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I went to tell James, who was at work at the time. We both sat down, I showed him the test and … nothing.
‘Great news,’ he said after a while. He hugged me, and went back to work. Life-changing moment – over.
Looking back, nothing in our relationship had been right. So many little alarm bells rang. The DIY detective spell came to a very abrupt halt one late night in March. Our daughter was due in three weeks, and I was larger than a house. We were still living in separate houses, and life was getting no better.
Stephanie and I had been outside a pub watching James for a couple of hours. A taxi turned up at the door and he got in, with his best friend Martin. We set off in pursuit. After ten minutes we got the feeling something was wrong. The taxi had led us in a big circle through the village. It went down some back streets for no apparent reason. When it started to gain rapid speed, we knew we had been caught. Did I stop following, as I should have done? What was I going to achieve now? I didn’t know, but equally I didn’t stop. We were driving at 50mph down tiny streets with a 30mph speed limit, and it was crazy. Stephanie was scared. She was pleading with me to stop, but something had taken over me.
The taxi drove onto my parents’ estate, where they were waiting outside their house in their dressing gowns. James must have phoned ahead to warn them what was happening. The taxi pulled up and I came to a halt behind it. I told Stephanie to get out and stay with my parents. A very heated argument then took place between my parents and James, while I refused to get out of the car. I knew he would leave again, and I was ready to follow.
James and friend got back in the taxi and sped off again. So did I. The pursuit continued, but not for long. The taxi lost control and slammed on the brakes so hard I couldn’t avoid crashing into the back of it.
James sat in the taxi but the taxi driver got out and yelled, ‘What have you done to my taxi?’ Neither car would start up again.
James rang Mum and Dad and told them what had happened. They came straight away, still in their dressing gowns. As I stood by the roadside watching my car being towed away, I vowed that was the last time I would follow him. From then on, he could do whatever he wanted. This whole situation had gone way beyond my control and I’d had enough. I wondered if the constant need to know where he was had turned me psychotic. Did I need psychiatric help? Was his behaviour normal while mine was irrational? I didn’t know, and I didn’t want to know. My marriage was doomed. It should never have gone ahead.
James and Mum didn’t talk to each other again until I was in the delivery room, having our daughter. Compared to pregnancy the labour was easy, and Paris was born in spring 2006. I’d found a new house by that time, and James moved back in.
For a couple of weeks, life was OK. Not brilliant, but OK. I didn’t understand Paris. To me she was just a little ball of energy that had turned up in my life and I simply had to care for her. She didn’t feel like she’d come from me, or even that she belonged to me. It all made no sense. Mentally I was struggling. Now I look back and think all the drama while I was pregnant contributed to my feelings. I’d been emotionally battered and instead of recovering, I was getting worse. I didn’t even realise it.
When Paris was eight weeks old James vanished again, and this time it seemed to be for good. I didn’t actually care. A handwritten note from him was posted through my parents’ front door telling me that he loved me and Paris but couldn’t live with us any more.
At first I was devastated, but that only lasted a day. Next I decided to apply for a divorce, but the solicitor told me you can only do that once you’ve been married for a year. I changed my phone number, and told my parents not to take any calls on my behalf.
Then James’s mum began to pester me constantly, and after three weeks I caved in and met her. She told me James wanted to talk to me. It turned out he was in Spain. I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt – mainly to find out why he’d done this – and I rang him.
I remember that day so clearly. It was at my parents’ house. Jess and Mum were in the lounge. I was in the hallway on the stairs. We talked and I interrogated James. His master plan was that Paris and I should go out to Spain and live with him. I won’t disclose the expletives that followed. I’ve always been a big believer that swearing doesn’t get your point across any better, but that day the words all flooded out. My short answer to his solution was ‘no’.
The next I knew, Dad was upstairs in the office on the phone to easyJet and he’d booked me on the first flight leaving in the morning.
‘You’re going out there, and you’re going to get him back home and sort this mess out. I’ve already paid for the flight, so you’ve got no choice.’
I tried in vain to put up a fight, but in the morning I was on my way. Paris stayed with Mum and Dad.
It took me three weeks to convince James to come back, and when he did he refused to live in our home town. He wanted a fresh start, and to be honest I thought it would be a good way to help us move forward with our marriage. We didn’t know where we would live exactly, but we packed up the car and set off. First it was Scotland, next was the Lake District. I went into estate agents and told them we were in holiday accommodation, and wouldn’t be leaving until we found somewhere permanent.
