One cannot walk the streets of any urban neighbourhood at this time of year without sunglasses to block out the glare emanating from houses wishing to shout their approval of the festive period.
Multitudes of blue, red, green and white lights seem to adorn every house, and the Jones'* tree is so big this year that the fairy adored by all (but yet strangely thrown into a box at the back of the loft for the other 11 months) is now horizontal as the top branch bends at a 90 degree angle to accommodate the stippled artexing of the lounge ceiling.
Through a window a father sits with his sons to watch the latest instalment of James Bond, while mothers and daughters curse that fact that their turkey this year is 26.3% bigger than their Aga. (Worked out on Fathers new calculator)
Suddenly, father jumps up from his chair as his mobile vibrates on the table among the discarded wrapping paper still creating a fire hazard from that morning. Grabbing the device, he moves with practised silence into the downstairs loo, phone in hand to wish his other family a merry Christmas.
You see, this festive picture has two very distinct layers - Layer one is what we have just shared, but layer two is situated 45 miles away in another town. Not dissimilar in make-up, layer two contains a tree, a turkey, a son and a mother and all the festivity one could hope for. The only difference? When layer one contains a father, layer two doesn't, and vice versa.
One man living two lives, and, as they say, never the twain shall meet. Unless of course, the wife from layer one phones us the week previous to this to find out why her husband is away six months of the year and can only share every other Christmas with her and their family.
This case was closed almost a year ago, but as i walk the streets again and see the same familiar lights super-glued to houses i do wonder where Mr Jones* is spending Christmas this year and cant help but ask myself "Will that 8 foot tree fit in a bedsit?"
The Black Cat Investigations Team would like to wish all of our clients, past, present and future, a merry and peaceful Christmas...
*As usual, this is as assumed name!
RIP Claudia
A strong member of a team can be defined by the way they work with others, the way they go beyond the call of duty for a client and the way they push the bounderies to see through a smokescreen to the actual flames shrouded beneath.
Not always the most outspoken, the most noticed nor the most involved, they are never the less a vital link in the chain without whom the entire machine would eventually seize and grind to a halt.
Thus, to lose a member of the team, one who has been with us from the start and one who has immortalised our philosophy of Honesty, Integrity and Quality is a blow that leaves one questioning the higher powers as to why she should be taken from us during the prime of her life.
I speak of Claudia, who at just a few years old was recently lost, falling foul of the heat given by the exhaust of a Jaguar XJ6. A finer GPS tracking device we couldnt have asked for and thus this blog entry is dedicated to her and the bush she now lies in, somewhere off the A1 in London.
RIP CLAUDIA
(And Sophie, Beryl and Crystal - The other bugs we have lost to battery failure, mechanical faults and speed humps respectively!)
Not always the most outspoken, the most noticed nor the most involved, they are never the less a vital link in the chain without whom the entire machine would eventually seize and grind to a halt.
Thus, to lose a member of the team, one who has been with us from the start and one who has immortalised our philosophy of Honesty, Integrity and Quality is a blow that leaves one questioning the higher powers as to why she should be taken from us during the prime of her life.
I speak of Claudia, who at just a few years old was recently lost, falling foul of the heat given by the exhaust of a Jaguar XJ6. A finer GPS tracking device we couldnt have asked for and thus this blog entry is dedicated to her and the bush she now lies in, somewhere off the A1 in London.
RIP CLAUDIA
(And Sophie, Beryl and Crystal - The other bugs we have lost to battery failure, mechanical faults and speed humps respectively!)
We are the good guys!
It goes without saying that we would prefer that you choose appoint us as your Agency but we also know that 6% of people that call us decide not to. If you do decide to appoint another Agency, use this list to identify tell-tale signs that all is not what it seems...!
No-one is ever available to answer the phone. This normally indicates that the owner of the business works full time doing something else and uses your money to fill his evenings!
They answer the phone 'hullo?!'. You are dealing with a business and should expect as a minimum to hear the business name upon connection. If you don't, where has your call been diverted to?
Be wary of anyone quoting very low prices! If someone is only charging £60 for hours of surveillance, what does that tell you about the job they will do, the equipment they use and the manpower they have? It is better to pay more and get the job done in a shorter time.
What equipment do they have? Are all of the tracking devices conveniently out on 'jobs' at the moment? This normally means that the haven't spent the £8350 on tracking devices that we have to make sure they are always here if you need them!
Do they bother to find out about your situation or just give you figures? If its just prices they are interested in, what does this tell you about their commitment to your case?
When the phone goes through to an answering machine, does it simply say "...This is an answering machine, leave your message..." Be wary!!
There are many companies doing what we do. In fact some of them have even complimented us by trying to copy our website but there is only one Black Cat Investigations Ltd and luckily for our clients, we will always be here 24/7 to offer advice, guidance and support when you really need it.
