The story I'm about to share takes place on two different
occasions. My grandparents live in rural
southern Ohio near the edge of the Appalachian Trail.
Growing up, you always heard ghost stories about what happens
out there when the sun goes down.
It's vital to describe the layout of my grandparents
property so everyone understands this story.
My grandparents house sits on five acres surrounded by thick
woods. On the property, seven different
trails lead around my grandparents house, which we
usually use for hunting and other activities.
One day my brother and I decided to walk the trails.
We enjoyed riding a four Wheeler and taking in the scenery that
we always loved. My grandparents property was
incredibly secludeded. There were no neighbors for
miles and the only property that backed up to theirs was owned by
the government and was used for tree sanctuaries and nature
preserves. There was a trail that we often
use that split into two other trails.
The trail to the left loops back around to the house and the
trail to the right takes you down to the Creek where you can
sit and watch all kinds of wildlife.
My brother and I decided we wanted to go down to the Creek
and watch for animals while also looking for remarkable rocks
that I love to collect. The only way to get down to the
Creek at the split is to walk, as the four Wheeler is too big
to fit through the thick brush and trees on that specific
trail. So we ditched the four Wheeler
and took off on foot. The trail down to the Creek is
about a mile long. The sun shone through the trees
and it was a crisp fall evening with a slight breeze.
My brother and I wasted no time until we finally reached the
Creek. As I said, we walked alongside
the water for about 15 minutes looking for cool rocks.
As we were walking we stumbled across a broken down shed that
neither my brother nor I had ever seen before.
It's important to mention that my grandparents property has
markers letting everyone know where their property begins and
ends. Standing on the left side of the
Creek, the shed was on the opposite side.
My brother and I looked at each other with confused looks, but
eventually my brother got distracted by something else and
continued his walk down the Creek, but not me.
I felt myself fall into some sort of trance and felt as if I
needed to go inside. I yelled for my brother to
return and said Jay I think we should check this out some more.
Something inside me wants to go inside.
My brother has never really been a fan of anything remotely
scary. Seeing this rundown shed that
looked to be falling apart did not interest him.
My brother told me. Honestly dude, this one just
screams one of those scary movie situations and I want no part of
it. We are not going in there.
I chuckled because he was right. Something was telling me to go
in there, but I also knew it probably wasn't the best idea.
As the sun was starting to set, my brother and I collected our
rock findings and returned to the house.
This next part happened the following weekend.
My boyfriend came out to visit. While he was there, I mentioned
that my brother and I had stumbled across a creepy shed on
the property that we had never seen before.
He became highly interested as I described my desire to go
inside. I told him how compelled I was
by the building. That's all it took.
Before we were out the door and returning to the Creek.
My brother stayed behind saying if you guys don't come back.
I told you so. My ex-boyfriend and I laughed.
Yeah right. We had overalls and flashlights
as we didn't take the four Wheeler and decided to walk the
whole way down. We had flashlights because when
we left we knew we only had about two hours until the sun
went down. Eventually we made it down to
the Creek. We walked the same way my
brother and I did the previous week and to my shock and
disbelief there was no shed there.
I started frantically looking around saying what how I swear
it was here. My boyfriend at the time and I
decided to walk a little further, venturing away from my
grandparents house. Still, there was no sign of the
shed anywhere. We hadn't realized how long we
had been out there and the sun maybe had 15 more minutes of
light left for the day. I was so determined to prove
myself right that I had seen this shed with my own eyes.
We pulled out our flashlights, jumped across the bank on the
other side of the Creek, and began walking back the way we
came. I hoped I had just missed it on
the way down as my ex and I were talking.
The sun was completely down at this point.
As we were walking and talking everything fell silent including
my ex. We were mid conversation so I
did the same. When I heard him stop dead in
his tracks I started asking questions.
What is it? What's going on?
What he said next sent chills down my spine.
I want you to listen to me very closely.
When I count to three we are going to jump to the other side
of the Creek and we are going to run as fast as we can and not
stop at all until we get back. But don't look back, don't say
anything, OK? My heart fell to my stomach and
I just didn't question him. I just prepared myself to run
123. We sprinted as fast as we could.
I was in front of my ex and I could hear him wincing in pain.
But I heard more than just our running, there was something
chasing us. We ditched the idea of running a
mile back to the trail and ran straight through the woods.
When we returned to the house we were gasping for air, covered in
scratches from running through thick brush.
We walked through the front door and I was so shocked that I
could not answer my grandparents questions.
My boyfriend was gripping his back and wincing in pain.
My grandma lifted his shirt and looked at his back.
There were three long lashes stemming from his shoulder down
to his lower back. It looked like something had
swung at him or something and scratched him.
I was in a shocked state to say the least.
From 1 Appalachian to another, don't go looking for something
that you don't want to find. If anyone knows what this could
have been, please let me know in the comments down below.
This occurrence still keeps me up at night when I think about
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Thank you magic mind. Now back to the stories.
I used to work for a private investigations firm called AIS
which stood for Atlas Investigative Solutions.
At the time they were probably the most highly regarded private
investigation firm in the UK. They only hired ex military and
former police officers and even then they were selective.
They invited you for an interview, discussed your
service record and credentials, and were very thorough.
They wanted the best. In return, they offered
extremely generous wage packets. In 1991, an old pal of mine
received a call from one of their recruitment officers not
long after we had been discharged from the Army.
Since he had promised to be more family oriented post discharge,
he turned the roll down in favor of a local nine to five job.
Knowing I was a single guy more interested in padding my bank
account than living an easy life, he put me in touch with
the recruiter. I should tell you right now that
about 60 to 70% of private detective jobs are extremely
boring. AIS might have been one of the
most reliable and well respected firms in the UK, but that didn't
mean we were all off playing double O 7.
The majority of our clients were upper middle class professional
types with the occasional celebrity or high society member
requesting some discreet information gathering.
The kinds of jobs we did for that lot were for the most part
the same as any other type of people.
