Steven walked into Jacob Waters, the largest book store in town, it was his favourite store. He liked books and would scan the shelves of the cosy crime section, looking for that something special. He would read a chapter of a book that he picked out at random, and if the book interested Steven because it claimed how to commit a perfect murder he would buy it. Steven was a timid and sensitive sort of person and if anyone said that he would commit a serious crime, they would be talking through their hats and it wasn’t Steven’s intention to commit any crime, especially murder. He was just interested in the logistics.
His constant visit to the store was noted by one particular person, who might have been a store detective and on several occasions this man followed Steven round the store, because he always looked suspicious with black leather gloves, his upturned collar and woolly scarf wound round his neck and a balaclava for his head to keep the winter chill out. Steven had a rare incurable disease and he needed to keep warm. Even in the summer he would have to dress up, which made him conspicuous to any passer-by.
He was tempted to display a card with his disability written in bold letters on it and the reason for dressing up, but he felt he didn’t want to attract his personal problems to the public. He might have been ridiculed and he wouldn’t have liked that.
The store detective approached Steven one day when he had been shopping and had brought with him his capacious bag of food items into the store. He normally shopped after visiting the book store, but he was in a hurry to get home out of the promised rain that was forecast for early afternoon
‘What have got in the bag?’
‘My shopping.’
‘Will you place your bag down on the floor, sir. I wish to have a look inside?’
‘No!’ said Steven, ‘I haven’t stolen anything, I have just this moment walked into the store.’
‘Please sir, don’t be awkward!’
Everybody in the store was looking now at Steven, it was a humiliating experience. He cursed the store detective and the disease that had brought him to this level of being a suspect of a crime that he was completely innocent of.
The store detective took hold of Steven’s arm and marched him towards the rear of the store, to a door that had a combination of numbers and he punched out the appropriate five figures to gain access to the main office. Inside the office another man was sitting looking at screens of the store.
The store had CCTV installed and the man who was inspecting the screens of a recorded video shouted out ‘There! He’s placed something in his bag.’
‘I knew it!’ said the man who had brought Steven to the office. He placed Steven’s bag on the table and started to pick out his shopping items, and then he picked out a book. It was the one that Steven had picked out to read two weeks ago.
‘Aha! You’ve been a naughty boy!’
From a distance the man who had dressed up like Steven could have been anybody, in fact it could have been the store detective, no one would have recognised the face, because it wasn’t visible, although the camera should have seen his face as it was strategically placed exactly where Steven was standing to read the book. Had he been sitting down this would never had happened.
It was pretty obvious to Steven it was a put up job. The two men were involved in a sting operation that was unknown to the rest of the staff of the store. He felt sure that the next step would be a touch of blackmail, but he was wise to their game and he wondered how many customers they had duped. Of course they would have to be someone like him, who stood out from the normal public.
Steven said, ‘Okay it’s a fair cop, you better call the police and hand me over.’
It was something neither of the men were expecting Steven to say and they tried very hard to explain that prison wouldn’t be the answer and that Steven would have a criminal record for the rest of his life.
Steven was undaunting in his attitude and he insisted on them calling the police. They remonstrated with Steven. ‘Just think of the scandal, we could make it easy for you. A little pocket money, say £10 each a week, we are not greedy men.’
‘No! said Steven. ‘I refuse to be intimidated by villains who think they can get away with a trumped up charge of theft from a video of a person who is unrecognisable and where the camera is situated in the store, it is not feasible not to be able to see the face of the person and it is more than likely you.’ Steven pointed to the store detective, ‘Or even you,’ Pointing to other man viewing the screen.
There was something odd about the video, there didn’t seem to be other people milling around the store, so Steven assumed it had been filmed during the evening when the staff had gone home and the store detective and the other security man went round and locked up the store.
Steven wondered how many times the video had been used on a unsuspecting person who was wondering what was going on and not knowing they had inadvertently walked into a trap. The action of the store detective had been so quick, that any victim would be bewildered and wouldn’t resist when the store detective took them to the security office where all the CCTV screens were being looked at and once seeing those they promised to pay up for a quiet life and if they failed to pay the security men would send the video tape to the police.
‘Have it your own way,’ said the store detective. ‘I’ll phone the police station.’ Steven resigned to his fate, but hadn’t realized that their phone was not plugged in and the conversation that followed with no one was worse than Steven realized, because they had said that Steven Stone had tried to steal not just one book, but several.
Steven was furious.
‘You won’t get away with it!’
The store detective emptied Steven’s bag of shopping, we’ll have a feast tonight Mike. He started to fill Steven’s bag up with books.
The so-called detective moved to the other side of the table and Steven noticed that their telephone was not connected.
‘Well!’ he said, ‘You can’t win them all, but we’ll make sure you go to prison for a long time.’ He told his friend to hit him as hard as he could in the face and then I’ll hit you.
After a scuffle lasting four minutes, the two bloodied noses and a few scratches and torn clothing the man picked up another telephone and started to dial.
That’s when it happened. Steven picked up a spike with receipts that were stuck on when a task was completed. Steven plunged the spike in the store detective’s back who was phoning the police. He dropped the telephone and clutched his chest, for the spike must have nicked his heart. Steven removed the spike and the man turned towards Steven with a look of disbelief etched in his agonised blooded face and fell to the floor, staring up. Steven with presence of mind plunged it into the other man’s neck. Steven placed the spike into the grasping hand that once held the telephone of the store detective. They were both dead.
The phone had connected and a person’s voice said. ‘Ambulance, fire department or police.’ Steven decided not to speak, as dead men don’t speak. Steven stopped the video tape and withdrew it. He took the other video tape that he noticed was on the desk; it was probably the original they had on when Steven walked into the store.
He found another video, undid the wrappings and placed it in the slot and ran it for a few minutes, then turned off the machinery.
Steven took his gloves off as he couldn’t quite grip the books properly and placed them all in another carrier bag and refilled his shopping bag with the items he purchased that morning. Steven put his gloves on and made sure he had not overlooked anything. He seemed calm and collected.
Steven left the office, went down the stairs and into the store. No-one saw him come through the security door. He replaced all the books on their various shelves plus the one in the “Cosy Crime Section” on how to commit a perfect murder.
Nobody challenged him as he walked out. The rest of the staff and the management had an agreement with the security firm who supplied the men to look after each store that if a person was apprehended, they would be taken to the office where Steven had been taken, the police telephoned and the poor unfortunate person who had been caught in the act would be taken out by the back door to await collection.
Steven thought as he walked down the precinct to freedom that he would write a story about a perfect murder. A police car whizzed past him and stopped outside the book store. He, like everybody else stopped and watched as the police disappeared into the store.
For a moment Steven froze with horror when he realised that although he had not touched the telephone, he had taken off his gloves to remove the books from his shopping bag. The bloody books had his finger prints on them, but then immediately he calmed down. Of course many people would handle all those books and he was glad he had the foresight to place them back in their respective sections.
It was beginning to rain! He shrugged his shoulders and walked on. Steven thought. I never had all this trouble when the store was Woolworths.