'I'm sorry I wasn't available yesterday,' said Graham Ross, the manager of the Haddington Transway supermarket. 'These quality training days are mandatory for al staff. We real y are in the most competitive retail environment these days.
'Anyway, I'm here now. What can I do for you?'
'I need any information that you can give me on a couple of items that I hope were bought from your store,' said Maggie Rose. From her pocket, she removed the foil yoghurt top and the portion of Mars bar wrapper which they had found in the caravan, each now encased in a clear plastic folder. She passed them across Mr Ross' small desk.
The balding manager peered at each through his spectacles. He held up the yoghurt foil. 'This is from a multi-pack, rather than an individual item sale. The only thing I can tell you is that from the
"use by" date, wherever it was sold, it wasn't any earlier than Tuesday of last week.'
'That's a start,' said DCI Rose. 'How about the wrapper? It has a bar code.'
Ross nodded. 'That's more hopeful. Gimme a minute.' He stood up and strode from the office.
In fact, he was gone for almost ten minutes. By the time he returned, DCI Rose was fidgeting impatiently in her chair, but his smile soothed her annoyance at once.
'Yes,' he said, even before sitting down. 'It is one of ours. It was sold at nine forty-three last Wednesday morning, eight days ago.' He handed over a long slip of paper. 'This is a record of the transaction.'
The policewoman looked at him. 'How did the buyer pay?' she asked eagerly.
'By cash. I take it you were hoping it was by Switch or credit card.'
'Can't have everything, I suppose.' She ran her eye down the slip.
'Tinned soup, corned beef, bread. Flora, tinned meatbal s, tinned sweetcorn, four-pack of yoghurt, another tin of soup, milk, eggs, bacon, coffee, six-pack of Coke.'
'It's as if the buyer was going camping, isn't it?' the manager suggested.
'Oh, he was,' said Maggie Rose, forceful y. 'He was.'