From smugness to the chilling reality of fear after dark

THIS week’s plan was to write about being smug. In my opinion smugness is the most loathsome trait, and normally goes hand in hand with excessive ego, undeserved self-satisfaction, and invariably a stupid look on a face.

Smug people are always unbearable. So it was with some reluctance that I prepared to write this column about finding myself feeling more than a little smug over the last few days. Oh yes. I have been in “crisis, what crisis?” mode as I watched the rest of the country go mildly berserk at the thought of running out of petrol. The initial reports of there being a potential shortage of fuel coincided almost to the minute with the installation of my home-charging point for the new electric car. So, as panic buying gripped, I was able to go quietly and smugly about normal business safe in the knowledge that all I needed to do was plug my vehicle in at home.

So as I whipped past queues of desperate petrol hunters this week, I permitted myself a little smug smile and a large self-satisfied chortle. And all those who jeered just a little at my plug-in ‘milk float’ as well those who asked if I ‘felt like Noddy’ as I bravely adopted eco-friendly driving, were sure to be laughing on the other side of their faces.

That is what I was going to write about. Until I scared myself. I scared myself when I was out walking the dogs on Thursday evening. It’s the time of year when night comes quickly, and we were still deep in the woods when the light drained from the sky. The wind was cold, blowing in occasional heavy rain, and was noisy in the trees. For the first time that day I started thinking about the day’s news agenda, which had been dominated by the details of the kidnap, rape, and murder of Sarah Everard by serving policeman Wayne Couzens. Until that evening I had considered those awful events with journalistic detachment, but in the wind and the darkness of the trees I began to consider the real horror of that most terrible crime. Around me, as we picked our way along the river path, the normally familiar and welcoming shapes of nature began to take on dark outlines of malice and menace.

I let the fear take hold of me, a deep gnawing in the pit of my stomach. My mind went into overdrive, not only by playing tricks with what I could see around me, but also by imagining. What if I saw a man in a clown mask? What if I was attacked out here? Where would I run? Then, against the light of the river water, I saw a shape. A man, hunched but moving, silent. I don’t think I had been as frightened since I actually did get attacked in London 40 years ago. He got nearer, I called the dogs close, and kept walking, refusing to give in to my fear, but with every hair on the back of my neck raised. Closer still. I clenched the handle of the extendable dog lead tight, and then I saw the light in his eyes as he looked at me.

“Alright?” he asked as he strolled past with a labrador just behind him. At that moment the fear was gone, the adrenaline rush made me feel a little nauseous, and we jogged back to the safety of the car. Since I have reflected on that self-imposed fright and thought about Sarah and her terror, and the moment when her worst fears became reality. In moments of terror, meeting a police officer should be a relief, salvation, a rescue. And that is what made this crime – already unimaginably awful – so much worse. Couzens did not only kidnap, rape, and murder Sarah – he betrayed us all.