Only instead of sitting in a car in a council estate waiting for
someone's secret lover to turn up at a block of flats, you were
sitting in a car outside some fancy three story Victorian
Manor waiting for someone's secret lover to turn up in a
Rolls Royce. The only difference was the
location, but what were fairly unique to the upper classes were
what we at AIS used to call non vulnerable missing persons
cases. I personally dealt with half a
dozen separate cases involving kids of wealthy parents going
missing. I use that term very loosely
because nine times out of 10 they were just going through a
bit of a rebellious period and had run away from home.
One girl ran off to live in an all vegan commune in Hackney.
The police went and found her, but she didn't want to go home.
Since she was newly 18, there was nothing they could do about
it. As long as she wasn't breaking
the law, she was free to do as she pleased.
But that didn't wash with mommy and daddy.
They wanted to know where their little girl was.
So we tail them, keep tabs on them, hack their phones and all
sorts. Their parents would be shelling
out 10s of thousands every week for the privilege.
Like I said, I must have worked six or seven of those jobs just
on my own. So when I was informed there was
a missing persons case up for grabs, I thought it'd just be
more of the same. But then right away I could tell
this one was going to be different.
The clients were based in my native Scotland, in a wee
village called Crossley, near Glasgow.
And this is partly why I was offered the job in the 1st
place. I thought that since they were
paying big money to have their missing person found, they'd be
living in some country house with a Range Rover sitting out
front. But I was wrong.
They weren't in poverty or anything, they obviously LED a
relatively comfortable life, but they weren't anywhere near the
class of client that I was used to dealing with at AIS.
Nor was there missing person, some spoiled brat who'd run off
with their dad's credit card. What they were was desperate.
The missing person they wanted tracking was their son, a 21
year old up and coming boxer who, for the sake of his
family's anonymity, I will refer to only as Robbie.
After he'd first gone missing, his parents had reported it to
the police, but after months of investigation, the case hadn't
gotten anywhere. It wasn't like they made a bit
of progress, questioned a few suspects and then the leads just
dried up. Robbie's parents said officers
had been met with a complete wall of silence.
No one had seen him, no one had spoken to him, and it was like
he just walked out of his parents house and disappeared
into thin air. By the time I was called on to
the job, a campaign set up by local volunteers had just run
out of funding, with the local police having only one officer
working on the case, and only on a sporadic basis at that.
Robbie's parents then managed to collect enough cash donations to
get AIS involved, which I can promise you was no small feat.
And that's where I entered the picture.
The first thing I did was get all the background information
on the case, which included a fairly intimate profile of the
missing person. Usually speaking, people who go
missing have had something go wrong in their lives, be it
drink, drugs, infidelity or some other kind of addiction that
either results in big debts or even bigger mistakes.
But Robbie's parents insisted that he wasn't involved in
anything like that at all. He never drank, he never smoked,
he was religious about his diet. Everything in his life seemed to
revolve around his potential career as a professional boxer.
He kept himself out of trouble and had even gotten himself a
job at a local pub so he could save up some money to move to
Glasgow where he'd have access to some of the best boxing gyms
in Scotland. What I'm trying to say is there
were no obvious warning signs with this young man at all.
Not until I asked if there had been any sudden changes or if
he'd met anyone new in the weeks or months prior.
Robbie's mom told me that there was something she told the
police very early on in the investigation that she felt
they'd overlooked. They asked her the same question
about new people appearing in Robbie's life before he
disappeared, and this is what she told them.
One evening in the days just prior to his disappearance,
Robbie had received a telephone call from someone his mom didn't
recognize. This is back when a family
tended to have just one large telephone, which was usually
kept in a fairly communal space. For young lads like Robbie,
there was no such thing as privacy when it came to
telephone calls. So when the phone rang that
evening, his mom was the first to pick it up.
She thought that she knew the voices of all her son's friends
and trainers. He was a popular young lad and
got a lot of calls from the likes of friends, coaches,
teammates and training partners. But his mom always asked who was
calling and made patter with them anytime they called back.
She knew a great many of them by voice or demeanor, but she
didn't recognize the man who called that evening.
When she asked, the man simply told her, I'm calling from the
pub. He didn't give a name.
He didn't sound particularly friendly either.
He just asked for Robbie. His mom called him to the phone
and after a brief conversation, Robbie thanked the caller and
hung up, but not before addressing him with the name
Tony. Robbie's mom had never heard him
mention anyone called Tony, and that immediately struck her as
unusual. Like I said, she thought she
knew pretty much everyone in her son's life.
She even knew most of the people he worked at the pub with, along
with the names of a few regulars.
Because Robbie would often come home and chat about his shifts
with her. He'd mentioned his boss and a
few of his colleagues by name. He even had special nicknames
for some of the regulars who came in.
But at no point had he ever mentioned anyone named Tony.
And if they were close enough that Tony was calling him at
home, she found it very strange that he'd never mentioned him
before. Robbie's mom had mentioned this
to the police, not once, not twice, but on three separate
occasions. And each time they told her the
lead was a dead end. No one called Tony worked at the
pub, none of the regular patrons recognize the name, and in the
end, the police told her it was an insignificant detail and they
were taking their investigation in a different direction.
Robbie's mom said that at the time she accepted their
decision, but as time went by it started to bother her more and
more and it bothered me too. To me, the Tony shaped piece of
the puzzle wasn't a dead end, it was a loose end.
The Tony thing wasn't the only loose end because from what I
learned, the whole pub angle had been completely overlooked.
Robbie had been due to work that night, but he never made it to
the pub and the police decided whatever caused his
disappearance occurred during the 30 minute walk between his
home and his place of work. I understand why the police
focused on that one stretch of Rd. canvassing nearby houses for
any potential witnesses, and why they only saw the pub as a place
to gather information, but to me it was definitely something we
needed to take another look at. Especially since the pub in this
mysterious Tony character seemed to be connected in some
capacity. After talking to as many of
Robbie's friends as I could reach, which I'd initially
thought would be my primary path of inquiry, I decided to move on
to the pub. But I couldn't just walk in,
declare myself a private investigator and expect people
to give up previously undisclosed information.
