literally another aussie in london

london comes into the lounge

Now I feel way more London. I have been a victim of crime. And what a crime. A home invasion. A burglary in broad day light while I was working (watching the ICL).

Let me take you through it.

Watching the cricket, while the guide was doing some work with the head phones in. I had the sound off on the cricket. At one stage I heard a kid yell out Fuck. But behind the guides house is a communal area that kids go to after school sometime. So the “fuck” was nothing I hadn’t heard before.

A few minutes later I heard some footsteps in the hall, but there are two halls, one on this side of the flat, and the others on the other side where the central stair case is. Why would I assume the footsteps were those of someone on this side of the wall?

About a minute after that, I heard a creaking near the dooryway, this time I assumed someone was in the flat, but I assumed it was the cleaner, coming a day earlier. So when a figure appeared at the doorway, I said something like “here a day early are you?”

Then the figure, which was about a foot taller than the cleaner could be standing on a box, ran straight back out. At this stage, with the running and the height, I gathered this was not the cleaner.

I got up and ran after him, which is always the smart thing to do, saying something along the lines of, “we don’t care mate, just leave”. I think by this time the dude was already gone, infact, I think he was out the window before I fully got up off the couch, although I think that had more to do with his breath taking pace, than my slowness.

He must have got out at there at some sort of record pace, as the window was open, and the blind through the other side suggesting he had made some sort of dive through it with the blind down. I then went and checked the rest of the flat, no more burglarers or robberers around.

Then I went and checked on the guide. Who was fine, because at this stage she hadn’t seen anything other than me getting up off the couch briskly. I informed her of our brief housemate, and she rang the police.

The neighbourhood police came by, 3 of them, in a matter of minutes and I told them all about what happened. Showed them around, and they took notes and stuff. They asked me for a description, I said tall, and looked for one of them to compare height wise, which was hard to do with the first guy, as he was a jockey.

They said skin colour, oh that’s an awkward question, they wanted to know, but none of them wanted to ask. I said black, and felt a surge of white guilt. I said he sounded young when he yelled out, as I and the police had concluded it was probably him yelling as he opened the window, and when he dived head first through it.

They asked if I could pick him out again if I saw him, I said he could serve me in a shop tomorrow and I wouldn’t have a clue, because he came in just after 4, and it was getting dark (ofcourse), and he was standing in the hall. In fact it was so dark I couldn’t even be 100% sure he was black, some of my white guilt left me as I said that.

So they looked around, whilst doing so we realised my spare computer that was to be given to the guide’s sister was lifted. Since I can never remember where things are, when I am robbed, and this is the 3rd continent I have been robbed on, I have no idea what is missing. After giving the police the wrong make of my computer, they told me the forensics CSI dudes would be around shortly.

And then he turned up and they got prints, fresh ones from where someone would pull themselves into the room, and also did well not to comment on the state if the bedroom. I have never been called a clean man. Afterwards I tried to clean the finger print dust off the window, I didn’t do it very well.

The next day, the police kept coming, this time it was the detectives, and they spent 90 minutes here. Almost none of that time talking about the crime, instead talking about cricket. But the main one was a ute read head, and that seemed like a fair trade off. She also commented how bad the guide’s peripheral vision must be, as the intruder was about 120 CM’s from her, almost directly in front.

So now I have been violated by London, but all she got from me was a laptop with an Australian plug that she can’t use anyway, and to be honest, was more like a brick that occasionally turned on.

November 27, 2008 Posted by Jrod | living in london | crime | 9 Comments