Excerpt from A Pleasure and a Calling by Phil Hogan, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

The middle of the path. He barely gave me a glance as I approached. The dog crouched, watchful in mid-strain, then shook its bearded jowls and yawned. I expected the man to produce a bag to scoop up the mess, but he simply waited for the dog to finish, then pulled on the leash and started to walk on.

'Hello?' I heard myself call out to him. 'Excuse me . . .'

The man – perhaps he was familiar – turned with a vexed look that seemed to call for the counter-balance of a civic smile and a jocular observation. 'Sorry,' I said, 'but I think your dog dropped something?'

We both looked at the turd I was pointing at, a neat steaming coil that struck me as unusually large for a small dog.

And then he stared at me. 'Well, what do you want to do about it?'

'What do I want to do? I rather thought you might want to do something about it.' I smiled again.

'Well, I do not, so piss off. And just mind your own business, you bourgeois knob.' He stared at me, lips apart, for a second more, then yanked the leash, and turned on to the path for the Common and park. I stood and watched, the dog once more protesting as they crossed the grass and headed down the steps and along the riverside path. He didn't look back.

Bourgeois knob? I've always thought of myself rather as a concerned citizen – a model citizen. There was a thin piece of card to be found in a nearby refuse bin. I eased it beneath the pyramid of cooling sludge and transferred it into a discarded fast-food carton. This I carried back up the hill to the courtyard where my car was parked outside my flat. OK, I reasoned, this maniac had humiliated me, but so what? You could either burn with fury or you could do the right thing.

I put the carton in the passenger-side footwell of my car, then nipped up to my flat to consult the files I keep there. It didn't take long. I'm very organized. It turned out we had sold the house to a Judith Bridgens in 2007. Perhaps she had resold to this rude oaf. I called the landline number I had on record. There was no answer. I drove up there and parked some way along Boselle Avenue, then strolled back down to number 4 with an armful of sales literature covering the carton. In the garden behind the high, overgrown privet, only a passer-by glancing over the gate would be likely to see me, and even then only for a second or two. I rang the bell and called the landline again. I heard the phone ringing inside. No one answered. I produced the key now from my waistcoat pocket, unlocked the door, waited, and then stepped over the threshold. Oh yes. I always enjoy the first moment of an empty house before the spell of its silence and stillness is broken by my own breathing and movement. I found my way to the kitchen and contemplated the clean oatmeal tiled floor. Would it do the job? Not quite. Perhaps the sitting room . . . I pushed open the door on to an airy space with tasteful dining area. French windows overlooked a patio and an uncut lawn and flower borders bedraggled by the weather and neglect. The owner was no gardener. He did, however, have an eye for attractive modern soft furnishings, not least a handsome, chunky, white – you might even say bourgeois – hearth-rug.

There we are, I thought.

I slid the turd, still improbably intact – like a novelty plastic one – into the rug's luxurious centre, pausing for a moment to appreciate its caramel perfection, its pleasingly vile aroma – freed now to explore this forbidden interior – rising to my nostrils. The dog would almost certainly sniff it out the moment it returned with its owner. 'Woof, woof, master! Look at this!'

I made my retreat. Not least because of the disappointments of the morning, I would have liked to embark on a full tour of the house while I was there. Mostly, I would have loved to remain, in hiding, and see the shock and bafflement on the man's face when he returned. But I did have a business to run. I exited carefully, leaving a leaflet stuck in the letterbox. The wind had dropped, and with some satisfaction I retraced my steps up Boselle, posting leaflets also at the houses on the way back to the car, then drove back to my flat where I popped the key safely away. Sweet success.

Excerpted from A Pleasure and a Calling by Phil Hogan. Copyright © 2015 by Phil Hogan. Excerpted by permission of Picador. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.