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By David Hesketh

Small time crooks Jimmy, Eddy, Mike and Stu—known as the JEMS—live and operate in the back streets of Preston, where Harry Dogs is the Kingpin of the neighbourhood and he’s pissed., Jimmy stole his “frigging laptop.”

Seems Harry’s laptop contained highly sensitive info; sensitive meaning records of his illegal goings on, especially now with a hostile takeover about to happen in his manor. But has Harry got the right minerals and team to makes sure he stays king of the castle. Has Jimmy given the enemy the information to take over or will Harry take his revenge?

For instance, Harry keeps Charlotte Green ‘at his disposal.’ She is payment for her father’s debt. Mr. Green made some very bad investments and borrowed money from Harry. Result: Charlotte became the door-prize. And how does he use this prize? .Charlotte bends down and is fucked at Harry’s leisure.

Look out Jimmy.

At the same time of the theft, however, Harry received a human finger in a box delivered by the local courier. The finger belonged to one of his local drug suppliers. It was sent to him by the Southwark Stingers.

The Stingers were a new gang in town, heavy and ruthless, ordered to take Harry out of the game.

But, nobody should mess with Harry. He had an ace up his sleeve, Gus... ex British military, now private investigator

Gus reluctantly accepts the job and that’s when balloons start popping.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Hesketh
• Release date: Oct 8, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311408167

David Hesketh

Growing up on a council estate or "sink estate" in Wigan, they were interesting times back in the 70's and 80's, when there was honor amongst thieves so to speak, an estate where visitors were not welcomed unless invited.Gangs roamed the streets, murderers, prostitutes, gangsters, career criminals lived amongst some of the nicest most sincere hard working class people you could ever have the privilege to meet. Some of those very same people still live on the same estate they grew up on as do their own children etc..I managed to put myself through college studying architecture, but having also to cover a multiple number of jobs to make ends meat, I finally had to give this up due to financial difficulties but rather than walk down the crime ridden road, I decided to join the British Army where I served for many years, until moving out into the private security companies, operating throughout some of the most hostile places in the world.

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TRACER

By

David Hesketh

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2015 David Hesketh

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©Copyright 2015 by David Hesketh.

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work

of this author.

Chapter 1

The brunette in the blonde wig with plaits, that made her look like Heidi after a bad night out on the town, slid slowly up and down the chromium pole, stretching out first one and then the other of her well-muscled legs. Scattered around the small stage were her ‘props’ as she called them; in this case her size 16 schoolgirl’s uniform and a battered brown leather satchel. How ironic - pretending to be a schoolgirl when her own twelve-year–old daughter was, she hoped, being collected from school by her gran just about now.

There were pluses and minuses in working for Harry Dogs. Harry ran a string of clubs and strip-joints spread across the North of England and he liked to ring the changes. Girls ‘enlisting’ with him (an event that was not always optional) would be ferried around from one club to another, staying over at one of his gaffs for a few days or weeks before being moved on to another town and fresh punters. In return for his dubious geniality, Harry took seventy-five percent of the tips as well as giving his ‘ladies’ ample opportunity to earn bonuses for doing the odd (and some of them were very ‘odd’) porno shoot or trick for a favoured punter along the way.

There was never a lot of competition where Harry decided to set up - a fact which was due primarily to the second part of his name. ‘Dogs’ was not his real surname – something only a few people knew – but an acknowledgement of his preferred way of creating the market forces which persuaded competitors that other locations might be preferable. Cross Harry and you’d find yourself ‘exercising his dogs’ - two especially-imported Rhodesian Ridgebacks in which he’d invested a small fortune, even to the extent of having them trained by a former Police dog handler. The net result was that when Harry and his pets were around, you really didn’t want to be hearing words like ‘grab’, ‘maim’ or ‘kill’ - not even if you were just watching the spectacle.

The girl had been to most of Harry’s such clubs now. They were all much of a muchness - dingy, with cramped dressing rooms, sticky carpets, lousy sound systems and darkened seating areas where the punters could play pocket billiards while the girls faked countless orgasms around a chromium pole. Harry was never shy in telling everyone how classy his clubs were and few were bold enough to disagree.

In the background of this particular club, the fake blonde’s CD medley was going through its thirty-minute repertoire, but unfortunately the disk had gotten a bit bashed about on her travels from one joint to the next. The consequence being that there was the odd blip in the music, something which completely frustrated any attempt to dance in tune.

