A Darkness Never-Ending: A Joey Netherhill Thriller

By Russell Watson

Joey Netherhill is an accidental P.I.
Life, it seems, has dealt him a series of Aces and Jokers, the latter being a vindictive C.O. in the Marines and a shrew of a Glasgow-born wife.
Escaping from his former life - and wife, he finds himself entangled by the low-life in a town in the south of England. Then an ace is dealt in the form of a police detective who believes his pretty girlfriend is having an affair and requires the assistance of an 'off the books' investigator.
Joey finds the solution to this puzzle leads him into a world of danger far beyond his capabilities or comprehension. He is confronted by forces of evil that will swat him as easily as a fly.
But Joey Netherhill has other ideas about that...

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Nov 18, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483539096

Book preview

END

Prologue

Emily McCrae gently closed the paperback she had been reading as a school assignment, wiped the tears and suppressed a sob. Why did it have to end like that? All he had to do was go up to her that last time he saw her, and rather than watch from afar, just go to her and tell her he loved her. She would have gone with him. Of course she would.

She looked at the cover: The Vietnam Sanction.

It was supposed to be about love and war – but it was more about love than war.

‘Have you finished Emily?’ It was her English teacher, Mollie Baxter, a soft spoken Scot. It was late in the afternoon and the school library was almost empty, but Emily had been hooked by the story and just had to stay ‘till she got to the last page.

‘Just,’ she replied.

Mollie pulled up a chair beside her. ‘What did you think of it?’

‘I thought it was like Cast Away.’

‘You did? Wasn’t it supposed to be about war in Vietnam?’ The teacher was testing.

‘That was the back-story. But the real thrust of the book was his love for a girl, his capture by the enemy, his imprisonment for ten years...’

‘And?’

‘And how when he returned she was already married with children. Maybe just a bit of a cliché, but it got to me. Maybe it was the way it was written. It sounded as though it was actually based on a true story.’

‘Some synopsis. But there’s more, isn’t there?’

‘The sub-plot? How her best friend wants him for herself and spins tales?’

‘And her husband is also having an affair with his PA? So she could have been available.’

‘His reluctance to confront her with his love for her irritated me.’

‘As it was meant too. And in a way it’s a parody on real life. Someday you’ll find that almost everyone has a lost-love – perhaps not so tragic as his - a first boyfriend

maybe; a holiday romance, or just someone who was inaccessible like a sister’s husband or their best friend’s boyfriend?. And that can lead to an obsession that can last a lifetime. And that’s exactly what happened to our poor soldier.’

‘Has it happened to you. Miss?’

‘I’m still waiting, Emily. I wait in hope.’

‘Why that?’

‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem In Memoriam ’ You should read it.’

And the two of them, the romance-starved teacher and the starry-eyed fifteen-year-old student, picked the bones from the work until it was time to go.

The teacher was right. The story was an analogy on real life.

And cute little Emily McCrae did not realize how close it would be to her own.

And how soon that would be.

Chapter 1

It was late afternoon when I arrived at her front door. The address was anonymous. The house was anonymous. I rang and waited. A moment passed and I imagined I could hear a shuffling behind the spy-hole.

'Who are you?' was the muffled query from inside.

'Social work,' I replied - probably a bit unconvincingly, ‘Sort of,’ I whispered

'You don't look like a social-worker. Who-the-hell are you?'

I pulled out a card that looked semi-official, and held it to the eye-spy - I knew too close for her to make-out.

'Can't see it. Who sent you? And why-the-hell are you here?'

'I liaise with the police.'

'Who?' she was insistent.

'DS Reid.' I knew he'd deny it - if asked.

'What do you want?'

'I'm here to help you.'

'Go fuck yourself. No one can fucking-well help me.'

'How about you explaining that to me - then I'll leave you alone.'

I heard some-heavy machinery clanking and the door slid open by a hands-width. I peered in to see something I'd never seen before - three chain slip-bolts. This woman was taking no-chances. Behind the bolts in the dim light I saw a face. Not a pretty face: a face bloated by physical abuse: a face burned by tears.

'You'd better let me in. We should talk.’

She still wasn’t convinced. I took out my driver’s license then passed both it and my ‘business’ card to her though the gap in the door.

‘That good enough for you?’

‘Come in,’ she said.

