Private investigator Ron McQuilter writes about his surveillance of the unfaithful wife of an Auckland businessman
Let's call the couple in this story Colin and Amanda. They lived in a huge home in St Heliers with breathtaking view of the inner harbour and Rangitoto Island.
I met Colin at a café in Mission Bay. He was in his late 50s and overweight. His cheeks had that red appearance of someone with high blood pressure and an aversion to exercise. He came across as bolshie and arrogant with a huge ego. I never heard him say a kind word about his wife.
It became obvious he didn’t care that his wife might be having an affair. What he cared about was that she was no longer under his control. All he wanted was for her to be home when he wanted her to be. I realised that it was a slave he wanted – someone he could control.
Over a couple of lattes he told me that for the past couple of years his marital bed had been ice cold. He and Amanda seemed to argue incessantly. He said this didn’t bother him because his first love was golf, followed by rugby and fine wine. So long as he was fed, his home was well looked after, and his golf handicap didn't slip, he was happy.
He reported that recently Amanda had taken a new-found pride in her appearance, started going to the gym and had even become interested in having sex with him. In fact she seemed to have never been happier. While he appreciated this new attention, he said he was a jealous man and couldn't bear the thought that Amanda might be seeing someone else.
He also mentioned that Amanda had been voted onto her tennis club committee, meaning she was out at committee meetings some evenings. In a tone of disgust, he said she had left him to sometimes cook his own dinner.
It seemingly never occurred to him that he could cook his own dinner.
*
Colin told me that money was no problem. He just wanted the job done properly and didn’t want his wife to ever find out. His instructions were for my agents to follow Amanda every day, all day, for two weeks.
He insisted that I personally lead my team to ensure that there were no hiccups. He wanted definite proof either way, but more important, Amanda must never find out she was under surveillance. This job was all about surveillance.
If we got sprung, my client would be pissed off. Our reputation was on the line. I'd been referred to Colin by a QC. In this business you are only as good as your last job. If we stuffed up, people in the legal fraternity would get to hear. So we had to get it right.
*
I arranged a signal with Colin to let me know when Amanda was leaving home or retiring for the night. I then briefed my team, which included my son Andrew. When Andrew was young I used to drive him around in the car and we spoke in surveillance codes.
Over the weekend my team and I familiarised ourselves with the location, all the possible routes and vantage points, and the neighbourhood. We sourced high-end vehicles to ensure we did not stand out like wannabe burglars.
On day one, while the suburb slept, my two agents and I took up our three different surveillance positions on the street. Whichever direction Amanda took off in, she would pass an agent who would follow her and the other would catch up.
At dawn, St Heliers erupted with a stampede of joggers in designer fitness gear. I was with Andrew, while my second agent was parked 500m away. Other runners flexed themselves against lamp posts or garden walls before setting off.
Amanda slipped out the driveway in her new BMW at 10am. She drove directly to a café where she joined another woman for a cappuccino. This was the first time I had seen Amanda in the flesh. She was an attractive woman in her fifties whereas Colin could have done with losing a few long lunches from his paunch. Personally, I thought that Colin was punching above his weight.
For the next 30 minutes Amanda sat talking with her friend. I sat across from them thanking the good people at the local deaf society who had allowed me some years previously to sit in their classes with plugs in my ears doing lip-reading classes.
Next stop was the Les Mills gym. Andrew reported that Colin’s wife had a workout, then after getting her make-up sorted she had sat in the gym café sipping an orange juice. It looked as if she was just passing the time away.
*
Shortly before 1pm I followed her to the CBD where she window shopped before joining a man at a busy restaurant. He wore an expensive, well-cut suit and looked like a prosperous partner in law firm. It turned out that’s exactly what he was.
It was difficult to determine if the man she met was her lover or her lawyer. Amanda and her companion were certainly touchy-feely, but not too overt.
They left at 2.15pm. One of my team followed him to a law firm. A quick search of the internet found his photo on the law firm’s site. He was a partner. Now I had his details. By using social media and various subscriber sites, I found out he was married, but separated, where he lived, his interests and so on.
After lunch Amanda visited her mother before heading home.
*
Tuesday’s surveillance had revealed nothing untoward, but on Wednesday, it was game on.
Amanda had told Colin she had to attend a tennis club committee meeting that night. She had warned him she might be late because of a disagreement about the refurbishment of the clubrooms.
