Pants on Fire!

It may sadden you to learn, Dear Reader, that not everyone may be as scrupulously honest as you or I.

It's true.

For some unfathomable reason, some individuals feel the need to tell me outright lies but then persist in those lies even when found out.

I just wish they were better at it.

Take Nicky Lloyd (not his real name) for example. The job started out as a routine doorknock to last known address to encourage Mr Lloyd to make contact with client as they have been unable to get hold of him in a while.

Straightforward, you would expect.

Arriving at the house in the evening, there is a single car parked in the driveway. I knock on the door an a male voice call out from behind it asking who it is. I ask for Mr Lloyd and then there is silence. After I knock again a window at the side of the house opens up and a female pokes her head out. She asks my business and I state I wish to speak with Mr Lloyd.

It is at this point that the lies begin.

She tells me that he doesn't live at this address any longer. I ask whether she knows where he has moved to and can give me an indication as to how long ago it was when he left. She seemed unsure so I asked how long she had been living at the address to which she replied 4 months but was just a boarder. I left a card and asked that she give it to the landlord.

Back in the car I ran a plate check on the registration of the vehicle in the driveway. It came back to a Margaret Lloyd of that address. Hmmmm.

Looking at the paperwork I had with me, I tried a few numbers. Cellphone went straight to voicemail - generally a sure sign that it is no longer active. I then phoned the landline and a female answered the phone. When I asked for Lloyd she asked if I were the same person who had just been around? Yes, that was me, I said. She then reiterated that Lloyd no longer lived at that address.

I asked if she were Margaret Lloyd?

Silence.

Then she said yes, she is his ex-wife but has no knowledge of his current whereabouts and has nothing to do with him. There was some mention of him being violent to her in the past. She said that when I had knocked on the door earlier I had given her a fright which, presumably, was some kind of explanation as to why she might have forgotten to mention that she was his ex-wife. I enquired as to whether she knew if he was still working at his last known job. She stated that as far as she knew he lost his job around the same time.

With few other leads open to me, I contact his last known place of work, a printing factory, the following day where I was told he works in the late shift from 1400-0100hrs Sunday to Tuesday.

When I attend the factory in the evening, I rang the bell by the side door. After a short wait, one of the roller-doors to the side lifted up about a metre allowing me to only see the lower legs and feet of a male. Odd, I thought, since there is a proper door right next to it that he could have just as easily opened to talk to me.

He curtly asked what I wanted, to which I replied I would like to speak with Lloyd. I was then brusquely told that Loyd no longer worked here and had not done so in quite a while. Obviously this was at odds with what I had been told earlier and I figured that it was Lloyd himself I was speaking to at that very moment but, at this stage, I saw no need to make any accusations without further evidence.

Before leaving, I noted all vehicle registrations and ran them when I got back to the office.On a hunch I started with the crappiest piece of shit parked in the yard.

Bingo! A 1991 Mazda 121 Review Autozam Saloon registered to Margaret Lloyd... It wasn't the same vehicle I saw on my earlier visit but there might have been another parked further back in the drive. Worth going back to check on tomorrow, I think.

Then I can really watch them squirm.