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WATFORD PRIVATE EYE |
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You're sat there watching TV, nothing special on just the normal daytime drivel. You take in half of it and the rest just floats over the top of your head. The phone ring's and it's your wife "Hi darling, we've been invited out this evening" yet another office bash. So we arrange to meet in Watford later that evening. |
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No sooner has the phone been put down and you are creeping back to that all so comfy sofa, when it rings again, assuming that it's the wife you casually pick up the phone with those immortal words " Hi babe what have you forgotten" A male voice at the other end exclaims "its me you twit, sorry mate we are working tonight" It was one of my fellow detectives. A man of few words explained that we are on a job this evening and that I need to check my email for the case notes. |
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True to his words his email had arrived with a photograph of a guy in his early thirties. Basically the notes tell of a newly married couple whose wife is convinced that her husband is having an affair. The usual tell tale signs were there such as unusual entries on his credit card, mobile telephone numbers appearing on his statement showing one particular number occurring a little too often and at all the wrong times of the day. |
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I pick up the phone to tell my wife that I can't make that evening, and half way through dialling the number I falter and change my mind and take the coward's way out and decide to send a text message. This chaps wife has been informed that he was working late, and will probably join his mates for a drink later that evening. Clearly she was upset at this point and needed concrete evidence that her husband was indeed having an affair. |
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I nipped upstairs and dressed in a smart jacket, snappy tie and my favourite yellow Ben Sherman shirt; with a fleeting glance in the mirror I thought that I looked the absolute bee's knees. Only to be topped off with the grubbiest biker waterproofs that you could imagine. Having experienced the embarrassment of losing a mark in central London at the first set of traffic lights, I vowed that this would never happen again. Thus most of the Central London work is done on my trusty Yamaha. |
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Temperatures outside were freezing and steam came from your mouth as you breathed, you spy your beautiful jaguar parked on the drive with its climate control and heater beckoning you. With sumptuous leather and wood interior. You think to your self "are you mad" and you already know the answer to that one. |
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Once on the bike, you are cocooned within your crash helmet, and the only thought going through your mind is to get the job done and get home. At one point you even start singing to your self to take your mind of the bitter cold that's now creeping through your waterproofs. Once on the A40 you know that there is only a half hour to go. |
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I arrive in EC2 outside the Merrill Lynch building; fortunately there is a courier point so that I blend into the background without raising too many eyebrows. I pull out the print that I had made and studied it closely, it was important that I recognize this guy immediately. So I sit on my bike pull out a cigar (this was one of those Hamlet moments) and wait. |
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After what seemed a lifetime albeit just over the hour, my man emerged from the grey metallic building, he was laughing and joking with two of his pals. They hailed a taxi, which took them off towards the West End. I followed with ease through the traffic to a bar in Wardour Street. I figured it was time to ditch the waterproofs and follow them in. I sat at an adjacent table trying not to look too conspicuous and started to read a bus timetable that was to hand. |
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Four young ladies who clearly knew them well joined them almost immediately; I presume that they all worked together. The party spirit was in full flow and the girls wanted to go on to a nightclub, one of the girls was in particularly good form and was all over our client's husband like a rash. I resigned myself to thinking the worst, and that our clients suspicions were indeed fact. It wasn't until I was at the bar when I overheard a conversation that was to turn everything on its head. |
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Our guy was explaining to one of his colleagues that he had been to the travel agents that lunchtime, and had bought tickets for a surprise skiing holiday in Northern Italy for his wife as a Christmas present. He had been secretly taking skiing lessons at the dry slopes at Northholt. Apparently his wife was already a competent skier and he did not want to show himself up. Half an hour later our chap had excused himself from the party and went off to catch a train home, leaving the now very drunk girls and two chaps to go on clubbing. |
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All in all everything made sense. We traced the phone calls to a male ski instructor and the payments on the credit card matched up with that of the ski school.
I am certain that there is a moral to this story, but I leave you to work that one out for yourselves! |
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