No-one is ever available to answer the phone. This normally indicates that the owner of the business works full time doing something else and uses your money to fill his evenings!
They answer the phone 'hullo?!'. You are dealing with a business and should expect as a minimum to hear the business name upon connection. If you don't, where has your call been diverted to?
Be wary of anyone quoting very low prices! If someone is only charging £60 for hours of surveillance, what does that tell you about the job they will do, the equipment they use and the manpower they have? It is better to pay more and get the job done in a shorter time.
What equipment do they have? Are all of the tracking devices conveniently out on 'jobs' at the moment? This normally means that the haven't spent the £8350 on tracking devices that we have to make sure they are always here if you need them!
Do they bother to find out about your situation or just give you figures? If its just prices they are interested in, what does this tell you about their commitment to your case?
When the phone goes through to an answering machine, does it simply say "...This is an answering machine, leave your message..." Be wary!!
There are many companies doing what we do. In fact some of them have even complimented us by trying to copy our website but there is only one Black Cat Investigations Ltd and luckily for our clients, we will always be here 24/7 to offer advice, guidance and support when you really need it.
Trust
Trust is an important part of any client - supplier relatioship, perhaps more so in our industry than any other due to the sensitive nature of the intelligence we handle.
We pride ourselves on completing our client objectives quickly and effectively, exceeding their expectations and delivering a service that we feel truly represents our ethos of Honesty, Integrity and Quality.
But let's be realistic: we are as human as you and are not immune to delays. It is at this stage that we rely on the trust of our clients: trust in us as Agents and trust in Black Cat as an agency. If this trust begins to slip, one can soon begin to feel isolated as a client and 'left out in the cold' with regard to what we have offered.
Recently, a case came in to the office that was almost entirely intelligence based. What this effectively means is that the huge majority of the work involved was to take place behind a desk rather than in the field behind the lens of a camera.
In cases of this nature, one cannot always rely on the information required by the client coming forth on a specific date as the information we can obtain is from sources outside of our control, who, as do we, have their own deadlines to meet away from the work they do for us.
It is at this time that the groundwork we put in to all of our cases, the total commitment we have to all of our clients and the reputation we have worked hard to build in our industry comes into play. If you can trust us to do what we say we will do, we will always deliver. If you cant, we are not the agency for you.
Sent from my BlackBerry 8800 ® wireless device.
We pride ourselves on completing our client objectives quickly and effectively, exceeding their expectations and delivering a service that we feel truly represents our ethos of Honesty, Integrity and Quality.
But let's be realistic: we are as human as you and are not immune to delays. It is at this stage that we rely on the trust of our clients: trust in us as Agents and trust in Black Cat as an agency. If this trust begins to slip, one can soon begin to feel isolated as a client and 'left out in the cold' with regard to what we have offered.
Recently, a case came in to the office that was almost entirely intelligence based. What this effectively means is that the huge majority of the work involved was to take place behind a desk rather than in the field behind the lens of a camera.
In cases of this nature, one cannot always rely on the information required by the client coming forth on a specific date as the information we can obtain is from sources outside of our control, who, as do we, have their own deadlines to meet away from the work they do for us.
It is at this time that the groundwork we put in to all of our cases, the total commitment we have to all of our clients and the reputation we have worked hard to build in our industry comes into play. If you can trust us to do what we say we will do, we will always deliver. If you cant, we are not the agency for you.
Sent from my BlackBerry 8800 ® wireless device.
A note from Agent A's wife
When I met my husband, who I think you all know as Agent A I had no idea what he did for a living. To be honest, I thought he was in sales and this guise continued for about nine months into our relationship before I discovered the truth. In a way, I suppose I knew subconciously that he wasn’t being entirely truthfull with me about his life but ironically, there were more occasions where I suspected him of cheating rather than spying!
Because of this, I have no problem with what he currently does with Black Cat Investigations, In a way, I feel prouder of him now than I ever did before as I honestly believe that what the Agency does is incredibly noble. Having been cheated on before in a previous relationship, I know that if I had had the means to employ him or one of the team to find out the truth for me, I would have done. As a prospective ‘cheatee’ (!) the worst part for me was the not knowing. The going to work and not being able to concentrate, the watching of TV shows with my partner that touched on infidelity and both sitting there in silence with an atmosphere like blamanch! If, at the time, someone had offered to take all of that away and replace it with answers I would have jumped at the chance.
What of the late nights and periods away from home? To be honest, it doesn’t make that much difference to the quality of our relationship. Agent A is here more often during the day now than he ever was before and whilst we have no concept of a weekend as he works many of them, we simply have our two day break at some other point midweek (which is great for shopping as everyone else is at work!)
Anyway, the real rewards come after he has worked a night Operation as I can wake him up in the morning and present my pitch to him for those new birkenstocks I simply must have…normally, he is too tired to argue and by the time he realises what I have bought, the receipt has magically vanished….
