A good question...

I moved from the top flat to the ground floor. The advantage, I thought, was a garden to walk into when the walls closed in.
Many a time I would sit at my PC gazing out of the window watching the man next door tending his beautiful garden. He had planted borders, installed a water feature and grown a mini forest at the far end that provided a leafy glade to rest from the hot sun.
The garden to our flats was unkempt and mostly overgrown and was included in the lease for the ground floor flat.
Before I moved in the place had belonged to an old chap by the name of Reg. Strange old cove, always peering out to see who was coming in and always up and about. No matter what the hour he could be heard shuffling round the rooms, coughing or peering through the curtains. Harmless but not very talkative is how I remember him.
When he died I took over the flat and spent the first five months decorating the place and bringing it into this century. As a genuine thirties museum it was all very well but that wasn’t what I wanted, I ripped out and sold a lot of the fittings, repainted others and adapted all manner of things in order to make it more conducive to modern living. Or at least my interpretation of it.
When it was finished I sat in my study one day beside an open patio door listening to the sound of the garden. That was when I decided to do something about the state it was in.
Business had been quite good - I write software for those that can’t tackle the task themselves and I make a good living. I am able to work from home as soon as I have the specification from the customer.
My first foray into the depths of the jungle turned up all sorts of things; A cast iron fountain, now cleaned and working well just beyond the patio. Two cart wheels. Varnished and housing my herb garden. A shed that leaned to starboard and was propped up by three stout pieces of timber; It stays that way because of its inherent character.
Three weeks later I had cleared it all and laid out the basis of a ‘proper’ garden. It was then that next door began to show an interest. I had unashamedly borrowed a few ideas from him by peering over the fence at various points and had adapted a couple of his ideas to my own interpretation..
He began to talk to me. We swapped seeds and catalogues and became friends. He came round and had tea and I went round to sit and enjoy the occasional G&T with him.
His story, when he told me one sunny afternoon sitting under the shade of his mature apple tree, was to say the least, startling…

A Military man. He had grown up with discipline and it had followed and stayed with him throughout his life. He didn’t think it was a fault, more a way of life. And therein lay his downfall. Discipline can lead to naïve actions.
He had met women. Plenty of them, but none had wanted to stay with someone who was to the point of obsession about neatness. ‘A place for everything and everything in it’s place.’
A mantra. Take time out to straighten the tie, make sure the curtain falls just so, the extra buff of a well-polished shoe.
Do things by the book. Do it right and it will work. So he did things right and the women came and went and none stayed. He became disillusioned in Civvie Street and decided that the only way for him to glean any enjoyment from life was to make some money.
It happened that a school friend who was in business making plastic wrapping for the food industry and had discovered a new way of producing the thin, clingy plastic and needed a healthy dose of Investment to launch it at the public. He could see that there was indeed a market for this stuff and decided that he wanted to put money in. In order to invest he devised a scheme whereby he might make himself some of the required cash.
He robbed a bank.
In true Wild-West style, he walked into the Fairfold Bank held the place up at gunpoint with a pair of six-guns dressed in the full regalia, boots and all.

Furthermore he got away with it. The Police had never ever come close in the forty intervening years. He had invested the money in the school-friends business, to the tune of £100,000. And he sat back to await the results.
After a few years and the business was up and running and the orders flew in for this new wonder-wrap because it was new and was useful around the kitchen, the profits soared and they banked their respective shares accordingly. But resentment by the owner began to surface. Remarks were made, inferences inferred.
Board meetings became a battleground for him. Then the friend announced that he wanted to stop with the wrap and move on to other areas. He had been given the nod from a well-known chemical company that a lot of money could be made for the right packaging. His plan was to throw everything at the new venture and drop the wrap and thus force out what he saw as a money grabber.
At the end of the battle my neighbour walked away with the sole rights to the wrapping production and the friend went off and tried to compete against the chemical companies. He lost.
Neighbour took out a lease on a small unit and installed the equipment, looked about for some people to run it; Pressed go and the cash-cow started to produce.
So that is how he got here.
And now he is thinking of turning himself in.
Had enough of the silliness of ‘everyday’ life. Had a hankering for the disciplined nature of a term in Jail; his military background would see him through and when he came out he would be old and a home would be available, a home that has been bought and paid for these many years…
Wanted to get it off his chest. A crime is just that. Law says Do Not and if you Do, you get punished. No punishment had been forthcoming so maybe it was time to seek it out and let justice prevail. Confession is good for the soul. Make peace.

We sat and watched the sun go down and our G & T’s emptied. He gave a sigh that startled the dog. “Tell me,” he said reaching for the bottle, “what would you do?”