Investigative Interviewing: The Anonymous PI Method Part Two - Conducting The Interview

Following on from Part One where we looked at preparations beforehand, this installment focuses on conducting the actual interview itself.

However, it's not just a matter of rocking up and asking the tough questions, no. There are still a number of factors to carefully take into account as well as setting the stage for the questioning.

Bear in mind this is a brief overview of the interview process. Perhaps in the future I might look at specific areas in greater detail.

So let us begin.

Will Work For Free. Kind Of.

I'm not the sort of person, Dear Reader, that you would probably ever accuse of being 'community spirited' but I have been toying with the notion of offering some form of pro bono investigative services for a while now.

What's the catch, you ask?

Well, here's my half-formed idea...

Another Day, Another Rejection

Yeah, it's another one of those moments.

So the job advert sounded ideal. A part-time contract investigator was sought locally for a PI firm and as I already act as a part-time contract investigator for a number of out-of-town firms, what could possibly go wrong this time?

It kind of played out in three short sentences.

Them: Are you ex-police?

Me: Well, no, but I have been doing this for 9 years now and...

Them: Not interested. Sorry.

Oh, they tried to explain that this wasn't their own policy but it was the expectation of their clients that investigators working on their behalf were ex-police. 

Naturally, it's all bollocks.

Since when do clients stipulate as to the backgrounds of investigators working on their particular files? I've never heard of such a thing and, certainly, while I have been asked (on the very odd occasion) if I was ex-police by a client, no-one has ever taken their case elsewhere because I wasn't.

This makes me simultaneously sad and angry because my skills and experience count for absolutely nothing, and never will, in this regard.

Again.
  

Investigative Interviewing: The Anonymous PI Method Part One - Before The Interview

As Polonius said in Hamlet (Act 2, Scene 2) "Though this be madness, yet there is method in ’t."

I guess it's time that I touched upon the practical aspects of conducting an interview - or at least the way that I have been doing them for the past few years.

This is quite a lengthy topic so for sake of sanity, yours and mine, I'll break it down into several smaller posts over the next few weeks. And, to begin, we'll look at what preparatory steps should be taken prior to conducting any investigative interview.

However, there is one other matter to clarify first.

INTERVIEW v INTERROGATION

Review: Find Out Anything From Anyone, Anytime

I recently picked up a copy of Find Out Anything From Anyone, Anytime: Secrets of Calculated Questioning From a Veteran Interrogator by James Pyle and Maryann Karinch. 

That's quite a promise there, James, but can you deliver?

Well, let's start out by looking at what this book is, and what it isn't.

William S. Burroughs, Private Dick?

"The simplest questions are the most difficult."

So, I never really paid much attention earlier (and who reads biographies anyway?) but I recently became aware from a post on The Thrilling Detective Blog that that old father of the Beat movement, William Burroughs, was briefly a private detective.

Very briefly.

I guess the role would be more that of a store detective rather than a private investigator, but a bit of artistic licence is entirely appropriate.

So with that in mind, here is some advice from Burroughs himself.