“How much does this one cost?” asks the man with the spiky blond hair and the powder blue singlet, which helps accentuate the half-sleeve tattoos on each arm; an intricate Celtic pattern of swirls and arrow-head points that, doubtless, caused great pain before it was finally inked. The retail assistant names a price.

The man doesn’t appear to hear. He is busy checking himself in the mirror. His eyes have disappeared behind the pair of sunglasses. It is one of those that fit snugly right across, like a glassy arched band the colour of sea weed.

A slant of the head to the left, to the right, a quick run of the fingers through the gelled spikes. No. Doesn’t seem to work. He removes the sunglasses. Places them on the rack. Picks another. It has white arms and a thin rim of white, nearly matching his hair. He puts these on. “How much for this?” he calls out to the assistant who has moved away and is re-folding a stack of already neatly folded denims. (Retail assistants need to maintain this charade of busyness even when there’s nothing to do really, especially on dry days in the down season; it’s an art, but they learn it quickly.) The assistant walks across to a catalogue, checks the listings, names a price.

The man at the mirror re-assesses himself once more. No. This won’t do. After roughly half an hour he’s tried and discarded six different pairs.

He wanders over next to where the trainer shoes sit on long rows of shelves. He picks one, sits on a chair removes his stained Reeboks (but keeps on the blue sock with a hole in it) and tries on the new Adidas.

“Is this the real price?” he calls out, after pacing up and down in a testing gait, walking gingerly five paces up and five paces down.

“Yes,” replies the assistant now back to folding already-folded denims, “They’re all fixed prices. If you’re looking for discount pairs they’re on the second shelf at the rear.”

She appears glad on this day to have at least one or two customers in her store (the only other person is a young blonde girl with similar spikes in her hair) checking out women’s apparel but only in a casual “just looking” manner.

Something about the Adidas dissatisfies the man for he removes it, places it back on the shelf then picks another pair and begins putting it on. It is jet black but with a flashy orange sole. He appears to like it for he asks after trialing it thoroughly, “How about a small discount on this?”

The assistant walks across to see which pair the man’s referring to, then shakes her head sadly, saying, “Really sorry. This is one of the latest. We don’t offer a discount on this.” “Pity, but no worries,” the man replies, puts the shoes back on the shelf and with the slow tread of one who very nearly pulled off a good buy walks out of the shop.

Ten minutes later he is seated in the food court with a box of chicken wings when his phone rings. He picks up the box but doesn’t get to walk very far before he is met by two burly security guards who escort him back down one level to the retail store.

“Do you know this woman?” he is asked.

“It’s my girlfriend,” he concedes.

“Then follow us please. You may be charged with aiding a shoplifter.”

Across the way, away from the action, the retail assistant gently flicks her hair back over her forehead revealing in that instant the ear piece through which she’s been in touch with the basement where guards sit scanning banks of cameras. Calmly (all in a good days’ work) she returns to folding another stack of already neatly folded men’s sweaters.

Cleverly concealed beneath each pile of garments is a brown (like wood) button. Pressed, it brings security.

Kevin Martin is a journalist based in Sydney, Australia.