I was a real-life Charlie’s Angel!
Louise Lee, 47, grew up loving the 70s detective show. But could she pull off being a private investigator? Here, the mum-of-two reveals the secrets of her career…
Louise Lee shares her secrets from her time as a private investigator
In 2002, when I was working as a teacher, a pupil called Emma changed my life. She struggled with friendships and experimented with drugs, so I wanted to help. I told her: ‘You’re the hero of your own story. You can change the plot at any time.’ Emma looked at me: ‘Is that what you did, Miss?’ I didn’t tell her that, at 32, I was still asking the big life questions. A few years earlier I’d had a breast cancer scare, and then been diagnosed with a heart condition, all while my marriage crashed and burned. It was time to heed my own advice.
Reactions to my decision to leave a successful teaching career — and the new job I’d chosen – were mixed. Then there was my mother: ‘Who gives up a stable teaching job to become a private investigator? Something you know nothing about!’
I blame two things. One: lifelong nosiness. Two: I was a child of the 70s. Glamorous female TV detectives were all the rage – Christine Cagney, Heather Locklear in TJ Hooker, but mostly
Charlie’s Angels, who went undercover as sexy waitresses, sexy construction workers, sexy clown skaters. It was a silly dream, yet I hadn’t shaken it.
First, I signed up for a surveillance weekend. An ex-secret services agent plonked us on London’s Oxford Street with a photograph of our target, a map and few instructions: 10.09am. Clinton Cards. Target armed. Mission: Do NOT lose him. We all lost him within 12 minutes. Then I took a course in body language so I could spot when someone was lying, and read up on psychopathy, narcissism and passive aggressiveness. Finally, I got a web designer to whip up a website for £100 and waited for the work to come in.
On day three, it happened. The mission? To locate a lost friend ahead of a school reunion. Five minutes later, I found him via Google. Left baffled as to why they hadn’t googled him themselves, I waited for something grittier. And then it came…
The clients were worried about their grandmother, a wealthy widow, who’d got engaged to her gardener and since
then valuable items had gone astray. An identity check unearthed an alias – that was a godsend. I knew he was from Inverness, so hired a work experience kid at the town’s public library to trawl the local newspaper archives. I used every devious bone in my body; one day, I was a genealogist, requesting birth, death and marriage certificates; next, I was an administrator for the Land Registry, requiring details of title deeds.
The outcome was a success. The gardener was in fact a renowned antiques thief, who also had a wife in Scotland. I paid her a visit. Furious, she told me that he’d popped to the shops 10 years before and never come back. I was elated and dying to tell everyone I knew. But confidentiality is key to the job. It’s only now, with enough time having passed, that I can reveal the cases that have stayed with me…
THE ONE THAT STILL HAUNTS ME
Christina and Andrew were devoted grandparents to Lily, but one day her mother disappeared, taking the five-yearold with her. Tragically, soon afterwards, Christina and Andrew’s soldier son was killed in action. They came to me desperate to find their granddaughter. Our search lasted two years, until I eventually got a whisper that Lily and her mother were in Germany. I subcontracted a local PI, who chanced upon an address. I’ll never forget the grandparents’ euphoria at hearing she’d been located – or their faces collapsing when we discovered they’d moved on just two weeks before. Christina and Andrew begged me to continue looking, but when clients suggest remortgaging their homes to fund their search, it’s time to walk away.
THE BIGAMIST
I came across many pathological liars, but one of the most extreme was Steve. His fiancé Bea contacted me after she received a text from him – clearly meant for someone else. I discovered that Steve helped out as a football coach at two schools in different counties and was the father of a pupil at each. In fact, I found three marriage certificates and no divorce papers. In total, he’d been juggling two wives and six children. Even when confronted he swore blind I’d made it up. But then pathological liars are so convincing…
A FAMOUS DISTRACTION
The location: London’s Langham Hotel. The target: a Russian oligarch. His wife wanted proof of his infidelity. I was sat at the bar, the camera in my bag pointed at the target, when George Clooney sat beside me. I struck up a conversation with him and when his friend arrived and commented on the beautiful bar, George stared at me and said, ‘It’s a mighty fine-looking bar.’ I giggled, not noticing the oligarch had left. Thankfully, I caught him with his mistress the following night.
NEW BEGINNINGS
Then, in 2010, I hit 40 and something shifted. It was lonely as a one-woman band. I’d always enjoyed writing and decided to give that a go. Again, Mum said: ‘What type of person gives up a successful business to become an author?’ A tenacious one, I told her.
I’ve just published my third novel about a PI called Florence Love. Through her, I get to boast about the cases I’ve solved! • Whole Lotta Love by Louise Lee (Headline) is out now
‘His wife wanted proof of his infidelity’