Some of the punters were tight-arsed until one of Harry’s heavies suggested how grateful the dancer might be if they opened their wallets and tucked a few notes into any exposed stocking top, garter belt or brassiere. It took a particularly foolhardy or drunk punter to opt against making a generous contribution after such a suggestion had been made. Not that this mattered thanks to the one serious punter the club had in on that cold and wet afternoon. The podgy-faced, late middle-aged man was more than making up for a whole batch of some of the dismal specimens in front of whom she often had to dance.

I think you dropped your homework! the flabby man cried out excitedly, gesticulating wildly towards the dirty floor as she gave him her carefully rehearsed smile. Why couldn’t Harry get a bloody cleaner to at least keep it swept - now she’d have to wash her uniform although that did have the advantage of shrinking it, which was good for tips. Keeping up the pretence, she looked at the floor, half-covered her mouth in mock horror before bending down to ‘pick up her homework’ and putting it ‘back’ into her satchel. The whole thing amounted to a complicit invitation to stick her G-string clad ass in the punter’s face.

She could feel his hot breath on her bum cheeks as he tucked some notes in the cord going around her tight waist. I’m not bad for a thirty-something, she thought complacently, contemplating the presents she’d be taking back for her daughter and her mum.

It was unusual for her to put on such a private show, yet she knew that it had Harry’s blessing and that of his goons who were lounging at the bar rather than leaning on the non-paying punters. It galled her a bit, getting her tits out and strutting her stuff for free, but the main man here was more than compensating. It was like he had money to burn and she certainly knew how to light a fire. A girl had to, didn’t she?

There were two floor-to-ceiling poles set in the small octagonal-shaped floor and sometimes she’d ‘double’ with one of the other girls - carefully choreographed tonsil-hockey and the odd bit of groping around inside each other’s knickers, some light disciplining – that sort of thing. The punters loved it and the two girls would usually net far more than they would have done with two solo performances. Today, however, Harry had been very clear to her about what to wear and who she was to please. When it came down to it, you just didn’t argue with Harry Dogs.

It was literally chucking it down outside the club that dreary afternoon, making the whole image seem as if someone had photo-shopped it with the black and white filter not quite on full blast. The few pedestrians that had chosen to escape the shelter of their homes, their places of work or their cars, fled in lines like soldier ants on the move no doubt intent on getting to their destinations in as dry a condition as the weather would permit. Consequently, no-one was paying much attention to anything beyond the execution of their private business. That’s why another panicking motorist, frantically trying to get his car open while apparently fumbling with his keys, was hardly remarkable or worth investigating further at the expense of getting even wetter.

The thing was that the motorist in question was Jimmy the Quick, so-called because he was notorious for snatching opportunities for a bit of light thievery without being noticed - either by humans or the myriad of closed-circuit TV cameras that now cluttered town centres, ‘ruining his livelihood’ as he liked to point out over a Guinness or two at the Mucky Duck where he drank.

Jimmy was an opportunist, always on the lookout for something valuable that had been left unguarded and which he could snatch and scarper off with before being challenged by any ‘nosey-parker’. In this case, he’d spotted a big silver Lexus and it had screamed to him ‘peer through my windows and see what treasures lie within’. Who was he not to oblige?

Inside his pocket there was a small box with a single button and an on/off switch. Pressing the button transmitted a range of frequencies and codes that would undo any cars utilising the same frequency to lock its doors. The gadget, which had cost him a small fortune off one of his ‘contacts’ wouldn’t ‘immobilise’ the ignition system - it wasn’t that clever - but it did permit Jimmy to walk up to a parked car, pretend to have dropped something, scan for the right frequency, wait for the hazard lights to come on and then open the doors with impunity. The drawback was that it had a very limited operating radius. But that was no bad thing - it wouldn’t do to de-alarm the wrong car, particularly if that car’s owner was stood next to it at the time. Embarrassing or what?

Sure enough, the Lexus’ hazard lights flashed twice and Jimmy opened the car’s rear doors and grabbed the fancy leather jacket that he’d spotted lying there. He didn’t normally do ‘threads’ but this was a particularly expensive looking jacket meaning that it had to be worth a hundred notes second-hand. It also looked like it was the sort of thing that might have cash or credit cards in the pockets or a mobile phone to flog. As Jimmy grabbed the jacket, his fingers hit something hard underneath - it was a laptop.

Jimmy knew next to nothing about computers except that they could be used to play racing games. He liked to pretend he was some hotshot get-away driver carrying his fellow gang mates to safety at a hundred-miles-an-hour-plus the wrong way up the motorway while the Keystone Kops gradually gave up behind him. This one looked flash alright so he’d take it off to one of his fences who knew about stuff like that. He could shift the coat there while he was at it, too.

