Shopping for clues

Shopping for Clues

Inspector North glanced anxiously at his watch as he inserted his front
door key into the lock. He let himself in, wiped his feet carefully on
the mat and hung up his coat and hat. He exchanged his shoes for carpet
slippers, deliberately ignored the three letters sitting on the small
table that were addressed to him and, taking a deep breath, entered the
living room.
"I'm home," he called out, forcing a cheery note into his voice as he
went in.
Mrs North was sitting in one of the two large high-backed armchairs in
front of the gas fire. She was elegantly dressed in a matching olive
green skirt and jacket. She wore a rose-coloured silk scarf tied
loosely around the neck, which set off a pearl string necklace that
once belonged to her mother. North also remarked that her hair was
freshly curled and she had make up on. She did not look up at her
husband as he entered the room. She kept he eyes fixed on the glossy
magazine on her lap, the pages of which she turned too quickly to be
able to give them anything but a rapid, almost casual glance.
North advanced stoically into the room and came to stand next to his
wife. He stretched out his hands to warm them by the fire.
"It only starts in an hour, doesn't it?" said North.
Mrs North snorted. "You know I like to get there early," she snapped.
"And anyway, I told Marjorie I would meet her there at half past
seven."
"Oh," murmured the detective. Yes, she was absolutely right. He should
have known. In fact he did know. He felt suddenly guilty about
deliberately coming home later than usual, on the night of one of their
rare theatre outings.
"I hadn't forgotten," he assured her, "but I was waiting for some good
news from the Welsh police to come in. They were to call me about the
recapture of a criminal called Daniel Strong," he explained.
Mrs North continued to turn the pages of her magazine.
North went on. "This villain's been giving us grief for some time now.
He started off relatively small but he's recently moved on to bigger
things. He's been dealing quite heavily in drugs these past few months.
He was supposed to have been arrested a few weeks back in a special
operation but he managed to slip through our fingers. By a stroke of
luck we found out today that he'd gone off to North Wales. We even knew
where. So we sent the information off to the Welsh Police and I was
waiting for their report to come in. They phoned to say they'd arrested
him just before I came home."
"Well I'm glad everything turned out the way you wanted," said Mrs
North. After many years of married life together, North could easily
detect the hurt beneath the sharp tones.
"We were quite lucky really," continued North, ignoring the bait. He
then fished into his jacket pocket and brought out a small piece of
white paper. He stared at it for a moment and then placed it on the
coffee table beside his wife.
"That's what helped us find him," he said, indicating the piece of
white paper. Mrs North kept her eyes glued firmly to her magazine. They
both remained in their respective positions for several long silent
seconds. Then North whisked himself away upstairs to get ready.
In less than five minutes he was down again wearing his new suit and
the blue and yellow silk tie his wife had given him on his last
birthday. He'd changed his shirt, his face was refreshed and his hair
combed. He also smelled of the after shave his wife liked so much, the
same one he categorically refused to wear to work.
"I'm ready dear," he said.
His wife looked up at her husband for the first time since he'd come
home. She eyed him up and down, examining the detective's appearance
with close inspection. She closed the magazine on her lap. Nothing
seemed amiss. She hummed a note which North interpreted as one of
approval.
"We can go then," she said.
"Yes," replied North. He noticed that the piece of paper was in exactly
the same position as he has left it. He picked it up himself and
examined it once more, for the twentieth time that day.
Mrs North got up out of the armchair and approached her husband. Even
in her flat-heeled shoes she only stood half a head shorter than the
detective. Habit prompted her to brush away specks of dust from the
lapel of his jacket with the back of her hand and straighten his tie.
All the while North appeared engrossed in his piece of paper.
"It's just a supermarket receipt," Mrs North finally said
matter-of-factly. An added edge of perplexity in her voice indicated
surprise at her husband's attitude.
"I know," replied North. "It seems quite an innocent little thing,
doesn't it? People throw them away as soon as they get them, without
any second thought. It's hard to imagine how such an ordinary little
thing, anonymous may it seem, can reveal so much. And yet it led to the
capture of a criminal."
