Jonny McCambridge: Like Sherlock Holmes, I get to the bottom of the big toilet roll mystery

​And so it came to pass that several hours on a Sunday afternoon were spent walking around stores in Belfast city centre staring at items of clothing and make-up.

While I did my best to play the role of the gallant and supportive husband, the truth is that the experience made me miserable. I just don’t like shopping.

Part of this may be down to the fact that it seems to take an inordinate amount of time for my wife to make her mind up.

Often, I will leave her staring at a garment, go for a walk around the rest of the shop, visit several other stores, stop for a coffee and a scone, and then return to find her still studying the very same rail.

Often, I am asked my opinion on the potential purchase, which will invariably be "Aye, that looks lovely.’”

Almost always the lengthy process concludes with her deciding that it is obvious and unmistakeable that the frock or blouse doesn’t suit at all.

Moreover, I feel uncomfortable in clothes shops. It is probably the only setting where I experience pangs of self-consciousness about my own unkempt appearance and ragged attire.

My wife tells me that I am paranoid, but I have no doubt that store security guards have me earmarked as a potential shoplifter and ne’er-do-well and spring to attention, peering at me suspiciously as soon as I am observed walking through the door.

I imagine these sentiments are not peculiar to me and might explain to some degree why online shopping is now so popular. Paradoxically, I was slow to embrace it (my phobia of shopping is perhaps matched only by my phobias over technology and trying new things).

I have bought a few items online, but I still retain a suspicion. Despite the urgings of my wife, I decline to purchase groceries in that fashion, regarding the habit of buying fruit and veg that I have not held in my hand, peered at and tested by squeezing, as a sure step towards madness.

My wife has no such qualms. Goods in boxes or brown packages regularly appear on our front doorstep.

So common is the occurrence that the delivery men no longer even bother to knock the door. It is now the common order of things for me to come down the stairs, open the front door and almost break my neck by tripping over a package left outside.

There is frosted glass on our porch which partially obscures my view, but from the outline of the bulky object on the other side it would appear that there is an extremely large packet of toilet roll on the step.

I open the door and haul the 32 rolls wrapped in plastic into the house.

I spend some time staring at the delivery and scratching my chin. Buying toilet roll has always been my domestic responsibility and I did not order this. In truth, this is an item I would not have considered as an online purchase.

Furthermore, I am not sure I have ever ordered a 32-pack, although I admit to being impressed by the economy of scale.

I have embarrassed my wife in the supermarket before by doing crude calculations on the price of individual rolls and even the number of sheets to discern best value.

I look at the delivery details on the front. The address is my own, but the name is unknown. An error has clearly occurred.

I start to become enthusiastic about the developing mystery and the challenge of reuniting a household with their lost toilet roll.

My wife and son are asleep upstairs. I attempt to stir them by shouting up, in true Holmesian fashion, "The game is afoot!”, but there is no response.

Similarly, my request for a partner, a Watson, to accompany me as I go around some of the local doors seeking a home for the rolls, garners no enthusiasm.

My first attempts to unlock the conundrum are unsuccessful. None of my neighbours claim the item and there are a lot more houses in my estate than I am prepared to visit. I decide that some lateral thinking is required to broaden the scope of my net.

I put an appeal out on my social media accounts, seeking the owner of the mysterious 32-pack.

It is not that I believe the owner to be a friend or a contact of mine, but rather that I am trying to instigate a conversation that might nudge the search in the correct direction.

The progress is slow at first. For several hours my post seems to attract nothing more than laughing emojis. But then, much later in the day, the first chink of light appears.

A friend who lives around the corner messages to say that people have been at his door searching for lost toilet roll. I urge him to pass on my details if he sees them again.

The following day there is a knock on my door. A nervous young couple are standing there. The man thrusts a mobile phone with a booking screen containing a photograph of a large pack of toilet roll towards my face.

This might be considered an unusual opening manoeuvre in a social setting, but I am content to take it as proof of purchase.

“I believe you have something which belongs to us?” he says.

“The toilet rolls?"

He nods gravely.

“Thirty-two rolls, that’s good economy.”

He nods again.

The conversation seems to have petered out, so I go to the front room to recover the item and bring it to them.

The couple express gratitude in their own quiet, understated way. I watch as they walk up the street carrying the bulky package.

“I’m glad we were able to get to the bottom of this,” I call, but they seem not to hear me.