What can we say?!
Black Cat Investigations deal with facts. We let the evidence we collect speak for itself rather than giving a personal opinion of what we think of a situation. This way, our clients are never misled by what they could misconstrue from us and we can remain distant enough from an Operation so as not to offer what could be a biased result (everyone is innocent until proven guilty remember?!)
That said, sometimes we encounter a situation whereupon our client is being so abused by his or her spouse that it is simply impossible not to take a view on what he or she really ought to do. Changing the names, places and specific details of the case, I would like to share on such Operation with you….
Over two years ago, a client came to us fearing that her husband may be cheating on her. Working over 14 hours per day, the onus was on her to cover the bills for the marital home as her husband claimed he was unable to work and thus, unable to contribute. Coming home each day, she would find that all four beds in their property appeared to have been used although it was just her and her husband residing there. After leaving this anomaly unaswered for over six months, she finally contacted us to shed some light on her suspicions.
The Black Cat team went into the property with her while her husband was out for the day and set up some covert audio visual recording devices in prime locations around the home: Lightswitches, plug sockets, clocks, lampshades even the old television in the master bedroom with the intention of finding out what was happening in her home while she worked.
All of the devices installed worked on a wireless frequency meaning that provided we were within 300 feet of the property, we would be able to monitor actvity from a van we had parked up around the corner. So, the following day, the surveillance begun. Two of us sat in the back of the van out of sight of the property, monitoring all sound and video coming from the installed devices.
It wasn’t long before the first of four visitors that day entered the house, only as we watched the scene unfold before us it became apparent that these people werent visiting him, they were working from the house.
Unbelievably, it transpired as we compiled a dosier of movements over the next three days that the husband was in fact ‘renting’ rooms out to local prostitutes while his wife worked during the day and early evening. They in turn were allowing clients to visit them throughout the day. The husbands payment for this arrangement? Lets just say he was paid ‘in kind’ and not in cash.
So, if we go back to the idea of not taking a view on a situtation, you can see how and why we broke the golden rule on this occasion as every now and then, we come across people who are going so far beyond simple infidelity that it becomes a joy to hand over the evidence to a client and know that she is going to finally kick him into touch.
If only we had left one camera in the house to watch the look on his face as she played the DVD that evening…..
In the words of a cheater....
Black Cat Investigations do not seek to destroy relationships and nor do we consider what we do a contributory facture to the breakdown of such. On the contrary, we believe that if used correctly, our services can help couples to look into what has caused one party to commit infidelity and start to repair the damage that such actions cause, after all, if we can force the truth out on the table people know what they are dealing with and can take steps accordingly.
Being in this business as long as we have, we have come to realise that infidelity isnt the cause of a bad marriage or relationship, but is just another symptom of such and thus, if it is just another symptom, isnt this something that can be treated?
In order to look into this further, we need to look at it from the point of view of someone who has cheated and try to identify what led them to do it in the first place. Tania* came to us after we have captured her husband Tony* on film having an affair with a co-worked. Tania knew that her marriage was at crisis point when she phoned us, though wanted to know why Tony chose to cheat on her rather than trying to talk to her about it so that they could get things back on track. Offering to mediate this discussion, both parties came into the Black Cat offices. This is what Tony had to say:
“Tania and I had been having problems for the last couple of years. When we met in 2001, we were both in great jobs earning good money and could pretty much do whatever we wanted to do. We had two holidays a year, ate out two or three evenings a week and had a great circle of friends around us that we socialised with on a regular basis. In 2005, our first child arrived, and while on the surface things looked great, it was hard as we had to put the holidays on hold and eating out or getting drunk together became a thing of the past.
James* was great, don’t get me wrong. He slept through the night after the first couple of months and compared to some of our friends who also had kids, we were having it reasonbaly easy. But in terms of spending time alone with Tania…zero. There wasn’t a set day that I can put my finger on when things changed, but over time, we became more like brother and sister than husband and wife and everyday could be broken down into a list of chores that needed to be done. Washing, cooking, cleaning, ironing. Me and Tania were effectivley put on the back burners while life continued around us.
I met Angela* for the first time about a year or so after James was born when she came to work at the office. She wasn’t working for me when she first arrived but we immediately hit it off and started to time our visits to the Kitchen so that we could meet for a chat throughout the day.
Early in 2006, we had a work conference in
Its worth mentioning that at this point, while I was planning what I was going to do, or at least try and do, I still loved Tania as much as when we first met and I still do. But something was different with Angela: The fire was there, that old spark that Tania and I used to have that had somehow become covered up by nappies and bath time. Anyway, I went on the course and low and behold, something did happen. The affair lasted for a year and a half until the Black Cat agents found us and there isnt now a day that goes by that I don’t regret what happened. After we were caught, I realised that Angela wasn’t something new and exciting at all, but was simply everything that Tania was when we first met. They even look a little alike. She reminded me of Tania in the days before James and before our life became a routine. Don’t get me worng, I am not trying to make excuses for what happened as there are none, I guess I just saw a chance to go back in time for a while and took it.