Instead, I'd have to set myself up as an unremarkable publican
so I could gather as much information as I could, as
covertly as I could. The money Robbie's parents
raised had bought them two weeks worth of my time, so knowing I'd
be spending a lot of time in the pub he used to work in, I moved
from the Glasgow Travelodge that I was staying in to a small bed
and breakfast within walking distance.
Then over the next few days I started showing my face around
the pub. My cover story was that I was a
recently divorced dad of two who was staying in a cheap bed and
breakfast nearby while trying to get back on my feet again.
That way it made sense for me to be hanging around the pub all
day nursing pints and maybe putting a few quid on a horse
race or two while I was there. It was that kind of lower end
country pub, pints, pies and the odd punt from the compulsive
gamblers sat in their wee corners clutching the racing
papers. And as much as I hate to say it,
I actually fit right in. Having spent so long in the army
I was used to hanging around a dodgy pub or two and being
perched on a barstool nursing a few pints was probably the best
time on the job I've ever had. It was actually quite a good
laugh at times the bar staff and regulars seemed like decent
folk, but still I kept my mind on the job and did as much
listening as I could. I popped in and out for a few
days, a pint around lunchtime, one in the late afternoon, then
I'd usually head back in the early evening when it was
busiest. By my fifth day I was getting
quite a warm welcome from some of the regulars and even the
Moody faced bar man seemed to soften up a bit.
They were obviously getting quite comfortable with me, which
suited me loads because it meant that I could start asking the
odd question without ruffling anyone's feathers.
But as it turns out, I didn't need to ask any to hear Tony's
name being mentioned. I was sat there Thursday night
pretending to watch whatever football they had on the telly
when this scruffy looking bloke in a green parka walks into the
pub. He says hello to one or two
people, but only in passing. As he walks straight up to the
bar with a very serious look on his face.
He ends up standing right next to me as he gets the barman's
attention but then thinking that he's just going to put in a
drink order, The barman just looks at him as he's pouring a
pint as if to say what are you having?
The scruffy bloke then shakes his head, beckons him over and
then asks him is Tony going to be in tonight?
He didn't whisper it by any means, but he clearly didn't
want to broadcast his question to the whole pub.
The only trouble was, he was saying it right next to the one
person who had a vested interest in overhearing him.
And as you can imagine, the second I heard that name, my
ears pricked up. The guy asked after Tony, and in
a similarly muted voice, the barman told him that Tony would
be by later on that evening. The scruffy guy then asked the
barman to pass on an apology to Tony if he saw him first.
The barman just replied, Save it, I'm not the one you've got
to impress. And the way he said it, it was
like his scruffy acquaintance was on the way to the gallows.
After the quiet scolding from the barman, the scruffy fella
scuttled out of the pub looking very, very worried.
And right away I'm beginning to get an idea of who this Tony guy
is. But again, I've changed his name
to protect the innocent. He was obviously someone people
were afraid of. Which meant that Robbie's mom
had no idea how right to be concerned she really was.
Having heard Tony was stopping by later that night, I finished
my pint, then ducked out for a few hours to eat something, neck
a few cups of coffee, and generally sober up a bit so I'd
be fit to work. A few hours later I was back on
that very same barstool, eyes peeled for anyone who even
looked like they might be Tony. I was halfway through my second
pint and becoming increasingly worried that the barman's tip
might have been incorrect, when in walks a bloke that looked as
wide as he was tall. He's got this massive gold watch
on all kinds of rings, a gold chain around his neck.
He's obviously got a few quid and he doesn't mind showing it
off either. He also looked like he'd spent
most of his life lifting weights, and not without a bit
of help from the pharmacist, if you catch my drift.
I had to wait until he got to the bar before I got actual
confirmation, but as he strode through the bar, the way
everyone looked at him behind his back told me everything I
needed to know. He gets to the bar and I hear
you all right, Tony from the bar man.
Tony orders a Guinness, takes a seat down the bar from me and
then he and the bar man start talking in low voices.
But this time, because the pub is in a wee bit busier state and
they're further down the bar, I have no idea what they're
saying. I got the feeling that I was
missing out on something I wanted to hear, but then again,
I wanted everything that came out of his bloody mouth.
So I stayed put, kept my eyes forward and tried to pick up on
what I could. Which sadly wasn't very much.
But then after finishing his pint of Guinness, I heard Tony
tell the bar man, see you Sunday.
Then off he went. I kept up my cover and popped in
over the Friday and Saturday just to keep up appearances.
Then come Sunday, I was in the pub from the moment the doors
opened, waiting for Tony to show up again.
He walks in just after three, plants himself at the bar, then
asks the barman to put the boxing channel on after ordering
his pint of Guinness. The barman does as he's told
right away. Then for the next few minutes,
Tony's glued to the TV above the bar, riveted by whatever boxing
highlights were playing. Now, I happen to know a thing or
two about boxing, enough to be able to use it as a means of
striking up a conversation. But the thing that really struck
me in that moment was when I reminded myself that Robbie, my
missing person, had been a passionate and dedicated boxer.
I simply cannot overstate how much of A rush it is when it
seems like a lead is coming together like that.
And again, it proved how right Robbie's mom really was to be
concerned about him. Her son and this Tony bloke were
now connected in two ways. And considering the kind of
esteem people held him in, I realized just how much of A
balls up the police had made and not following up the lead.
So as I'm sipping my pint, I start making comments on the
boxer's form, on their striking ability, stuff like that.
I'm not directly addressing the Tony character, I'm just
invoking that ancient publican tradition of talking loudly
until someone joins in the conversation.
It probably sounds a bit mental now that I've typed it out like
that, but it worked, and before long me and Tony were having a
bit of sporadic back and forth. I introduced myself, not
offering up my real name but a variation on it, then bought him
a pint. When I'd finished off my own.