Being careful to shut the car door and leave the vehicle otherwise as he’d found it, Jimmy legged it to his own van, dumped his now damp booty in the back alongside the other stuff he’d already pinched and drove carefully off to the other side of town where he presented the afternoon’s takings to one of the local fences. The total booty consisted of the jacket and laptop plus a couple of mobile phones, some credit cards that he’d liberated from a handbag, and a bag of new Marks and Sparks lingerie.

What’s it worth then, Billy? he asked the squat little man with round, dark-rimmed spectacles. Billy always wore a waistcoat and watch chain as he reckoned it gave him some dignity and engendered respect.

I’ll take the lot off your hands for a monkey - six hundred if you get me an introduction to her, he said, laughing and lifting up the 38D lacy black brassiere and matching knickers.

Oh, come on, Billy, you’re killin’ me. You can do better than that, surely? What about the laptop? It looks pretty flash to me.

Billy picked up the computer and looked at it disdainfully. See here—he pointed at a sticker on the top—it’s an i7 processor. They’re on k’s now meaning it’s out of date. Someone’ll be glad of it . . . probably. Not only that, these things is crafty and I’ve got to replace the hard drive and install a new operating system before I switch it on otherwise it’ll tell all and sundry where it is and I don’t want no unwelcome visitors. I’m not the sociable sort.

Jimmy had no idea what the fence was going on about but it sounded convincing. Go on, Billy, make it six, please, he begged.

Billy groaned as if he were being asked to donate a kidney but it was all part of the song and dance. The laptop alone was worth over a grand. It was a real flashy affair and had a military type build to it as if it were intended to be capable of withstanding a knock or two. He fancied the leather jacket for himself and he had an idea who might buy the underwear - particularly if he could make it look like it had been used.

I’ll give you five-and-a-half cause you’re one of me regulars, he offered.

Thanks, Billy. You’re a mate.

Inside the nightclub, the half-hour routine was coming to an end. When she’d first started, Harry had explained the system they used to indicate a ‘favoured’ customer. One of the barmaids would be sent over to the target and she would invite him to ‘buy the dancer a drink’ - a bottle of overpriced champagne that one of Harry’s bar staff bought by the trolley from the Tesco just up the road.

Once the punter had accepted the offer to ‘socialise’, the barmaid would catch the eye of the dancer as the final music track ended, and would come over to sit at the table, and drink champagne. Harry wasn’t going to risk doing bird for prostituting his workforce but, of course, if two consenting adults wanted to express their passion for one another in the heat of the moment and if one of those adults insisted on compensating him for the use of his facilities, then who was he to argue?

As per the house arrangement, the topless dancer pulled up a chair opposite the overweight man who must already have parted with a tidy fortune judging by the cash she had just stuffed in her satchel. She had no idea who he was and didn’t much care. If he wanted to pay her a couple of hundred more for a quick gobble or a game of hide the salami, well, let him.

You’ve been a very naughty girl, acting like that, the man leered at her. What a creep. He was the sort who had halitosis and she reminded herself to make it clear to him that kissing was not on the menu.

I can’t help it, she said coyly, playing to his needs.

The champagne arrived and the barmaid poured out two glasses, winking at the girl before she left.

This stuff goes straight to my head. I’ll be even naughtier after a few of these.

I think we need to find a way of punishing you.

Could we do it some place private only I’d be very embarrassed otherwise?

Do you know where?

An hour or so later, she was two hundred quid richer although that only translated to fifty quid after Harry’s cut. She’d heard tales of girls who’d tried to skim from Harry and she’d heard how his pets meant that they never worked again. Better to pay him his exorbitant commission and keep all of her limbs intact.

Having been thanked in person by the club owner and two of his associates, the man left through the side door and out into an alleyway that led out to the main street. He was whistling some cheerful ditty without being conscious of the song or even the act of producing the sound. His mind was on the girl and how his hand was still tingling from its repeated contact with her bottom. She’d been a very deserving case; all that disgustingly provocative behaviour showing all she had. About time someone disciplined her and he’d been pleased to oblige.

There was a private car park adjacent that said it was to be shared by patrons of the club he’d just come from and two other adjoining businesses. That was where he’d left his car. It was only when he got back to his Lexus that he realised his wife’s leather jacket which he’d just picked up from the cleaners and, worse still, the laptop containing all of his bank’s security codes, had disappeared.

Chapter 2

The incessant rain bashed out a monotonous drumbeat on the roof of the battered black Astra parked at the far end of a line of other equally anonymous vehicles, all of which had seen significantly better days. But that was the intention. Don’t, whatever you do, stand out. If Gus had driven his own car, a silver Aston Vanquish, it would have stuck out like a belly dancer in a convent.

