Mr K knows I'm a little bit down on my luck so asks if I fancy earning some cash on the side. Sure, what do I have to do?
Here's what I have to do - I have to drive past this particular house and see if there's a For Sale sign outside.
And then what?
And that's it. Sign or no sign - that's all he needs to know. Drive past, look, then phone him with a yes or no.
So I don't have to stake the house out, or wait for someone to leave, or keep watch for a particular visitor or delivery, or take candid snaps, or ask questions of strangers in local cafes or bars, or tail someone at a safe distance?
No. Just see if there is a sign or not.
Except there won't be one, Mr K says. He's sure there won't be one, but still he's got to check. Mr K's thinking is that if he came to check in person it would involve an hour's drive there and an hour back with the possibility of getting caught in traffic on the M25 or through any of several South London suburbs. Potentially a good three hours out of his day simply to cast a glance at a house on a street in South London. A house that is just ten or twelve minutes drive from mine. So he figures it's a job he can easily farm out to someone with a pair of wheels and eyes.
That's how I got the job. I have wheels and eyes.
And I get ten quid per trip. A tenner for a 20 minute drive. That's £30 an hour, £240 a day, nearly five grand a month. Big money.
How often do I go and take a look at this house then?
Once a fortnight.
Well, that's not going to get me on The Times Rich List, but it's a start, a step in the right direction.
How long do I have to do this for?
Well, that's the question. For however long it takes the client to be satisfied that the house isn't going to be put on the market. Mr K expands the picture - the house is owned by a guy who rents it out to another guy. The owner guy has got it into his skull that the tenant guy is somehow going to sell the house. Quite how the tenant guy does this, presumably without any paperwork, is anyone's guess, but Mr K doesn't ask those sort of questions. The owner guy is the customer and he is bankrolling this little job. Whether he is nuts or not is not for us to question.
It's the first rule of being a private detective - don't query the sanity of the guy who's paying for the job.
So we keep an eye on this place once a fortnight, with the owner guy throwing cash in our direction, until we hear otherwise.
When do I start? Right away.
As soon as I put down the phone I go on a hunt for the A to Z. I'll spare you the details, but it turns up eventually, behind the sofa, underneath a jumper, which is itself underneath a cat. It's a double bonus as I'd been looking for the jumper for a couple of weeks, thinking I'd left it in a pub.
I check the route. It's a route I vaguely know, up Westwood Hill through Crystal Palace and on towards Thornton Heath.
I have the address written on a scrap of paper and set off. Despite a couple of red lights I'm in the area eleven minutes later. The address is on a main road and slowing down to catch a door number is not an easy task. I decide to pull into a side street and find the house on foot.
I park and look around, weighing up if anyone is watching as I open the car door, cast another look, shut and lock the door. I look again. There is a teenage girl with a dog, maybe a staffy, approaching me from up the hill and a middle-aged man with another dog, perhaps a lab, approaching from the main road.
I deduce that neither are concerned about me, but make a mental note to remember their descriptions, just in case.
I turn left into the main road, houses to my left, a mess of trees and shrubs bordered with a metal railing to the right. It is conceivable that someone is in the greenery keeping an eye out for me. If they are, it would be very easy to conceal themselves from view, but I dismiss the possibility. I figure that they would not be expecting me to walk past, they would expect a car. This thought causes me to re-examine my journey. Did I perhaps slow down too much as I was straining to check the house numbers? Have I given myself away. Is someone back at my car now rifling through the glove compartment - or hiding in the boot ready for my return?
Judging by the number on the first house, the one I want will be another hundred yards or so. I formulate a plan as I walk past a terrace of 1930s bay-windowed homes, similar to the one I used to live in in Gillingham. My plan is that I do not need to pause at the correct house, I simply need to ascertain whether any house has a For Sale sign. Should none of them have one, ergo my house will not have one.
I'll just carry on walking - that way I retain anonymity should anyone be looking out for me.
The house style changes to taller, slightly older houses. Mock Tudor, three stories, with a large external flight of steps before reaching the front door. I'm getting closer. I also try to see if anyone is sat in any of the parked cars that line the street. This is an easy task for the seats nearest the kerb, but not so simple without arousing suspicion for anyone sat away from the kerb. As far as I can make out, none of the parked cars contain a human, or dog for that matter.
I check the numbers, I'm getting real close. I have to spot my house, remember it for future reference, yet not pause as I do so.
It is obvious that there is no For Sale sign on any of these houses.
I noted the particulars I need for future reference - colour of front door and position within the terrace, for in a few paces, the style of architecture has reverted to the 30s houses again.
I carry on walking for another two or three minutes before I stop, pretend to look like I've forgotten something, turn and walk back towards the car. I take another surreptitious look at my house as I pass it to confirm I have the right one. I note that there are eight steps leading up to the front door. A young couple without a dog pass me, closely followed by an old lady with a shopping trolley.
I drive back home, glancing at the house as I pass it, taking the same route, save for the Crystal Palace one-way system, and wait until I'm safely home before phoning Mr K.