She left at 6pm, drove straight past the tennis club and into the city, parking near a wine bar. Monday’s man walked into the bar a few moments later, but this time there was no mistaking the body language. Two drinks later, they walked to their cars and drove in tandem to an expensive townhouse in Parnell, which I already knew he owned.
What happened next is what separates the professionals from the amateurs in our game. To be a PI worth your salt, you must always drive around with your car boot full to the brim with essentials of the trade. This includes bolt cutters, crowbars, wet weather gear, and a change of clothes. And, just as importantly, a box of stationery.
We had to come up with a ruse to justify knocking on the door. How were we going to get the door opened and keep it open long enough for Andrew to make an informed decision about what was going on inside?
You can’t go peeping through a person’s window - that’s breaking the law. But there’s nothing wrong with knocking on the door and delivering a bottle of wine as gift. This is where the feral side of the business comes in.
I went to the local wine store and bought a bottle of quality red wine. I'd observed the couple drinking red at the bar. I placed the wine into a wooden gift box, and then bought a thank-you card and some ribbon at a 24/7 convenience store. I wrote on the card, “Thanks for the recent assistance with my legal problem.”
I placed the card and the box inside a courier bag from the car boot. I wrote the man’s name and address as consignee. Then I arranged for Andrew to put on our own brand of courier T-shirt. We filled in the courier run sheet that had a special empty line for jobs such as this, again all sourced from the car boot.
Andrew delivered the package to the townhouse door. This was the big moment of truth – he had to carry it off convincingly.
Lover boy answered the door wearing a dressing gown. Andrew spotted Amanda’s dress flung across the lounge suite. He informed the man that the courier pack had been delivered to the depot in the city centre just prior to 6pm closing time, and requesting same-day delivery. Andrew told him that he had called earlier but there was no-one home. Rather than leave a card to collect, he had decided to try again on his way home. The lawyer was well chuffed with our courier’s dedication to service.
I continued to keep watch. Just on 10pm Amanda emerged from the townhouse.
*
For the next two weeks I followed Amanda as she and the lawyer engaged in a variety of lunches, dinners and drinks, always ending back at his place.
At the end of the second week, Colin asked me to stop the investigation. He paid me in cash and asked me to rip up all the file notes. He wanted there to be no trace of the assignment. I did say I needed to keep financial records for the tax man, but his QC would testify that I would always respect his confidence.
It is not unusual for a client to say they want no records kept, but given Colin’s comments when he first instructed me, I had thought for sure he would be heading for the divorce court if Amanda was proven to be cheating.
I heard nothing further until nine months later I saw Colin sitting alone one night in a restaurant. Such is the life of a PI. You get used to bumping into clients after a case such as this. But although they might appear friendly, you can see in their eyes that they would rather never see you again in their life.
Over a glass of wine Colin spilled the beans. He told me that in the first months following my enquiry, with the help of two golf mates, an accountant and a lawyer, he had quietly sold or divested his assets without Amanda’s knowledge. He had left in place only mortgages that it could be argued were jointly owned matrimonial property.
At the same time, Colin had been following a set plan to persuade Amanda that his business was doing badly and because of that he was suffering heavy losses. He convinced her that the stress was having such a bad effect on him that he was having some serious mental and health issues.
Colin was laughing as he sipped his wine, recounting some of the things he had done to convince Amanda he was in a deteriorating financial and mental state. One instance involved telling Amanda he forgot where he had parked his car, lost for three days, when he knew perfectly well that it was safe in an underground carpark.
Finally, matters came to a head. The couple decided to split while they still had some equity left.
Amanda’s lawyer – guess who – accepted the story hook, line and sinker, while drawing up the separation agreement. It gave Amanda half a share of the vastly depleted assets, enough to just keep her BMW and buy a nice wee freehold unit in the same seaside spot where she and her lawyer lover had enjoyed lunch.
Colin confessed to me that he wasn’t actually a jealous man, just particularly careful with his money. If Amanda wanted to leave, then it was only ever going to be on his terms.
He'd totally ripped her off. That’s the mentality of men like him – money becomes more important than people. And all because he had lost control of his wife.
Colin was a conniving, ruthless piece of work. As soon as they had split up, his business picked up again.
Amanda was well rid of him and it was hardly surprising she had looked elsewhere to grab the chance of happiness.
An extract from Busted!: Stories from New Zealand's leading private investigator by Ron McQuilter (New Holland, $35) available in bookstores nationwide.