At the time I was well into a property development career, so moving wasn’t too difficult for me. I found a barn in the middle of a field and began transforming it bit by bit into a dream house. On the surface, it looked as though I had it all: a reformed husband, an excellent career, the best cars money could buy, a beautiful daughter and everything in between.
But inside I was empty. The thought of death grew more appealing to me with each day that passed. When they visited my family saw straight through the façade and realised I had severe postnatal depression.
I couldn’t cope any more. I knew I needed help, and fast. If I hadn’t got it, it wouldn’t have been long before I did something drastic. I wrote lots of letters to Paris telling her how sorry I was for being her mother. That I’d brought her into such a messed-up life was getting beyond any kind of joke.
I did two things to help myself. First I saw my doctor, who prescribed antidepressants. But when I told James, he threw them out of the window. He didn’t want me taking them, because he believed they would make me worse than I already was. I spoke to the doctor again and told her what happened. She re-prescribed and I started taking the medication.
The second thing I did was a bit more twisted and irrational. Instead of ending my marriage, because I thought failure wasn’t an option, I turned to a man whom I’d adored since I was seventeen. He was a married man called John. We’d had an affair previously but I’d finished it after I met James, and we’d not spoken since.
Eighteen months later, when Paris was still a tiny baby, I picked up my phone and texted him: ‘Fancy meeting up?’
He was surprised to hear from me but said ‘yes’ straight away and the next day I went to meet him. He couldn’t stop smiling, and he soon made me feel desirable again. I’d forgotten what that feeling was like. He wanted to know everything I’d been up to so I told him the basic outline of the story, but I left out my true emotions. I said that James had been cheating on me, and he was sympathetic and understanding. He listened and actually cared about what I was saying. It had been so long since I’d felt listened to by a man that I was instantly, once again, hooked on him.
Not surprisingly, we ended up back in a ‘version’ of a relationship that continued for the next few years. How clever was that? I had a husband who was unreliable and cheated on me, and what solution did I come up with? Yes, clever clogs started cheating on him. When it came to relationships, I still had a lot to learn.
FREEDOM (#ue57176e2-4fff-50a3-ac8a-371a83c35aa1)
Fast-forward to 2009. My life was a mess. I was still married. I’d stopped looking for clues of James’s infidelity, because sadly I no longer cared. I didn’t want to know. Instead, when James hurt or upset me I turned to John. John listened, he understood, and together we led double lives. I had my life with James, and he had his life, then we had our time together.
For years I pretended that it was a carefree relationship, but the more my marriage deteriorated the more I realised how strong my feelings for John actually were. People may say they detach themselves from affairs, but I don’t believe they do. I knew I had no right to feel like this, since he wasn’t mine. Trying to swallow the hurt and pain of not being able to have him, while staying in a torturous marriage, hurt me even more.
Eventually it became clear that I’d fallen madly in love with John, and didn’t love my husband at all any more. I needed John and couldn’t imagine life without him at the end of the phone. He was the one person I thought I could always count on. Really, I was a mess.
My postnatal depression shifted and I began to love my daughter as I should have from the start, but I felt guilty for the lost time. I had a lot to make up to her.
Next, my career began to suffer with the economic downturn. My speciality was renovating houses worth over £500,000. I was halfway through my latest development – a beautiful Georgian manor house in a village hamlet. The ceilings were high and vaulted and it had real character. I knew every single inch of the development. I spent the whole summer stripping back layers and layers of wallpaper, which is quite an achievement for a girl who wears heels 99 per cent of the time. I researched Georgian colour schemes, and what would have been traditional colours for the different rooms. Red for the lounge. Duck-egg blue for a bedroom. Gold for the dining room, and so on.
My mother was convinced it was haunted. One day she was lighting a candelabra in the dining room to take pictures and the candles kept blowing out. Later that day when she was relaying the story to Dad over dinner, candles blowing out miraculously turned into … ‘Candles blowing out … and then a white lady brushed passed me …’ Bless the mother – so dramatic! (You just have to meet her for half an hour to understand why I turned out so crackers!)
The development house wasn’t my home, but I stayed there when I could. I loved it, with its ghosts and history. When my finance company announced they were going bankrupt, they dealt me a blow I wasn’t expecting. I had twelve weeks to finish the Georgian property, even though it still had no kitchen or bathrooms. Sorting out bedrooms and living rooms had been my priority. That was a big mistake. I had no option but to sell it or they would repossess not only that house, but my home too. James was with me when the news broke and we knew we had a serious task on our hands. His solution to the problem? He ran away and left me to it.
