The Man in The Van

On Friday 20 March 1998 at ten-thirty in the morning I was lying in the bath, washing my hair. I came up from under the soapy water, finished rinsing out the shampoo, then turned off the shower attachment. In the silence that followed, I realized that I could hear a woman's high-pitched screams and, mingled with them, the sound of angry roaring. I jumped out of the bath, put on a robe, and ran up the stairs to the front door. In the narrow alley leading to the garden, I saw a man with his back turned towards me, holding another person and, apparently, punching this person. The assailant's trousers were down, exposing pale buttocks, and I feared he might also be raping the person he was attacking. I looked around for a weapon and saw a brick lying on the ground. I could only just get my hand round it, but I picked it up and hit the man on the back of his head. When he felt the blow, actually scarcely more than a tap, he stopped punching the person he was attacking and turned to face me.