If you turned your head slightly you might just see one. They're there. They hang around until they realise you've noticed them, and then they wander off. Shuffling to wait around someone else while others are moving in on you.

     They're the ones that form crowds. Their numbers swelling the ranks of football matches and other mass gatherings. When mobs erupt, rioting through towns, they're there. In courts, when people say, "it wasn't me, it was the others", it's them they're talking about.

     I'm lucky, I have a solitary job, an office to myself. I arrive early when the streets are empty. I leave late, once all the traffic has gone. This extra time I accrue I use as days in my home. Alone.

     When I get in the office I just have to watch the screens, seeing what the camera's see about the Centre. Shoppers, shop workers, shop lifters and the others. They skirt the field of vision. I've tried to follow them, but they quickly leave the shops.

     My boss praises my vigilance, I've caught a few criminals when scanning for the others.

     You wonder how I notice these ignored people, but you've all seen them. They just don't let you pay attention to them. I bet you've even got evidence of them in your own house. Get out the photo' album, and turn to the wedding you went to a few years back. You can't put a name to every face. No one can. Those few extra people are the bravest of the loiterers. The common ones would have gone to the toilet, or been looking at the presents, or getting a drink, or just stood behind the photographer. Turn to your school's class picture, you won't be able to name them all or remember where everyone sat. Think about your street, you won't be able to say who lives in every house.

     These loitering people have nothing to make them remarkable in any way. They're there, and they watch.

     I pan the camera's across a throng of shoppers. At the edge of the crowd some turn as the lens focuses upon them.

     Shops close. The centre empties. The other guards work the shutters. I ensure tapes are loaded for the night. Then I wait until buses take the crowds away. Switch off the lights and go.

     In a corridoor I over-hear a new guard say, "Who's that ?".

     "Oh, that's just thingy from the office," says another.

     Down in the bus station I sit apart from the staff from the shops. They wait at their appropriate bays while I'm beside the closed cafe.

     A girl from the jewellers turns and catches my eye. I get up and shuffle off to catch the bus away from the centre. No one notices me go.