You never think it will happen to you

Hmmnn … well, that was a quite eventful day. At 10.30am I set off to walk to my local train station to travel to central London for lunch with and old friend and a pal of his at a club in the rain. Apart from the Tube train – which was scheduled to depart as I reached the platform – continuing to open and let on more passengers and then shut again for at least ten minutes before it eventually set off, this was an unremarkable interlude and, in terms of the lunch, an enjoyable one.

Afterwards I reached home again about 4.00pm. From then I changed out of my smart clothes and into more comfortable ones, read my post, glanced at my emails, did some work on an article, had a cup of tea and a slice of toast and Marmite and then  – at about 6.30pm, feeling weary – retired to my bed for a snooze, something that I normally do straight after my daily lunch.

Awaking again at 7.48pm, I rose again and began walking along the corridor towards my front room and immediately noticed that the light in my small spare bedroom was on (which I did not believe it had been as I went to bed).

There was also a large amount of debris by the front door. There was a crack all the way up the door frame, the door was ajar, and it was impossible to shut it because the door and the lock were out of alignment.

This was all very puzzling. Had I come in drunk, picked up the post on the floor and thereafter somehow slammed the door and thereby caused the damage?

(No, I had not. I wasn’t in the slightest bit tipsy – I hadn’t imbibed enough for that – and, apart from picking up my post from the floor, I certainly didn’t remember doing any of the above).

In my front room, one of the bags I keep on the chair beside my computer table was not where it normally is – it was in the middle of the computer table. I looked around – had someone been in my flat, broken into it even?

It was possible. The first thing I noticed missing was my briefcase, also kept beside my computer table, but against the wall.

Shortly after 8.00pm I rang a fellow resident from one of the flats upstairs. He told me later that my first question (“Are you still up?”) had caused him to raise an eyebrow – because why wouldn’t he be? – but then he remembered that I habitually go to bed between 8.00pm and 9.00pm!

He came straight down. He diagnosed that my front door had definitely been ‘forced’. When could it have happened? Well – obviously – between 6.30pm and 7.48pm, the period during which I had been in my pit.

Yet I had heard absolutely nothing. (Or maybe I had initially awoken because of a noise and not associated it with a break-in. I did not remember hearing any sound at all, let alone a worrying one).

I detailed for him what had been in my briefcase – passport, some chequebooks, three watches, my long-form driving licence.

“This could have ben a professional job – if they have your passport etc., they’ll have your identity”.

It was then I noticed that my house and car keys – habitually kept on the end of the mantelpiece – had also disappeared.

My colleague suggested that often burglars discard things in the street once they have got away and rifled through their booty: he would go and take a look. I couldn’t go with him because I now had neither the key to the outside door of the block nor any others.

He returned in less than five minutes. There was no sign of any briefcase, or anything else, discarded in the street – but my car was gone from the private car park beside the block. (They’d plainly taken that as well).

He was now convinced that it had been an ‘inside job’, not least because in order to drive my car away they must have known the keypad code number to the substantial iron gate that guards the car park entrance. Not in the sense that another resident had done it, but that one of the very high number of personal visitors, tradesmen or contractors who regularly come into the block might have – or indeed a ‘bad person’ to whom one of them had given or sold on a key for the outside door of the block.

Once inside, a micreant could potentially try to break into any flat that looked unoccupied.

Over the course of the remainder of the night I have been in contact with the Police on their special ‘reporting a suspected crime number’ (not ‘999’) three times: first, to report the incident and the fact my briefcase had disappeared; second to report that my house and car keys had gone; and third, to report my car had been stolen.

There would have been a fourth occasion, but for the fact that – after three occasions of ‘hanging on’ waiting to be attended to by a human being because “We are very busy at the moment – there may be a substantial wait – as an alternative report your incident on our website …’ for over half an hour … and also one of over forty minutes, I have given up trying.

Quite early on they had told me that two forensic staff members from a nearby town were available and would be on their way to me soon. That was some eight hours ago now (it is nearly 5.30am as I type) and since then I have heard nothing – partly because I cannot get through, either on their ‘special number’ and/or to the next town’s police station to find out where the hell these ‘forensics’ have got to.

I have also been in touch with a local locksmith expert who plainly cannot come and do his thing until after the forensics have been.

Thus, having been burgled whilst I was fast asleep in my flat, I have had to spend the last nine hours sitting in my flat with a broken and ajar door … waiting for someone to come and help sort me out.

I suppose I’ll be contacting my household and car insurance people, my bank, the Passport Office and Uncle Tom Cobley and all from about 9.30am …