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

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СКАЧАТЬ again. Lots of Tom’s friends have accepted our friend request, and so have Muriel’s. What kind of name is Muriel? After some very basic snooping through their profiles, and a few Internet data checks, basically using Google and the electoral roll, I know a little more about Tom and Muriel.

      I highly doubt Tom was ever good-looking. He is overweight, by quite a bit, with a huge belly, a lot like Santa’s. His face is grey and gloomy, he has greying black hair and his smile is missing a few teeth. His nose is certainly crooked, and his eyes are almost black. He’s as far from good-looking as you can imagine. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder but surely no one ever accused him of it. Age: fifty-two.

      Muriel. Well, she looks dirty! Not in an unclean way, but she looks as though she loves herself and will flaunt all she has got. Her profile picture, which Jane thought was ‘a sign’, shows her half-draped over a bed, sort of upside-down, with her fingers combing through her hair. Oh, and her ample chest accessories are on view, but not completely exposed. She’s got sandy hair, dark brown eyes and a slight tan. Either way, sad to say, she is good-looking. Dirty, but good-looking! Age: twenty-four.

      So we have a good-looking twenty-four-year-old and a dreadful fifty-two-year-old, combined with a seemingly lunatic wife. There’s no way this can actually be happening, I sigh.

      I click the exit button on the browser. It’s time to speak to my equipment suppliers and see what we can do in terms of other options for Jane. I can’t charge her a sheer fortune for surveillance when I’m 99 per cent sure this man isn’t having an affair with the fabulously dirty Muriel! Surely a girl like her wouldn’t take a second look at someone like him?

      My equipment expert, Chai, is based in China. In the beginning I contacted lots of companies based in China, where all the best equipment comes from, but Chai seemed the best. He is truly an expert. He never gets tired of all my phone calls, asking about various bits of equipment and what would be most useful to us. He has great patience, which is what I need. I’ve always had a problem understanding accents, to my shame, so this stage of ordering products is always problematic for me. Chai understands me, but I still make the poor man repeat himself what seems like a million times. I already know the basic details of what I want for Jane’s job but I run it past Chai anyway.

      First we discuss hacking Tom’s phone, which in reality is a lot less controversial than it sounds. ‘Hacking’ is basically a name for getting some software onto his phone, just like any other app you would use. We could send a link to our client, in this case Jane, who could then install it on his phone. After that we could get a copy of every text, phone call, photo, email, calendar entry and even his location from the phone. The problem with this plan is that by law the client must inform the person whose phone they’re hacking before they install it and get permission. Or, if they own the phone, they must prove it to us by showing us the receipt. Jane couldn’t convince me that she would be able to supply a receipt, or that she would tell him. So forget that option …

      Computer hacking is exactly the same as phone hacking but for a computer. It carries the same problems with legality, so again not an option.

      Chai and I have a chat about audio bugging. I honestly think this is the best option for Jane. She needs to know what’s happening in his workplace but can’t get in the building itself. If we somehow got an audio bug in there, we’d have no problems.

      The other line starts to ring again, so I make my excuses to Chai and hang up.

      ‘There’s a stain on his trousers!’

      ‘Hi, Jane.’ No prizes for guessing this time.

      ‘There’s a stain on his trousers! It’s semen!’

      Her voice gets more and more high-pitched every time I talk to her.

      ‘Do you know that for certain? Or is it a guess?’ I’m trying to be a calming influence.

      ‘Errrrr … well …’

      Thought as much! ‘We have testing kits, if you want to check if it is semen. Although it depends how much it bothers you.’

      ‘Oh, it bothers me! I’m furious! This proves it!’ Yep, still ranting.

      ‘If the test is positive then you’ll have some proof, but it may not be semen and even if it is, it could have got there a different way.’ I really care about people, honestly I do, but this is a very big test of my patience. I want to shake her and tell her to get a grip. I thought I was psychotic when I was checking up on James but I certainly never went as far as to analyse odd stains on his clothing.

      ‘I’ll get the kit sent to you today, Jane. Try to stay calm until it gives you a result. It will tell you in the space of thirty minutes, so you don’t have to wait for ages. Do you think you can do that?’

      ‘I can. I’ll keep calm and pretend nothing’s wrong until then.’ Then she launches into a whole barrage of stories about how much Tom hates her.

      It turns out that they’ve had a very troubled marriage for a while – and when I say a while, I actually mean years. It appears the whole ‘he hates me’ business has some credibility. According to her, he tells her how much he ‘hates her’ every day, and has done for the last four years. He despises everything about her: the way she talks, the questions she asks, the clothes she wears and just about every other part of her personality. They’ve not slept in the same bed for the past seven years, and basically live separate lives.

      Neither of them has any hobbies, and they spend all their free time trying to avoid each other in the house. Jane says she has tried to improve her appearance, and even bought some skinny jeans, but Tom told her she looked like ‘mutton dressed as lamb’.

      How can people live like this? Why do they do it? Tom has told her every day for years that he wishes he could divorce her, but he hasn’t. I wonder why? Is she financially a lot better off than him, or is she hiding a secret of his? And why doesn’t she walk out on him? Either way, it’s very strange.

      On the other hand, my own divorce is still an immense battleground. I’ve tried the polite and civil route for the sake of Paris. When I first decided to divorce James, I had visions of my future life. I would live on my own with Paris in a nice home, not extravagant like I’ve been used to – but normal, easy to manage and lovely. Think picturesque cottage with roses around the door! I’d work a normal job, he’d come and pick her up and spend time with her. All would be friendly and amicable. No hard feelings, just a marriage that didn’t work and we could both move on like adults. Wrong!

      He won’t agree to the divorce, legally or financially, and we keep going round in circles with solicitors and courts. In my opinion he’s certainly not kept up his duties to his daughter either.

      So I know from my own experience that divorce is traumatic but I really think that, rather than hire a private investigator, Jane and Tom would be better off just spending the money on divorcing each other. For some reason, though, neither of them has taken any steps towards this, so here I am, involved in this messy situation. After over ninety minutes on the phone, Jane has utterly drained me.

      After I hang up, I log back onto Facebook and see that Tom has accepted our friend request. I have a look through his profile, all the way back to when he joined. There’s absolutely nothing of any interest. Not a single clue. There are only a few odd status updates: ‘I love my wife so much, I am very lucky’; ‘My family mean more to me than anything’; ‘Jane has been the making of the man I am’.

      Clearly Jane herself wrote these status updates! He’s definitely СКАЧАТЬ