This morning, I was comfortably fast asleep in my bed when I was disturbed by a loud, sharp knocking at the front door. I remained curled up in my comfy bed and waited for someone else to get the door, which they did soon enough. The next thing I heard was, “Hi, I’m from the homicide squad…”
Okay, a few years ago, we had this weirdo move into the flats next door. For some reason my mother befriended him, but I always hated him. He was a creep. My mother allowed him virtually free reign of the house, and I clearly remember spending hours pretending to be asleep (until 5pm) so I wouldn’t be made to talk to him. At the time my dad was on an overseas conference, so he barged into our lives and called himself my “dad”, even though Dad would only be gone for two weeks, and despite my obvious disgust. My mother insisted I was being rude by disliking him, and forced my sister and I out on shopping expeditions with him (and not her). I remember that he gave away my bike on one of these expeditions.
Life seemed hideous, but Dad came home after two weeks and that was the end of that excruciating episode of my life. At some point, thank God, my mother and this weirdo must have had a falling out, since I don’t remember having to deal with him after those awful two weeks.
In recent months he’d been harassing us, or at least we assume it was him harassing us because we don’t know of anyone else who would bother. The tyres on Dad’s car were slashed, so he had to replace them all. He received a series of abusive phone calls late at night. A mug was thrown at our back door (which is made of glass), shattering into little pieces, from the fence that separates us from this weirdo’s block of flats. He shouted abuse at my sister when she was in the backyard.
And today, he’s been arrested and charged with murder.
I’m sure there’s something in the law about not jeopardising others’ rights to a fair trial, so I will try to refrain from saying too much more, even if there’s more I would say. I think it suffices to say, I feel safer with him in custody.