That was it. I was sick of the James saga. During this particular vanishing trip towards the end of 2008, he called with the usual ‘I’m sorry, I won’t do it again’ routine, but this time I’d had enough. Through medication and my love of my daughter and John I’d grown strong. The kind of strong I should have been before my wedding. I told James not to come home. Our marriage was over. It really was that simple.
I filed for divorce and didn’t look back. I wasn’t even upset about it by that stage. People kept expecting me to break down, and I’d hear them whispering about me, worrying that I was bottling it up, but all I felt was huge relief. I didn’t have to walk on eggshells any more. I could be myself and do what I wanted, when I wanted. I looked at my friends who were in relationships and was glad I wasn’t them. I felt nothing but carefree about the loss of my marriage.
However, my affair with John became a problem next. The game was up when rumours began to surface around our circle of friends. We’d been seen together a few too many times, and people began to put two and two together. It was only a matter of time before our secret was out. All my conversations with John now consisted of ‘Should we be together, or should we not?’ He’d say yes, he’d say no. I felt he was basically leading me on.
I tried to draw a line. I told him it was time to leave me alone. I’d got rid of my no-good husband, and now it was time for him to go too. I just wanted a happy, normal life with my daughter but John was having none of it. I kept warning him that if he didn’t leave me alone I would out our secret myself, but he didn’t believe me.
Then one night when Paris was three she shoved a necklace bead up her nose and it got stuck. I took her straight to hospital at 10pm and we stayed up all night while the hospital tried everything possible to remove the bead. I wasn’t allowed to let her sleep in case it slipped down and blocked her airway so it was a traumatic night. Nothing worked, and she was booked to go for surgery. I was frantic to say the least.
Paris was released from hospital the following day, minus the bead! As I pulled up on my parents’ driveway, after having no sleep for nearly thirty-five hours, my phone was ringing. It was John. We had a huge blazing row. If I hadn’t been so sleep-deprived I don’t think I would have done what I did next, but I wasn’t in my right mind.
‘I’ve told you we’re over,’ I said. ‘Just leave me alone.’
It certainly didn’t seem like he believed me, and I needed to do something drastic to make him listen. We’d gone round in a merry circle for what seemed like forever, going backwards and forwards. It would never end. We would have a break, and then everything would resume again. The writing was on the wall. I wanted to be strong and not go back to him. My stubborn side kicked in. I needed to make him hate me, to take the decision out of my hands.
‘This is the last time I’m going to say this. If you don’t leave me alone, I’ll tell everyone about us.’
‘Go ahead then – you do it,’ was his reply.
With that, I hung up and logged onto Facebook. It possibly doesn’t come any more immature, but how else can you tell an almighty secret to a vast number of people in the space of a few minutes?
All the time John and I had been having an affair, I’d protected our secret and gone to serious lengths not to have it exposed. Now I was doing the one thing I knew would make him hate me forever.
I turned off the computer, left my phone by the side of it and went out. I didn’t want the temptation to delete my comments to overcome me. Knowing I had hurt the one man I truly loved in the worst way possible tortured me, but I honestly didn’t see any other way out. It was the only thing left to do. Otherwise, we might have continued for the next seven years. It would never have ended.
I returned home and my phone was full of messages from various people and from John. I was too terrified to look at it. I instantly wished I could take back what I’d done, but the secret was out, and this was the beginning of the end.
He was devastated and utterly furious with me. I was devastated, but it was over. I deleted my comments because the damage had been done. I didn’t need to hurt him any more. The scariest thing was that in making the decision to make the past public knowledge, I knew I was taking a final step from which there would be no turning back. For a long time I’d felt like he’d always be there for me at the end of a phone or email and now that could never happen again. I felt like a small child who’d had her comfort blanket taken away.
Afterwards I began to feel bad about how lightly I had taken the sanctity of John’s marriage. My own marriage was different. When I started the affair, I knew what I was doing and why I was doing it, but I simply didn’t take his marriage into account. I knew I should have – and he should have too. I’ll never have a chance to put that right.
All I could do was look back and reflect on all the hurt and upset, and use the experience to become a better person. I would analyse the past seven years until the cows came home, then I’d mentally dig a massive hole and bury all the crap. That way I could learn from it. That way I could move forwards. All in all, I’d be making myself a better person for Mr Right when he did finally come along. And I truly hoped I’d be able to have a normal relationship one day without all the lies and paranoia James had led me to believe were part and parcel of a normal marriage. But in the meantime it was just me and my princess. And to be honest, that was all I needed.
