Nigel’s BOGOF…
By Brian Moore, Global Retail Consultant and CEO of EMR-NAMNEWS

It was one of those days in a mature marriage when husbands learn to offer only affirmative opinions when questioned, and certainly to avoid ‘unnecessary’ questions on topics for which any normally attentive husband would know the answer…

Nigel, a semi-retired actor of 60 years, and currently resting between auditions, had accompanied Euphemia, his 45 year old wife, as they crossed the bridge on Friday afternoon to help with their weekly-shopping trip to Marks & Spencer. All the while daydreaming, or ‘rehearsing’ as he himself would put it, Nigel mentally acted out in readiness for his upcoming audition for the part of the corpse in a new adaptation of Wallender. He was deep in thought, exploring amongst other things, the need to underplay the part in order not to upstage the hopelessly unqualified male lead. He paid little or no attention to Euphemia’s seemingly random choosing of food items on display as they both meandered up and down the aisles.

He eventually woke up at the checkout.

Meanwhile, only Doris the checkout operator had noticed that the obnoxious lady ahead of Nigel and Euphemia had forgotten to pack her purchase of that week’s special offer: A banded-pack of M&S Tarte Exotica. Her BOGOF, a Buy-One-Get-One-Free offer of upmarket jam-confections for just £3-99, lay abandoned on the packing-tray.

Nigel, ‘taking five’ from his mental rehearsals, dutifully unloaded their trolley onto the check-out belt. He carefully arranged the purchases like-with-like in order to curry favour with Doris and yet meet Euphemia’s strict criteria for logical combinations of items in the shopping bags. He winked at Doris as he made his way past the till, to assume his customary position as supervised packer of the purchases. He picked up the BOGOF, and it being one of those days, he assumed that Euphemia had taken a decision to make a rare break with her strict dietary regimen by way of a personal treat, after which she would no doubt spend three hours in the GYM to burn off every extra calorie in attempting to stay within her normal daily calorific intake. Thankfully, this temporary separation would now give him an opportunity to practice the audition-dialogue ‘out-loud’ without the usual interference from her second-hand experience of matters theatrical….

Meanwhile Euphemia, in a rare moment of concern for her husband’s mental wellbeing, and realising that she had perhaps been unnecessarily hard on Nigel since early morning, assumed that he felt he deserved a special treat and had chosen a Tarte Exotica BOGOF to console himself, and so she decided to ignore the purchase..  Doris quickly scanned the rest of the shopping, and given the bad behaviour of the previous customer who had already paid for the item, she decided to take into account Nigel’s arranging of the pre-scanned goods, added to her expert assessment of  their economic circumstances, and decided to allow Nigel to pack the BOGOF unchallenged into his green-bag. She did not bother to alert Jack, the security guard standing nearby….

On arrival back at their apartment, Nigel meticulously checked every item against their M&S receipt. He found to his horror that the BOGOF was not listed, meaning that they had stolen the Tarte Exotica BOGOF from M&S…

Being one of those days, he decided not to antagonise Euphemia by referring to the inadvertent theft. With his long experience of crime-movie auditions, he realised he needed a cover-story so he announced to Euphemia that the Tarts Exotica were past sell-by date and he would take them back to M&S immediately.

Now, even occasional shoppers will be aware that a shop’s surveillance systems and procedures are all designed to prevent theft, the unauthorised removal of goods from the store. There is also an implied assumption on the part of shopkeepers that all customers are potential thieves so that any break with a shopper’s behavioural ‘norm’ causes suspicion. Furthermore, as anyone familiar with shop-keeping will know, there is simply no way that shops, even M&S, can cater for a customer attempting to return a  BOGOF that had been paid for, and was not missing from stock…

Upon his return to the store, Nigel’s problem was further compounded by the fact that Doris was by then off-duty, so he was left attempting to explain the impossible to a checkout lady that had little or no interest in matters outside her job-role..

