Of all the stories I had of being a PI this is my all time favourite, I love the way the client managed to take such a small amount of information from me and use it to his full advantage, he kept calm the whole way through and managed to mess things up for his partners' love affair too without being the bad guy. I have of course changed the names of the people in the story to protect them but apart from that the rest is true.
I had been working as a PI for around a year when I had a call from a friend of mine (Richard) who asked me if I was still trading and if I would be able to help one of his work colleagues, I explained that I was still in business and gave him a list of services I provided and Richard told me that his colleague would be in contact shortly.
Sure enough a few days later Richard's colleague (Stuart) did call me, he informed me that he suspected that his girlfriend was having an affair (as always) he also explained that he was going away in a few weeks time on a business trip. Stuart was sure that something would happen during the time that he was away (as anyone in his position would). I quoted him my prices but he seemed skeptical and said that he is very short of money and would need to get back to me.
I thought no more of the conversation and put it down to one of the many quotes that I got through on a daily basis and went about my business. However Stuart did call back a few days later and told me that he had gone through his girlfriend's (lets call her Sue) phone bill and found that one number in particular stood out from all the rest. He asked me if I could find out who the number belonged to, I quoted him my normal £150 and said that I would do my best as always.
I passed the number on to a trace expert and sure enough he came back with a result within a few days, the number belong to a guy called Phil W___, as it turned out Phil was a police officer. I passed this information on to Stuart and he recognized the name straight away. Stuart told me that Phil was the Police Officer that came round to the house shortly after his house had been burgled, he told me that at the time he had noticed that Mr W___ and Sue did seem to get on unusually well but he didn't think much of it, as he was only there to deal with the burglary. However now that he knew that Sue had been calling Phil on a regular basis it changed everything.
Stuart was due to go away in a few days and he told me that he needed Sue followed, he didn't have the money to pay me for physical surveillance especially when he had no idea when the pair would next meet. I suggested that I attach a GPS vehicle tracker to Sue's car so that both Stuart and I could see where the vehicle was at any given time by logging into the tracking panel... sure enough he agreed to this. Of course Sue didn't know that the device was to be fitted to her car so as always I had to fit it to her car covertly. I made the trip to her house late at night and as always I was careful to check that there was no-one around before I slipped the device under her car using magnets (I have been caught doing this before but I will write about this another time). Now that this was fitted both Stuart and I had the ability to view the position of her car at anytime.
If anyone wants to see an example of a tracking panel please click here and enter "ashaw" as both the username and the password, this device is actually attached to my car.
As planned Stuart left the UK for his business trip we began to monitor Sue's car. I kept in contact with Stuart everyday while he was away. For the first couple of days she did very little to show that she was up to anything but then one evening she parked about half a mile away from Phil's house and waited for some time before moving off, I could see from the satellite pictures that there was a footpath leading from Phil's housing estate to where Sue had parked her car. It was pretty obvious however not confirmed that Sue had picked Phil up from this spot, she returned home for several hours before returning to the same spot again (probably to drop him back off again).
The strange thing was that on that evening she drove to another estate and left her car there overnight. When I relayed this information to Stuart he was shocked as he knew that estate well, he informed me that it was in fact where her old flat was located, or at least he thought it was her old flat until now. Stuart went on to explain that this was the flat that Sue had before they met, after meeting him they both moved into a house together, Sue rented the flat out for around a year and then after this time she declared that she had got rid of the property. However it would now seem that she hadn't got rid of it but instead was using it for herself.
We continued to monitor for the next couple of days, she didn't meet Phil again but she did continue to move in between their house and her "secret flat" until it was time for Stuart to return.
Now it gets interesting.............
From this point onwards I had very little to do with the investigation but Stuart kept me updated with what was going on. So I have written the rest of the story as he told it to me over the phone as best I can remember it.
After Stuart's return from his business trip he immediately rushed home to find that Sue had moved all of her belongings out of the house and he was greeted by a note on the kitchen table that said "by the time you read this I will be in Spain, don't try and find me I want to start a new life". Stuart then called me to find out where Sue's car was, I looked on the tracking panel to find that she was parked outside her flat. At this point Sue had no idea that Stuart was aware that she still had her flat and was hoping that Stuart would simply accept that she had left and moved on.