He asked how I knew so much about boxing, and I told him
another variation on the truth when I said that I used to help
a friend train for fights back when I was in the Navy.
It turns out he too was an amateur boxer back in the day
and he retained a huge passion for it throughout his life.
He then asked what I was doing out in Crossley and I gave him
the whole sob story about being freshly and bitterly divorced.
Tony looked fairly disinterested by the end of my explanation, so
in an attempt to keep his interest, I asked him if he ever
bet on matches, what with him knowing so much about boxing.
He made a bit of a face and then said something like that.
Rubbish. No, not anymore.
To keep the conversation going, I made out that I used to be
quite a big time gambler before I got married and then I was
planning on getting back into it now that the wife didn't have a
grip on my finances. He sort of rolled his eyes, but
he was still with me. When I asked him if he had any
tips or anything like any talented young boxers that he
might know of, he then told me that the best piece of advice he
could ever give me was not to gamble on professional boxing at
all. According to him, it was all
rigged, the refs were all paid off, the fighters all took dives
and we're working from scripts, all to funnel money into the
hands of the bookies. Maybe it's the cynic in me, but
I can't say. I didn't agree with him a wee
bit, so I asked him a very genuine question and quizzed him
on what combat sports were fit to bet on.
He just sort of looked off at the telly for a while, not
saying anything, then got this very sinister look about him.
Tony was smiling, but he had this look in his eye, this
wolfish, almost bloodthirsty look.
He started telling me about these small time kickboxing
fights in Thailand that he'd been to and how if he knew the
sport he could win thousands of U.S. dollars a night betting on
these tiny 100 person spectator events on the outskirts of
Bangkok. He said big fighters just do it
for the money, but the smaller up and coming lads who put way
more emphasis on honor and skill, they quite literally
fight for their lives. A few wins in the lower
divisions could mean getting their names on bigger and better
cards, and the money they earned could end up catapulting their
families out of poverty. That, according to Tony, was the
purest form of fighting there was.
Everything else was just theater.
He seemed to know an awful lot about boxing outside of the
actual sport. He knew about the gambling side,
but he seemed to know a wee bit about the promotional side too.
I then asked what he did for a living, as in if he was involved
in that promotional side or if he ran a gym or anything.
He said he visited a gym, which was only too obvious from the
looks of him, but that he hadn't been involved in organizing
events for years and years. According to him, it was a lot
of stress, not too much money. And then added I'll stick to the
side of the TV screen, thank you very much.
I took two things away from this part of our conversation #1 Tony
didn't answer my question in that he danced around telling me
what he did for a living and #2 he was lying.
I know it's a bit of a detective story, cliche at this point, but
you really do get a sense of when people are lying to you.
And when Tony told me that he hadn't been involved in boxing
promotions for years and years, I knew that wasn't true.
Everything else he told me was correct, but that part wasn't.
He was still involved in some capacity, he just didn't feel
comfortable telling a stranger, which to me was basically like
striking oil. I had my number one person of
interest connected to my missing person in more than one facet,
and not only did I have a strong suspicion that he was lying to
me, but I was 90% sure that he was involved in some kind of
organized crime. Robbie needed money to move into
Glasgow, and if Tony was involved in loan sharking then
that might well account for his disappearance.
And by that I don't mean like when he couldn't pay they rolled
him up into a carpet and chucked him in a lock.
I mean a lot of people get themselves into debt then just
voluntarily disappear, mainly because they're so afraid of the
previously mentioned carpets. People do it with big banks too.
They try all sorts of scams, they disappear, change their
names, even fake their own deaths.
So when some big former boxers threatening to break your legs
if you don't get his money to him on time, voluntary
disappearances are surprisingly likely.
I wasn't 100% certain that Tony was loan sharking, but I wasn't
about to ask him during that first conversation.
When you're working with a cover story, those first contacts are
all about winning trust. Push too hard and you push them
away. I had to wait until the next day
to see Tony again, but when I did, I had a plan waiting.
I told him that I'd love to buy him a pint but I was skint.
My soon to be ex-wife wouldn't let me into our joint account
because we'd already signed the divorce papers, so until I could
sell off some possessions I was brassic.
Any loan shark worth his salt would have seen that as a clear
business opportunity, but all Tony did was offer his
sympathies before offering to buy me a pint instead.
I accepted his offer quietly, taken aback that my loan shark
theory had potentially been ruled out.
Then I asked him if he just so happened to know anyone who
might be interested in lending me a bit of short term cash.
Again, he shook his head and told me that he didn't know
anyone who could help me. But then after a pause, he asked
me. Have you definitely got some
money coming in on Friday? It was a very loaded question,
but the thing that really got my attention was how Tony suddenly
seemed to have a bit of that wolfish look about him, like the
one he had earlier. I told him that yes, I
definitely had some money coming in that Friday, which by that
point was only the day after next.
He then asked me. You definitely know you're
boxing a enough to put money on it.
Again I told him yes, I knew my boxing and most definitely
enough to put a few quit on. At which point Tony's gaze
became very intense. He looked me over for a few
moments, then told me. If you want to make enough money
to last you a good few years, be in the pub closing on Saturday
night with a couple of grand in cash.
And at that, he finished off his pint of Guinness and said his
goodbyes, then walked out of the pub.
I immediately informed my bosses that I had a huge potential lead
regarding a person of interest, and then told Robbie's parents
that their suspicions regarding the mysterious Tony character
had most definitely been warranted.
The only problem was, I had no physical evidence that Tony's
criminality was connected to Robbie's disappearance, only
strong suspicions. We knew Robbie needed money.
That was the only reason he was working in the pub.
It was a stepping stone to something greater.
So what if Tony had been the one to offer it to him via some kind
of illicit gambling operation? Robbie could have gotten in too
deep, made a bet that he couldn't honor, or he could have
threatened to expose Tony's criminality after being duped
out of his wages. There were a ton of
possibilities, but like I said, I didn't have evidence for any
of them. However, what I did have was a
golden opportunity to gather said evidence by meeting Tony
back at the pub at come closing time on Saturday.