Nigel then decided to slip the BOGOF into his jacket (a movement picked up by at least four security cameras) and adopted an over-casual gait as he made his way back down the aisle towards the Tarte Exotica section, mentally reprising his audition for the Harrison Ford role in a possible remake of The Fugitive.  His unusual gait sans basket immediately aroused the suspicions of Jack the security guard, who followed him down the aisle. At the Tarte Exotica section Nigel realised to his horror that the BOGOF promotion had sold out that afternoon and as a result, there was no designated space available to place his BOGOF pack. Meanwhile, Jack was certain that Nigel had put a pack inside his jacket, but remembered that the task of apprehending and processing shoplifters would be at a cost of at least 30 minutes of valuable evening leisure. Because he was just about to check off for the day, Jack allowed Nigel to leave the store unchallenged, merely noting his appearance, and arranging for hard copy printouts from the security camera to be passed to staff in order to pick him up on the inevitable return visit of this hardened shoplifter…

On reaching home, Nigel took out his audition-planning kit consisting of books about auditions, Movie Year-books, bus and train timetables, a copy of the local A to Z, a large diary and an A3 drawing pad to accommodate his various mind-maps. He titled his new project J&E, standing for J&E Hall, a name he had noticed on an air-conditioning unit in M&S, and which had given him the germ of an idea for gaining access to the store after hours…. In time this project name proved to be an unfortunate choice, in that it was later taken to refer to Jack & Euphemia at the trial.

The project, besides achieving the objective of returning the BOGOF to M&S, and thus removing any potential challenge to his integrity, would allow Nigel to not only incorporate his considerable skills as a master of disguises in auditioning for the Alec Guinness’ eight roles in a TV remake of Kind Hearts and Coronets, but would at the same time provide plausible answers for Euphemia’s inevitable questions regarding his latest pre-occupations…

Working backwards from his desired output of successful replacement of the BOGOF in the M&S supply-chain system, he soon realised that he needed much more information on day-to-day operations at his M&S store, rather like his auditions for three roles in the latest low-budget remake of Ocean’s Fifteen. This would mean making at least one visit per week over an 8-week period to the store, quite apart from his regular Friday shopping trips with Euphemia. He would stagger the timings of the store visits in order to observe shopper and staff behaviour at different times of the day. This he believed would enable him to optimise opportunities to appear like a normal shopper and also avoid suspicion.

However, as it happened, Euphemia’s suspicions were in fact aroused very early in the project by the intensity of Nigel’s’ preparations for a hitherto unannounced upcoming audition, a break with his normal habit of obsessing about a possible part as soon as it made The Stage magazine…

To minimise the chances of being recognised, Nigel decided to don a different disguise on each trip, allowing him to draw upon the experience gleaned from his auditioning for four key roles in the remake of The Great Escape, a couple of years previously.

He also decided to conduct a number of night-time visits, observing late evening and early morning deliveries to the store from the safety of his car, carefully parked out of sightline of the M&S security cameras, but unfortunately perfectly placed for recording by the security cameras at the nearby betting-shop. Another night-time surveillance session was conducted from the shadowy doorway of a nearby store, where Nigel was dressed for the part of Harry Lime in The Third Man. Unfortunately he  stepped back into the street just as a car passed with full head-lights switched on, and his enigmatic in-character smirk was captured perfectly on the Boots security camera across the street.

Meanwhile, Euphemia began to follow Nigel on his field trips to M&S, staying well out of sight and buying a pair of knickers on each trip to minimise any possible suspicions on the part of the store staff.

She soon noticed that Jack, a not-unattractive young security guard, always appeared to hover near her husband as Nigel sneaked around the store, making secret notes on store layout, measuring floor area, alternative routes around the store, disguised as and ‘acting’ like a normal shopper, heaven forbid..