Getting caught and almost losing everything that I truly love has forced home how good I have got it with my family. Tania is my best friend and this affair has taught me that no matter how hard things get, I have my best friend right here with me that I can talk it over with”
Tony is typical of the people that we meet in our business. A lack of communication between him and his partner, toghether with a dramatic change in lifestyle, led him to seek the excitement he used to have with someone else, so it would appear that the key driving factor in what went wrong in this case was communication.
Tony and Tania apparently never talked about how they felt about their changing lifestyles and the risk here is that if you don’t talk to you partner, someone else will.
So this case illustrates that infidelity is just a symtom and not a cause as Tony and Tania are still together, but what can you do to treat the cause of the problem before these ‘symtpoms’ appear? Tony and Tania suggest the following:
- Communicate with each other about how you are feeling. If you feel trapped, tell your partner because chances are they do too and it is always better to be trapped with someone else!
- Remember why you got together with your partner in the first place and focus on that during hard times
- Accept that all relationships hit bad patches. These might last a week, a month or even a year but you will come through it and if you come through it together, you will be stronger than ever
- Make time for each other. If you cant afford to go out like you used to, cook dinner together after the children have gone to bed and eat in the dining room rather than in front of the TV
- Decide at the start of the week what you want to watch on TV and only turn it on for those shows. Spend the other times talking or simply sit together reading books
- Accept that both of you will find other people attractive, and don’t be afriad to notice people. There will always be people who catch your eye, it is simply how you deal with it that makes the difference
- Tell each other one nice thing every day. I.e, you look nice today or I love you
- Text each other during the day or send emails just to say hi
- If you can, get a friend or relative to babysit once a week or once a month and make this night your special going out night
- Look through old photos together of when you first met, it will remind you why you fell in love in the first place!
- Laugh about each others flaws!
Tony and Tania are still together and are trying to work things out after his affair, and we would like to thank them both for allowing us the chance to publish their story. It is their wish that other couples can learn from this.
New equipment
Occasionally, we receive a new piece of equipment that is just so good it begs to be used at every opportunity and just as we were when our new super vehicle tracking devices arrived, we are all very excited this morning about the arrival of our next generation GSM audio bug…
What we basically have are seven small black boxes, about the size of the new iPod shuffle, which will allow us to monitor audio activity in a room or vehicle from anywhere on the planet, providing we have access to a phone. Working on the GSM frequencies (the same as mobile phones) the device has a tiny SIM card inside it and thus a dedicated telephone number. Placed in a room, it will sit there quite happily for three or four weeks (or indefinitely if we plug it into the mains) until it picks up sound. When it does, it will then automatically phone a pre-set number (whatever we choose this number to be) and start broadcasting to us everything that it hears!
Obviously, at this stage we can arrange to have the broadcast recorded or simply listen in and take notes. Either way, the possibilities for the deployment of these new bugs are endless and thus sadly, we don’t anticipate being able to play with them for long before sending them out to work. We are not claiming that the GSM bug is a new technology as people have been rolling these out for a while now, but the audio clarity and sheer size of these devices are worth the excitement!
Having been in the business for so long, it never ceases to amaze me how quickly the technology develops in our field. The last few years alone have seen massive leaps in the areas of GSM bugging and GPS tracking and now we have GPS tracking devices that, no larger than a matchbox, offer up to three weeks of tracking life before the battery dies. It seems like only yesterday that we were using devices for the same purpose that were larger than an old video cassette that would conk out after just four days on a car!
Ho hum, I ought to start naming these new bugs before nostalgia takes hold…
Save your money!
We have received some comments and information about devices that can supposedly ‘block’ the signals sent by GPS Tracking devices, thus allowing cheaters to move around unwatched. These devices are advertised on sites like eBay etc and can look like a steal at just £100 or so….Just for the record, there isnt a device in the world that can block the Black Cat Investigations GPS Tracking units, so if you are sincerely worried about your privacy being invaded, don’t cheat. Then you will never have cause to meet us!
Any questions?
We receive a lot of press for what we do and the way we do it and this invariably leads to a lot of questions that all too often are left unanswered or worse, are answered by someone who doesn’t have a clue what they are talking about. That in mind, we would like to offer you the chance to ask us questions about our gadgets, the Agency itself, our training methods or anything you want to know about the industry and we will do our best to answer them for you.
You can email us at info@blackcatinvestigations.co.uk, or through the website at http://www.blackcatinvestigations.co.uk/
or simply leave a comment here for us to read.Not ideal, but not our choice!
