Psycho by the Sea by Lynne Truss

Author:Lynne Truss
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781526609854
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2021-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

‘Oh, Miss Lennon,’ breathed Inspector Steine gratefully, sitting back. He felt so much better after reading this. ‘What an absolute lifesaver you are turning out to be.’

Seven

The plan for the robbery of Gosling’s Department Store had been conceived during the previous year’s pre-Christmas rush, when Mrs Groynes experienced a Eureka moment while shopping.

Genius is hard to pin down, but in Mrs Groynes’s case, this particular Eureka demonstrates how the creative mind of a seriously gifted opportunistic criminal never truly nods. When it happened, she was dressed as a respectable housewife in a blue swing-coat and a scarlet beret, and was toting home a string bag holding a humble half-pound of sprats wrapped in newspaper (for Raffles, the cat). As she barged her way through excited family groups on the second floor of Gosling’s, she was thinking of nothing at all. And then, when she least expected it, a tiny incident snagged her attention.

She stopped barging with such abruptness that several people bumped into her.

‘Sorry!’ she said, clasping the string bag to her chest. ‘Just remembered something. Honest, I’d forget my own head if it wasn’t glued on with epoxy resin!’ People laughed politely and passed on, and she retreated to stand beside a pillar, out of their way.

What had she noticed? It took her a while to be sure of this herself, but she knew it had involved the nearby fur-coat department, where – ah, yes! There it was! She darted a look towards the counter where a cheerful young assistant in a smart calf-length black dress with a little white collar was busily cramming big white five-pound notes into a canister. It was this unusual movement – elbow sharply up, pushing down with effort – that had caught Mrs Groynes’s eye. ‘I’ve never tried to get this much cash in one before!’ exclaimed the girl. ‘Let’s hope it doesn’t get stuck in the tube!’ Then she turned, opened a little flap in the wall and said, ‘All right, then. Off it goes!’ and with a satisfying Foop! the canister was sucked away.

Why was this everyday proceeding of special interest to a super criminal always unconsciously on the look-out for new and attractive ways of committing grand larceny? Mrs Groynes wasn’t yet sure. Rumours had reached her in the autumn of the younger Mr Gosling choosing to commission a second-rate cash-carrying system for the store (this was, apparently, typical of the man: to have big ideas and then baulk at the cost), but she had not previously seen any potential benefit in this for herself. But as she stood in the centre of the shop-floor watching busy Christmas-week sales assistants in every corner expertly posting those little canisters into those tubes – Foop! Foop! Foop! – it was as if she could hear criminal opportunity calling to her from within the very walls.

All that cash! Moreover, all that cash being sucked away ostensibly out of the reach of criminals! Eureka, indeed. Bag of sprats notwithstanding, she felt like dancing on the spot.

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