On the second visit, Euphemia decided to remain behind when Nigel finally left the store. She approached Jack, announced her relationship with Nigel and explained her concerns about his behaviour. Jack, fresh from a new training-course on leading-edge security, and thinking Euphemia was part of a team planning a major store-heist, decided to humour her.

She began to make a point of texting Jack with cryptic messages to the effect that Nigel had just left the flat on his latest store trip and would be away for at least an hour. This allowed Jack time to ensure that all security cameras were fully focused on Nigel’s latest visit. Euphemia also made a habit of paying random visits to the store to discuss brief progress-reports with Jack and remembering to pick up a new pair of knickers on each occasion, charging each purchase to the family credit-card. She even arranged to meet Jack at the nearby Theatre Café or the Café Nero in the station for a latte and a double-expresso when a more detailed discussion was required.

On her regular Friday shopping trips with Nigel, Euphemia would inevitably throw her eyes up to heaven as they neared Jack in acknowledgement of Nigel’s latest disguise, on their way though the checkout. Nigel, studiously avoiding any eye-contact with Jack, missed each flicker of eye-dialogue between the security-guard and Euphemia.

However, these signals did not go unnoticed by the store staff, especially Doris at Checkout 4, who later became a key witness in the trial.

Finally, Nigel was ready for action.

He took the precaution of staying up all night rehearsing, to allay any possible suspicions of Euphemia arising from a 0500 alarm call. He dressed quietly in a mix of clothing midway between store staff and delivery man so that at a casual glance he would pass for a member of either team. Here he was able to rely heavily on his experience auditioning for parts in several WW11 re-makes, making his uniform from scraps of cloth found around the flat. In searching for suitable materials, he came across Euphemia’s over-abundant knicker-drawer, but decided that wearing silk underwear would add an unnecessary degree of theatricality to his disguise, and left a perfect set of finger-prints on the drawer-handle.

He arrived at the rear entrance to the store at 0600, just as a delivery truck reached the unloading bay. His researches had revealed that the shifts for both store and delivery teams changed on this, the final Thursday of the month, making it the best time for him to merge with the teams, each thinking he was part of the other group.

When the truck departed, Nigel knew he would have eight minutes available before the next delivery, and also be alone in the store-room. He quickly climbed onto a mixed pallet of tinned goods and reached the air-conditioning trap-door in the ceiling, only to find it locked. He was grateful that he had practiced this move at home, placing several boxes in a pile, pretending to examine the lights in the ceiling of the dining room, to allay his wife’s suspicions. He had always wanted the security of a personal knife, ideally a real version of the fake flick-knife he managed to acquire for his audition for a bit-part in a re-make of The Lavender Hill Mob. However, he had to settle for a more politically correct 20-function Swiss Army knife, which he now carried at all times, rehearsing for a possible role as a DIY expert in a new TV sit-com, promised for the New Year. The knife’s cross-head screw-driver now came in useful in undoing the lock of the air-conditioning trap-door and allowed him access to the ducting.

He closed the trap-door behind him and settled down to await store-closing time, twelve hours later. Luckily he had anticipated this enforced confinement in cramped conditions. As he had done in his audition for the part in the aborted TV re-make of The Wooden Horse, he conducted his specially adapted Canadian Air-force exercises in the narrow confines of the air-conditioning duct, his multi-layered clothing warding off possible frost-bite caused by the ultra-low temperature, industrial strength air-conditioning…

As soon as the day-staff had left the store he inched along, not realising that the tips of the securing screws were taking small samples of thread from his clothing and sometimes scraping his skin, leaving reasonably good samples of DNA-rich residue behind.