Her place looked just like a safe-house should. I couldn’t make out what furniture might just have been hers or the public’s. The lot was crap. The place was dark and dingy. All the blinds were drawn – and for good reason I suspected. She sat me down at one-end of a moth-eaten lounger, herself at the other. She leaned towards me and handed back my stuff. I think I had her trust. In the gloom I could make out a healing bruise below her left eye. She retreated further into the far-end and wrung her hands.

‘What does he want?’ she asked

‘DS Reid?’

‘He can’t do anything. Can he?’

‘I’m only a consultant to the police,’ I lied. ‘But I might be able to help.’

‘How? Nobody can help me.’

‘Let’s start with you. Tell me about it.’

‘It’s him. He’s going to get to me sooner or later – and eventually he’ll kill me. He’s got a fucking death-wish – but the death he wishes for is mine.’ There was a warble in her voice – a nervous warble. She was brimming with an anxiety that was now close to overflowing.

‘From the start.’ I tried to be trite. It might just calm her.

‘My husband passed-away three years ago. We have a boy. Oh God! He can’t even go to school. My life is a complete mess. Look at me. I have nothing.’

The tears welled. I handed her a clean hankie. I’d come prepared.

‘I met him on-line about a year ago. He was the perfect gentleman. He was kind and generous to David – the boy. I know I was too-quick, but I really thought he was the one. I let him move-in after a few months.’

‘It’s an old story,’ I said as soothingly as I could. And an ugly narrative that repeated itself over-and-over.

‘It wasn’t long before he changed. The first thing that started to make me suspicious was that I noticed that my bank-account was being accessed. I rummaged around in his things when he was supposedly at work, and I found that he had all my details: account-numbers, passwords to everything, license-numbers, the lot. I confronted him, of course.’

She smiled at me - a false missing-tooth smile.

‘That’s when he did this.’ She pointed to her mouth. ‘I went to the police. The magistrate bailed him to appear about a century into the future. I changed the locks. He broke the bloody-door down. The boy was still at school when he beat-me-up and raped me.’

Now she broke down properly. I moved beside her as cautiously as I could – I didn’t want to spook her – and placed and arm around her. I said nothing until she found some composure.

‘He sodomised me. Know what that is?’ I nodded. ‘I ended up in hospital with the bleeding. Dad took the boy home with him. The police took him into custody – again. Too late for my bank-account. He’d emptied it. We thought that would be an end to it. We were so wrong. He was just starting. He got bailed again. The police could do nothing. I got a restraining order. What-the-fuck good was that? He went round to my dad’s place and almost put him in hospital. When he was finished he told my dad that if the cops were involved again, it would be the boy who’d get it next. My dad didn’t know what to do.’

She paused to dry herself and catch a breath.

‘When I got out of hospital I found he was squatting in my house. I couldn’t get in – not that I really wanted too. But, tell me, how can all this happen? I’m locked-out of my very own place. Then I try to take my car. He’s slashed all of the tires and torn the wiring-bits out of the engine. I didn’t know a human being could be like that.’

‘Your mistake was thinking that he was actually human. This guy is some piece-of-work,’ I said banally. What more could I say?

‘He then harasses me so much at work – it’s a small firm and not prepared for his continual harassment – that I get a month’s pay in-lieu. Otherwise the sack. I don’t know why he’s doing this. I’m now staying with dad. The prick breaks-in while dad’s at work. He bloody-well beats me and rapes me again. The cops arrest him and manage to get him locked up this time. He’s out again in a month. A fucking month. But now he’s really mad. He and his low-life pals break in and trash the house beyond repair. They don’t even bother using the toilet. Do you know what I mean?’ Again I nod. ‘They leave when the bailiffs arrive. Bailiffs? Why bailiffs? He’s re-mortgaged the house behind my back. They come to repossess it for non-payment Do you believe this? Everything I own is in it. The cops can’t get him off the street – no evidence against him. No evidence, I ask you? No fucking evidence. I have to take the kid out of school. He’s lurking there too – but always gone by the time the police are called. They find this shit-hole for me to live in. I have a sister in Scotland. The boy will be safe there, but if I go there too, he’ll sure-as-hell follow me there, and she’ll be in trouble too. My boy goes to school up there and lasts a week. He gets bullied because of his accent. He’s different. Hell he’s different.’

I took a deep breath. Here it comes.

