Paul Gitsham - The Last Straw

By the time the desk sergeant let them know that the witnesses had arrived, Tony Sutton had also appeared. He too had listened as Hastings had admitted that he had forgotten to go back and pick up the breakdown of the till receipt or request the full CCTV footage of the night in question. Fortunately, when the manager had phoned beforehand, he had remembered to ask for both and the manager was bringing them with him. How significant was the mistake? wondered Jones. Depending on what this witness said and what was on the receipt and CCTV footage, it could have been either very significant or entirely trivial. And what about DC Hastings? He wouldn’t lose his job over it — cock-ups happened — but the size of the blot on his record could potentially determine the course of his career for the next few years. Jones hoped for all of their sakes that the mistake was trivial. The heavy feeling in his gut predicted otherwise.

Hastings introduced Sutton and Jones to Mr Patel the store manager, who in turn introduced Aaron Jenkins. Another seventeen-year-old checkout assistant, he at least looked the right age, noted Hastings. He was short and spotty, his hair was greasy and untidy, and his dark blue Tesco T-shirt seemed to hang off his skinny frame.

Once they were settled in the interview room, Jones indicated that he should begin.

“Well, I were talking to me mate, Kevin, who does the tills. Anyhow, he said that the police had been in asking about this bird that he served on Friday night. He said that he remembered her, like, ’cause she was well fit. Anyway, I asked him what she were in trouble for and he said he didn’t know, but it must have been serious, ’cause the police was after her.”

He paused and glanced at both Hastings and Jones, clearly hoping for some more information that he could take back to the staff canteen. None was forthcoming.

“Anyway, he says he was unlikely to forget her, because she was wearing a dead skimpy top and he could see right down it when she bent over. Said she had a picture of a rose tattooed on her tit. Well, I served her earlier on, like, but it was really weird because I was on the customer service desk. She come up to me with this massive trolley of shopping, all embarrassed, like, ’cause she’d forgotten her purse. She asked if I could look after her shopping whilst she nipped home to get her wallet. I said, yeah, sure thing. It’s dead quiet at that time of night and she didn’t have any frozen food in the trolley, so I stuck a label on it and wrote a note for whoever came in next to put it all back in an hour if she didn’t return.”

“And did she return?”

“Dunno. I went home about five or ten minutes later. I ain’t been back in until today.”

“What time did you leave?” Jones mouth was dry.

“Ten o’clock.”

Ten p.m .… It started to come together in Jones’ mind. He turned to Patel.

“I believe that you have kindly brought in some information for us, Mr Patel.”

“Yes — not sure how important it is, seeing as it’s been lying around the store for the past few days.” He looked pointedly at Hastings, who blushed slightly. Jones, who regarded it as his job to bollock sloppy officers, simply smiled politely.

“As I am sure you can imagine, Mr Patel, an investigation of this magnitude has many different threads running in parallel. Thank you for your assistance.”

Patel grunted and handed over a DVD in a jewel case. Whilst Hastings went out to rustle up a TV and DVD player, Sutton, who was a surprisingly fast typist for a man with fingers like sausages, used a laptop to write up Aaron’s witness statement. He also put out a call for Kevin Peterfield to be brought down to the station to sign a formal witness statement.

Eventually, Hastings arrived with a wheeled TV/DVD combo unit.

“OK, Mr Patel, so what have we got here?”

“I had one of the boys in Security retrace the young lady’s steps from the moment she entered the store to when she finished shopping and left. Obviously, I have all of the raw footage as well.”

No wonder he was pissed that nobody had come to pick up the footage. He’d clearly put a lot of effort into this, Jones thought. Sometimes it was easy to forget that for the most part the general public supported the police and would usually go out of their way to assist officers. He made a mental note to publicly thank Mr Patel and Tesco, at some point. Always good to foster relations with the second biggest employer in the town.

The footage started outside the store, showing Clara Hemmingway walking briskly across the car park. Pausing briefly to grab a trolley, she walked through the double doors into the store. The time stamp at the bottom of the screen clearly read 21:41h. What followed was a masterclass in speed shopping. Hemmingway raced up and down the aisles at a remarkable pace grabbing items as she went. For a cash-strapped student, she paid surprisingly little attention to the prices as she tossed food into the basket, Jones noted. As she flitted around the store, the view jumped from camera to camera. Keeping an eye on the clock at the bottom, Jones saw that it never missed a beat. Every second of Hemmingway’s whereabouts in the store was accounted for. He wondered idly if Tesco used that smart CCTV that could follow individuals around the store to help track their buying habits. He decided that he’d rather not know; the whole idea was a bit creepy and Big Brother in his opinion.

Finally, Clara was done. Pushing her trolley, she didn’t even head towards the tills, instead going straight to the customer service desk.

“Never even checked to see if she had her purse,” murmured Sutton quietly.

There was no one at the desk, but seconds later Aaron Jenkins came into view. Even without sound, it was clear that Hemmingway was a good actress, seeming flustered and embarrassed. Jenkins for his part kept on flicking his hair and trying to maintain eye contact, clearly distracted by the good-looking young woman. Finally, he nodded and wrote something down on a piece of paper. Smiling gratefully, Hemmingway left. The time stamp on the final piece of footage as she walked through the double doors was 21:56h.

Sutton, Jones and Hastings exchanged glances. Clara had left Tesco at 21:56h. Why hadn’t she mentioned that she’d had to return home for her purse?

The display went blank for a moment, before returning, this time with Clara arriving in the reception area again. The time stamp now read 22:25h. The camera view switched back to the customer service desk, Clara’s trolley clearly visible to the left of the desk. A few moments after she approached the desk, one of the security guards came into view. They spoke briefly, before Clara took the trolley. Instead of heading directly to the tills, however, she pushed the trolley further into the store, before making a loop down the aisle with canned soup and exiting next to a till with no customers. She didn’t add anything else to the trolley or pause to look at any of the displays.

It was clearly Kevin Peterfield waiting to serve her at the till. The two exchanged a few pleasantries as he scanned her items. Whilst doing so she bagged them in carrier bags. Finally, they were done. Hemmingway handed over her Clubcard — Peterfield clearly glanced at the name before he scanned it — then got out her bank card, and slipped it into the Chip and PIN device. The time stamp read 22:33h, the same time as that on the receipt. Pushing her trolley in front of her, now laden with white and blue plastic shopping bags, Hemmingway headed out of the exit. The time stamp read 22:34h.

Jones and Sutton looked at each other. Hemmingway had lied.

Back upstairs, Jones and Sutton filled in the rest of the team on what had happened. Jones said nothing about Hastings’ potential error; now was not the time or the place.