The two worst things about the rain were that it meant the car’s windows had to be kept closed causing the windscreen to be perpetually steamed up. Not only did this obscure his vision, it also helped alert any passers-by to the Astra’s occupancy, not exactly the idea when engaged in surveillance activities.

The other problem with the rain is that no-one likes it, meaning the targets would be less likely to show themselves; preferring, instead, to hole up in the comfort of their abode, no matter how humble it might be.

Gus always referred to his current target as ‘the target’ because he didn’t want to personalise or get emotionally attach to them in any way. Having patiently tracked each target down, he would hand over the information - their location, movements, associates, transportation and other logistics - to his employer who would then apply whatever ‘remedial measures’ he deemed necessary. That wasn’t Gus’s concern. Once he’d been paid, and paid handsomely thank you very much, he’d be on his way and thinking about the next target. Give any of them a personality, start to identify with them and understand why they did what they did and create an unholy mess was spelling trouble. This was just like kidnap victims known to become attached to their captors and then suffering from the Stockholm syndrome.

This particular target had led everyone a merry dance but his last waltz was now coming to an end. He’d been a debt collector for his client, one Harry Dogs, and had unwisely elected to disappear with his client’s money after having collected on a particularly large sum that Harry had previously deemed too long outstanding to be allowed to continue. As Gus understood it, Harry had been his usual amenable self, making the suggestion that the debtor guy might like to take Harry’s Ridgebacks out for a run in the country. That’d worked just like it usually did.

Anyway, the target had collected the aforesaid sum which, according to the debtor, was fifty grand. He’d then legged it with Harry’s money which is when Gus had been called in to ‘Find him and my money’. Unlike Harry’s heavy muscle, which he had to keep on his payroll for fear that they might one day get into a split loyalty situation, Gus was an independent contractor and proud of it. If he didn’t want to take a job on, neither Harry nor any of his other clients, had any business trying to force him and, just in case the thought ever entered their criminal noodles, he had a book of the jobs he’d done for them filed away in a place they couldn’t touch.

Gus had begun his search with a visit to the target’s gaff but it was devoid of anything of value. The guy clearly wasn’t intending to come back. So that was a complete dead end. It had to be investigated because you never knew what you might find. It wouldn’t be the first time some divvy had left stub ends of tickets, letters, directions or even themselves behind, holing up in the hope that no-one would find them!

After that, Gus had chatted to the target’s mates, magnanimously buying tray after tray of pints down their local. The landlord had benefited immensely and so had Gus who, as a perceived ‘big spender’, had even earned himself an unwelcome come-on from the blonde barmaid with the chewed fingernails and bad teeth. He’d subsequently discovered that the target had three ‘recently ex’ girlfriends scattered around town. So, Gus had paid each of them a visit. As he soon found out, two were now firmly fixed up with new suitors and the third was clearly furious about having been dumped and had indicated in no uncertain terms that she would like to crush the target’s nuts with a couple of bricks. She didn’t seem the sort who would choose to withhold information about the target’s location, especially if she knew he was going to get a good kicking as a result of divulging such information.

She did, however, part with a small pearl of information in between her brutal promises of how she would destroy the target’s parenting potential. Her big clue had been a mention of her ex regularly visiting an ailing mother currently residing in a Mancunian care home. She couldn’t or wouldn’t give Gus the name of the home but she did say that it was in the Eccles district of Manchester. A half-an-hour with the Yellow Pages had shown that there were six care homes for the elderly in and around Eccles. Chances were it was one of those.

If the target had legged it, he’d probably want to keep in touch with his old mom. What was the conventional way of doing this? Say it with flowers!

Finding out in which home the target’s mother resided was a simple affair. All that was necessary was getting the assistance of a young lady who normally sold her personal services by the hour (but who had a more respectable voice than most of her profession) to ring up each care home in turn. The story was that she worked in a florist shop and had been asked by the lady’s son to send her some flowers. Unfortunately the young girl who’d taken the order no longer worked for the florist and no-one could decipher her writing.

Three calls later and Bingo!

Pretending to be a nephew of the old lady and armed with a box of chocolates and a bumper tub of assorted sweets, Gus had called at the care home. He apologised for not having visited before but said how flattering the target had been about the care his aunt probably wasn’t receiving. By way of thanks, he gave the tub of sweets to the buxom but plain-looking nurse at reception who instantly started clucking and calling over orderlies and other nurses to join in the unexpected treat. After that, no-one paid him much attention when he slipped through to the day room where he announced himself to the bored male orderly in attendance,