The Real Lady Detective Agency: A True Story. Rebecca Jane

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СКАЧАТЬ our work. They appreciate the need for the truth and an agency like ours to turn to. They totally believe my life motto: ‘If you’ve nothing to hide, you’ve nothing to be scared of.’

      Camp No: They pretty much hate me (and our agency), and they make it known. They tell me that we entrap people, that we ruin relationships and look for things that aren’t there. I think they have something to hide!

      Don’t get me wrong, I’m very firm in my beliefs: that we provide a good service to the general public and are helping anyone who asks for it. There are days, though, when Camp No get into my head. They make me question all my morals and beliefs. I’ll have a little battle with myself about the rights and wrongs, but then I have to let it go. I don’t believe I’m a bad person for doing what I do.

      I created this dream and I’m standing by it. To help other people who are in need, to give them somewhere to turn when they have nowhere else, that’s the reason why, right now, today, I find myself sat in a car with a fellow lady and friend who got roped into this crazy plan with me. She’s one of many, and we sit with binoculars in hand ready to catch the cheaters – or the long-lost loves, transsexuals, missing relatives or, occasionally, a household pet or two. Every once in a while you can’t help but ask yourself, how on earth did my life come to this?

THE MAKING OF ME

      Back in 2009 I was faced with a choice that would change my life forever. I’d been unhappy for years, pretty much since I married my husband. Life had always been on the edge and drama found me no matter where I hid. I was twenty-four and the mother of a little angel, Paris, who was about to be three. Did I really want to become a divorce statistic at such a young age? Certainly not – it was my worst nightmare. I’d been fighting for three years to keep my marriage together, even though I knew the week before the wedding that I should have called it off.

      Don’t get me wrong; in the beginning James, my husband, was fantastic. But after we got engaged and I became pregnant, he changed. I’d met him in a nightclub and always knew that he liked to have a good time but I warned him that he needed to keep it under control if he was to hang onto me. So for a while he did. He stopped seeing his best friend Martin, who had the same party ethic, and didn’t even take his calls for a while.

      Life was great for about a year but after I got pregnant the best friend was back on the scene. When James decided I was being ‘too boring’, he’d simply pick up the phone and call Martin. Then came the disappearing acts. He would go to work and not return home for three days. These weren’t just any random trips; he would go to Italy, Spain and often Ireland. I’d come home from work and check if his passport was still there, just to get some indication whether he would be returning any time soon. He ignored my calls and texts while he was away, then on his return he acted as if nothing had happened. As if this crazy life we were living was normal. Eventually he mentally broke me, and I became convinced every man did the same thing and every woman put up with it. I thought it was just the way things were.

      Next came other women. Rumours would circulate around my home town, the small Lancashire village of Barrowford. It’s the type of place where everyone knows each other, and houses look like cottages from postcards. All the things I loved about it – the close-knit community and the pubs that were so gorgeous on a sunny summer afternoon – I began to hate. The pubs became places where everyone whispered behind your back, and the people I’d hung out with for years were feeding me information about my so-called ‘wonderful’ marriage. I’d hear that James had been seen with his arms around the local trollop, or texting random girls. It was horrible. The place I’d held so close to my heart was now filled with doom and gloom.

      One day James announced he was moving out of our home. I was seven months pregnant with our daughter, and we’d been married for two months. It made no sense.

      ‘Why are you doing this?’ I asked.

      ‘I don’t like the house any more.’ That was his sole explanation.

      What did he expect me to do?

      ‘You stay here, and I’ll move back in with you when you find somewhere else to live. In the meantime, I’m moving in with Martin.’

      So I found myself living alone in a three-bedroom detached farmhouse, totally isolated. I was miles from the village, and the nights were cold, dark and very lonely. It felt as if I had nothing but silence for company. I could have moved back home to my parents’, but did I really want to do that? I was married, had a child on the way, I had bills and a house of my own. Why would I just up sticks and move back in with them?

      The rumours around the village got worse. Now that my husband had moved out, I questioned everything. Was he really at his friend Martin’s? Had he moved out because of me? Did he want someone else? No one moves out simply because they don’t like their house; there must be another reason. My paranoia became so great I couldn’t function. I went to sleep every night with questions swirling around my head, like a song on repeat.

      James and I were still talking, and had no intention of splitting up, but I was hitting rock bottom without even realising it. I’d ring his phone on a Friday after work to see what we were doing that weekend, and it would be off. First time I’d let it slide; second, I’d start to worry; and after an hour I knew what the score was. He’d done it again – vanished. Where he had gone was anyone’s guess. I’d crash to the floor, sobbing my heart out.

      I was seven months pregnant. I couldn’t cope any more. I needed to do something about my paranoia and find out what he was up to. I dived into the Yellow Pages. Scared and nervous, I picked up the phone and rang some private investigators. I’d tell them the situation, explain why I had suspicions and say that I wanted my husband followed for a period of time.

      I telephoned three altogether, and felt far worse than I had before I’d spoken to them. They were the classic investigators, cold and hard. They didn’t care whether my suspicions were valid. They didn’t care how traumatised I was, or give any thought to my feelings. They all had the same attitude: they wanted to sting me for a ridiculous fee and get me off the phone as soon as possible. Some would only work for me if I hired them for a minimum of a day, some the minimum of a week. Either way, when they were charging close to £100 per hour, it was looking like a costly exercise. There were no guarantees I would get any information. I might even decide to have him watched on one of the days he came straight home. I felt more paranoid than ever, but I wasn’t stupid. I wasn’t going to throw nearly £1,000 down the drain with no guarantee of a result.

      In desperation I called one of my best friends, Jess. We’d known each other for six years at that time, and had been through a lot together. When we met, I was working in my first job out of college as a marketing coordinator for the local nightclub, and I saw Jess there almost every night because she loved to party. Then one Sunday when I walked in to work, Jess was sitting on a sofa. As always, I was happy to see her friendly face, but the light in her eyes had gone. I said hello in my best cheery voice and asked how she was, but Jess shook her head. I sat down next to her.

      ‘My mum’s dying,’ she said.

      I honestly thought it was a weird joke. ‘Yeah, right!’ I replied.

      ‘No, seriously. She went in for a little operation two days ago, and there’ve been complications. Me and Adrian [her brother] have just been at the hospital. They’ve said we need to turn off her life support.’

      Jess’s mum was a wonderful woman. She made me laugh and her house was always open to any of Jess’s friends. Her father wasn’t around and the whole time I’d known her, it was just Jess СКАЧАТЬ