Mrs North was no fool. She knew her husband was impatient to tell her
how he'd captured the criminal. North was not duped either. He knew too
that under normal circumstances his wife enjoyed listening to the
stories he brought home from work. He glanced at his watch. It was
almost twenty past seven.
"Do you want to hear about it?" he asked tentatively.
"Will it take long?" she enquired.
"No, a few minutes."
Mrs North hesitated.
"Perhaps you could tell me about it as we drive along?" she
suggested.
North acquiesced with a gentle smile. "O.K. my love," he said.
They put on their coats and hats and went out to the car. North locked
up while his wife settled herself into the passenger's seat. The car
was still warm and started immediately. The heater soon began to churn
out warm comforting air.
Once they were under way Mrs North asked.
"So who's this criminal then?" asked Mrs North.
"His name is Daniel Strong. We've had our eye on him for a long time
now. He's got quite a long criminal history. He has already done time
for theft, burglary and possession. Now though, he seems to have moved
up in the world. He has started drug dealing. As I said earlier we
missed a chance to arrest him a few weeks ago. This morning we got a
tip-off saying that he was living in a squat in a block of flats down
near the river. When we got there, we found it empty. He'd already
gone. But we couldn't have missed him by much."
"How do you know that?"
"Because of the supermarket receipt. Of course, we carried out a small
search of the squat to see if we could find anything which would tell
us where he had gone. We found nothing except for this receipt. You can
see from the name on the receipt that it comes from a supermarket which
is not far from where the squat is. If you look at the date and time of
the transaction you can see that whoever went there did their shopping
at 9:15 this morning. Now, we arrived at the squat shortly before 10
o'clock. So if the person had come back to the flat, which they had
done because that is where we found the receipt, we mustn't have missed
them by much."
"I see, but why don't you say Daniel Strong? Don't you think he was the
one who did the shopping?"
"Frankly? No. You see, Daniel Strong has recently been seen in the
company of a young girl and we believe that they were living in the
squat together. We found some rubbish relating to ladies toiletries in
the squat. We think it was she who went to the supermarket. For one,
Daniel Strong is not the sort to go and do the weekly shopping. And
second, if you take another look at the receipt, you will also see that
the shopping was paid for by cheque. Strong isn't the sort to pay by
cheque either. Always has cash on him. I doubt he even has a bank
account. So we're pretty sure it was his girlfriend who did for the
shopping. She probably went there on her own."
"It could have been stolen cheque-book that was used."
"True, and if that was the case then we would never have been able to
find him and I wouldn't be telling you this story. Fortunately for us,
though, it wasn't."
"Yes I see now. If you were able to find cheque that was used, it would
give you the name of the person whose cheque it was.
"That's right. All we had to do was find the cheque. We already had the
name of the supermarket. It was a question of looking at all the
cheques made out this morning. Fortunately the manager was a
comprehensive chap."
"But I suppose lots of people must have paid by cheque even after only
a couple of hours of shopping."
"Yes," said North. "But the receipt gave us the amount spent,' said
North.
"Ah yes," said Mrs North. "Of course, I didn't think." She then looked
closely at the receipt and then said.
"So how many people spent 32 pounds and 63 pence in the supermarket
this morning and paid by cheque?"
North smiled. "Well, believe it not, there were two cheques for that
amount."
"Two!" said Mrs North. "That must be quite a coincidence in its own
right. But I guess it was easy to eliminate one or the other?"
"One of them turned out to be a man of 75. I sent Sergeant Cooper round
to see him. He was very co-operative. He goes to the supermarket every
week at the same time for his weekly shopping. Not only did he show
Cooper the stub of his cheque book but he still had his receipt. So we
could safely rule him out. And the other," began North.
"Turned out to be the young lady, I suppose?" said Mrs North.
"You suppose correctly, my dear. Her name is Susan Connelly. She's a
female student. Or should I say ex student, because according to her
parents whose address was figured on the cheque, the young girl seems
to have dropped out of college. The parents admit that they don't see
much of her and do not know what she gets up to during the day. They
say it is not unusual for them not to see her for days on end."
Mrs North shivered. She had vivid memories of the worries gone through
of getting their own two children through all their schooling and into
some kind of employment.
