Burley Cross Postbox Theft

(#litres_trial_promo)

Horsmith’s pronouncement on this issue was obviously the most devastating blow for TP (and her cause), yet it by no means prompted her to desist from her antisocial behaviour. By way of an excuse for (partial explanation of/attempt to distract attention from) her strange, nocturnal activities, she suddenly changed tack and began claiming (see Doc. 6 again, last three paras) that – for the most part – whenever she goes on walks she generally bags up the vast majority of the faeces she finds and disposes of them herself (‘double-wrapped’, she writes – somewhat primly – inside her dustbin, at home

(#litres_trial_promo)) and that on the rare occasions when she leaves the bags behind it is either because a) the ‘problem’ (as she perceives it) is so severe that she feels a strong, public statement needs to be made to other dog owners, b) the sheer volume of excrement is such that it is simply too much for her to carry home all in one go (while managing a large dog at the same time), and c) that she is sometimes prey to the sudden onset of acute arthritic ‘spasms’ in her fingers, which mean that she is unable to grip the bags properly and so is compelled to leave them in situ, while harbouring ‘every earthly intention’ of returning to collect them at a later date.

I am not – of course – in any way convinced by this pathetic, half-cocked hodge-podge of explanations. In answer to a) I say that other dog owners are completely within their rights to allow their dogs to defecate responsibly on the moor. They have the law on their side. It is a perfectly legitimate and natural way to proceed. In answer to b) I say that the volume of excrement on the moor is rarely, if ever – in my extensive experience of these matters – excessive (especially given the general rate of decomposition etc.). In answer to c) I say that it strikes me as rather odd that the same person who can apparently manage to ‘bag up’ huge quantities of excrement when their fingers are – ahem – ‘spasming’

(#litres_trial_promo) is somehow unable to perform that superficially much less arduous act of transporting it back home with them!

(#litres_trial_promo)

Many of TP’s bags lie around on the moor for months on end and no visible attempt is made to move them. Last Thursday, for example, I counted over forty-two bags of excrement dotted randomly about the place on my morning stroll. Sometimes I come across a bag displayed in the most extraordinary of places. Yesterday I found one dangling up high in the midst of a thorny bush. It was very obvious that not only would the person who hung the bag there have been forced to sustain some kind of injury in its display (unless they wore a thick pair of protective gloves), but that so would the poor soul (and here’s the rub!) who felt duty-bound to retrieve it and dispose of it.

(#litres_trial_promo) This was, in effect, a piece of purely spiteful behaviour – little less, in fact, than an act of social/ environmental terrorism.

Shoshana and I have both become so sickened, angered and dismayed by the awful mess TP has made of our local area (I mean who is to judge when an activity such as this passes from being ‘in the public interest’

(#litres_trial_promo) to a plain and simple public nuisance?

(#litres_trial_promo)) that, in sheer desperation, we have begun to gather up the rotten bags ourselves.

On Friday, two weeks back

(#litres_trial_promo), Shoshana gathered up over thirty-six bags. On her way home – exhausted – from the village’s poop-scoop bins

(#litres_trial_promo) she tripped on a crack in the pavement, fell heavily, sprained her wrist and dislocated her collarbone.

(#litres_trial_promo) I will not say that we blame TP entirely for this calamity, but we do hold her at least partially responsible.

(#litres_trial_promo)

After Shoshana’s ‘accident’ I marched over to TP’s bungalow, fully intent on having it out with her,

(#litres_trial_promo) but TP (rather fortuitously) was nowhere to be found. It was then – as I stood impotently in her front garden, seething with frustration – that I resolved

(#litres_trial_promo) to take the opportunity to do a little private investigation of my own. If you remember,

(#litres_trial_promo) TP had claimed that many – if not most – of the bags of excrement she retrieved from the moor, she automatically carried back home with her (only leaving the unmanageable excess behind) and placed them, double-wrapped, into her dustbin (alongside what I imagine would be the considerable quantities of excrement collected from her own four, chronically obese dogs which – as you know – she keeps penned up, 24/7,

(#litres_trial_promo) inside that criminally small and claustrophobic, purpose-built concrete compound

(#litres_trial_promo)).

The day I visited Hursley End was a Monday, which is the day directly before refuse is collected in the village. I decided – God only knows why, it was just a random urge, I suppose – to peek inside her dustbin (literally deafened as I did so by the hysterical barks and howls of her four frantic German shepherds). By my calculation, I estimated that there would need to be at least forty-two dog faeces – from her own four animals – stored away inside there.

(#litres_trial_promo) In addition to these I also envisaged a considerable number of stools collected from her nightly hikes on the ‘filthy’ moor.

