Quarter past eleven, loud knock on the door. 'Who is it?' I called out, knowing better than opening my door to strangers. A female voice called out 'Police', so I opened up. That's how middle-class I am!
As I opened, I thought, it could be robbers or noisy neighbours bluffing me. Then, when I saw a police uniform, I knew they were police.
So I went through a quick examination of conscience (it's obviously something in my upbringing; I once shared a lift with the now Commissioner of the Met and almost surrendered myself into his custody so wracked with guilt I felt), then I felt a thrill of excitement - there's been a major incident in the neighbourhood and they're doing door-to-door enquiries, before again feeling guilty because 'major incident' may be exciting to me, but devastating to someone else.
They asked me if I knew someone - gave her name. I said I knew the name, because I had received post in her name. Several increasingly severe demands for gym membership renewals. I've asked at the two rented houses but they had no knowledge of her. I assumed she had lived there previously, and moved on, without leaving a trace.
I mentioned to the police that I had received a parking ticket for her and was meaning to ring up TfL to say 'it's not me'! They asked to see the parking ticket - in actual fact it's a penalty charge notice for box junction infringement. They took some details, and said it was very useful, because they're looking for her. I've just taken a look at the PCN and it's for a vehicle with a 2010 registration (YG10), so it seems that either she's decided to use this address as an address of convenience, or else she's lived in one of the neighbouring houses until recently.
As I wrote this, I suddenly remembered that Jimmy said he'd bumped into the owner of the other cottage (not the Noisy Neighbours nor the Religious Nutter Neighbour) the other day, and he (the landlord) had said the previous tenants had done a runner without paying the rent. So I got on the phone to the Met's telephone answering service and passed that snippet on, too. I was even able to come up with a name for the landlord.
I'm intrigued as to why the police are looking for this Vicky woman. I'm not sure that failing to renew a gym membership, and then driving into a box junction on the corner of Brixton Road and Gresham Road (hmm, outside the cop shop) makes her a dangerous criminal. But there's definitely something dodgy about her.
UPDATE: 00:10 Control at Brixton Police ring to say this Vicky 'has been found safe and well'. Now I'm feeling guilty, thinking, assuming, she was a bad 'un all along, and it turns out that she was missing/maybe vulnerable. I like to think that my handing over her car registration details may have proved vital in tracing her, but I rather suspect that most cases of adults reported missing result either from rows or from excess alcohol, and end when the presumed-missing person returns home, embarrassed at having caused such a fuss.
