The clinking, clanking sound

Every week the takings are counted and balanced against the till sheet. Sometimes it balances exactly. Sometimes it's a few pence up or down. This week the cheque takings balanced exactly, as did the credit card takings. The cash takings, however, were exactly £50 down.

Now, that's a huge sum to go astray. It's more than I spend on a week's food for three adults. It's nearly a week's income. There are several possibilities.

1) A client reached into the cashbox and took it.

Unlikely. There are very few times that the cashbox is unattended, and it would mean lifting the coin tray to reach the notes beneath, removing a minimum of three notes but leaving the rest and returning to one's seat without being noticed.

2) One of the staff took it.

I didn't. That I can say for sure. And I don't think any of the others did either. I'm the 'junior' and I've been there for 18 months and we've never had this problem. And I don't mistrust the trainee we've taken on this week either because I find it hard to step back and let someone learn the ropes and tend to hover annoyingly and help, so there was no opportunity for her to swipe it either.

3) It's an accounting error.

This is my last hope. Possibly someone's mistaken an 8 for a 3, or a 7 for a 2 - when scrawled hastily they're very similar, and there's a difference of 5 between them. The problem with that is that, in this particular week, we never took as much as £50 in a single cash transaction - unlike the following week when we took four times that amount in cash in a single day.

We've searched the till and the drawer it lives in and the safe and checked and double-checked and triple-checked the books. No sign. And it makes me feel sick.

Ned says I'm 'going down, and'll dance the hempen jig'.