The unfortunate encounter- a short story- Part 4

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John Simpson drove straight back to the mall. He went back to the perfume shop but it was already closed. He asked around if anyone knew the girl that worked there, but it was no use. If he could get a description of the man that bought his aftershave there, then he would have more to go on. 

Random thoughts kept running through his head. 

"What if it was the same guy? If she had sold him the blend, then she must have sold it to many different men. It could not be so easy....and the guy could not be that stupid, except of course if he thought that he would never get caught....."

John drove back to the office and ran the face through the face recognition scanner. There were no match. That meant that this guy was clean. He had no record, and he would be hard to find. They were still looking for a ghost, but this time the ghost had a face. 

John was not going to sleep until he had found this bastard. He drove back to the cafe.  This time no food or coffee was on his mind. He asked the manager if he had seen this man, and he just shook his head. John was sure that he was hiding something, but that usually happened while he was investigating. He didn't trust anyone, and everyone was suspicious. He knew there were more salespeople, but they were not on duty yet. He was prepared to wait. 

He had about three cups of coffee before the shift changed, and he caught them all before they started their shift. Only one of the salespeople said that they faintly recognized the guy. There were so many people going in and out on a daily basis that it was hard to keep track off. 

They had a camera system in place and John asked if he could view the footage. The manager explained that they had a backup system of three months, and there were only four days left, before the system erased and started to record the next three months. John jumped on his phone to get the forensic expert out and he came to make a backup. John left feeling satisfied. He knew he had a lot of footage to work through, and he was not going to sleep for days. 

At home he set up his laptop at the table, and went to take a quick shower. He was ready to start and knew that he would not rest, until he worked through it. He fed his dog, and made himself a sandwich. He poured himself a stiff drink and put in the first CD. Once he was busy with the surveillance footage, he was totally awake. 

He was only focusing on the men in the footage, but after four hours of uninterrupted watching, he still had nothing. He was just about to take a break when he recognized one of the girls in the video. The faces of the victims were etched in his mind, and he was sure he just saw the first victim in the coffee shop. He rewound the video and then he paused. 

He fetched his files, and checked the date. It was the first victim, and finally he had something solid to work on. The date was the exact same date that she died and this might be the last footage of her alive. He opened a folder and made a video clip of the footage. He saved it and then continued. After another four hours he could not keep his eyes open, and decided to take a break. 

He was out cold for four hours. He woke up at two in the morning and continued his search. By six o clock he had identified two more victims, but there were no footage of the man he was looking for. This ghost was clever. 

John put the surveillance footage on hold, and tried to put himself in the culprit's place. If he was a murderer he would not want anyone to find him either. But John knew....somewhere or somehow, everyone had to slip up. 

It was clear that most of the victims met this guy at the cafe, but it was not clear to him how they met up. Perhaps they all knew the man...perhaps they trusted him? It was his duty to find out how they were abducted, and he left everything in a heartbeat when he realized what had happened.  

-To be continued-