"It's hardly surprising she dropped out of college considering the
company she keeps," sighed Mrs North.
"For all we know, she might be the one leading him on," remarked the
detective objectively, although in this particular case he doubted very
much it was true.
"I don't suppose she told her parents were she was going?" said Mrs
North.
"No such luck, I'm afraid," said North.
"So how did you know they were going to North Wales?" said his
wife.
"Pure speculation and a stroke of luck. Take a good look at the items
the girl bought in the supermarket. Do they suggest anything to
you?"
Mrs North examined closely the list of items the girl had bought in the
supermarket that morning. She read the list aloud to herself, slowly.
"Four tins of baked beans, salt, several packets of soup, bars of
chocolates, rice, large box of matches, cereal, pasta, pasta sauce,
tea, sugar, dried milk, large batteries."
"What do you think?" asked North.
"Well I suppose the batteries are for a torch and the rest is just a
lot of dried food, the kind you take when you want to go camping or
something like that."
"That's what I thought."
"But that doesn't mean they did go camping," continued Mrs North. "For
one thing it's too cold this time of year and second, you said they
lived in a squat. They could have been going to another squat."
"Would you bother to stock up on food if you were just going to another
squat?" asked the detective.
"I suppose not," replied Mrs North. She was silent for a moment.
"Unless," she began hesitantly.
"Yes, my love?" enquired North.
"Did you have reason to believe that they knew you were going to raid
the squat?" asked Mrs North.
"No. I don't think they did know," said North. "It's true that we were
looking for him. Daniel Strong was aware of that. You're thinking
perhaps that the shopping was just routine shopping and they left the
squat because they got wind of our imminent arrival?"
"Something like that," replied Mrs North.
"The squat they were in was not a known squat. There was no reason for
them to think they were in any danger. We thought that this trip was
planned and the shopping was done especially for the trip."
"Did you ask the girl's parents if she'd taken anything with her the
last time she came home?"
"I did indeed."
"And what did she take?"
"A bagful of clothes and some toiletries."
Mrs North was thoughtful. "It does sound as if they wanted to leave the
city then. If it was planned then it would be reasonable to assume that
they had an idea of where they were going. It's a bit cold at this time
of year for camping," continued Mrs North, "but how about a
caravan?"
"I've always said that you should have been a detective."
"That was it, was it?"
"Yes, I caravan."
"But that in itself is not very conclusive. There are thousands of
caravans in this county alone. How did you know where the caravan
was?"
"You're quite right. We wouldn't have been able to check all the
caravans in the country. Didn't I say we had a stoke of luck?."
"The girl's parents?" said Mrs North.
The detective nodded.
"We simply asked the girl's parents if they knew of anybody who had a
caravan. The father said that his brother had one in North Wales where
they sometimes went. His daughter is very familiar with it. She has
often been there on her own. She knows the person who looks after the
caravan site, so she would easily be able to get the key. The parents
gave us the address. We contacted the Welsh police and they said they
would wait for them."
"Of course, having only set off in the morning they wouldn't arrive
until late afternoon," remarked Mrs North.
"I would have loved to see the expression of Danny's face when he
arrived at the caravan thinking it would be an excellent place to hide
and lie low for a while, when in the end the police would already be
waiting for him."
"And that's why you were late coming home. You were waiting for news
from the Welsh police to tell you that they had captured him."
"Here we are," said North, pulling into the car park next to the
theatre. There was a continuous line of cars entering the car park but
there were still plenty of free spaces. He managed to find one near to
the theatre entrance. North cut the engine. Around them car doors were
banging as couples made their way to join the growing crowd in front of
the theatre.
"Look," remarked Mrs North, "there's Margery just getting out of her
car."
North reached over and took his wife's hands in his own.
"I didn't tell you how lovely you're looking this evening," he said to
her.
Mrs North's eyes glistened as she smiled. She gently squeezed her
husband's hand back. She then gave him a quick peck on the cheek and
got out of the car. Outside the wind was throwing up a cold breeze. She
turned to face it and let the cold chill her face. It wouldn't do for
her mascara to run. Not now anyway.