Just been there now, have checked it out and there's no sign.
No sign?
No, definitely no sign. No For Sale sign anywhere.
I thought so, Mr K says.
Shall I go back tomorrow?
No, a couple of weeks will be fine.
Next week?
No, two weeks is fine, that's all we're being paid for.
I think about the house a lot over the next two weeks and on more than one occasion have to restrain myself from taking a drive up there. I think it will be a good tactic not to go on the same day of the week, or time of day, so thirteen days later, I go again.
The road curves left, then straightens, just before the row of tall Mock Tudor'd houses. I slow my car even though I'm being tailed by a red car - don't ask me the make - I know nothing at all about cars. There are only two types of car on the road these days - big ones and small ones. They all look the same to me. As a kid I knew an Austin Allegro from an Austin Maxi, a Capri from a Cortina from a Consul or a Viva from a Zephyr, but couldn't name anything from the past three decades.
I slowed the car and glanced right, not there yet, I look ahead, I check my mirror, then I glance right again.
That's the one. Definitely no sign.
I turn around in the same side street as I had parked in thirteen days' earlier. I immediately think that perhaps I should have chosen a different street in which to do so. Second rule of being a detective is not to carve out a routine, to vary your movements. Should you be under surveillance you owe it to the enemy to keep them on their toes.
I put it down as a beginner's error and resolve not to make the same mistake again.
To learn from mistakes is a good tool in any business, but especially so in the world of espionage.
I get home and phone Mr K. Still no sign.
I knew there wouldn't be one, is Mr K's response. He also thanks me for checking it out.
Two visits. Forty minutes 'work', plus a little extra shoe leather on the first visit. Kerching - £20.
This is a piece of cake, a walk in the park. I have a licence to print money. I have smelted the printing press and own the franchise on both note paper and ink and we're rolling.
I just need to find a way of doing this for more than twenty minutes a fortnight.
It never rains, it pours, they say. Two weeks later and I've landed myself two days' gardening work. This happens to be the two days before we leave for holiday on Wednesday.
On Monday evening, after a day of almost solid digging and hacking at roots, I take it easy so this leaves just a matter of hours on Tuesday evening to shower, eat, pack, look for the passport and.... take a drive to see if our man has a For Sale sign stuck outside his house.
I mull it over in the shower. There won't be a sign. Mr K has said so. Logic says so. Even if the tenant guy proposes to sell the place, even if he gets it into his head that he can do so, without deeds or paperwork, how will this crazy plan ever get to the stage of enticing an Estate Agent to place one of his boards outside the property?
The easy money will be to just give Mr K a call and say that I've done a third trip and still no sign. It will save me half-an-hour once looking for the car keys is factored in, and that is half an hour I can do with tonight.
I know what I will do. Since when have I taken easy money? There's a right way and a wrong way, and I was brought up proper.
I finish my shower, get dressed, eat my tea and set off in the car. Same route as before (both times).
As I descend the hill and take the left curve I glance in my mirror. My heart skips. Behind me is a red car. The same one as fourteen days ago? I have no idea. It's red, that's all I know.
I convince myself that it is just a random coincidence. After all, how many red cars are there in South London?
I slow the car, gently pressing the brake, as I approach the tall Mock Tudor houses. (I expect you know how to slow a car - apologies for the unnecessary detail.)
I glance again in my mirror, the red car still behind me, before glancing right at my house.
I see the Mock Tudor'd gable, the three stories of windows, the front door, the eight steps and, in eye-catching pink and mauve lettering on a white background, an Estate Agent's For Sale sign.
Did I see what I think I just see?
I'm over-egging the drama to say I swerved and almost crashed the car, but I needed to advise myself to stay calm.
I took the next right turn and parked where I had on my first foray two weeks' earlier. All the care and vigilance of that first mission was lost as I almost ran to the house in my excitement. I stood for what seemed like three-quarters-of-an-hour outside the building. Probably just a minute, but enough to arouse attention, should anyone be tailing me. I scrutinised the sign like Arthur Negus examining a Meissen figurine.
Yep, it's a genuine For Sale sign. Outside the owner guy's house.
I break with the routine of the previous two visits and phone Mr K as soon as I reach the car.
I've just been to the house, I'm there now, and guess what.
It's not got a sign up, has it?
Yep, it's For Sale.
Well, I never. I can't believe it, Mr K says.
What do I do now?
Nothing.
Is this where it gets heavy, I wonder? No. Mr K will pass on the info to the owner guy, the client, the man who's been paying for the mission and then it is out of Mr K's hands.
I meet up with Mr K upon my return from holiday, tanned, relaxed, and thirty pounds to the good.
Any news from the house owner? Nope. We're done, Mr K says. Mission accomplished. Case closed.
But what happened?
He doesn't know. The account has been settled, Mr K doesn't need to know the outcome, and other jobs have come in, in different parts of the country.
Five years on, I await my second mission. It's the third rule of being a private detective - you've got to be patient.
I an green with envy.
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