I unlock the front door to find a diminutive but devastatingly beautiful uniformed Crime Scene Investigator dangling her identity badge for me to inspect.
“I’d better check that”, I say, “you’re way too pretty to be a copper”. She smiles at me, as I usher her in.
Actually I don’t and she doesn’t – but I think it, and that at least means a valve for something approaching humour is loosening the anger I’ve lived with for the past 14 hours, since my life was turned upside down.
It only takes her a minute to conclude that there’s no point in dusting the place for prints or looking for smoldering cigarette butts or whatever forensic people do. It may be a crime scene, but as crime scenes go, it’s not worth circling the wagons for.
I tell her that her colleague, when he had called for my statement last night had told me to be very careful not to touch any door handles until they had been dusted. And how, when he left, he had grabbed the outer handle and pulled the front door shut behind him. She roars with laughter revealing a mouthful of metal fillings. I wonder if they’re copper.
Now, here’s a challenge for my Uclan cohort: let’s see how many crimes you can name that I was the victim of last night. And for a bonus point, add the recommended custodial sentence for each. First correct answer sent via Twitter, Facebook or email wins you a bottle of champagne.
I’d returned to my flat at around seven, having eaten my first solid meal for three days; spaghetti bolognaise, cooked by my girlfriend, Jane – delicious. I’m much too old to have a girlfriend, but partner…well, I don’t know…it just doesn’t sound right; makes us sound like a couple of raddled old queers.
Anyway, I digress.
I was in for the night, and so I lock the front door, finish a piece I was writing for Rugby World and was enjoying Dirty Harry and a hot chocolate when Jane rings. She was on the way back from her writing group and wanted to call in for a glass of wine. That’d be nice, I say, and when she arrives at 9.30, I unlock the door to let her in.
If she’d been intending to stay for any length of time, I’d have locked it behind her, but for reasons that I won’t bore you with, I knew that her visit would be brief.
We enter the living room, off the landing at the top of the stairs. I pour her a glass of wine and reluctantly swap Clint and his .44 Magnum (…“I know what you're thinking. "Did he fire six shots or only five?" Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?” - again I digress) for Jeremy Paxman and University Challenge.
It’s a bit cold, so I go to the kitchen, which is next to the living room, turn the heating on and close the living room door – something I rarely do.
Mid-way through University Challenge we both hear a noise – or think we do. Being old, my hearing isn’t terrific - although there still are enough instances where I wish it was worse. I link my television to the stereo, and with a large speaker on either side of the room it throws sound about a bit, so naturally we attributed the curious noise we had noticed to the stereo.
Around 11.15, Jane goes to leave so I accompany her down the stairs and open the door.
“Where’s your car?” she asks.
 |
| My middle-aged toy - off to Eastern Europe |
It has gone.
“Did you leave the keys in it?”
“No – I’m not stupid.”
“Sure?”
“Sure I’m sure or sure I’m not stupid?”
“Sure you’re sure?”
“Sure…”
“Did you leave them on the ledge inside the door?”
“No!”
Ditto the above sequence of questions.
We look in my bedroom; the key’s not there, and neither is my wallet. For a moment I think I may have left my wallet in the glove compartment but then remember I’d used my debit card to book a hotel room, replacing the wallet on the dresser beside my car keys and my watch…
“Shit! They’ve taken my fucking watch too…”
“You mean my fucking watch…”
Either way, the Georg Jensen £1000 silver watch has gone along with my keys and wallet.
I call the police and we stand and pathetically try to find some sort of logical explanation for what’s happened.
I mean, surely, someone didn’t walk in the front door, climb the stairs, go into my bedroom and help themselves to my car keys, wallet and watch. Her watch, Jane points out.
Shit! What if I’d opened the living room door as they were coming out of the bedroom? I would have been between them and the stairs, cutting off their escape route? What if they’d been carrying a knife or a gun? I mean, they must be pretty fucking desperate to have the balls to walk straight onto someone’s house, when they knew there were at least two people in the living room?
Maybe they were high on drugs? What if they had a knife or a gun and were high on drugs? Fuck me! One of us would have been killed, and it wouldn’t have been me I say bravely, now that the intruder’s gone.
We were lucky!
Or were we?
No…not lucky. I’m angry – mainly angry at myself for leaving the door unlocked and for being so fucking stupid as to fail to recognize that I was inviting a thief in the night to come in, enter my bedroom, heap themselves to my stuff and make off in my car.
I certainly won’t be making that mistake again!
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