“Peter! Peter!” a young girl bleated underneath the murmur of the excitable mob around her.

The crowd, filling up with a variety of excited shapes in leggings was getting more and more excited as rumour of Peter Andre’s arrival spread like Vegemite across a toasted bagel. Customised pink T-shirts emblazoned with short motifs and un-credited photographs jostled with one another for prime positioning – boobs and bellies jutting over the crowd barrier.

“Could you all take one step back please?” the large crew-cut of a man bellowed at the throng. He was ignored again, for the seventh time that afternoon.

A small group of bemused tourists managed to wander – by some sort of social osmosis – into the right flank of the crowd; blissfully unaware of what the blooming spectacle was in aid of. The zip of a German’s crotch-level bum-bag grazed the eye of a small infant, who turned to her oblivious mother in a flood of tears and stood uncomforted for the duration of the stay.

Suddenly, a yelp of surprise rang out across the front rows. A be-gelled head of black hair bobbed past the doorway of the coffee shop entrance that looked like it may have belonged to the Australian minstrel, but it was in fact Luke the barista, clearing a table by the window. The mob let out an angry boo upon this realisation, a boo that grew louder as those at the back joined in without knowing what it was they were displeased about. Luke felt a tinge of shame that reverberated all the way down his body to his groin, and hurriedly scooped the dirty napkins and plates onto his tray.

“Could you all please take a step back?” the large man repeated, once again. Oh how he hated every single one of them. Saddened by his lack of authority in such a predicament, he consoled himself with daydreams of the night of ale and cocaine that lay ahead of him. Tonight he would be ‘on it’, for sure.

A couple of the tourists, who were still attempting to get to the bottom of what was provoking the hysteria, were now lifting cameras from their pouches and snapping pockets of the crowd and one another, presumably in case the event transpired to be remarkable and they could lay claim to some documented imagery.

“There he is!” an eagle-eyed, ponytailed head yelled, her feet a good half-metre from the ground; her fella’s thick, meaty paws resting upon the backs of her hips. The crowd let out a collective shriek which shocked an old, pickled man into the road. A car beeped angrily. “GERAFAWKINERYEARRR” the man responded, heartily.

The atmosphere was fever pitch now, as confirmed sightings of the expat pop prince grew rapidly frequent. A bloated woman wearing photochromic glasses swung her obstructive rucksack round to her front and yanked her first edition print of All About Us: My Story from the main pocket and a fresh black marker from the pouch at the side. A tall, pear-shaped blonde muttered cynical remarks to her friend:

“I don’t know what people get so worked up about! It’s so funny!” she lamented, casually undoing a button on her blouse as she fumbled for the lip-gloss in her handbag. Her mate puffed a cig.

“PETER! PETER! PETER!”

A small chant grew slowly in volume.

“Guys, one step back please” the man’s stout little arms were gesturing now, palms outward above the heads of the first rows. A young girl with UV face paint on one cheek profaned under her breath and giggled excitedly to her friend. The man glared at them as he sucked the sick taste of unrealised violence back into his stomach and found his breath again.

Then all of a sudden, there he was: in a pure white, 100% cotton skinny long-sleeved tee with black jeans and a modest, nasal grin poking out from beneath his Ray-Ban shades. The man who, 17 years prior had yearned for the closeness of just one mysterious girl, was about to have his pick of at least 50, whether the smattering of boyfriends, husbands and dads liked it or not. The cynical, pear-shaped blonde undid another button across her ample bosom.

Within moments, and in well-framed shot of the dedicated ITV2 crew, the second runner-up of I’m a Celebrity 2004 was signing everything from books to t-shirts to patches of bare skin. A woman held her baby up to meet the reality star and nearly left with an autographed infant. How they all giggled as Andre hastily retracted the black marker pen from the terrified child’s face.

The big security fella was now hovering over Andre with an increased glare of suspicion as he kept a watchful eye out for any over-zealous fans. Or blades. A joker shouted over the first four or five rows “Oi Peter, is that your new bird?” in reference to the large man, who did his best to ignore the jibe, clutching his ear piece and mumbling a pretend response to no-one.

Having made his way from right to left across the outstretched arms of the crowd, the soft-toned songster turned to his assistant to check if it was time to go when suddenly a small girl of only three foot or so approached him and tugged at his crisp, clean top. The security bloke stared aghast, horrified that such a breach should occur on his watch. Andre, however, instead of calling for a firm intervention, crouched down and with the calm, sweet composure that won him the hearts of this great nation over the last decade or so, asked the girl her name.

“Leanne” came the young girl’s response. A few members of the crowd let out an ‘AW’.

The girl stood motionless, with no sign of excitement or even shyness on her face. In her hands, out in front of her cardiganned chest was a small shoebox. With the ITV2 cameras rolling and silence gradually settling over the intrigued crowd, the Insania singer asked the only question available to him at that moment of time.

“What y’got in your little box sweetheart?”

The girl reacted little, and uttering no words extended the box towards Andre who smiled at his PA, Lucy and then the crowd. His eyes ever-so slightly welling up, he slowly received the box from the girls hands.

“For me?”

The small girl nodded emphatically. Just out of sight, the director of Andre’s new ITV2 reality vehicle punched the air with glee. ‘Gold!’ he thought over and over to himself.

Andre pulled back the box lid, his glance interchanging between the girl, the crowd, his PA and the ITV2 cameramen who were now positioned next to him near the ground. With the lid completely off, some coloured tissue poked out the top, blowing slightly in the breeze. Focusing on the box now, Andre’s expression flickered between intrigue and puzzlement as he fingered at the folds of tissue, slowly undoing the parcel. ‘Perhaps it’s a cake’ he thought to himself. Making conversation with the child as he proceeded, fully aware of the narrative that was unfolding on film, he asked what the gift was.

“It’s a warning.” Came the little girl’s response.

A few confused expressions exchanged across the crowd and between Andre’s people. The Australian auteur lifted the small, damp package out and placed the shoe box on the ground as he used both hands to unravel it. As the tissue came apart and blew away into the crowd or fell to the pavement, Andre’s face melted into abject horror as it became slowly clear to him and everyone around him that what he was clutching in his palms was the neatly wrapped dismembered head of a small, yappy dog.

A chorus of shrieks reverberated across the front rows. Andre froze solid on the spot, his posture and expression in some way calling to mind David Tennant’s contemporary portrayal of Hamlet. ‘Alas poor Yorkie, he knew him well…’ The Sun might have said. Lucy the PA threw a panicked arm across a nearby camera lens.

“Stay off our screens, Andre.” The little girl snarled, before turning her jelly-shoed heels and walking away past the terrified crowd down the street.

Whimpers, cries of ‘oh my god’ and a few jarring guffaws echoed around an otherwise silent group of onlookers. A sock-and-sandaled man pulled a camera from his bum-bag and snapped four or five photos above the Wella-dyed heads of the people in front; a bloated woman dropped her celebrity biography from its glossy coversheet as she fumbled for the zip on her bag; a girl with a UV-painted cheek dry-heaved into her palm; Luke the barista ran a discreet brush and pan over the entrance.

“OK guys, right let’s move along” the large man bellowed, with more authority in his voice and strong arm gestures waving the multitude backwards. For the first time that afternoon, the crowd – scared, confused, disgusted, shuffling – did exactly what he asked them to do – and, for the first time ever in his admittedly short career of bodyguard to the stars, the big man – who had only three hours to go before getting ‘on it’, and whose name was Dominic – was happy.