The Shift Part Two

A Piece of Stage Fiction

Additional Characters from Part One ( https://medium.com/bullet-fiction/f33ccc061a99 ) -

Sam West - the customer who left at around the time of the robbery

Location: Samir’s Office in Parling Stores

Time: 10:45

“So what did you buy when you last came to the shop?” Samir asked to begin the three colleagues’ investigation. Sam thought for a moment:

“Ah! I have the receipt in my jacket pocket,” he replied, reaching into his coat that was resting on the back of his chair. He pulled out the slip of paper and handed it to Samir. The shop’s manager glanced over the sheet, mumbling,

“One Snickers bar, two boxes of Smith’s granola and a 500 ml bottle of water. Does that help us in any way?” He looked at his two assistants who both shook their heads.

“Did you notice anything unusual when you were in the shop, Mr West?” Michael asked in an attempt to find their first lead.

“The only thing that I remember is that you two switched places whilst I was looking for those items,” Sam replied.

“Which we saw on the CCTV,” Peter added. “What that could have provided was a point at which neither of us was fully focused on the till.”

“I did think of that,” Samir commented. “But even if only one of you was half-focused, you would have noticed a normal robbery. Therefore this must have been a slightly unusual crime.”

“I think that that has always been evident,” Peter replied and he received an annoyed look from Samir.

“Thank you for your time, Mr West,” Samir said to finish the conversation, having felt that they were getting nowhere. All three ‘detectives’ shook hands with Sam and he left the shop without another word.

Scene Two

Location: The till of Parling Stores

Time: 11:00

“Peter, why don’t you check underneath the desk to see if someone could have got the money from down there?” Samir asked as they investigated the crime-scene. “If that was the case you two probably wouldn’t have noticed anything.”

Peter did so and, stretching down, he looked for any marks on either the floor or on the bottom of the desk itself: nothing. He bounced back up and shook his head, but none of them had really been expecting too much from the idea.

“There are no signs around the till itself,” Michael said to add to the sense of desperation in the group.

“I think the only way that we’re going to get anywhere is by watching more CCTV footage,” Peter concluded. “And Samir we need to know why this could have been the only time that the robbery took place.”

“I have a live feed of the amount in the till and at 6:58 yesterday morning, there was a two thousand pound drop,” Samir explained. “Which was all of the money in the till.”

“That makes it quite clear then,” Peter replied. "Actually, were you watching your computer at the time?”

“Yes and that computer is only used for checking the till balance. It isn’t connected to the internet or anything like that.”

“So have you not even watched other parts of the CCTV footage?” Michael asked.

“No.”

“We should at least watch the whole tape,” Michael said. “We have nothing to go on now so there’s no harm in going through the footage for the whole of that morning.”

“Michael and I will do that and I have a job for you,” Peter began and he noticed that he and Michael were acting as the leaders of their group rather than Samir. “I think that you should follow Sam West to see if he leads us anywhere. We didn’t exactly have an in-depth interview with him earlier.”

“That sounds like fun to me,” Samir replied and he beckoned Michael and Peter to follow him into his office.

Scene Three

Location - Samir’s office in Parling Stores

Time - 11:25

“Here’s the tape which runs from midnight yesterday,” Samir explained, handing the video box to Michael. “Mr White lives on 8 Wicton Road if I’m not mistaken, so I’ll wait around there until I see him. You too probably have a better idea of which parts to watch, because you would know when there were customers, I presume. See you later.”

The two till-managers nodded at their boss and Michael slotted the tape into the video player that was hooked up to the television.

“There definitely weren’t any customers in the first hour and I actually remember that the first person came in at around half past one,” Peter explained.

The time was written in the top right-hand corner of the video and Michael skipped forward until it read 1:25. Pressing play, they began to watch.