(#litres_trial_promo)

Once I’d made these quick calculations I steeled myself, drew a deep breath, grabbed the lid, lifted it high and peered querulously inside. Imagine my great surprise when I found not a single trace of excrement within! The bin was all but empty! I say again: the bin – TP’s bin – was all but empty!! I quickly pulled on a pair of disposable gloves

(#litres_trial_promo) and then gingerly withdrew the bin’s other contents, piece by piece (just so as to be absolutely certain of my facts). I removed two large, empty Johnnie Walker bottles,

(#litres_trial_promo) four family-size Marks and Spencer coleslaw containers, three packets of mint and one packet of hazelnut-flavoured Cadbury’s Snaps biscuit wrappers, and the stinking remnants of two boil-in-the-bag fish dinners (Iceland) and one, ready-made, prawn biryani meal (from Tesco’s excellent Finest range).

I stared blankly into that bin for several minutes, utterly confounded, struggling to make any sense of what I’d discovered. It then slowly dawned on me that TP might actually have two bins – one of which was specifically to be used for the storing of excrement. Bearing this in mind, I set about searching the untended grounds of her property

(#litres_trial_promo) with a fine-tooth comb,

(#litres_trial_promo) even going so far as to climb on to an upturned bucket and peer, trepidatiously, into the tiny concrete compound to the rear, where TP’s four German shepherds barked and raced around – like a group of hairy, overweight banshees – frantic with what seemed to be a poignant combination of terror and excitement.

(#litres_trial_promo)

No matter how hard I hunted, a second bin could not be found. I eventually abandoned my search on realizing how late it had grown;

(#litres_trial_promo) Shoshana would definitely be worried, I thought, and if I tarried any longer I could be in serious danger of missing Countdown.

(#litres_trial_promo) I left Hursley End, depressed and confused, only turning – with a helpless half-shrug – to peer back over towards the property once I’d reached the relative safety of the road beyond. It was then, in a blinding flash, that I had what I now refer to – somewhat vaingloriously, I’ll admit – as my ‘Moment of Epiphany’.

(#litres_trial_promo)

As I looked back at TP’s property from a greater distance, I was able – with the benefit of perspective – to observe that recent renovation works to the bungalow had resulted in the temporary removal of large sections of the external fascia,

(#litres_trial_promo) so that all that now remained of the property’s original structure was the roof, the window frames and a series of basic, internal walls and supports, many of which had been copiously wrapped in thick layers of protective plastic (to safeguard the property against the worst of the weather, I suppose). By dint of this expedient, I suddenly realized with a sharp gasp, TP’s home had lately been transformed (voluntarily or otherwise) into a giant simulacrum of a monstrous, semi-transparent poo-bag!

(#litres_trial_promo)

As this – admittedly strange and somewhat hysterical – thought caught a hold of me, a second thought,

(#litres_trial_promo) running almost in tandem with it, quickly overtook my mind: if no evidence of excrement could be found in TP’s garden – not even faeces from her own four dogs – then where on God’s earth might it actually be…?

What?!

I suddenly froze.

‘MARY, MOTHER OF JESUS!’ I bellowed, then quickly covered my mouth with my hand.

(#litres_trial_promo) But wasn’t it obvious?! Hadn’t the simple answer to this most perplexing of questions been staring me in the face all along?!

The moor!

Our beautiful, unbesmirched, virgin moor!

TP had not – as she’d always emphatically maintained – been piously and dutifully collecting/bagging excrement left by other, irresponsible dog owners, during those long, dark, nightly hikes of hers. Oh no! Quite the opposite, in fact! TP had actually been carefully bagging prodigious quantities of HER OWN FOUR DOGS’ EXCREMENT and then CHEERFULLY FESTOONING THE LOCAL FOOTPATHS WITH IT!!!

‘Good Lord!’ I can almost hear you howl, your smooth, firm cheeks flushed pink with rage and indignation. ‘But… but why?’

I’m afraid that this is a question which – for all of my age and experience – I cannot answer. I can only imagine that TP must derive some sick and perverse feeling of excitement/ gratification from performing this debased act. Perhaps it is an entirely sexual impulse, or maybe she has some deep yet inexplicable grudge against the people of Burley Cross which she is ‘acting out’ through this strange and depraved pastime. Or perhaps the good people of this village have unwittingly come to ‘represent’ something (or someone) to TP from her tragic past and she feels the uncontrollable urge to punish/ insult/degrade us all as a consequence of that. Or maybe – just maybe – a whole host of entirely different impulses are at play here. Shoshana had the fascinating idea that as a small child TP might’ve developed ‘issues’ during her anal phase