Starting to get nosy about this now... completely idle speculation

[edam]

Police just knocked on my door enquiring about a car that was parked in the bay opposite my house. It's just a parking bay with five spaces - the houses around it all have their own drives so the people who use it are normally either parking here to walk into the centre of our small town 5 mins away and avoid car park charges or visiting someone in this cul de sac. Or going to toddler club at the end of the road.

Anyway, police turned up to remove a car that had been reported as abandoned but it's gone. Police curious about it as had been parked there for four or five weeks - silver BMW with a note in the window saying it hadn't been abandoned but call this number if it's in your way. Hadn't really given it any thought myself but a nosy neighbour asked me about it so I then had a look. The rear quarter light in the back window had been broken. Police tell me there were tools on the back seat.

I'm now wondering why someone would park a car like this and leave it for weeks with tools on the back seat... do you think it's dodgy or could there be a legit explanation? Police say car could have been stolen either in the first place or after being abandoned here for a while.

Kind of reassuring to know my local police have time to worry about abandoned cars, really, and aren't frantically busy with very serious crime! Saw some stat yesterday that in the square mile of London where I used to live there were 350 violent robberies from people in the street every day.

Oh my god, edam, where did you live?!
Feeling too paranoid to leave the house now!

That's the point - hadn't thought about it until nosy neighbour rang the doorbell to ask me if I knew anything. Or again, since the very brief conversation where I said 'no, and it's a public highway so anyone is entitled to park there.'
Now the police come round and I'm wondering if it is dodgy after all.

I obviously live in curtain-twitching heaven! But in our house we only twitch the curtain for lorries, planes and helicopters - and that's ds.

No, I meant where did you live in London where there were 350 violent street robberies a day? I'm just hoping it's nowhere near my turf!

I was very selfishly ignoring the potential suicide bombers' crime vehicle parked opposite your home. Not my problem [said airily], I live on a red route

Battersea. Yes, there must be advantages to red routes. Although when we lived on one, dh got fined on his birthday because he didn't get up early enough to move the car before restrictions started.

Suicide bombers actually parked only about 5 miles away, and travelled to London on the train line that goes through this town ? actually on dh's train to work as it happens. Maybe the police in this area are checking up on all abandoned cars?

At the time the copper said 350 a day, I thought it was high. Maybe he meant 350 a week?

Ooh, the badlands of Battersea... I never read local papers in London, because there always seems to be so much crime happening so close to home.

I'm sure you're right about your local coppers checking all abandoned cars. Why not sidle out to them with a cup of tea and a digestive, see if you can wheedle some gossip out of them?

You don't need to read a paper in Battersea, you can see the number of yellow boards appealing for information. Yet it's better than other inner-city areas such as Camden or Islington