CHARLIE WHITCOMBE
I'm terribly sorry, this won't take a moment. It will. He wears white gloves, owns a magnifier, and can spot a crooked stitch on a rep sneaker from across the hall.
Charlie Whitcombe apologizes first. "I'm terribly sorry, this won't take a moment." It will take considerably more than a moment, because Whitcombe wears white cotton gloves to work and owns a magnifier, and he has never once been rushed. Heathrow is a normal line. Whitcombe is not a normal officer.
What he minds is a fake. Not on principle, exactly, though there is some of that. He simply cannot leave a stitch line alone once he has noticed it is crooked, and a pair of rep sneakers has three or four of those. He will turn the shoe over, hold it to the light, and compare the sole to a picture in his head, all while apologizing for the delay.
Real sneakers bore him. Graphics cards bore him. He will glance at a box of rockets and move on, because the corner shop sells those to anyone and he is not paid to care. But land in London with something almost right in the bag and budget for a moment. His moment, not yours.