I managed to finish the house I was developing by the skin of my teeth, thirteen weeks after I’d been given the ultimatum. I was a week over deadline, but somehow got away with it. I made no profit and my career in property development was officially over. I was down to my last house – the one I bought as a barn in the middle of a field in 2006 and turned into a home from nothing. It was secluded, isolated and still needed some work doing. I utterly loved it though. Paris and I moved into it, and lived between there and my parents’ home. It was fantastic to have my parents’ support at that time because, if I’m being honest, the barn was a lonely place where the two of us just had a few dozen sheep for company. I actually ended up spending most of my time at my parents’ house, which meant they could help me out looking after Paris.
Next, I needed to find a new job and there was an idea that had been ticking over in the back of my mind for some time. I wanted to open a private investigation company. I had a strong feeling there was a market for it. Our company would be understanding and affordable. When people picked up the phone, just as I had, it meant they were going through one of the most traumatic periods of their lives. They needed someone who understood and could relate to them rather than someone who was trying to rip them off. People don’t phone investigators for fun. When you reach that point, it’s deadly serious.
As I’d found, it wasn’t possible to hire a private investigator for an hour. Instead a big institution rips you off for at least a day’s fee plus expenses at a time when you are at your most vulnerable. I wanted people to turn to us because we understood how they felt and would do what was needed at minimal cost. And there was no question that I understood what it felt like to be cheated on. I could have written a book on the subject!
The only problem was that after the property crash and my divorce taking every last penny I had, I was left with almost nothing. Even though I still had my barn home, an impending lawsuit with my soon-to-be ex-husband meant it could and most likely would be taken away from me at any second. I was prepared to fight to the bitter end to stay there and retain the beautiful house I’d made, but I knew it wasn’t very likely. I may not have had the million-pound home or the fancy cars any more but I didn’t care. I felt nothing but freedom and happiness. Mum pleaded and begged me to get a proper job, and I know I could have walked into most estate agencies and earned £30,000 a year as a sales agent – enough for Paris and me to live a reasonably comfortable life … But it wasn’t my dream.
Dad understood. He said to Mum: ‘Rebecca won’t listen to anyone. When she decides she’s doing it, she’s doing it. Now hush up and support her.’
I had mountains of passion and determination. I just had to figure out a way to make my new venture work.
FINDING OUR FEET (#ue57176e2-4fff-50a3-ac8a-371a83c35aa1)
‘Hi, girls, how do you fancy starting our own detective agency?’
Steph, Helen and Jess look at me as though I’m bonkers but – to give them their due – they go along with it, even if at first I can tell they’re just humouring me. We start throwing ideas back and forth, exploring the concept, and gradually they seem to start believing in it. There was never any question in my mind that they would be part of it.
I know that starting a brand new business venture with no capital isn’t going to be fun. Let’s face facts, though – when you hit rock bottom, there’s nowhere else to go, right?
‘Let me get this straight: we’re literally going to watch people?’ Jess asks me.
‘Well, that’s the idea!’
Back in primary school, I used to spend weeks writing scripts and putting on miniature pantomimes with my friends. We’d have ‘big’ ideas of putting them on the school stage and performing to fellow classmates, but they never actually took off. I know that the detective agency could be really good – no, amazing – work. Making it a reality was another thing. It could go the same way as The Wizard of Oz very quickly!
‘Seems too good to be true, doesn’t it?’ I say to the ladies, tapping my pen on the table.
‘It does a bit, yeah,’ Steph agrees.
‘But we have to give it our best shot. Something tells me it will work. People need the help, and we’re the perfect people to give it. We know where they’re coming from, and we’ve all been there.’ I look at the ladies, and it’s true. We’ve all been cheated on at some point. They’re nodding!
‘I totally agree. If it doesn’t work, then at least we know we tried,’ Jess says with conviction.
‘That’s more like it.’
‘I just think it’s really darn cool. Will people really pay us to watch their other halves? … I’m so excited!’ Steph squeals.
It’s hard work getting it off the ground. I spend several months producing a website and designing lots of marketing flyers. And I have to give Steph, Helen and Jess credit – they are genuinely amazing. They pound the pavements delivering flyers to anywhere and everywhere, identify key areas for us to market and help with the optimisation of the website. We all read anything and everything we can find about methods of detection: surveillance, background checking, DNA testing – you name it. We call experts and pick their brains. We spend hours on the Internet, getting excited about every new discovery. We live and breathe the subject and it’s all we talk about between the four of us.
I have a gut instinct I am going to find this work fascinating. I never felt I entirely fitted in when I was doing property development or working for big companies, but a little business like this sounds like my dream job.
