For years, Lidia was the kind of customer a neighborhood butcher could almost set a clock by. She came in, bought a small amount of meat, made polite conversation, and left without drawing attention. Then one morning, that familiar routine changed in a way nobody in the shop could easily explain.
Instead of her usual modest order, Lidia asked Ovidiu, the butcher, for 60 kilos of beef. It was far more than she had ever bought before, but at first he tried not to overthink it. People host gatherings. Families prepare for events. Sometimes a customer is buying on someone else’s behalf.
But the next day, she came back and asked for the same amount again.
That was when Ovidiu began to wonder whether this was more than a one-time purchase. Lidia had always lived quietly and had never seemed like someone who needed enough meat to feed a crowd every day. Yet she kept arriving with the money to pay for heavy bags of beef, then left without offering a clear explanation.