TODAY 08:03

Local WhatsApp group:

‘He’s out there again, he’s lying in the field and just looking this way.

What’s he doing?

Nothing he’s just lying there. The fucking weirdo.

I’m sick of this, I’m going out there.

Be careful’

I looked at the messages and just knew who they were about. The fucking birdwatcher. The twitcher. The man who’d made the neighbourhood hell for the past week.

And it was my fault.

Sort of anyway.

9️⃣ days ago:

I was out with the dogs and I took a load of photos as usual.

In the background of one of them was this…

A Montague’s Harrier.

The rarest bird in Britain.

Somebody spotted it in the photo ( I never did in real life ) and for a couple of days we were infested with birdwatchers trying to find it.

They never did.

But one of the watchers stayed.

He lived in his car and we could see it from our houses.

He’d disappear for a few hours and reappear, going back to the same lay-by, eating crisps and chocolate and throwing the rubbish out of his car.

One of our neighbours, a retired engineer tried to remonstrate with him but was met with pure naked aggression, so he backed away and put the encounter onto the WhatsApp group.

‘That man is scary, be careful.’

His parking place wasn’t on my regular walk so I didn’t meet him until…

7️⃣ days ago 07:35 -when he was wandering around, long-lens camera around his neck, faded combat gear on his large, fat frame.

Even from a few yards away, he smelled wrong. Like something was leaking from his pores that broadcast his essential badness to the world around.

The dogs moved closer to me and their hackles were bristling.

I tightened their leads, nodded at him and made to move past.

He mumbled something.

I looked at him curiously, pulling the dogs closer, there was something about this man that was just wrong, like he moved in a constant shadow that obscured him from full view.

He mumbled again.

‘Green walls and paintings.’

I stopped and looked closely at him, his eyes darted around and his tongue was mobile at his lips.

‘What?’ I asked, more sharply than I’d intended but I knew what he was talking about.

My kitchen.

He smiled strangely and I pivoted around him quickly, both dogs still pulled in tight so that I was facing him as I went past.

‘You’ve either got a very long lens on your camera or some decent optics, thanks for reminding me that even in the countryside we’re not safe from weird cunts. I’ll close the blinds now.’

He barked a laugh and made some vague mumbling noises.

‘Why haven’t you left with all the others? That bird is long gone’.

He lowered his head and looked up at me from below his brow.

‘I like it here, I may never leave.’

I gave him a wintry smile and walked away at an angle, never turning my back until I was well clear.

‘I DON’T LIKE DOGS’

He was standing in the middle of the road with his arms raised to the sky.

I carried on walking.

TODAY 08:17

Local WhatsApp Group

‘I walked over to where I could see him properly, he’s lying there half-naked just staring, I’ve called the Police.’

‘WTF?’

6️⃣ days ago 20:51

The dogs were barking at something out the back and the security light by my office had been triggered.

Something large was moving around about 50 metres away when I checked my cameras and I had a sinking feeling.

Surely he wouldn’t be this stupid.

I put my phone onto video record in my shirt pocket, picked up a torch and a long carving knife and slipped out of the side door.

I stayed close to the hedges for cover and made my way to the office and… the back gates that were fully open.

A bulky shape stood just inside.

I hit him with a full burst from the torch, lighting his face up like a Halloween mask and put the tip of the blade to his groin, just outside of video shot.

With the torch hand, I pushed him outside the gate.

‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’

He glared at me as I closed one gate and then another, sliding the locking bar across and fitting the padlock, making sure that it was fully closed before spinning the numbers.

‘It was open.’ He hissed.

‘Sure, you can fuck off now though and don’t let me find you here again. Next time I let the dogs out first and it’ll be far less civilised.’

‘I’m a policeman.’ He rummaged around in his pockets and flashed an ID at me .

I aimed the torch at it, it showed a Metropolitan Police ID.

It was out of date.

It didn’t show any rank.

I smiled coldly.

‘I don’t give a fuck. Get in your car and go somewhere, anywhere else.’

He mumbled something and looked at me slyly, walking in the direction of his car. I watched him until the lights came on and he left the lay-by, he didn’t return that night.

5️⃣ days ago 11:15 – local WhatsApp Group

‘He’s parked on the other side of the main road and he’s watching my house with binoculars.’

‘What???‘

‘Call the police’

‘What’s wrong with him?’

‘I’m going to talk to him‘

‘Don’t do that, please just call the police.‘

‘OK. I will’

Thirty or so minutes later, the police arrived but he’d driven off a few minutes before, there was no video evidence and nothing to investigate.

And he started appearing at random, his car was now parked half a mile away but he’d be seen staring at windows, looking into cars and once following one of the younger female neighbours at a distance when she went for a walk.

He seemed to be enjoying the fear and confusion that he spread, staying just inside the lines for the law.

I wasn’t surprised.

I’d looked him up.

Sacked as a call dispatcher by the Met, arrested and tried for stalking before the case being dropped when the witness recanted.

Home address was a one bed flat above a shop in Birmingham Sparkhill.

A real shithole

I didn’t tell any of the neighbours this, things were bad enough as it was.

If and when the police could take action, they could learn it then.

But he was dangerous. He oozed corruption and was knocking back a bottle of vodka a night or so, the empties piling up on his backseat.

I’d walked past his car a couple of times with the dogs in the early morning and watched as his vast bulk heaved and slumped as he slept. His snores rattling the windows.