I didn't have any kind of secret or hidden cameras I could use,
but I did have one of those small, old fashioned dictation
machines that I could place in the chest pocket of my jacket.
That way I could record any conversations we had and
potentially obtain audio that would be of huge interest to the
police. And that was the only surefire
method that we had to get the investigation into Robbie's
disappearance back on track and to make sure that it was headed
in the right direction. It was an exciting moment, the
first time in my career that I felt like a proper secret agent,
but unfortunately for me, that midnight meeting would result in
my second brush with almost certain death.
As instructed, I made sure that I was at the pub before closing
time on Saturday night. It was a nervous wait, but
eventually Tony showed up. However, instead of coming
inside and sitting down at the bar like he usually did, he just
caught my attention from the doorway and then beckoned me to
follow him. I walked out of the pub with
Tony to my front, and as we walked to his car, he turned his
back to me, giving me the perfect opportunity to reach
into my chest pocket and switch on my dictation machine.
The tapes were tiny and only had about 45 minutes worth of
recording time to them, but there'd be no switching it on in
his car without raising suspicion, and he had eyes on me
as we walked out of the pub, so I had to do it there and then,
or not do it at all. As we walked to his car, I saw
two blokes sitting in the back seat of a Gray Mercedes.
I'll be honest, this did ring some alarm bells.
But there was also a chance that wherever we were going to gamble
my cash, Tony thought it best to take some muscle with him.
So I walked over to his car, climbed into the passenger seat
after giving the heavies in the back a nervous greeting, and
then off we went towards our mystery destination.
Obviously the first question I had for Tony was where are we
going? He gave me one of those wolfish
smiles and told me you'll see. We kept on driving for a minute
or two and since I didn't know the area very well I had no clue
where he was taking us. And then after the silence got a
bit too uncomfortable I asked him are we going to bed on a
boxing match and he told me could be and then asked if I had
it on me, assuming he meant the cash.
I lied, told him I did, padding a bulge in my jacket pocket that
had a pair of rolled up socks in it.
Not exactly a Hollywood prop, but little Bluffs like that can
be very effective. I then asked him what kind of
fight we were going to. Tony paused before speaking and
then asked if I remembered what he'd said about those Muay Thai
fights in Thailand. I remembered exactly what he'd
said about those young, hungry fighters and how ferociously
they fought. Tony had also mentioned that
some of those fights were unsanctioned events, sometimes
organized between towns or villages.
Your best fighter versus ours. For honor, glory and untold
riches for those with the stones to risk their hard earned money.
And that's when it clicked. Tony wasn't taking me to a
boxing match he knew was rigged. He was taking me to an
unsanctioned, illegal boxing match that he had organized
himself. I had to remind myself that I
was recording the whole conversation and since he was
feeling talkative, I decided to ask some much more direct
questions. Questions I remember asking him
with this sort of feigned horror.
It's not going to be bare knuckle, is it?
Tony didn't say anything, he just nodded.
I then asked if the fighters ever got hurt.
He told me combat sports can be dangerous.
Sometimes people go down and they don't get back up again.
Sad fact. And it was my turn to stay
quiet, not so much because of the brutal honesty behind Tony's
words, but because I suddenly realized what had happened to
the missing Robbie. A clean cut, square go lad like
him would never have gambled his wages away.
But what he might have done is accept an offer to fight in one
of those matches if it meant walking away with a King's
ransom and prize money. Enough to move to Glasgow.
Enough to kick start his dream sooner rather than later.
I thought I had the perfect opportunity to ask, and
considering what Tony had just said, I felt like I was on the
cusp of him admitting to being involved in Robbie's
disappearance. But when I asked him if anyone
had died in the ring recently, he told me.
I think that's enough questions for now, don't you?
And as he said that, I started to recognize some of the
buildings we were passing, but they didn't make any sense at
all. They would have meant that Tony
had just driven us around in circles for maybe 10 to 15
minutes, only for us to end up right back where we started.
I asked Tony again, Where are you taking me?
And once again he told me. You'll see.
And seconds later we pulled up outside a building that I
recognized in an instant. It was the B&B that I've been
staying in. We sat there in the car for a
second before Tony slowly turned in his seat to look at me.
I kept up the ACT for as long as I could, asking if he was
pulling some kind of wind up on me, and his response made my
blood run cold. We know who you are.
I was scared, but I knew from my training that I had to stick to
my story no matter what I told him.
I had no idea what he was talking about, that I was
exactly who I said I was, but it was no good.
I was still trying to reason with him when one of the fellas
in the back seat reached over my shoulder, grabbed the dictation
machine out of my pocket and then held it up for Tony to see.
He took it and then asked me. How many more of these have you
got? And the heavy in the back seat
must have seen me fiddling with something in my jacket pocket as
I walked to the car. But at the time all I was
thinking in my fear addled mind was how the hell did they know?
Seeing as it was most likely pointless, I decided to stop
lying and told Tony that the dictation machine was the only
one I had with me. He then told me that we were
going up to my room to have a chat, and if I said a word to
anyone in the B&B, anyone who might be awake at that time,
then he'd burn the whole place down with me in it.
We went up to my room and while Tony's heavies ransacked the
place, it was very surreal seeing them do it quietly.
He told me to take a seat on the bed.
Apparently he and his boys had decided to do a bit of research
on me before they committed to taking me to an illegal fight,
and whoever Tony was connected to was a lot more capable and
powerful than I could ever imagine.
Tony started explaining that I'd caused him an awful lot of
trouble. His routines would have to
change, he wouldn't be able to go to the pub anymore, all
because he knew he couldn't trust me not to tell my bosses
everything he said. He might not have been able to
stop me talking in the past, but he'd certainly be able to stop
me from talking in the future. And at that, one of his heavies
pulled out a length of electrical cord from his jacket
pocket. As the guy started to fashion
and improvised noose from the cord.
Tony explained that killing me would bring a lot of unnecessary
attention down on him and his business partners.
