Of The Danger in Early in Days

I went to the local police station yesterday to produce the relevant paperwork for them to process my three points for driving whilst on the phone. There was an air of nervousness about the place which I put down to the recent car bomb that killed one of their number at the weekend. It must be a very stressful job at times and a lightly stressful all the time when you're a police officer in Police Service Northern Ireland. When I first came to Northern Ireland all those years ago it was still at a time when it was prudent to check for bombs under your car - especially if you had anything to do with "the establishment". In those early days although I worked in Derry/Londonderry I first lived over the border in the Republic of Ireland in a place called Burnfoot which, it turned out, was something of a Republican/IRA heartland. The lady in the house opposite had a son serving life in Longkesh for a paramilitary killing whilst the family up the road had lost a son in a paramilitary incident. Late one evening I was in the bath after a hard day's battle in court. The lights were off, a few candles were on along with a bit of Mozart and I was chilling with a glass of red. I then heard a car pull into the driveway and stop right by my front door. Dripping wet and peering through a gap in the lounge curtains I could see the silhouettes of three me in the car. From what I could see none was talking. I was desperately trying to read this situation to work out what this meant and my next move. My car was around the back of the bungalow and with the lights out I hoped that they had come only to burgle the premises. I threw the lights on expecting to hear the screech of a car turning quickly around and making a quick get away. But there was no reaction at all. Instead, three inanimate men sat there in silence. Time to make a quick exit out the back of the property and up the back hill far away I thought. Just as I threw on a pair and jeans and a shirt and headed for the kitchen door I heard a car engine start and I watched as their vehicle calmly and coolly did a 3 point turn and make its way slowly down the driveway never to be seen again. The following day I asked a colleague at work who had a pretty good ear to the ground for her interpretation of these events. She surmised that I'd been sent a warning that "They" knew I was about and would return if necessary.