TODAY 09:50

The police had arrived, wandered over to him and immediately put out a cordon

Local WhatsApp group

‘???’

‘No idea’

‘He hasn’t moved????’

4️⃣ days ago

He was in a bush, scrim netting over his face when I walked past with the dogs.

Even I could smell him from a distance, he stank of badness and the booze was oozing from his pores.

He glared out from behind the netting, his chance at surprise and shock completely lost.

‘I don’t like dogs’

It came out as a hostile whisper.

I barely glanced at him.

‘Mate, they wouldn’t even piss on you.’

I kept walking, the dogs circled me as we walked.

TODAY 11:03

The police were joined by an ambulance, they covered him up, put him onto a stretcher and drove away.

Local WhatsApp Group

‘Is he dead?’

‘What’s happened?’

‘I’m going to talk to the police.’

That was me.

I left the house and wandered slowly to the field.

2️⃣ days ago.

He was outside my gates, behind my office. Just staring in.

Once again, I started my phone recording, this time just audio.

‘What the fuck do you want?’

‘Your dogs are going to die.’

‘Touch them, poison them, prison will be a nightmare for you, I can promise you that.’

He stared at me.

‘Afraid to do something yourself little man?’

I smiled and he recoiled.

‘I believe in the rule of law, you wouldn’t be able to stop me testifying, you impotent fat shit, go back to your van, get pissed again, have a wank, sleep it off and then leave. Fuck off back to Sparkhill.’

He flinched.

And he walked away.

TODAY 11:34

I wandered over to the police cordon and introduced myself.

The policeman was polite but had a ‘so fucking what?’ expression on his face.

I pulled my phone out.

‘ I reported him to you yesterday evening and I sent an audio file with it – I don’t know if it’s made it through the system – hang on…’

I pressed Play.

And the audio from yesterday played.

YESTERDAY 11:17

I was on a conference call in my office – it backs onto the hedge that separates my property from the lane and the back gates – the ones that he’d climbed over or whatever.

The office dog started barking and I could hear him talking.

I wandered out.

He was standing by the gates and was waving some foliage around.

My phone was already recording.

‘What the fuck do you want now?’

He waved the piece of branch and leaves at me.

‘I’m going to have your dogs taken away and killed.’

‘What? With a stick, or are you going to make them run for Sloes? It’ll be a few months yet…’

His face contorted, he wanted an emotional reaction but he was going to be disappointed.

‘See these thorns?’

He held them up.

He pressed a few into his arm, droplets of blood began to flow, making tunnels in the grime that was beginning to encrust on his body.

‘Yeah – and?’

I’m going to take these and dig them deeply into my calves, rip and tear myself, take photos and say that your fucking mutts attacked me.’

I laughed.

It wasn’t what he wanted.

‘I fucking mean it, they’re dead.’

He was spraying as he spoke, flecks of spittle covering his clothing and my gate.

I took a tissue from my pocket and wiped my gates.

‘Good luck with that, you fat shit, I’m not an Asian shopgirl that you can scare into compliance, why don’t you fuck off back to Brum?’

He raised himself to his full height. He was BIG, much taller and heavier than me.

‘And then you’re next, you cunt, you cunt, YOUCUNTYOUCUNTYOUCUNT’

I went back to my office.

TODAY 11:38

The young policeman looked a bit sick at the unhinged screaming coming from my phone.

‘I er.. I.. I.. that may explain something but I can’t talk about it.

‘Ok – but is he gone? Will he come back?’

‘I can’t comment sir, but..’

He looked as if he was searching for the words.

‘He won’t be back.’

I thanked him and wandered slowly home.

YESTERDAY 17:10

I was working late.

Or so it would seem.

I took my my work mobile with me when I slipped out of my back gates, my mobile left behind on the desk.

I walked slowly along intersecting hedges, hidden from view from the road and I watched as he took a long pull of vodka while he was sat in his car.

He took another.

And another.

I was quiet and still.

I responded on a group chat from my phone.

And I watched as he stood unsteadily and groped with his fly.

He walked unsteadily to the blackthorn hedge.

And he started to get ready to piss.

And I spoke from behind him.

‘Hiya you fat cunt. Fancy taking a swing at me.

He was quite fast, the punch coming round across his body from the right side.

I stepped back.

His momentum and the booze spun him towards the bush again.

And my gloved hands gently pushed him in.

His weight did the rest.

Face, arms and knees instantly bleeding from dozens of tiny spikes.

I pushed him further in and grabbed his right arm, scores of cuts making it a red mess.

And I..

I took the syringe and pushed it into one of the deeper cuts.

And then I pumped air in.

And stood back again as he tried to spin.

It was already too late.

As he clutched at his chest, his face contorted, I pulled his shorts fully down and watched as his body let go, his eyes now surprised and lost.

And then he fell and I watched as he died.

I took out my phone and responded to another message, replied to an email and started to make my way back.

I disassembled the syringe as I walked.

And I went back to my office.

Logging off and walking home.

I’d made my police report a few hours earlier.

TODAY 11:43

Local WhatsApp Group

‘I’ve talked to the cops. Something strange happening, I think he might be dead.’

‘Jesus’

‘Wtf’

‘Fuck knows. I’m off to London for a few days – keep me posted.’

‘Will do, be safe’

I’m a very tidy person.

I made sure that all the various bits of rubbish in my car and bags were disposed of in public bins.

A few public bins at that.

But first I made sure that the dogs knew that I loved them when I left.

I’m not a monster.