We've all come across that face. Oddly enough, it's a face I could swear I've seen before. Perhaps it's because he looks like so many other people you'd ordinarily come across and not take much notice of, except perhaps to inwardly and fleetingly remark that you may have detected a cruelty in his eyes. Which you'd immediately dispel. You'd then go on to berate yourself for being so uncharitable and judgmental.

Because why on earth should he be cruel? He almost looks too old to be cruel and the white hair immediately mutes anything untoward. So if or when you found yourself sitting next to him on an aircraft you'd probably have smiled. If he boarded the same bus you were on and didn't find a seat, you may even have offered him your own. And if you came across him snorkelling at the Exiles and he'd volunteered to pick up your son's favourite toy which had made its way down to the seabed, you'd probably have thought he was the bee's knees.

Josef Fritzl looks like any other German tourist you'd see walking the streets of Mdina or Valletta, queuing up to see St John's Co-Cathedral... the shorts, sandals and socks type of guy who'd probably have a camera around his neck which would rest comfortably on his paunch - skinny legs, moustache and all. Except he isn't German, he's Austrian and he's no ordinary tourist. Just when you think you've seen and heard it all, someone like Fritzl comes along and redefines the unthinkable.

The reason why stories like the Amstetten cellar story affect me so much is because I'm one of those people who believes in, and to a certain extent relies on, the goodness of people.

This little philosophy was put to the test a couple of years ago en route to Cape Town. I had an eight-hour wait at Heathrow and instead of hanging around Costa Café or getting comfy at the Caviar bar, I decided to go into London instead. A couple of hours before my flight I caught the tube and headed back to the airport. Except, of course, I didn't. I took the Uxbridge train instead - same platform, westbound, Piccadily line, but destination was not the airport.

You should have seen the blood drain from my face when I very coolly and casually asked the guy sitting opposite how far we were from Terminal 2, and he, (equally coolly) replied that I was on the wrong train. At which point I literally held him hostage. My coolness went straight out the window and I begged him to somehow help me. Which he did. He got me onto a bus and gave me all sorts of instructions which needless to say I wasn't listening to. Instead I just picked on everyone and anyone who was thrown in my path and insisted they get me to Heathrow. Miraculously I made my flight literally as the gate was closing. I flew in, belt and boots in hand, and as I sunk into my seat on the plane I thanked God for all the lovely people who helped me make that flight.

I somehow never bought into the 'don't talk to strangers' routine. I will talk to the person to my left or right on an aircraft, exchange e-mail addresses and ask all sorts of questions if I am in the right sort of mood. Yes, there are times when I don't because I don't like them enough or because I am not in the mood - I pride myself on being intuitive and there are times when I don't get the right vibes. But by and large I trust people. My little shenanigan that day could have gone horribly wrong and got me into serious trouble. I could have bumped into the Suffolk Strangler and I'd have willingly followed him into the nearest ditch.

You see, when someone is standing in front of you in the supermarket queue or sitting opposite you in the departure lounge, it's normal to wonder where they're coming from, where they're heading, whether they're single, married, divorced, recently diagnosed with an illness, expecting a baby, en route to have an abortion, happy, sad, just won the lottery or even suicidal. The world is teeming with all sorts of people and these places are so dull that they lend themselves to all sorts of mind games.

But somehow the thought that this person may have just locked up his daughter in a dungeon and popped out to the nearest supermarket to buy some bread just doesn't enter your head. But I guess it may now. That is the tragedy I suppose. We can't take anything for granted anymore. Then again, with a story that is 24 years old you realise that we probably never could but only realise it now.

We felt pretty safe 25 years ago and even safer 50 years before that. But maybe we had no right to. Safety is one of those things that can only really exist in our head. We're living a world, a borderless one now, with the difference that today everything that happens finds a way into our living room.

So maybe it isn't a tragedy after all. Maybe we should feel safer now than we did before instead of revelling in what was with a sense of wistful nostalgia which is what I seem to do best.

michelaspiteri@gmail.com