But faking a scene where I had ended my own life?
That would cause a lot less of a fuss.
I remember him saying something like a lot of ex squatties end
up that way. No one would bat an eyelid if
they'd found you hanging in a cupboard, would they?
I can't overstate just how chilling that was, knowing that
Tony and his partners somehow had access to my service
records. But ironically, it was that
little detail that may well have ended up saving my life.
Back when I was in Northern Ireland, one of my sections,
Land Rovers, was caught in an IRA ambush near a place called
Cross Maglen. I was wounded as we fought our
way out of it, but two of my section mates lost their lives.
The injuries I sustained resulted in my eventual
discharge from the army and apparently Tony had read all
about it. He'd been ready to have me
killed. He'd been ready to fake a tragic
self-inflicted end. But after reading about the
incident in which I'd received a mention in dispatches, he
decided it was bad form to kill someone who'd already cheated
death once. He gave me some big speech about
how we were both soldiers and then war.
Honorable soldiers don't just kill each other.
When the battle ends, the winners and the losers come to
an agreement. And according to Tony, that's
exactly what we were going to do.
We didn't so much come to an agreement as Tony imposed terms.
The only reason he mentioned young boxers getting killed in
those illegal fights was that he accepted certain people deserve
to know what happened to their missing family members.
They needed to accept that their loved ones weren't coming back
so that their hearts could mend and they could move on with
their lives. But that, said Tony, was all I
was ever going to get out of him.
And if any of my colleagues decided to visit Crossley in the
future, it was me that was going to pay the price.
Tony and his boys didn't just know about my service record and
who I worked for, they knew where my mom lived.
Any further attempts to interfere with their operation
and it'd be her that ended up hanging in a cupboard with a wee
note saying that she couldn't stand the arthritic pain
anymore. That was obviously the bit which
terrified me most, the idea that he might hurt my own mother.
But the thing that really broke me was the fact that he knew her
name, where she lived, and he knew about the medical condition
she'd been struggling with for the better part of a decade.
And even as someone who was immersed in the world of
information retrieval, I was astounded at how Tony had been
able to get his hands on all of that information in just a few
short days. That's round about the time that
I realized Tony couldn't have been running the illegal boxing
ring on his own. He must have had some very
wealthy and very powerful partners to get his hands on all
my personal information so fast. For all I know, they hired one
of AI s s competitors, which, let me tell you, would have set
them back an astonishing amount of money if they wanted to get
their info in that kind of time frame.
Then, after we shook on our little agreement, Tony and his
heavies left me in a ransacked bedroom, having taken all my
notebooks and dictation tapes with them.
I left crossly with my tail between my legs, having been
dramatically and unexpectedly outmatched.
I told my bosses everything, that I'd been compromised, that
my family was at risk and to their credit they made
arrangements to ensure their safety.
But more importantly to me, I told Robbie's parents everything
too. That hadn't been part of the
deal between me and Tony, as I think he knew good and well that
it was a term that I'd never accept.
I told them that although I had no evidence of it, I knew for
certain that Robbie had been manipulated into taking part in
an underground boxing match. And I also told them that there
was a very good chance that Robbie had sustained fatal
injuries during one of those fights and that the events
organizers had then covered up his death.
In all probability, his body would never be found and his
killers would never be brought to justice.
And even with all the information I was able to
forward to the police, Tony would be on the run, knowing
full well that his part in the operation had been compromised.
I apologize to Robbie's parents over and over again for not
being able to bring their son home.
But they showed patience and strength of spirit, and that was
the closest evidence I've come across for there being a big man
upstairs. They told me what I'd done was
enough, that I'd brought them more answers and more closure
than the police had in almost a year of investigating.
It didn't matter to them that Robbie's killers mightn't face
justice in life, because, in their opinion, the justice
they'd face in the Great thereafter would be far greater
than anything they'd have to suffer on earth.
I was halfway through my third year at college when I started
to really understand the lay of the land.
This was no ordinary college town.
Nestled deep in the Appalachian Mountains, the crisp,
frostbitten air of winter seemed to seep right into your bones,
and the locals, or townies as we students called them, carried a
chill in their demeanor just as biting.
The school was a speck of academia in a town that hadn't
changed much in decades, a place where the mountains loomed over
every shoulder and eyes followed you a bit too closely at the
local stores. Most townies didn't care much
for US students. We were interlopers, seasonal
invaders. In their steady, slow paced
world. They viewed us with a mix of
suspicion and disdain, an undercurrent that was always
there, though rarely spoken out loud.
There was one place though, where our world's collided The
club. It was an old bar with a
battered wooden sign and windows so fogged up with age and
cigarette smoke that you couldn't see inside until you
pushed through the door. On any given night, it thrummed
with a mix of Johnny Cash and the latest pop hits, a bizarre
cocktail of old and new that somehow defined this town.
It was frequented by both students and locals, a neutral
ground, or so it seemed. I'd heard stories about one
particular townie, a rugged guy who looked like he'd been
chiseled out of the mountains themselves.
He had a reputation. Saturday nights, he'd walk into
the club with a storm cloud over his head, looking for trouble,
and he almost always found it. Last weekend, he'd plopped down
uninvited at a table of students.
The air had thickened, heavy with the imminent threat of
violence that seemed to follow him like a shadow.
Words were exchanged, none too friendly, and it didn't take
long before Fists did the talking.
The students ended up in the hospital and the townie.
He walked away Scott free. The owner, a burly man with a
graying beard and wary eyes, never interfered.
Business as usual. As I sat in my dorm room, a
small, cramped space I shared with a buddy from back home, the
story replayed in my mind. My dad, a stern man with a moral
backbone that could withstand any storm, always told me, Son,
don't you ever let yourself be a victim.
Stand up for what's right. Stand up for your friends.
His words were a constant echo in my thoughts, a mantra that I
couldn't shake off. That week, as the temperature
dropped in, the winds howled like the lonesome cries of the
mountain, I made a decision. No more.
