Locks, tock and two smoking barrels.

A continuation of Friday night's tale.

At some point late on Friday night M, from the below-ground flat, managed to contact a locksmith who came round and managed to replace the lock on the street door allowing us all normal access and egress.

At some point late on Saturday night I was awoken by a blue flashing light and a quick twitch of the net curtains revealed a large red fire engine with its crew at rest in the High Street.

On Sunday afternoon, on my way to the shops, I saw a police officer sitting in a squad car outside the street door to another residential block just a few doors along from my own. This door however was wide open and criss-crossed with blue-and-white tape which stated “POLICE LINE - DO NOT CROSS”. It was another passer-by who encouraged me to look up and then I understood what had taken place. I shuddered. That could so easily have been our building.

On Monday morning, I later discovered, M had gone round to see the delightful Zara to explain about Friday night's fiasco with the lock on our street door and to request reimbursement for the replacement lock for which he had paid personally. Zara had shouted at him that there was nothing wrong with the lock and that he should not have taken it upon himself to have it replaced, especially not with a more expensive model. While this was going on, L, from the ground floor flat, who had kindly allowed me to climb in through his sitting room window, arrived on the scene to lodge a complaint that the occupants of ten flats would have been in a death trap with no reasonable means of escape had a fire broken out. Zara also chose to shout at L.

At some point I had begun to consider what my best course of action would be were I to find myself in my flat with the building on fire. I came to the conclusion that first I would look into the stairwell to see if that looked passable, and if so, I would get out as quickly as possible via that route. But if the stairwell were filled with smoke I would return to my flat, closing (but not locking) all doors between me and the fire and then call the fire service. I would ask them whether it was better to place a cloth over my face and brave the stairwell or wait for the ladder crew to arrive. What I would not do in any circumstances was attempt to jump down into the street.

It was after I had worked through this thought process that I bumped into a collection of neighbours sharing anecdotes down at the street door, and that was when I learned about Monday morning's aggression from Zara. The neighbours too had considered my top-floor predicament but they had decided my best option would be to throw out a mattress and jump. They don't know my mattresses and I assured them that I would not do that.

By this time of course I had already invested in my little extension cable and passed it under the door between my living space and my hallway. Doubt crept in. What if there were an electrical fire at the socket while the pest controllers were at work and they could not gain access to extinguish the fire. I decided that fire was a greater risk than burglary.

And tonight I received a call from King Goblin to say he was available to pop round and meet me. Lovely chap! No qualms at all about allowing him access to my living quarters. I have supplied him with the spare key to my inner door on the proviso that it never reaches the hands of Darth.

We're good to go.