint. “For you,
” she said. “It’s a radio that only plays
cricket commentary.”
The town of Burringbar returned to its usual
rhythm, but the legend of the inventor grew.
Some said she’d never truly left. Others claimed
the radio still crackled at night, playing
matches from a century ago.
And Frank? He kept the blueprint in his desk,
next to a photo of a certain Margaret Pritchard —
now officially retired from witness protection,
and back to tinkering.