By rights this master plan of ours shouldn’t work. For some strange reason, though, I feel it might just come off. We’ll each work from home to start off with, and mine will be the main number to call, but I’ll bring in the others as and when I need them. And we’ll call it ‘The Lady Detective Agency’. For years ‘Lady’ has been my nickname. Even my car registration plate says ‘Lady’ – something I’ll have to change, actually, because it’s a little too obvious for surveillance missions. The only flaw is that it sounds like we only help women, when really we want to help anyone. Men are just as insecure as women, and women are unfaithful just as much as men – I should know. But my gut instinct tells me the name is right for now anyway!
When we can’t possibly do any more research, or read anything else about investigation, and our lives have become totally engrossed in the new business, we start doing some surveillance work for friends, without charging, and that helps us to hone our methods and work out where the pitfalls might lie. But still we haven’t had a paying job.
I am almost losing the faith, when one day about four weeks after we first start planning the agency …
The phone has finally started to ring! I’m spinning round on my new revolving chair when the Mission Impossible soundtrack – my new ringtone – begins to emit from my mobile. I wonder if this whole ‘private detective’ thing is going to my head? I’m loving the training, and I’m loving everything surrounding it, but have to keep reminding myself that I’m supposed to be a serious businesswoman.
It’s a lovely summer day in 2009, pleasantly warm but not too hot. I’ve spent the morning with Paris, who is now at playschool. One of the huge benefits of having free time is that I’m getting to spend proper mothering time with her.
Anyway, when I hear Mission Impossible, I dive off the chair, realise I’m feeling dizzy from all that spinning, and wobble my way, giggling slightly, to the phone. I don’t know the number off by heart and answer with my usual bright and breezy ‘Hello!’
‘Hello, is this the detective lady?’
Suddenly I sober up out of my dizzy state and am on high alert.
‘It is. How can I help?’ I walk through to the office, taking my place at my desk and becoming a little more serious. Pen is ready in hand!
‘I’m worried about my husband. I don’t think he’s being faithful.’ It’s said in a very matter-of-fact tone.
I take her name – Jane – then put on my best ‘I care’ voice and ask, ‘OK, is there any reason you think that?’
‘There are a few reasons, but mainly it’s because I just have that gut instinct.’
That sounds scientific! Although I am a huge believer in gut instinct, I need something else to go on.
‘He took fourteen minutes to get to work two days ago, and it should only have taken him eight!’
Oh dear! This doesn’t sound like it’s going to be good, I’m thinking to myself, while rolling my eyes. How can she be timing him so precisely? She must be calling him constantly to check where he is. I let it pass, though.
‘And then, I checked out his car mat, and there was mud on the one behind the driver’s seat.’
I wonder if this is the point when I need to tell her she’s crackers? Everyone gets mud in their car, for all kinds of reasons. But this is our first client so I go along with it.
‘Do you have any idea what you would like us to do or shall I talk you through our services?’ I ask, trying to get a little more normality back into this conversation.
‘I thought of surveillance, but I’m not too sure.’
‘We can do surveillance. We charge £40 per hour, but if you’re too far out of Manchester we would have to charge travel expenses.’
‘I’m in Norwich,’ she informs me.
‘That’s too far out of our remit to be included, but we could come to you for a charge of 60p per mile,’ I say, making it up on the spot! ‘It sounds as though surveillance would be a good idea if you’re worried about where he is. Do you think he’s going somewhere apart from work? Or do you think he could be straying at other times of day?’
‘His work does worry me, and there’s one girl in particular I have concerns about. Muriel. She works with him in the same office. There’ve been rumours before. His Christmas party last year was riddled with gossip that they’d been up to no good.’
‘Who said that?’ I ask, thinking to myself that she should have a conversation with the people spreading the rumours.
‘Lots of people. One woman in particular I know well; she’s a friend of mine. Although, that being said, she is also a friend of my husband’s. She says they’re flirty in the office. I know he is a very flirty person, and one of those touchy-feely types. Just not with me.’
‘The thing to do is stay calm, and try not to let anything be blown out of proportion. People say lots of things, for lots of different and very strange reasons. Quite often they’re not true. Until there’s evidence one way or the other, you really need to stay level-headed for your own sake.’ I try to instil a little bit of sense back into this situation.
Don’t get me wrong – she could be totally right. With my experience of relationships, I’ve got every reason to feel cynical about men and their ability to be faithful. But her ‘evidence’ doesn’t seem enough to get worked up about – yet.
‘I know, I know. It’s just he is such a horrible man. He actually hates me, I know he does. He would have some kind of affair just to get away from me.’
