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"Our client in the United States instructed us to check on the movements of one of his employees here in the UK. The subject was in sole control of considerable investment funds and was supposed to be arranging the investment of these monies in various companies. The brief was to keep him under discrete surveillance and report back his movements to the U.S.A. |
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Day One: We were supplied with a photograph and an address, which turned out to be an exclusive block of flats in the West End of London. A quick survey of the area showed what a pain it was going to be to mount such an operation in this road - the block of flats had a concierge, hindering us locating the target's flat with any accuracy, but by deductive reasoning we could narrow it down to a floor and then to a couple of flats depending on which way the numbers ran. The road was in a controlled parking zone, so parking a van or car for more than an hour or two was out of the question. So we settled for camouflage i.e. a "homeless" person - me |
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Day Two Armed with five copies of the big issue, brought from a thankful street person, I took up residence in the street and awaited the emergence of the target. After five minutes I realised that this assignment was not going to be straightforward - the lower floor was an office block with many people leaving the building, and only 50% of the possible targets seen leaving the building would walk in my direction, giving me just a few seconds in which to decide if the person was the target or not. Many times I would follow a possible suspect, only to rule them out a few hundred yards up the road after I had got a good look at them. This went on all day with out a break until office hours were up and I had not even seen the target. |
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Day Three.... started just the same as day two with plenty of possible suspects leaving the premises, but we got a break at about 10.30., when I noticed a man looking out of a window in one of the flats that we had identified earlier. This guy had the habit of opening the window whenever he wanted a cigarette, which made it easy for us to see if he was home or not. Needless to say he did not venture out at all that day - all very boring but I was getting paid for it even if I was getting cold. At least the location had been identified! |
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Day Four We had some action today. Our target left the building in the company of his partner, and we took a stroll via a park to Oxford Street where we went shopping at John Lewis's. I must say I did not like his taste in ties but I did manage to do a little bit of Christmas shopping for the wife. After which we returned back to the flat for yet another round of watching him smoke himself to death every 15 minutes or so. |
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Day Five.....Day Six....... Day Five and Day Six passed as the ones before. This man did....nothing. He did not have a life, but, sitting out in the cold as I was, I would gladly have swapped! Then we hit Day Seven, and so did he, leaving for a meeting with people we were subsequently able to identify helping us to tie the whole thing together. |
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Did someone say something to me once about the life of a Private Eye being a life of glamour? Come sit with me on a hard pavement in London for days on end and I'll change your mind for you. Mind you, there was a bonus. Passers-by gave me, sitting in my sleeping bag, quite a few pounds over the days - all of which went to the first genuinely homeless person I saw! |