Our business, by the very nature of what we do isn’t without its risks. Normally, these risks are calculated and minimised for the both the security of our Agents in the field and the anonymity of our clients but occasionally our clients (being the people in charge of what we do) request that we push aside the risk element to secure a result that they can use against a cheating spouse. I would like to share one such story with you that will stay with us for some time.
The
Baffled and sitting alone in my car in the early hours, I started a mental check of everything that could affect the device, before checking the location once more on my PDA. Still over one hundred yards out.
Then I noticed it. Each of our devices (Ruby,
Clicking through to the correct page for
I barely had a chance to move off down the road before I spotted the target vehicle I had attached Sophie some nine days before! But what was he doing here? Checking the client file once more, I saw instructions for 24hr updates to the client, and, pulling over onto the verge made a call to our client.
Saving you the expletives, it transpired that the owner of the ‘Sophie car’ should have been at home while our client was at her sisters for the night, but it was obvious that he had other plans…While the cat’s away and all that. Obviously furious, she demanded pictures and if possible, proof that he was in the house. I explained to her that not anticipating this opportunity (this was a completely unrelated bug plant after all and she didn’t even have this time booked!) I didn’t have my digital SLR camera with me, and only had use of my Sony Ericcsson 5 mega pixel mobile phone camera…with auto flash! Even after explaining that as soon as I took a picture, the flash would light up the street like a Christmas tree, she insisted that I get the evidence, consequences aside.
OK then. So, preparing for a quick flash (so to speak!) and then off, I stepped out of my vehicle, phone in hand and walked closer to the Sophie Car. Phone poised, I ran off a couple of shots and bathed the street in lightning flashes! Suddenly, I heard someone behind me.
“What the hell are you doing?” The voice demanded to know. Turning to put a face to the voice, the targets features swam into view under the streetlight. I walked off quickly to my car
“I said what are you doing, that’s my car you are photographing?!” I simply turned to him, and using the stock answer stated “I am here with the knowledge of the relevant authorities, if you have any queries please don’t hesitate to contact the local police” We always inform the local police when working in one of their areas, if for nothing more than to prevent them answering calls to investigate strange people parked up in cars around the village!
Fast forwarding about 30 seconds, our target had been joined by about 12 other people in the street, neighbours etc, that had seen the camera flashes, and between them they were examining the car for damage and making obvious gestures towards taking down my number plate and vehicle description.
Now, I simply vanished again in to the night leaving the street with some pub banter that the locals will no doubt dine out on for the next few months, but there was a valuable lesson to be learned that evening. What if the target hadn’t been so passive in his questioning? What if they hadn’t been happy just to let me leave what potentially could be a crime scene? In terms of safety, the answers don’t bear thinking about.
It does however demonstrate the need the need for cover, or covert behaviour if you will. Fine, on this occasion one could argue that the case, complete with a target coming out of the house in sleepwear is well and truly closed (especially as the address turned out to be that of his secretary) and thus the end justifies the means, but still….
I suppose what I am trying to say is that the closure was not ideal, but then again, we have to act as the clients direct and if they want us to break cover to close a case then so be it.
Still, it will be sometime before I frequent that village pub again which is a shame as my wife was particularly fond of their Scampi….
A funny thing happened
As mentioned in my previous entries, one develops a certain degree of paranoia when working in our field as, after all, we are the living proof that people really are watching you through the walls. That said, every now and then, one encounters something that seems to go past simple paranoia and forces one to ask the question: Am I the follower or the followed here?
Today witnesses a rare event indeed…I am on holiday. No phone calls, no Ops, no sneaking through the shadows planting tracking devices, just a good old fashioned home day on which the most dramatic event so far has been the raised voices on this mornings edition of the Jeremy Kyle show (Which, as it happens, sees the most concentrated collection of people that really should phone us).
Nipping out to the shops to park myself in Starbucks and watch the world go by for a while, I notice a car in my rear view mirror. Then I turn a corner and notice it again. Then I park my car and see it once more. Coincidence? One could assume so if it were not for the fact that spotting this car on such a regular basis, I decided to exit the car park only to have it follow me out.
Now, in terms of surveillance the very fact that I saw the vehicle almost immediately after leaving home did indicate that at best, the person following me (or not as the case may be) was not particularly good at it, though from this fact alone identification is somewhat hard due to the fact that there aren’t many people in our industry that are good at what we do. But that fact remains that good at it or not, they were having a damn good try!
After employing some very simple evasive driving manoeuvres (and I do mean very simple) the car was gone, not to be seen again, but the question to this point remains unanswered: Who was it?
A competitor (and I use the terms loosely here)? A hard done by target who believes that it was us that ruined his marriage as opposed to his ‘secretary’? Or someone completely unconnected to the industry?
