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

"Which one?" I said, turning back to the receptionist who was following me. Her worried look had been replaced by scared. Good. Showed she was brighter than she looked at first sight.

"I... I..."

I pushed her against the first door. The flimsy panels shook and it echoed with a hollow sound.

"Which one?" I repeated, my face only centimetres from hers.

Her pretty face screwed up. Scared now upgraded to terror. "S... s... six," she stammered.

I pushed the girl away. She staggered back and one of her flatties fell off her feet. I walked down to door six. For a moment, I thought of a game show on the TV that I used to enjoy when the winning contestant had to choose which door to open. The doors all hid different prizes; some worth having like a holiday to Majorca but behind others were just a cheap Biro or something. There was only one prize I wanted today. The jackpot.

I turned the handle and pulled open the door. Claire McTeague was standing there naked except for a pair of white paper panties and a paper hat covering her hair. Their whiteness stood out bright against her tanned skin. Her arms were spread out wide as if she was making a semaphore signal whilst the beautician coated her underarms. The sweet, biscuity smell of the spray tan filled the air.

Immediately Claire squealed and flung an arm across her boobs. The woman needn't have bothered – she had a trim, almost boyish figure. I knew Claire had wanted a boob job but McTeague wouldn't allow her that. He preferred his women natural. The girl operating the spray turned to look at me open mouthed with astonishment. I stepped back to avoid the spray until her finger released the trigger.

"Oh, it's you, Hennessy. Should've expected you'd show up," Claire McTeague said, dropping her arm to her side.

For a moment we all stood there at the points of a triangle – Claire McTeague, the beautician and myself. Until I snatched down a fluffy white bathrobe that was hanging up behind the door and tossed it over to Claire McTeague.

"Get dressed and come with me," I said.

"But I haven't finished here – the spray's not dry yet," she said, not really grasping the situation.

In response I stepped forwards and pulled her forwards. My hand felt sticky from the spray still covering her skin.

"Okay, don't bother getting dressed. I don't care, you can come as you are." That grabbed the woman's attention. She jerked her arm out of my grasp and shrugged on the robe, belting it around her waist.

The tanning lady stared at us as I half led, half dragged Claire McTeague back down the corridor. Back out in the reception area, the manicurist and her client stared at us as we passed. This afternoon's action would give Ms. Elegant Hands something to talk about with her middle-class book club friends. However, the receptionist was speaking quietly on the phone. I crossed to her desk, took the receiver from her hand and set it down.

"Naughty, naughty, very naughty," I said. She flinched.

I pushed Claire McTeague out of the salon door and an instant later I'd unlocked my Audi.

"Who's keyed your car?" Claire McTeague asked with a little smile on her face. It's just as well I don't hold with hitting women or I'd have knocked that smirk right off her face.

"Get in," I contented myself with saying. As Claire swung into the passenger seat, being careful to keep her knees together, I ran round the front bonnet and dropped into the driver's seat. As I pulled away from the kerb I noticed the women in the Beauticians parlour all standing and peering out the window at us.

I hadn't arrived in Sleaford under the radar and I wasn't leaving under it neither.

Turning into the flow of traffic, my aim was to hit the A15 southbound and keep going until I'd brought Claire McTeague back home to my boss; her husband. After that, what happened was out of my hands.

The traffic was heavier than I expected along the B1517, known as Grantham Road within Sleaford, but a glance at the dashboard clock told me it was rush hour – or what passes for rush hour in a place like Sleaford. I thought Claire McTeague would cry or argue with me but instead she sat quietly with her hands in her lap just looking out the side window. At least she'd taken off that ridiculous paper cap.

I tuned into the local radio station, BBC Lincolnshire 104.7 FM, just for something, anything, to break the silence between us. All was going well until a beat up builder's van pulled out of a suburban side road, Ancaster Drive, ahead of me. The side panel said 'Hansen and Sons: All Property Renovations' above a cell phone number and untraceable hotmail e-mail address. The van driver stamped on his brakes causing me to pull up suddenly in an abrupt stop that made my seatbelt catch across my chest. Immediately, two men leaped out the back of the van.

At that point I recalled that Wheelan laundered some of his under the counter cash through property development. That and gambling, beauty parlours, restaurants. The usual stuff – any business where cash is king and you can start and close companies at a faster rate than the Inland Revenue or Customs and Excise can follow the paper trail.

Any fool could see what was going down and my mother raised no fools, I can tell you. Immediately I flung the gear stick into reverse. But one glance in the mirror showed there was no easy escape that way. I was blocked by a woman in a Slovakian registered Skoda Octavia. The woman beeped her horn at me. Trust me, madam, if I could get out this situation then I would.

