Nigel, The International Man of Mystery Next Door

I don’t think I’ve ever told you about our International Man of Mystery Next Door, so I’ll tell you about him now. Lucky, lucky you! So, yes, we have an International Man of Mystery Next Door. We call him Nigel, because, well, that’s his name, and it’s a good name for Man of Mystery, don’t you think? The “next door” part of his title is actually a bit of a misnomer, though, because although Nigel owns the house next door to us, he doesn’t actually live there – hence the mystery. Actually, we haven’t seen Nigel for, ooooh, about eight months now. Maybe he is dead and bricked up inside the wall?

In that time, the house has remained empty, the grass has grown to shoulder height, the neighbourhood kids have had a fine old time “exploring” and I have entertained fantasies in which Terry and I knock through the wall between our houses, and make ourselves a four bedroom detached home for the price of our two bedroom semi. Seriously, no one would ever know, least of all Nigel, because Nigel? Is missing. He used to come to the house every few months, always arriving under cover of darkness, and leaving a few minutes later. Now Nigel doesn’t come to the house no more, but men who look like they’re maybe from the underworld come asking for him from time to time, and one time? The police came.

“Do you know where he is?” they asked Terry. “No, said Terry, “I don’t, sorry.” “Don’t you worry son,” said the police man. “We’ll find him all right.” They actually said “son”. They actually said, “We’ll find him,” as if we were all in a daytime soap and Nigel was On The Run. It was brilliant. Since then, though? Nothing. Haven’t seen hide nor hair of him, and I’ve just realised that you’re probably thinking I was building up to some dramatic revelation like, “Then this morning Rubin went out for a pee and totally dug up Nigel’s body!” or something, but I’m not. Sorry.

Last week, however, after almost a year – A YEAR – without being seen, Nigel TIMOMND appeared briefly at the house, and when I say “briefly” I mean “he walked in, got his mail, slammed around inside the house for five minutes (probably searching for bugs) and then disappeared again”. The day before, however, we’d been visited by yet another “heavy” in a suit, who asked a lot of questions about the whereabouts of our Man of Mystery and then muttered something about Nigel falling behind on his car finance. Not 24 hours later, the IMOM paid his first visit in a year. I suspect the two events are not unconnected, but then I also suspect Nigel is totally working for M15 or something, and now that I’ve written that I’ll probably be picked up by the Spooks, tortured and then killed. For real.

If you don’t hear from me again, you’ll know what happened. Well, you probably won’t actually, because They’ll track you down to and interrogate you about What You Know. Yeah, I should stop watching Spooks…

THE REST OF THE STORY…

Is Nigel hiding in my attic?

Nope, it’s just mice, apparently. Dammit.

Nigel Alert!

Here come the Men in Black

A Stranger Calls

Nigel Cometh

An International Man of Mystery No More