Venus Flytrap (ePub)

It always starts with a client.

Some walk in off the street. Some I have to go and see. Some are still living. A very few are already dead. Most are women. And most of them have the same problems.

My name is Joey Netherhill. I'm a private cop. It's not my real name. You wouldn't believe my real name. I don't think you'd guess it either. My job is to fill the gaps left by undermanned or uninterested police - usually the latter. I boldly go where plod cannot, or doesn't want to set foot.

I am an ex everything: Marine, policeman, husband, toy-boy, normal human. Each phase of my life, from school through to the Glasgow polis (as they are affectionately known by the local dimwits) has ended in minor or major disaster. By way of payment, each one has extracted from me a synapse - and so I have paid off my nervous system bit by fucking bit. Now I don't get excited too easily. This gets me into a lot of undeserved trouble. I don't have that 'worry' thing to keep me safe.

My present occupation as a PI was literally thrust on me by an over-appreciative detective sergeant after I brought him and his now wife (then girlfriend) back together. DS Davy Reid, now probably my only friend in the entire fucking world, was worried out of his skull that she was having an affair behind his back. Is that tautology? Well whatever. At his request I did a bit of digging and following and stuff that PIs do, discovered that she was covering for her wayward brother who was running away from jail time, and that she was still very much attached to our Davy. When I told him, that was the closest I've ever come to being kissed by another man.

Now it came to pass that Davy's Department was full of shit they couldn't or wouldn't touch, and he made sure that I was the recipient of this overflow - some of which turned out to be nasty in the extreme.

I hid behind this less-than-apparent anonymity, mainly to avoid my Glasgow wife and her fat brothers. Now don't get me wrong, I'm well over six foot, well over two hundred pounds, Marine trained, and well able to take care of myself. But if I can run from trouble I will. But if I can't run, there's no law I won't break in confronting the bad guys. And it's not always my fault that I have to do just that.

In my present life I have a nice little office in a floor in the CBD, and a very good-looking PA who is a former police researcher. Her name is Vanda and she's brilliant. Vanda handles all of the mundane day-to-day stuff and enlists the help of her lawyer boyfriend Scotty Greene when the going gets too legally tough. She is also an expert hacker and the local police feel her loss.

And did I mention that my little car is an almost-new top of the range Bentley? Yes Bentley! I got one job pretty-well right for a very young and very pretty heiress called Kimberly Prester. It's part of her vast estate but she's given the loan of it to me as some sort of reward. I can tell you I'd swap it right now for another sort of reward from her.

But I don't think that will happen anytime soon. I've blotted my little police note-book once too often so far as she's concerned.

Oh well!

So, this one started the way they all do.

With a dame.