Before I could engage central locking, both doors of the Audi were wrenched open at the same time letting in a chill draught. The two men were what you'd expect. They both had solid muscles built up by working on building sites. They wore paint spattered padded shirts, filthy jeans and rigger boots. One had on a hi-viz jacket, equally dirty. I smelled sweat, tobacco and clay earth.

The man by my door said, "out," as the second man leaned over Claire McTeague's body and unclipped my seat belt. The first then grabbed a fistful of my jacket and hauled me out of the Audi. He then pushed me out of his way towards the waiting van. I stumbled over the pavement unbalanced from the force of his shove. All this took less time to happen than for me to tell you about. They were that good. The man gave me a second push, harder than before, and I toppled into the van's cargo bay. I was out of my Audi and in the back of the van in under a few seconds flat.

The second man ran round the Audi's boot, between my car and the Slovakian Skoda, and dived into the driver's seat – still warm from my body. I saw this just as the first man stepped up to the back of the van and slammed the doors cutting off my view. A slick, almost professional job.

I wondered if the Slovakian woman would blow this incident in to the cops. It's not every day you see someone bundled out of their car and into the back of a van. I thought it depended on how good her English was.

As soon as the rear doors slammed shut the van driver dropped the handbrake and shot forwards. I sat up on the cargo area's floor. My suit was ruined now from the mud and cement dust on the floor of the van. But all the same, I brushed some of the worst off with my hands.

"Think about it. You're making a big mistake here, Riordan," I called forward through a small hatch into the driver's cabin. "You're going to seriously annoy McTeague. You sure that's what you want to do?"

"Shut up, Hennessy," Riordan said.

"That goes for you, too," I called up to the driver. I didn't know his name.

Riordan made a fist. So I shut up.

The van turned around in the next road we came to, and then headed back east to the centre of Sleaford. The traffic was even heavier now but as the van swung around I saw my Audi still following us. We carried on through the town centre past the still open shops. I knew where we were going. Wheelan's crib. No surprises there.

I felt the change beneath me as the van's tyres rumbled over Wheelan's brick driveway but the driver didn't pull up in front of the house. Instead, we drove past the side of the mock Tudor where there was a range of brick outbuildings. The van stopped.

Riordan told me to get out. It was good to jump down from that cluttered, stinking van but my immediate future didn't look much better at this point. No point my shouting as Wheelan's house was a fair way from any neighbours and surrounded by thick tree-lined hedges. I looked around at the businessman's extensive gardens. There were some children's toys out on the lawns.

"In there," Riordan said, pointing to a shed that looked like it had doubled as an old wartime air-raid shelter in its time.

I stepped into its dank, gloomy interior. The shed was empty of anything useful. There were a couple of children's bicycles with pink tassels dangling from the handlebars leaning against the wall next to a skateboard. A deflated paddling pool, half filled with enough footballs to supply the Premier League. There was a broken basketball hoop and a folded up table tennis table. Like I say, nothing obviously useful like a baseball bat so unless I wanted to play some sports whilst I waited I was stuffed.

Riordan shut the door behind me and I heard the key turn as he padlocked it. The only light came from an arrow-slit window far too narrow for me to climb out of. I set up the skateboard and sat down on it and waited as the light outside faded to night.

I waited. I was good at waiting.

Later, when I was cold and hungry, I heard footsteps and then the key inserted in the padlock. By the time the door creaked open on rusted hinges I was standing on the balls of my feet and waiting for them.

Riordan stepped back from the door and Wheelan took his place. But he didn't enter the brick shed. Very wise.

Security lights on the side and rear of his house lit the scene with a harsh, brilliant glare that made the shadows even deeper and darker. I must have been standing in pitch blackness to Wheelan.

The so-called businessman wore a navy polo shirt with some logo on the breast pocket and khaki chinos. Wheelan was tall – six two, something like that – and his arms had gym honed muscles. Although only in his early to mid thirties, he was already balding so he'd taken to shaving all his head. In my opinion this was a mistake as it made his ears appear to stick out further from his head than they did.

Behind Wheelan was Riordan and the other man from the man. The one who'd driven my Audi. Wheelan glanced back to his two thugs.

"Let's send a message back to McTeague. But I want Hennessy's message to reach my old boss – not the hospital or the morgue. You with me?" he said to them.

Riordan cracked his knuckles. At that point I heard Claire McTeague call out from the big house. Wheelan turned away and crossed the patio area back to the kitchen.

Riordan cracked his knuckles again, waiting for his boss to leave.

"I don't like hittin'...," Riordan said, pushing forward. That was all he managed to say before I kicked him square in the balls. Hard and faster than a striking rattlesnake. Riordan gasped and bent forward, the stuffing knocked out of