I was in my garden office on Monday afternoon when I heard a loud noise behind me, as if someone had jumped over the back fence. Seconds later, a strange man walked past the window. I emerged gingerly from my office and found myself face to face with a giant. At first glance, he looked like a basketball player: mixed race, about 6ft 5, in his mid-twenties and built like an athlete.
‘Can I help you?’ I asked.
Instead of replying, he vaulted on to the roof of my tool shed and dropped down into my neighbour’s garden. I ran up to the house, told my wife to call the police and then went out on to the street to see if I could spot him. The road I live in has suffered a spate of burglaries in recent months — there’s at least one every week — and it looked as if I’d interrupted someone who was definitely up to no good.
I called my neighbour Bill as I was standing on the street. A couple of years ago, two teenagers tried to break into his house and he chased them off with a hammer, so I knew I could rely on him if things turned ugly.
At that point, I didn’t really have a plan. I just wanted to make sure none of my neighbours were being burgled. Bill emerged from his front door, and moments later the intruder appeared. ‘That’s him,’ I said. Bill immediately ran towards him, shouting, ‘Oi, what you doing?’ and the man bolted across the street and hopped over a wall.
Rather than follow him, Bill jumped into his car and started rattling out instructions. He told me to go to the end of our road and wait there in case the suspect doubled back. In the meantime, he would drive to the spot he thought the man would emerge from. That way, we’d both be ready to give chase as soon as he reappeared.
A couple of minutes later I was standing at my post, wondering what I’d do if the giant headed my way. I was terrified and excited at the same time, hyped up by a cocktail of adrenaline and fear. I was almost certain I wouldn’t have the courage to do what Bill had just done — an impressive feat, given that Bill is no bigger than me. I then began to worry about my neighbour. What if he cornered the suspect and they ended up in a fight? And what if the man had a knife? If Bill got stabbed it would be my fault for involving him in this drama.
But the denouement was still some way off. Bill called me on my mobile to say he’d seen the man emerge on a side street and tracked him to the local park. ‘I’ve abandoned my car and I’m now following him on foot,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to let him out of my sight.’ Good old Bill!
I ran back to my house, told my wife to update the police, then jumped in my van and drove to the park. Sure enough, there he was, loping along, with Bill trailing along behind him. I sat in my car wondering what to do. I was worried that, with just the two of us tracking him, the man might get away. The park has at least six entrances and he looked as if he could run pretty fast if he had a mind to.
At that point, a police car drove past. I shot out of my van and ran after it waving my arms about and shouting like a lunatic. Turned out, the driver and her colleague were responding to my wife’s call. I jumped in the back and pointed out the intruder and, seconds later, we pulled up alongside the nearest entrance. The male officer then leapt out of the car and ran into the park.
I was still concerned that the man might escape and advised the driver to go to the top of the park to head him off in case he tried to exit through the north-east gate. She put the siren on, told me to fasten my seatbelt and roared off at top speed. At that point, I have to confess, I began to enjoy myself. ‘We’re actually going to get the bugger,’ I thought.
By the time we reached the north-east gate, the man had been apprehended. Several other officers had arrived on the scene while I’d been in the police car and, after Bill pointed out the suspect, they’d grabbed him. Seeing the man lying face down on the ground, his hands cuffed behind his back, filled me with relief. After months of being terrorised by burglars, it looked as though Bill and I had finally caught one. Or, rather, the police had. They were everything I could have hoped for.
Two days later the police called to say that the man was a mental health patient who’d absconded from a local hostel. So not a burglar at all, just a disturbed individual. I was filled with remorse. What I’d thought of as a tale of pluck and derring-do became something stranger and sadder. I hope the man’s OK, but I also hope he never comes back.
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