Stuart immediately drove to the flat and started hammering on the door, Sue most likely saw him walking towards the flat as she chose not to answer the door. Stuart knew that she was inside as the TV was on and the car was outside, so he began speaking to her through the letter box. "Sue I know you are in there, if you aren't going to open up then I'll keep coming round till you do, don't be a child and hide come and speak to me as I deserve and explanation". She didn't open the door and so Stuart left.
Feeling very frustrated and angry about the fact that he had been ditched without so much as a goodbye, Stuart decided not to go home but went round to Phil's house instead. He casually knocked on the door and a woman answered who he assumed to be Phil's wife however this did not deter him. "Is Phil there?" he asked, indeed he was and he came to the door as requested. "Who are you?" Phil said to Stuart, "You know who I am, I am Sue's husband" said Stuart. "Sue?" replied Phil "Who is she?" "Don't play stupid with me, you have been seeing Sue for weeks now, she told me everything about it, I just want to know where she is?" Of course Sue hadn't told Stuart anything at this point, he was just trying to get a reaction from Phil. Phil remained very quiet as he absorbed the shock of what was happening and the sheer front that Stuart had for turning up at his house late at night. "I don't know where she is" Phil answered back very quietly, giving very little away. At this point Phil was looking a very bright shade of red and his "wife" was stood directly behind him burning holes in the back of his head with very fierce eyes. Stuart decided he had done enough damage for one night and decided to leave the couple to begin a very large fight, "If you see her let her know that I'm looking for her" Stuart said before turning around and walking away (wishing he could be a fly on the wall to see the result of the devastation that was about to take place).
Stuart now returned home but as he expected it wasn't long before Sue turned up, she had heard about the incident at Phil's house and was obviously shocked that Stuart was already ahead of her game and was curious to find out what else he knew. Of course she started off by telling him that "Me and Phil are just friends, we just stayed in contact after he came round last year" but that didn't wash with Stuart. He sat Sue down and told her that he has known that this had been going on for months (another crafted lie on his behalf), he went on to explain that he had photos of them together and that he knew about the flat too. The fantasy that she had built up in her head of having a secret affair, running away from reality with the man of her dreams and all the excitement that came with it suddenly came to an abrupt end as Stuart spelled out the fact that he had known about this for a long time and he wasn't going to stop her leaving. At that moment she burst into tears realising that when she faced facts it isn't really what she wanted and at least turning on the waterworks would gain some sympathy from Stuart (she hoped). "What are we going to do now" Sue asked, "well you wanted to leave, so maybe you should go", Sue left feeling kind of lost about the fact that they didn't have the almighty row she was expecting which meant she couldn't place Stuart as the bad guy in all of this, this no doubt started to make her feel a large amount of guilt.
The next day after the dust had settled, Stuart and Sue agreed to meet again at the house, after having time to think about the reality of the whole situation Sue confessed that she had made a mistake. Stuart however declared that it is too late for that now as she had betrayed his trust. Stuart asked if she knew what had happened to Phil and his wife after Stuart's encounter with them at the house the night before. She explained to Stuart that Phil had been kicked out of the house by his wife and was currently sleeping at his brother's house. It was at this moment when Stuart must have realised that Sue and Phil had now split up from their partners leaving it open from them to continue their relationship, he then decided to make up a lie that he hoped would cause some trouble between the couple to be. "You do know that it wasn't just you I had followed" said Stuart, "we also followed Phil too, I'm not quite sure how to tell you this but you weren't the only one he was seeing". "What do you mean?" replied Sue, "We have photos of him with other women, I'll get the photos for you next time I see the investigator". Sue looked shocked and walked outside holding her phone. It was sometime before Sue returned but when she did Stuart could see that she had tears in her eyes, "What is the matter" he asked, "I just confronted him with what you just told me and he confessed that it was true". Stuart was of course shocked that his lie had paid off and I bet he found it hard to hide his smile, what a result on his behalf.
After Stuart had told me all this he confessed that he felt pretty good about himself, he admitted that it was still a pretty bad time he was going through as he had to pick his life up from scratch again but he wasn't to blame for this. His partner was willing to simply ditch him while he was away and sneak off with another guy without so much as a goodbye but because he had the foresight to see it coming he was able to beat her at her own game. Not only did he uncover her plans but he also managed to get Phil kicked out of his home by revealing the truth to Phil's wife, he also stopped Sue from continuing to see Phil by telling her that Phil was involved with other women (which turned out to be true). He managed to do all of this with just a small budget and the ability to stay calm and not lash out on the two people who had deceived him, he truly proved that revenge is a dish best served cold.
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