I suppose not having neither the time nor the inclination to find out I will never know, but just for a fleeting moment I was able to see life from our targets point of view. To know what it feels like to be under the spotlight and observed. Don’t get me wrong, I have no need to shroud my relationship with Starbucks from my wife and as such, feel not even a morsel of compassion for the unfaithful among us but still, it was novel and I suppose as long as our competitors (if that’s who they were) continue to work to the same standards they have today there is only one company in the area cheaters need fear: Us!
It’s nice to know when we do it better.
How would I know if they were cheating?
Our job introduces us to people for whom the security of knowing they are in loving relationship doesn’t exist. They cant focus at work, they cant sleep, eat or even socialise without that fear in the pit of their stomach that as they do so, their life as they know it may be crumbling behind them. Whether this fear is founded on intuition or fact is not relevant, just the fact that it is present in their mind is damaging enough.
People often approach us and ask if there is anyway of reading the signs to get the truth they seek and sadly, as every case (and person) is different, this is easier said that done. Your intuition is more powerful than any device or method we could employ and if you follow this, you will, in time, find the answers you seek. That said, many people want to take a more pro-active stance against infidelity, hence the need for agencies like Black Cat Investigations,and for those people we offer the following guide to ‘Universal Signs of Infidelity’
- Your partner’s working pattern suddenly changes for no reason and they seem to be coming home later and later from work each day
- They change the way they dress, look or smell perhaps adopting the style of one years younger that they are
- They take an interest in the Gym or start working out at home, or worse join a Gym yet show no physical improvement after many months of ‘training’!
- As per number four, they change their car, moving away from their traditional choices and choosing something completely off the wall
- They are suddenly in contact with old school friends or people you haven’t, nor will ever (seemingly) meet and socialise with them on an increasingly frequent basis
- They become engrossed with the Internet, spending more time in front of the screen, perhaps until the early hours of the morning
- They become secretive with their mobile phone, perhaps; employing a key guard or PIN code feature and seem to send more texts or take more calls than ever before
- They become easily agitated at home
- They lose interest in sexual contact with you or conversely, their sex drive suddenly increases and they are introducing things into the bedroom that they have never tried before
- They hide their mobile phone bill from you or suddenly switch to online billing
- They adopt a hobby that is totally out of character for them
- They show subtle changes in their mannerisms (we often emulate people we associate with)
Of course as mentioned, this guide is by no way definitive and the only true way to get the answers you are seeking is to call us, and if you can answer yes to one or more if the questions above, maybe the time to do that has come.
Textbook follow
The names, places, events and other identifying factors in this next entry have been changed to protect the identity of both our target and our client.
Jobs don’t always go as planned. That is just the nature of the beast. Whilst you can have a good idea of what a target may or may not do, there are so many factors involved in each different type of Operation that you never really know what is going to happen. But all this aside, occasionally you seem to get everything right from start to finish and end the day wondering why all jobs can’t be as easy as that one?
Take yesterday for example. As mentioned in a previous entry, a client contacted us with fears that his wife may be cheating on him and thus a surveillance team were booked to follow her the next day.
The team arrived at the target location within about two minutes of each other (We always use more that one car in vehicular pursuits so that we can change positions frequently ensuring that the target doesn’t have the same car following her for any great length of time) and all three vehicles immediately slotted into what can only be described as perfect surveillance points: Just far enough away from the target vehicle so as not to arouse suspicion, but close enough to be able to move quickly when she chooses to leave her address.
One Agent then performed a radio drop to all three cars, ensuring that we can all stay in radio contact throughout the day and we wait in position for her to make a move. It seemed mere minutes following this that her front door opened and she swiftly made her way across the community parking area to her vehicle. At this point, an amateur agency would start vehicles and begin moving off towards her, but biding our time, we allow her to slowly turn her car around and make her way out of the modern housing estate she lives in. One by one behind her, from different estate roads and turn offs, our Agents fall in line behind her, just three more cars joining her for the morning commute to work.
And so this pursuit continued, just as smoothly as it had started, for the 62 miles covering everything from little B roads to country crossing motorways. In time, a route pattern began to emerge from her journey and it dawned on us that we may know where she was going. Call it intuition, or call it witchcraft (or Intel from the Client!) the feeling was strong enough to warrant one vehicle breaking free from the convey and forging ahead of her to meet us again in what would hopefully be her final destination.
The car forging ahead was mine.
Pulling into what I thought her destination may be (the main car park of a major northern landmark building) I took a moment to grab my Camera and attach a long range telephoto lens (I was using a Canon 400D with a Canon 100 – 400 L IS USM lens just in case you are interested!) and then moved into a position about 300 yards from where I thought her entrance point would be and set up my surveillance point.
Nothing. How far ahead of the main convey was I? Could it be that we had misjudged her destination? I tried my radio a couple of times, but whilst these are licensed professional Motorola’s I must have been too far away to get a signal through.