We wouldn't cower. We'd confront.
Preparation was key. I wasn't just going to walk into
the lion's den without armor. I gathered old magazines,
stacking them thick around my torso, securing them with
electrical tape until I resembled a makeshift night.
Into my jacket pocket I slipped an empty Coke bottle, just a
piece of trash to anyone who saw it, but in the right hands it
was as good as a baton. Saturday night came with a
vengeance, the cold biting harder than usual as if it to
sense the brewing storm. We headed to the club early,
claimed a table with a good view of the door, and waited.
The place filled up fast, the air a mix of laughter, chatter,
and the undercurrent of music that was too loud to allow for
easy conversation. My heartbeat a rhythm against
the magazine armor, anticipation mixing with fear and a stubborn,
unyielding resolve. Tonight's the night, I whispered
to my friends, my voice steady. We teach that jerk a lesson.
The door swung open, letting in a gust of icy air, and there he
was, silhouette framed like a gunslinger in an old western
Showtime. The moment he stepped through
the door, the club's atmosphere thickened like the pressure drop
before a storm. He scanned the room, his eyes
hard, unsmiling, a hunter gauging his terrain.
My grip tightened around the beer glass, the cold sweat of it
mirroring my own. He ambled over and, without an
invite, dropped into the chair next to me.
The old wooden seat groaned under his weight, as if it too
protested his presence. I kept my eyes on the amber
liquid in my glass, watching the bubbles rise and burst, a
momentary distraction from the tension building at our table.
Well, look who decided to join us.
I murmured, my voice edged with feigned cheerfulness.
My friends stiffened, the banter dying on their lips as they eyed
the intruder. He didn't say a word.
His hand found my thigh, squeezing tight, a grimace of a
smile on his face as if enjoying the discomfort he elicited.
The club buzzed around us, but at our table, the silence was
suffocating. You certainly aren't shy.
I commented, laughter forced and hollow.
The bar quieted, the sudden drop in noise making my next move
feel like a spectacle. With my free hand, I pretended
to adjust my cap, and as my hand came down, I flicked a pinch of
Copenhagen snuff from my cheek, right into his eye.
He recoiled, cursing as his hands flew up to his face,
seizing the moment, I drove my fist into his throat, an action
as shocking to him as it was to me.
He stumbled back, toppling the chair, a look of bewildered pain
on his face. Take it outside.
The owner barked, his voice cutting through the chaos.
Outside. The cold hit us like a wall, but
adrenaline kept the chill at Bay.
The town. He was on his feet, fury etched
across his features as he lunged at me.
I dodged the magazines taped to my chest, absorbing the brunt of
his poorly aimed punch. My hand found the coke bottle in
my jacket as he came at me again.
This time I didn't dodge. I swung, the bottle connecting
with a sickening thud against his skull.
He staggered, dazed, and that's when my friends joined in.
The alley echoed with the sound of our boots against his body,
the grunts and curses filling the air.
He fell then, his cries cutting short as he curled into himself,
defenseless. The brutality of our actions,
the rage and fear, mingled into a potent, toxic rush.
We kicked until our breaths came, heavy and harsh, until the
distant wail of sirens pierced our fury.
Let's go, I shouted, and we scattered, the taste of violence
bitter in my mouth. Months later, I saw him again.
He was by the bar in a wheelchair, his body smaller,
broken. Our eyes met his flinching with
a vulnerability that punched me harder than any fist could.
I looked away, haunted by the memory of that night, by the
justice and revenge we thought we served.
Sitting there, staring into my drink, I felt the weight of my
father's words, of the lessons on right and wrong.
Had we crossed a line? The victory felt hollow, the
lesson bitter. Actions and consequences, they
follow you, echo back in ways you can't predict.
And as I left the club that night, the chill wasn't just
from the mountain air. It was from the realization of
what we'd become, of what I'd become.
A protector. A perpetrator.
The lines had blurred and the reflection in the glass wasn't
one I recognized anymore. I think the worst investigation
I ever worked on seemed like a basic proof of infidelity job at
first. We got a call from a client who
suspected his wife was cheating on him with a colleague.
He was off and away on business and had harbored suspicions for
some time. To gather solid evidence, he
called us. Some of you might wonder why he
didn't just set up nanny cams or go through her phone.
The explanation is simple digital literacy.
The client was in his 60s and his wife was in her 20s.
He knew she was unfaithful, but he couldn't secure a clean break
divorce without evidence to contest the prenuptial
agreement. When he first suspected his wife
of having her boyfriend over, he installed nanny cams to catch
them in the act. Somehow they figured out the
cameras were there and changed venues to avoid getting caught.
Next, he tried to sneak a look at her phone, hoping to guess
the password and sift through her emails and such.
She had it bricked before he even had a chance, and some tech
kid wanted a hefty fee to bypass the security and retrieve the
data. We charged him half that amount
to obtain photographic evidence of an intimate rendezvous.
Nothing salacious, of course, but incriminating enough to
facilitate a swift and inexpensive divorce.
The wife was clever. She avoided her boyfriend while
her husband was in town. But as the saying goes, when the
cat's away, the mice will play to catch her.
The husband planned a fake business trip, didn't leave the
city, and stayed in a nice downtown hotel.
He paid us to tell his wife while demanding updates every 5
minutes. That was me for five nights,
following this woman and her boyfriend around the city while
my partner sat in the passenger seat taking pictures.
Each night he'd take her to his condo in the suburbs and every
morning he'd drive her back home.
They had no clue they were being followed, especially at night
when it was dark and they visited high traffic areas.
I was on the night team from 8:00 PM to 8:00 AM.
Since the boyfriend drove the Target home so early, my partner
and I would be there to see it, bleary eyed and wired on Dunkin
coffees. But then one morning the
boyfriend came out alone, looking like he hadn't slept a
wink all night, but was somehow headed to the gym early, dressed
in a hoodie and shorts. After tosssing a suspiciously
full gym bag into the trunk of his car, they took off.
