Had the strangest experience on the way home from work today. I was driving Henrietta along one of the back roads not far from the airport when I noticed this blue, first-generation Honda Fit parked somewhat oddly alongside the road. It was at a spot approaching the bridge that crosses one of the smaller branches of the Thames River, and I'll charitably call this place desolate. Aside from a mysterious-looking, dust-covered, industrial-ish company nearby, there's nothing here. It's not the kind of place where you want to get stuck.
I felt a little bad for the guy as he leaned into the hatch. I thought he was going to fetch a repair kit. Or a tire jack. Or a flare gun. So imagine my surprise when he shlepped out a rather large, quite full garbage bag. Then I noticed what I thought was a shoe sticking out of a hole in the bag. My blood must have chilled by a few degrees as I figuratively - or was it literally? - shook my head and asked myself silently - or was it out loud? - if I had just seen what I thought I saw.
I slowed down because...well I'm not entirely sure why. If he was indeed dumping a body in this forgotten place beside a steep riverbank, logic dictated I should simply keep going. But the journalist in me was too curious. And I could always run the dork over if he came at me.
So I stopped on the shoulder and watched him. He saw me, and kept looking over his shoulder as he continued into the bush, obviously weighed down by the bag-I-hoped-didn't-hold-a-body. I didn't want to antagonize him by shooting him with my DSLR (carry it everywhere, folks) so I satisfied myself with this hastily taken shot from my BlackBerry. I figured the time stamp would come in handy if I ever got called into court to testify.
In the end, it could simply be my overactive imagination. But just in case, I'll be watching the local news feeds - including my handy Twitter list of Londoners - especially closely for the next few days. If anything remotely like a missing person or a found body comes up, I guess I have a call to make. And if not, I think I may have freaked out a guy whose biggest crime may have been dumping garbage in the bush.
Either way, another zing in this adventure called life.
Your turn: Have you ever witnessed a crime? Do tell.