For twenty nail biting minutes I sat there, poised for action when a message started to crackle through my earpiece. “….approaching now..ca….conf…posito….” I was still too far away from the convey to get a proper signal but by virtue of the fact that I was hearing something from them, I meant they must have been getting closer. Suddenly, another car moved behind me and drove to an empty space on the other side of the carpark. Why move further away from the building when the space the car had occupied seemed fine? The car pulled up and I watched as a male driver emerged and leaned on the roof, watching the entrance just as I was, before checking his watch.
Another signal from the radio, this time not the victim of distance. “Agent A, can now confirm that we were correct, target is approaching your position now, please confirm copy over?” I pressed the button on my remote mic “Roger that, in position”
No sooner had I released it again than the target appeared, slowed her vehicle at the entrance and took a moment to look around. Behind her, I saw my fellow agents drive innocently past the entrance to take up distant positions from her. Catching sight of the man leaning on her car, she turned the wheel and headed off towards him. Parking next to him, she emerges and walks to him before they exchange the hugs and kisses exchanged by any other loving couple in a relationship. The only difference here? Her husband should be the man she is kissing.
And....rest.
When one finds oneself falling asleep on the sofa at 2030hrs you come to realise that one of two things has happened: Either your 70th birthday has snuck by without you knowing and your dreams are littered with adverts from Stanna and Saga, or you have been burning the candle at not only both ends, but also in two places in the middle.
Whilst a visual check in the mirror confirms that I have the complexion and black eyes of a 70 year old insomniac, it dawns on me that as an otherwise healthy 32 year old male, I really should take this as a sign that I need sleep and thus (after a ‘Sky plussed’ edition of Spooks) I find myself in bed for the first time in a long time, by 2200hrs.
As I lay there snug in my duvet with an electric blanket gently baking me on gas mark 5, I remember the days of nine to five and go through the mental checklist of why I do this job again. Getting to the point where I list down all of the bugging equipment I get to play with, I smile, roll over and allow myself to be taken over by dreams of playing Poker in
Sleep is for wimps
Tiredness is a feeling that one gets accustomed to rather quickly in our line of business. As you would imagine, our targets are rarely agreeable enough to perform their acts of indiscretion between normal working hours and thus, we find ourselves trying to catch sleep whenever (or wherever) we can!
Today is a perfect example of such a situation. Like any business there are periods, especially around Valentines day for example, when everyone wants everything done at he same time. As well they should as we are, after all a 24/7 Agency and they are (after all) paying our salaries. That said, I find myself at the extreme end of this deal today as having had only 3 hours sleep in the last 24, I am beginning to see things which I am not entirely sure are there!
Trying to rest, I find myself having passed the sleep stage and, fuelled by this morning’s Red Bull and Coffee which has seen fit to kick in now rather than when it was needed, I am wandering around the office ‘wide eyed’ and with a ‘bushy tail’ that I am sure is mere seconds away from collapsing in a slumbering heap.
So, will rest come tomorrow? I think not. The phone, as it always does, has been ringing off the hook today and as part of a surveillance team, I am off to the west country to pick up another target at 0700hrs.
It is at these times when you find out who really loves the job and who merely does it for the business card and I have to say, no matter how tired I get, the adrenaline rush of a brand new ‘bust’ always keeps me on my toes.
Now, what cancels out the effects of caffeine and Red Bull?
Ethical or not?
I still relish the thought of getting into the standard social group discussions about what people do for a living and use the moments before it is my turn to decide how best to deliver my long since polished lines about being a Private Investigator. Whether this is because I still love what I do, or simply that I love people’s reactions to what I do, I am not sure.
One thing that I do know however, is that for every ten people that pat me on the back for offering our clients the truth and giving them moral ammunition etc, there will be one that despises the whole business and looks upon us as the scourge of their otherwise anonymously shrouded lives.
While this viewpoint is normally brushed off with the line “If what we do worries you, maybe we should be talking to your wife!” and the laughter and banter that normally follows, one still asks the question of oneself “Are they right?” and it is that that I would like to talk about for a moment.
There is of course no doubt that by the very nature of what we do, we are invading our target’s privacy (and anyone in the business that tells you otherwise is either delusional or lying) but the question is simply how much privacy should one be afforded if what they are suspected of doing is causing another person such extreme distress that they cant sleep, cant eat and cant work for worrying?
The privacy to cheat on their wife or husband? The privacy to lie to their children about why they couldn’t make it to their sports day? Or how about the privacy to hide a complete separate family that they are raising in parallel to another?
When we work, we have to look at what is justified and what isn’t. It is this search for justification that leads us to ask all of our new clients why they suspect their partner of cheating. The reasons will always vary to some degree, but the effect of these suspicions is always the same.