At first, my partner and I joked about it.
I woke him up, pointed to our guy, and probably made some
inappropriate joke about how he and the client's wife had been
up all night. We didn't grasp the significance
of this deviation until much later that day.
After spotting the red eyed boyfriend walking out of his
condo alone, we handed over to the day team and went home for
some rest. When we were ready to start
again, I checked in with the day team, amazed to learn they were
still parked outside the boyfriend's condo.
He hadn't returned home from work, and as far as they knew,
our client's wife hadn't left the condo either.
Our day team thought the pair had a heavy night of drinking
and dancing, among other things. But by 8:00 PM, with neither the
wife nor her boyfriend spotted, they began to suspect something
was amiss. They informed us but we only
really understood the situation at about 8 PMI remember telling
my partner 20 bucks says he's back before dark.
The guy must be running on fumes already.
A few hours later I was handing over that $20, still staring at
the guy's empty parking spot. We didn't have anything else to
do but sit there watching the condo for any sign of the wife.
She was our target, not her boyfriend, and if at any point
we felt we needed to track him to find her, we deal with that
as it came. So for the second night in a
row, we sat outside the boyfriend's condo, bored out of
our skulls. We were almost constantly in
touch with the client and obliged to be frank about the
status of our investigation. We had to level with him.
There had been no sign of his wife or her boyfriend for 24
hours. He told us to keep him updated
and left us to our work. We waited all night, but still
there was no sign of either the target or her boyfriend.
By that point, we suspected the wife had tricked us into waiting
there while she sneaked out a back door.
We called our boss, who agreed we should check out the client's
home for any activity. There was no sign of anyone
there, but soon after it was no longer a problem.
The day team took over for the next 12 hours and it was our
turn to rest. Come 8:00 PM, at our hand over,
we learned there had been no activity at the client's house
or the boyfriend's condo. The day team had tried several
other regular Hangouts of the boyfriend and our client's wife,
but there was no sign of them anywhere.
That meant 36 hours of no contact, which is not what our
clients pay us for. But then, right as we were
trying to think of a way to get back on track, we got a call
from our boss. The client had reached out with
some concerning news. His wife had been due to meet a
friend for a dinner date but hadn't shown up.
Equally concerned, her friend had called her husband, our
client, saying that she hadn't sent any cancellation and wasn't
answering any calls. Obviously, the loss of contact
was concerning, but having one of her friends on the verge of
reporting her missing suggested a whole other level of urgency
was required. We had to make sure she wasn't
still in the boyfriend's condo. Since it was only a few minutes
past nine, I figured I might catch the building
Superintendent to run an old scam on him and try to get a
look inside. I told my partner to stay put,
got out of the car, and walked right up to the apartment
building. I tried to open the door without
a key, and as soon as I started loudly trying, the
Superintendent came running to see who I was.
I explained that I was looking for a friend of mine, how I
hadn't seen him in a few days, and how I was worried about him.
The guy started giving me all that I can't let you in without
prior permission. But I turned the Hollywood up to
11 and started giving him a whole sob story about how my
friend had recently been diagnosed with cancer and was
taking it really hard. I added that his mom was in the
hospital with a busted hip, having fallen down the stairs
when she heard the news and fainted.
I laid it on thick for the guy, said whatever tear jerking thing
came to mind, and in the end he agreed to show me into the
boyfriend's apartment so long as it was under his strict
supervision. Mission accomplished, right?
If the wife was in there, I could say that I was mistaken
and that I must have given the wrong address.
Sure, that was getting a little too close to the target for
comfort, but these weren't your regular circumstances anymore.
The client wasn't just concerned for his wife's fidelity anymore.
He had a bad feeling that she might have stolen a bunch of
jewelry from him, then ran off with her lover after losing
their tail. He hadn't told us that was a
possibility before, but when he did, it made the situation time
critical, so to speak. Anyway, we headed up the stairs
to the second floor and the guy let me into the condo that we
had been staking out. He opened the door for me,
reminding me that he was about to tail me everywhere.
Then off we went into the TV room, the kitchen, and
eventually the bedroom. I went to open it and found the
door was locked. I called out, not specifically
to the wife, just to anybody, but no one replied.
The guy then started saying how no one was home, but I started
explaining how we definitely needed to get that bedroom door
open. Because I was scared that my
buddy had done something terrible, either to himself or
someone else. He said he didn't have the keys
to the doors inside of these units, which was understandable.
But then, as he was talking, he suddenly stopped.
His eyes went wide and he pointed down at my hand.
There was blood, like old half dried stuff, smeared across my
lower fingers and palm, all from where I'd gripped the door
handle. My adrenaline started pumping.
I told the guy to call the cops because either they were going
to have to arrest me for criminal damage, or they were
going to want to see whatever the hell was behind that locked
bedroom door. I knew I'd have to stay anyway.
I had freaking forensics all over my hands.
So when the guy agreed to go get the cops, I just hung out in the
hallway outside and called my partner to let him know things
had taken a real dark turn up there.
We suspected the worst, but having it confirmed didn't make
it any easier. The cops arrived with the whole
team. They got the bedroom door open
and there she was, lying on the floor, strangled.
We didn't find out until much later on, but the wife had
actually tried to break it off with her lover.
After a night on the town, she thought one last blowout would
soften the blow, but after too many cocktails, the guy wasn't
anywhere near as level headed as she figured he might be.
Somehow he came to the decision that if he couldn't have her, no
one could. That morning when we saw him
wearing his workout gear and looking like he hadn't slept,
he'd murdered our client's wife less than an hour before.
We were sat there in our car, having no clue that a murder was
happening less than 100 yards away.
It makes me sick to think about, even all these years later,
knowing that we were so close, but there was nothing we could
have done to stop it. I heard lover boy went to prison
for first degree murder and that the rich client remarried not
long after. I have a ton of stories from my
time as a private investigator, but that's by far the one that
haunts me the most. Don't forget to check out Magic
Mind. You can find the link in the
description to get started today.