‘So Mister PI – or whatever-the-fuck you call yourself – just what do you fucking-well think you can do about this? Go and talk to him? Analyse him? Tell him he’s been a naughty-boy and he has to behave? Fuck all. That’s what you can do. You’re just like the rest. There’s nothing anyone can do. OK? And you’ll end-up getting your fucking head kicked-in. No witnesses of course.’

I looked at her for a long moment, then rising I asked, ‘What’s his name – and where does he live. Meantime if he comes around again call me. Right away.’ I emphasised.

She wrote quickly on a torn-scrap then looking up said, ‘What do I call you?’

‘Joey,’ I replied, ‘My name and number are on my card. You can call me Joey.’

Chapter 2

My name is Joey Netherhill. Joey Netherhill. No joke. Deed Poll, OK? Deed Poll is a good way of avoiding the harsh reality of an inconvenient situation. Changing your name can make you a lot harder to find: from the law: from your creditors: from the Mob - and in my case – also from the ex-wife. Strangely enough I now happen to be an expert in Deed Poll. Finding the pricks that are trying not to be found is a fair part of my current livelihood. Yup! You got it in one. I'm a private-dick, a gumshoe, an eye. So what's this all about? Well let's start at the beginning. It's not about me. OK. Maybe a little bit me? But I guess we have to get going somewhere.

I'm thirty-fivish. I've had a hard-life so I might just look a little older than that. And my face. looks lived in? So what? Go look in your own mirror. I'm six-foot-four. Which means my Cuban heels bring me up from six-two. I weigh in at two-twenty pounds - mostly of solid muscle. Well partly. I'm not married; no longer married that is, but you knew that already. I tell both clients and antagonists alike that I was in the SAS Regiment. But there again, everyone who's anyone in my game says they've been in the Regiment. Just don't let any of those ‘not so regular’ Special Air Service boys catch you saying it. They don't tend to be nice people. No, actually I made the Marines and sergeant. Saw a bit of action but that's another story. I theoretically stepped out of line, and got caught-out by the same people who were paying me. I thought it was my friggin’ job to kill people, but apparently I should have got a teacher’s note first. I managed to negotiate a honourable discharge - which was miles better than the year in jankers that was on the table. Luckily for me, the cluster-fucked prick who was my OC was also a mate of some Harry-guy who seemed to be well-connected. What actually happened – my side of the story anyway – was while we were on patrol outside the red Zone, he had ordered me to negotiate with a frigging towel-head who, I might add, had a frigging bomb strapped to him. Meanwhile he kept his head down in some dusty hole he had crawled into. Of course I conducted my peace-talks with an assault-rifle. Apparently I should’ve taken a card from my BD – which says ‘please disarm your bomb and come with the nice soldier’ in Arabic – and shown it to him at arm’s length. No one really believed him when he put the entire shitload onto me, but he got off with a spanked-bottom so they couldn't do much worse to me. The whole thing was nicely swept under the carpet and all was well – except that they very politely suggested that it might be the right-time for me to try my hand in Civvy-Street.

After my ‘demob’ I joined with the coppers in the Big Smoke and did not too bad. They seemed to like my natural sensitivity, and I fitted right in with the New Force. Dirty Harry they called me. I quite liked it, but not my seniors. They liked it not-at-all. You've all seen the Eastwood films - or if you haven't you need to get out more. Well they bounced me from station-to-station until I didn't know where the fuck I was. Then I was transferred to friggin’ Glasgow: Glasgow friggin’ Scotland. City of culture nineteen-ninety-something. City of frigging tarts, morons and arsehole gangsters as far as I was concerned. Don't get me wrong, I loved it. I was in my element. They loved me too. Couldn't understand a shaggin' word they said. See, I picked up some of their lingo too. But I also picked up something else: my ex-wife Mae. Shoot me now if she wasn't the prettiest-horniest bitch I ever met. I had a great time and even married her. Yup, and that was until I learned to speak Scottish and found out what the bitch was actually saying to me. So I got out, fucked off, had to leave the force and, of course, became Joey Netherhill. Notice I’m not telling you what my real name is? I’m silly but not stupid.

