\u2018Trail my wife and get me evidence of hanky-panky. That way I can divorce the bitch cheaply.\u2019 The guy, Ben Blaidd, had mean eyes that might have been filched from a rat. Then he hissed, \u2018I want dirt, I want grubby.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m Johnny Gumboot, private detective. Grubbiness, you could say, is engrained in my calling. Blaidd added that his missus was seeing an audiologist whom he referred to as Huw Jeers<\/em>. Was that the man\u2019s name or his affliction?<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n Blaidd slithered from his chair, and vanished from my office like piss down a urinal. I didn\u2019t like him and I didn\u2019t want his lousy money, but I had debts and no choice about turning him down. That empty feeling was upon me again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From the window of my cramped office I saw him get into a BMW. In the passenger seat was a woman half his age. He kissed her like he was slurping a bowl of trifle. I liked him even less now. Johnny Mug was to help him divorce on grounds of infidelity, terrain where he himself resided. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Soon I was staking out the lovers\u2019 nest in Mumbles, watching from a mean eatery. An elderly, whey-faced waiter kept crossing my line of vision with breakfast plates that shook in his hands. If he\u2019d been any greyer he could have served himself up as a plate of porridge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I saw a woman go into a flat above a shop. She was attractive, confident; then a man of similar age entered. I took photos of both. Three hours later they exited together, and I had snaps of them petting, as enraptured with each other as Donald Trump is with a mirror. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The man walked away, she crossed the road to the eatery. She ordered a coffee, sitting near me. I hid in a newspaper to avoid recognition. I needed to get a lot more photographic evidence of her affair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018Hi Johnny,\u2019 she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was Stella Groves. We\u2019d been romantically involved as teenagers, until I went to one college to study criminology and she went to another to do meteorology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018Didn\u2019t recognise you with red hair,\u2019 I said. \u2018Way back you were\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018Mousey-brown? Red makes me feel better about myself, y\u2019know? Working?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018Yup.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then I had an idea. Twenty years ago Stella was quality. Hey, she still was! What a beautiful dame. To hell with it. I gave her a summary of Blaidd\u2019s task.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018How about I hire you?\u2019 she replied. \u2018Change the target? You spy on Wolfie Blaidd?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n Take that nasty rat to the cleaners and kind of make it up with a woman I should have stayed with?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The next couple of days I was on the rat\u2019s tail, got photos of passion in the BMW, ditto in Blaidd\u2019s own apartment d\u2019amour<\/em>, a long lens trained inside the bedroom window. The upshot? Stella got an opulent divorce settlement, I got my fee. The sense of emptiness kind of abated too: a change of weather due to a meteorologist. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u2018Trail my wife and get me evidence of hanky-panky. That way I can divorce the bitch cheaply.\u2019 The guy, Ben Blaidd, had mean eyes that might have been filched from a rat. Then he hissed, \u2018I want dirt, I want grubby.\u2019 I\u2019m Johnny Gumboot, private detective. Grubbiness, you could say, is engrained in my calling. 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