Sleaford Noir 1 by Morris Kenyon (the best books of all time .txt) 📕

I guess being smaller Alexa was more susceptible to the effects of the Halothane than Mulhearn. Or maybe I'd just given her a bigger dose. After all, I hadn't measured it out with scientific accuracy taking into account body mass like they do before an operation in hospital. But I thought she'd live and that was all I was interested in.

By Alexa's feet was her school bag. I rummaged through her bag. As well as the usual dog-eared folders and text books and a small toilet bag containing make-up and emergency sanitary protection I found her smart phone. She'd treated it to a pink case covered with pink crystals. But all the same a crack ran across the screen. The case sparkled in the fading light. Flicking through her a little diary, in the notes section, I spotted a four digit number surrounded by doodles of hearts and flowers. I guessed that was her phone's PIN number.

Switching it on, I entered the PIN number and then scrolled down through her contacts. And scrolled and scrolled. How many friends did this girl have? Was she on speaking terms with every girl at Sydenham? And half the boys at the nearby Carres Grammar School? It seemed like it. Eventually I found the only number I wanted. Wheelan himself. I pressed the number and heard it rang out.

Wheelan answered on the third ring.

"Look, Sugar-apple, I'm busy so...," Wheelan started. Sugar-apple? Alexa didn't look much like a sugar-apple now. More like the usual moody, hormonal teenage girl. Maybe she was sweeter when she was a little girl.

"This isn't your little Sugar-apple," I cut in.

"Who's this? Is that you...?"

"Yeah, it's Hennessy. I'm taking Alexa and Mulhearn for a little drive out in the country. Don't worry they're both safe although I don't think they're enjoying the ride very much."

Wheelan exploded with rage, threatening me with terrible revenge. I took no notice but let him purge his anger from out of his system. He finished with how he should have started – by getting confirmation, by asking to speak to his daughter and Mulhearn. Amateur.

I turned back to the Jeep Cherokee. The engine was ticking as it cooled in the never ending east wind blowing over the Fens. Mulhearn was sitting more upright now and had been trying to untwist and free his hands. I tore off the tape over his mouth again, ripping more skin from his lips. He swore.

I held the cell phone to Mulhearn's ear. "Friend asking how you are," I told Mulhearn. "Let him know you're safe and well."

Wheelan spoke. I heard him ask about Alexa.

"I don't know," Mulhearn replied. "I'm tied up and blindfolded."

Glancing back, poor Alexa was still out of it. I took the phone away from Mulhearn and crossed to the back seat. It was only the seatbelt keeping her upright but she had slumped forward against the strap. I pushed her back and slapped the girl's face. No response. I slapped her again, harder, leaving palm prints on her cheeks.

"What's going on?" Wheelan shouted through the phone, his voice distorted.

I returned to Mulhearn in the front passenger seat and ripped off the tape covering his eyes. He cried out with shock and blinked several times.

"Confirm to your boss I've got Alexa," I commanded. Mulhearn twisted in his seat and looked behind him. He sounded defeated when he told Wheelan that Alexa was also in the Cherokee with him. I snatched the phone away before Mulhearn could tell Wheelan that his beloved daughter didn't look in the pink.

"You should never have gone against my family. You'll pay for that," Wheelan shouted to me.

"You started it – you shouldn't have taken Claire. You must have known that would bring the roof down."

"It was Claire who came to me in the first place. She wanted me, wanted what her old fella couldn't give her no more – not without a load of blue diamonds rattling around inside him."

"Whatever, Wheelan. Frankly, I couldn't care less. I'm only here to bring Claire home. You've got to decide what's more important to you right now – Alexa or Claire."

Wheelan swore some more. "You of all people wouldn't hurt Alexa, Hennessy. She's only a girl. She's done no-one any harm."

The second and third parts of his statement were true. She was only a girl and she had not hurt anyone.

"Remember what happened to the Kirkham brothers from Hull?" I reminded him. "I enjoyed that job."

Wheelan fell quiet so I took advantage of his silence. "I'll give you time to decide. We meet in two hours," I said.

"Where?"

"Tell you nearer the time," I said, killing the connection. This was Wheelan's turf and I didn't want to give him time to prepare an ambush.

Wheelan hadn't argued though. I didn't know if that was a good or bad sign.

"You'll never get away with this, Hennessy," Mulhearn said.

"Have done so far," I said before pressing more duct tape over his mouth and eyes and tightening his wrists. He wriggled but there was nothing he could do.

Once again, I checked on Alexa and was pleased to see that the girl was breathing deeper now. I slapped her face, not so hard, and this time she stirred a little. I was glad about that as I didn't want to present Wheelan with a corpse. It would have made my night's work a whole lot more difficult. Not impossible, you understand, but more difficult than it needed to be.

The light bled out of the sky. If it wasn't for the cloud cover, I'd have had a great view of the constellations. The cars and lorries never stopped along the A153 making a stream of light. And the wind never stopped its flat dirge over the Fens.

It was getting colder but I didn't fancy sitting in the Cherokee with my two captives. So I wrapped my jacket tighter around my body and stood with my arms crossed but the searching fingers of the wind found every chink in my clothing making me shiver.