I then moved to the South. That was about as far away from her as I could get without going to those penal-colonies where they at least write in English - those of them that can write, I mean. At first I utilised my sympathetic talents and became quite adept as a nightclub-bouncer. I became the 'go to' man whenever there seemed to be any real trouble. One dry night the owner came down and invited me to have a drink with him. I knew it was a sting, but then I was used to those by now. He said I looked like a good-guy. I took his meaning to be from that bloodthirsty film with that wee American guy in it. I didn't dispel his opinion of me. I tried to look hard. This helps when you're escorting out spotty-pricks that are usually too drunk to stand. But that was only an image. So I think this gangster is going to put the hard-word on me to do something highly-illegal. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not a choirboy, but I still would describe myself as fairly honest. Where I have stepped outside the rules is where the rules themselves needed stepping outside. Where bad guys needed dealing-with, you know? But I was interested in what this boss-man had to say.

Of course he started me off with a scotch in a crystal glass that would have started a tank. I laughed inwardly. Wrong approach. I had deliberately spent the last twenty-or-so years of my life vigorously developing immunity to alcohol. Then he asks me if my real name is Joey Netherhill. I tell him it is. He tells me not to pull his friggin’ chain and asks me what my real name is. I tell him it’s Baldy Bane. I learned that one in Glasgow. I must’ve gotten it twenty-times from the drunken-arseholes I collared pissing outside pubs. He grunts but luckily for him doesn’t push it any further. ‘So, Baldy,’ he says, ‘how would you like some promotion?’ I resist the impulse to deck him there-and-then and reply, ‘So what’s the deal?’

He explains that his partners and he have other business-interests, one of which is a sort-of charity they run, which they consider to be social-banking. This involves helping out the underprivileged-poor by more-or-less giving them money during hard-times. He explains to me that sometimes some of these people take advantage of the softness of the good Joeyaritans running the charity, and try to rob them. Now what they need is a sensitive person like me to gently persuade these poor misguided people to return the money they owe and perhaps with a small additional donation to assist with further charitable works.

And so I became a debt-collector for the Southampton Mob.

Chapter 3

So where am I going with all of this? Promise I’ll get to that soon. Well I did my time with that lot for the best part of a year. The job paid well and didn’t get my hands dirty. Well not too much. My technique was fairly simple and straight-forward: I really am pretty big and I wore shouldery-clothes and those heels that made me look even bigger. When the going got tough, I switched-on that terrible Scottish accent I had learned. That did the trick and seemed to activate some primeval-fear in Southerners. The same technique also seemed to work on my employers, and I had no problem collecting from them either.

During this period, as might be expected, I got collared myself a couple-or-three times by plod. Since I had committed no crime – or rather no one was going to dare press charges - nothing came of it. But, as usual, I had to go through the formalities of ID: present abode, contact number, finger-printing etcetera. I thought nothing of it until one evening I was lying back in the bed of my Southampton downtown-flat watching some poxy nil-all game of European football and sucking on a tube of Fosters, when my mobile went-off. A job from the Mob perhaps? I carefully placed my tinny on the bedside-table, swung over the edge of the mattress, and picked up. I looked away from the tele for a friggin’ fraction and some wog scored. My usual luck.

But it wasn’t my current employers. It was a true-blue copper wanting to meet me for a drink. Bugger me dead! I couldn’t believe my ears. He said there was something in it for me and was I interested? I could always listen. Couldn’t lose anything by doing that. Could I?

I dressed in my ‘going out to a trendy pub’ clothes and met him in the lounge-section of one of these upstairs-downstairs Irish affairs. You know, a pub on the ground floor, upstairs a nightclub and further-upstairs one of those VIP rooms where everybody shags each other. It was Tuesday and the place wasn’t exactly heaving, but we wouldn’t stand-out either. I spotted him seated at the bar dressed like an off-duty cop, complete with shorn-hair and a half-finished pint. I sidled up to him and before I could speak he had ordered up another pint for me. I was going to ask for a Martini dry but there you go, that's stereotyping for you. He seemed a straight enough guy and I was interested to hear what he had to say. He introduced himself as DS Reid, David, Davy Reid.

'How's it going, Davy,' I asked.

'Not so good Joey,' he replied somewhat sadly. I could smell a day of alcohol on his fetid breath. He looked good but smelled like shit.

'How can I help?' I got straight to the point.

'Do you do private work?'

'Sure,' I replied.' That's all I do in fact. Self-employed.'

'What do you charge?' Typical copper, I thought. Tight-arses all.

'I do alright.'

'Thirty-quid an hour seem OK to you?'

'Who do I have to kill?' An old one. Seems to work.

'My girlfriend, Joey. Not literally though,' he added quickly.

'Is