Above the Biscuit fixture, he unscrewed a 4ft by 2ft panel, which hinged down. It was beginning to get unbearably hot, because the air-conditioning had been switched off at closing time. He used the large knife-blade to cut extra holes in his Balaclava, in order to make it easier to breathe. He then fitted two pulleys at one end of the opening, around which he looped a pair of wires that snapped onto his shoulder-harness. This was a leftover from the wire harness he made up for his abortive audition for the Tom Cruise role in Mission Impossible. With his feet firmly griping the rear edge of the access panel, the wires allowed him to lower his front-half to a point where he could reach the top of the shelving fixture. He placed the Bogof on the top shelf, where it appeared like an unaudited ‘left-over’ from the recent promotion. He was also able to retrieve his knife which had earlier slipped from his grasp and stuck upright in a packet of cornflakes… Meanwhile, the sweat from his exertions had dripped onto the packets of Porridge Oats, thereby adding to the DNA record of his store-visit.

As he was busy cleaning off the pools of perspiration, he failed to notice Jack the security-guard creeping down the breakfast aisle. Suddenly Jack lunged at him. Nigel startled and frightened by the sudden move, lost his grip and started flailing about, hanging from one wire and waving his knife with the other hand, a reprise of his audition for the role of the mad-knifeman in The Vicar of Dibley. In the process, he accidently severed Jack’s jugular…

He tried to clean it up but the blood went everywhere. It was far more than he expected and in fact rather like the corridors of blood in The Shining. He tidied up as much as possible and then climbed back into the air-conditioning ducting to reach the store-room. There he packed his kit in a holdall bag, donned his normal clothes and in his panic opened the emergency door, thereby setting off the alarm.

He hurried to the bridge where he dropped his bag into the water, noting that, as planned, the high tide began to sweep the bag down river, and hopefully out to sea.

In the darkness, and in his eagerness to rush home, Nigel failed to see the bag being gently beached on the bank, in full view of any passer-by, especially the police as they made their way over the bridge at dawn on their way from the new crime scene at M&S.

Of course the trial was an absolute travesty of justice, but not without dramatic appeal. Relying upon a mountain of circumstantial evidence, the prosecution built up an unchallengeable case against Nigel.

The prosecution were able to draw upon security camera footage, instancing each of Nigel’s store-visits, even picking him up in his parked observation car during his monitoring of the store delivery process, courtesy of the betting shop and Boots’ videos.

A selection of M&S staff including Doris at Checkout 4, five shelf-fillers and six security colleagues were called as eye-witnesses to corroborate the prosecution’s case that as a result of discovering his wife’s ‘affair’ with Jack the security guard, evidenced by their many whispered exchanges at various parts of the store, even accidental observations of them sharing a coffee at Café Nero and the Theatre Café, Euphemia’s documented purchases of Knickers on at least 15 occasions, and her repeated texting to Jack that Nigel had left he flat ‘for at least an hour’, by implication allowing them time for a home-visit. It was gradually made obvious that Nigel having validated the ‘affair’ via the mobile-phone and family credit-card statements, had stalked Jack and eventually carried out a premeditated act of revenge, an open-and-shut case of murder.

During cross-examination, Nigel was given many opportunities to act out various scenarios, digging himself deeper into a hole in the process.  The verdict was a foregone conclusion that even Nigel could not fault, with the death penalty providing a suitably dramatic grand finale in the final act.

In jail awaiting execution-day and by then nick-named BOGOF-Nigel by his new captive audience, the prisoner was mulling over the possibility of auditioning for the lead role in a remake of The Shawshank Redemption, drawing upon his growing experience of the prison system, when he was visited in his cell by the prison-library orderly.  The old lag could not resist pulling Nigel’s leg yet again, this time offering not one but two library books at one time, a BOGOF?

Realising at that moment that as he is going to hang for murder, and deciding that two-crimes-for-one punishment would make little difference in his case, Nigel finally flipped.

“Right Matey, I’ll give you a BOGOF” murmured Nigel, reprising his unappreciated audition for the Hannibal Lecter role in Silence of the Lambs, and allowed his new ‘shiv’, his home-made prison-knife, to slide from under his sleeve and into his palm..

Date article published: January 2010