A crime of passion

I have shocking news. I have been a victim of crime. I guess I really shouldn’t be so surprised. I do live in what has to be the UK’s crime capital. And of course, spending the majority of my weekends boozing it up in Camden probably isn’t the safest way to pass the time. The most ridiculous thing is that this was no ordinary crime, it was a crime of passion…well, kind of. I guess I better stop rambling and explain properly.

Basically, I’m dancing away in the back of a dingy watering hole on a Saturday night when some ropey looking dude in a Snoopy t-shirt comes over and starts sidling up to me. Now, as I’m sure you all know, I’m a bit out of practice at giving guys the brush-off so after attempting to ignore him for a few seconds, I eventually lose the head and tell him to f-off. Not the subtlest approach, but it seems to work, he mooches off, his tail between his legs, and I get back down to the business of making a tit of myself on the dance floor. Sadly this does not last long and the lights go up exposing all the cool scenesters as sweaty acne-ridden 15 year olds in need of a good wash. Time to leave methinks.

I grab my bag from under the table where I’d stashed it and start scrabbling round for my phone to find out where the next party is. No mean feat when my bag’s about the size of a suitcase and, as is usual form, after five minutes, I give up and ask a friend to ring it to make things easier. Funny thing is it starts to ring then fades away. She rings again and nothing. Odd. Or maybe not.

Hels suddenly realises that at the exact same time we stopped hearing the phone’s ring, Mr Snoopy skulked out of the door. We rush out in hot pursuit to find him standing outside as cool as a cucumber chatting away to a group of lads. Not wanting to jump to the wrong conclusion, Hels rings the phone again. Suddenly his pocket lights up and starts vibrating. I launch into a vitriolic attack screaming at him to give me my phone back, and he just looks at me like I’m mental. Fortunately we have muscle on hand, Hels’ boyfriend, Jon, saunters over with his drunken mate Matt in tow. While Matt’s so pissed he looks like he doesn‘t know where he is, Jon manages to appear just about threatening enough. “Empty your pockets, you c*nt,” he growls. Snoopy does as he’s told and after pulling out just about everything else he has in his pockets (in a hopeless last ditch effort to appear innocent, I assume), he hands over the phone. “I found it on the floor and thought it was mine,” he whines. Cue me: “YEAH, YOU FOUND IT IN THE BOTTOM OF MY F*CKIN’ BAG, YOU THIEVING F*CKER!” In his first wise move of the night, Snoopy makes a sharp exit.

Jon is hot on his heels. “NO JUST LEAVE IT! HE’S NOT WORTH IT!” Hels and I squeal in hysterical-melodramatic-drunk-girl mode. Being a gent at heart, Jon drops the hard man front and swaggers back over. “Have you got everything else?” he asks (obvious question, you might think). “Eh, yeah, I think so. I didn’t actually…OH HOLY CRAP, THE SCUMBAG‘S GOT MY PURSE!” I yell, and we all break into a sprint after him. Trouble is we have no idea which way he went.

Jon runs one way, Hels and I run another (slightly hindered by towering wedges which refuse to remain on my feet), but there’s no sign. We all meet up again at the High Street, where Matt eventually catches up with us, and in between pants, manages: “what the hell are we all running for?”. He clearly has no idea what has just happened. Poor Matt.

And poor me. My purse is gone, with all my cards, all the crap I carry around for sentimental reasons, and what could be anything between £0 and £40 in there (I have no idea how much I’d spent on gin by that point). We decide there’s only one thing for it - we jump on a bus back to Jon & Hels place (and leaving Matt asleep on the backseat), head up to their flat to get over the trauma with a little help from a six-pack of Fosters picked up at the corner shop, and a bag full of weed that somebody kindly gifted Jon for his birthday. Being un-seasoned tokers, we all pass out a few hours later feeling a bit queasy.

It’s a sad story, I know. Who’d have thought a man scorned could be so vicious? Or perhaps, it wasn’t the knock back on the dancefloor that did it. He may have just been another professional petty thief. And the Snoopy t-shirt, a cunning disguise so victims assume he is a harmless geek. But this story does surprisingly have a bit of a happy ending.

A week and a half later, I arrive at work to a message on my voicemail. “Hi! This is Piers Roberts. I run the design festival in Holloway where you lost your purse, Lucky for you, I found it so give me a call and I’ll get it back to you.” Huh? Somehow my purse took a week to travel from Camden to Holloway, then turned up at some artsy event - could Snoopy actually be a creative soul at heart? We’ll never know. But at least I’m getting my purse back.

Now I wonder if this Piers Roberts is a handsome chap….