“Excuse me?”

There is a voice. I turn from the post box to locate its source.

A man is ambling over from a small jeep. The engine still runs. He is clearly the source of the “excuse me.” I allow my letter to fall from my hands into the post box’s cluttered womb, easing my wrist from its slot and giving him my full attention.

Grey-haired, he is wearing immaculate cream slacks. Retirement bling.

“I don’t suppose you know where these agents are based?” He gesticulates towards the ‘For Sale’ sign on the bungalow over the road.

A number of houses around mine are for sale – I do not know whether to take this personally or not. This particular one right opposite has been on the market since about Wednesday March 14th, and I am excited that I might be meeting a potential new neighbour. New people!!! I study him closely so I can report back to everybody.

I give him the information he requires. He asks me what living in the Village is like, and I offer him long examples of how we all know what each other is doing and just pop in to each others’ houses to say hello at any time of day or night, sometimes when we have been drinking. It is a neighbourly community like that. He looks a bit less friendly after this, and looks over his shoulder several times as he retreats to his car before driving off at some speed, doubtless to catch the estate agents before lunch.

He seemed like a pleasant chap, and I am determined to stick to my parting words to him, which were offering him a hand with moving in.

I make sure to take the number of his car. He is not from round here, after all, and he could have been looking at houses for sale with a view to committing some crime.

There is no more excitement. I return back over the road to the cottage, to tell all to the LTLP.

The Village Pub goes momentarily dark.

There is a man standing in the doorway. In fact he’s not standing, he’s looming. He blinks slightly before adjusting his loom and striding up to the bar.

“I come to do your security,” he booms from his loom. The accent is Russian, or Ukranian, or from one of the scarier –stans.

“My name is Igor,” he adds, with magnificent cliché.

The New Barman gazes up at him, flabbergasted. The man is built, if not exactly like a brick shithouse, like a shithouse of a particularly solid wooden-frame construction. He stares down at the New Barman querulously.

There is no indication as to whether he is making an offer or a threat. We do not have much experience of protection rackets here in the Village. Sizing the situation up, I decide that it would be better not to try to help. Short Tony and Big A seem to have the same idea, as does everybody else in the bar, and there is an immediate wave of shoe-studying.

“I’ll get the boss,” squeaks the New Barman.

The Well-Spoken Barman ambles through.

“I do your security,” our visitor repeats to him.

“Ah. I’m not sure we really need anybody on security,” replies the Well-spoken Barman in his disarmingly amiable way. “I don’t think. Do we?” he turns to us for some help.

“That is a particularly interesting shoe,” I say to Short Tony. “And so is that one.”

“Here,” demands the visitor. “On my piece of paper. It says ‘Village Pub.’”

“Ah. Well ‘Village Pub’ is quite a common name for a pub,” counters the Well-Spoken Barman with impressive bravery. “Look. ‘Village Pub, Wisbech’ it says.”

“Where is Wisbech?”

“In Cambridgeshire.”

“Oh.”

The room dims once more as he steps out through the doorway. We resume our pints and are very careful not to even smile.