Actually, I was glad to be disturbed from my thoughts by a knocking on the glass behind me. Alexa was tapping the side of her head against the window. I opened the door. The girl wriggled away from me. I leaned in and carefully unpeeled the tape from her mouth. She still winced as the fine downy hairs on her upper lip were torn away. Alexa licked her lips but her tongue was dry and coated with white. I held the bottle to her mouth and the girl drank greedily, thirstily until I removed it.

"You all right, Alexa?" I asked, trying to put some compassion in my voice. Sure, I wanted Wheelan's daughter scared but not so terrified that she stopped being compliant. On the front seat, Mulhearn shifted position to face us. I don't know why as the man was still gagged and blindfolded.

Then I noticed tears leaking out from under her taped down eyelashes. I put my hand on her shoulder in a friendly manner. She recoiled from my touch.

"P.. p... please don't kill me, Hennessy. I'm s... so scared," Alexa cried.

That was a given.

"Listen, I'm not going to whack you, Alexa; nor you neither Mulhearn. Not if your Dad decides to be sensible and plays along. You think he'll do that?"

Alexa nodded furiously, trying to convince herself. Mulhearn grunted something but I ignored the man for the time being.

"If that's all," I said, about to tape the girl's mouth closed.

"Wait... no," Alexa blushed furiously, her cheeks almost matching her hair dye. I paused. "I really need a wee. Please, I can't last out." Her surly indifference all gone now.

I looked down at the girl sitting in the back seat so forlorn. She was no threat to me, especially not tied up.

"Okay, but be quick," I told her. Alexa swung her legs out of the Cherokee and I helped her stand. I looked both ways up and down the country lane but nothing was coming.

"If you're not going to untie me, you'll have to help me," Alexa murmured, her voice little more than a whisper lost in the unending whine of the wind. I was about to tell her to pee where she stood, pee in her pants and let it trickle down her legs but that wasn't fair on the girl. All the same, I felt like her nurse maid. Very carefully, not looking, I reached up under her skirt and pulled down her panties by the sides before holding her skirt away from her body as Alexa squatted by the Cherokee and did what she had to. Finished, Alexa stood to let me tug up her panties again.

"Thanks," she whispered before I closed off her mouth again. As I helped Alexa back into the Cherokee, Mulhearn made more muffled demands.

"I'm not doing the same for you, Mulhearn. Tie a knot in it," I told him. "Oh, you can't, can you? Never mind, we'll be finished soon."

Mulhearn groaned. Tough. Glancing at my watch, I reckoned I'd given Wheelan enough time. I made the call.

"Wheelan," he answered.

"Back of the Bass Maltings. Just you and Claire. No-one else. Got that?"

"Sure. Bass Maltings. Alexa had better be fine," Wheelan said.

"What do you think I'd do to your girl?"

Wheelan didn't reply to that. But I'd heard the eagerness in his voice as he confirmed the Bass Maltings venue. Which would be a big disappointment to Wheelan as the last place I wanted to meet him in the dark was Sleazeford's Bass Maltings.

For sheer scale, dwarfing the little town of Sleaford, you can't beat the Bass Maltings. It's like a modern day builder placing a Manhattan sky-scraper in the middle of Sleaford's town centre. Totally out of scale – and totally unsustainable. Which is why the Bass Maltings have been closed and left empty since the 1960s. I heard there's recently been talk of restoring the Maltings and converting them.

If you're not familiar with Sleazeford, the Bass Maltings are huge brewing malthouses that replaced all the other small breweries in the area. Sometime before the First World War, this was. There is a line of eight huge detached brick buildings together with a tower and chimney in the middle of them all. The total frontage is over three hundred yards. A really impressive slab of industrial architecture out in the middle of the pancake flat Lincolnshire countryside.

But, like I say, the place went bust in the 1960s and is filled with rusting, abandoned machinery, deeply recessed doorways and windows and there are too many places where a marksman with a sniper rifle and night scope could hide and take me down. So no way was I meeting Wheelan anywhere within rifle shot of the Bass Maltings.

I walked round to the driver's seat, did a three point turn and turned the Cherokee around. Back through Sleazeford. I saw some young man stagger across the road clutching a vodka bottle. He lobbed the empty at the Jeep Cherokee but it sailed past and shattered in the opposite gutter. The man then turned away and disappeared down a dark alley between two shops.

"Nice place you have here," I said to my passengers. "Friendly."

Once we had driven over the bridge past Sleaford's train station, I relaxed a little. Although I hadn't expected any trouble from Wheelan but I might have been eye-balled and followed as I drove through town. On the other side, I turned off London Road and onto Grantham Road, the B1517. The traffic was lighter now at this time of night.

"Almost there," I told my passengers to keep up their spirits. A few minutes later, we turned right up Castle Causeway and onto my intended destination all along. Where I could keep control of the handover and not Wheelan.

Sleaford Castle.

You might be wondering why I rejected the Bass Maltings but chose Sleaford Castle instead. If you're thinking Sleaford Castle is like one of those huge medieval castles built to keep the Welsh under control such as Caernarfon or Conwy or Harlech then you'd be making a mistake. Maybe