The thrill of the chase

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.