A CHAT WITH MY THIEF....

I have had my car raided about 20 times in 25 years. Always my own fault. I sometimes forget to lock my car. I have always known it was the same person. Over the years all my CD's were stolen. They knew where I hid coins for parking meters. Multitudes of other stuff was stolen. Once a huge tripod was stolen....the police retrieved it the same afternoon. A valuable set of hallogen lights were taken after I'd got home late night after lighting a large area of National History Museum, photographing an unpronouncable massive head of an extinct reptile. About 8 years ago the local police telephoned me and asked me to pay a visit to Kentish Town Police Station, to identify something. They had a case which had contained a pair of sun glasses. I had written my name inside the lid plus the name of my newspaper. The police had traced me. So there I was in a small interview room, with a police officer and a pile of interesting looking papers in a see thru' plastic envelope. The officer had forgotten the case, and left the room to locate it. He was gone for about 3 minutes, in which time I found the name and address of the suspect. Earlier the officer had correctly refused the identity of the suspect. The officer returned and I told him never to trust a journalist, and indeed the case was mine. The thief lives in a mansion flat 5 minutes away, and after asking questions to various neighbours and locals, I discovered he was a well know thief and had spent time in and out of prison. Two weeks ago my car was raided again, there was nothing to steal except a rather beautiful hand carved walking stick which I used a couple of times after a bit of surgery. Of course by now I knew what he looked like. I watched him walking his 2 massive dangerous looking dogs, with huge gold studded harnesses on them.....he would walk the street looking inside the cars, sizing them up for future visits. Anyway two days ago, I spoke to him...and said something like... " Hello...lovely dogs.....look you know this area, my car has been raided recently and a lovely walking stick was taken......if you hear anything, please tell me " OK, so yesterday afternoon, the door bell rang. I opened an upstairs window....it was my thief. " Just to tell you, you've left you car door open" I thanked him very much.