If we can help people get answers to questions that they have otherwise been unable to answer themselves, then I believe that that is all the justification we need to do what we do. Of course, the Target will always argue that we are underhand and devious but that simply raises the question: If you are innocent, what do you have to hide?
That one person in our social group discussion will argue against us to all who will listen, but the irony of them doing so is remarkably clear to all who they spill their pinot gregio over that evening: Why do you care so much?
The day after these events is always primed to take the call from their partners, and nine times out of ten, it always comes.
Long live the dinner party.
Tracking in Birmingham
There is a serene tranquillity to be found when you are sitting next to someone’s car while they lay asleep not 20 feet from where you are. Whether it’s the fact that you are about deliver answers to an aggrieved husband or wife about their partners movements that they themselves have been unable to find, or simply that it is the early hours of the morning and for once the world seems to rest I don’t know. What I do know is that we are here once again with a job to do and as it is not without its risks, I really should get on with it rather than lie here pondering the peace and harmony of the night!
Its 0305hrs on Sunday morning and two of us, me and “Agent B” have just arrived at our next ‘Fix’ location which without being too specific, is about 15 minutes south of
With the internal lights flashing to indicate that she is ready to go, Crystal is attached to the target vehicle and Agent B and I make our way back to our waiting car, which we have parked in the shadows about thirty feet away. Strangely, it is not the actual attachment of the device that increases the blood flow through my veins on these cold, dark winter nights, but more the waiting after the job has been done to see if our covert operation has been spotted by an ever helpful neighbour.
On this occasion, just as with all the others, our arrival, Fix and departure have gone completely un-noticed. Either way, as we slowly drive out of the modern housing estate back towards the Black Cat Investigations office leaving
Turning over yet another metal street bin, we watch the flash of its white stripes against the darkness in the rear view mirror before driving away thinking “….Well if the neighbours can sleep through that…”
You never stop watching
When I first started Black Cat Investigations all those years ago, I had no perception of the impact that It would have on my normal ‘non working’ life. Today is a sunny Saturday afternoon and like a million other families, we decided to pop into town to grab some essentials and stop at our local Starbucks for a coffee and some doughnuts. Sitting there, bags at our feet and sugar coated snacks on the table in front of us, I watched the rest of the world go about their business. But yet, at some point over the last few years I have lost the ability to simply watch and instead, now, analyse. The couple holding hands yet pulling in what seems to be opposite directions. The man walking ten feet behind his wife and children, engrossed in a conversation that obviously doesn’t include her or them. The couple who cant seem to get enough of each other of full view of everyone else.
Lets take the last couple as a study for a moment. He wears a ring, yet she doesn’t. He seems to be considerably older than her and whilst she never wastes a second casting glances to their improvised audience, he seems to never fully take his eyes off them, as if watching for something or someone in particular to break through the anonymous crowd.
So what of it, you may ask. Well, the first thing that comes to my mind, rightly or wrongly, is that these two aren’t together. Or at least I don’t think they are together in the accepted sense of the words. He just seems to have an air of nervousness about him that one shouldn’t have if they are not committing any offences against anyone else. Or maybe, like many men out there (myself included) he feels embarrassed by public displays of affection and thus he is totally innocent of any wrongdoing. Either way, yet again I have found myself analysing, watching for a spark that might herald the start of a new case and it is only my wife standing and gathering the bags at her feet that pull me back.
As entertaining as it is, to try and spot who is doing things they shouldn’t be, part of me yearns for the days when I could just sit in a street café and watch the world go by in harmony, rather than dissecting it and trying to find the anomalies in behaviour that we watch for in our targets.
Never mind, on to Sainsburys….
Welcome to my world
I guess I lead a reasonably strange life. I am married with chilren, I live in
Black Cat Investigations was set up with one aim: To offer people the truth, and that is a philospohy that we hold very closely everyday. Whether our clients are young, old, rich, poor, well educated or not, everyone has the right to know what is going on in their relationships and we specialise in telling them. Sometimes their instincts are wrong and there is nothing to tell, but most of the time if your intuition tells you that something is going on, it normally is. We simply give you the irrefutable evidence that you otherwise may never get.
So why this blog? Simple really: I love what I do and I want to share it with you. From team meetings, to testing new surveillance gear, to wandering through the darkness planting GPS devices on cars I am going to try and bring you into our strange little world of cloak and dagger operations and let you experience what we experience on a day to day basis because put bluntly: I am 32 years old, I am a guy and I get to play with night vision. Can I get any better than that?!
I will try to update this everyday to ‘keep you in the loop’ as they say and let you know what we have all been up to, but please forgive me if I miss the odd one as I have to sleep sometimes. So, until tomorrow night night world. Sleep tight and comfortable this evening as I have a evening off, but tomorrow, I am coming out in the dead of night to plant two GPS Tracking devices (
www.blackcatinvestigations.co.uk
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