Sleaford Noir 1 - Morris Kenyon (classic books to read .txt) 📗

him. Just the opening I was looking for. I karate chopped him straight in the throat, smashing his voice-box against his spine. His hands didn't know what to do – go for his crushed testicles or his neck. Ultimately, that was his problem to work out and deal with. Not mine. Riordan collapsed on the floor making strange, strangulated sounds.

Only one man at a time could enter the shed. The other stepped over Riordan's twitching body, his fist drawn back ready to pulverise me. Some men never learn. I grabbed his arm, drawing him deeper into the darkened interior. He swung wildly but had no real idea where I was. Using his extended arm, I slammed him into the brick wall. I pounded a quick one-two into his kidneys before the man pushed away.

He started to turn as I knew he must. I hooked a leg around his calf, pushed my hip into his; twisted and turned and the man staggered and almost fell. I must admit I had a little luck at this point. But you use what fate hands out. As he stumbled forwards, he trod on the skateboard, lost his balance and fell forwards. I pushed him down, helping him on his way until gravity took over and he fell. I heard a crash as he hit the concrete floor. I picked up the folded table tennis table and smashed it down on the man's head. I heard a sickening crunch. A second blow finished the job.

I couldn't see my watch in the dark but if the fight had lasted more than fifteen seconds I was losing my touch.

Feeling glad to leave the shed, I stepped out into the night air. The padlock was still dangling from its hasp so I locked them in and threw the key as far as I could into the bushes. I didn't see it fall.

Keeping to the pitch black shadows, I jogged around the side of the house. I heard Wheelan gobbing off to someone on the phone. My Audi was still out on the driveway, near the double garage. Its keys were still in the ignition. I suppose Wheelan's aim was to leave me just capable of driving back to McTeague's. With my face messed up, minus most of my teeth, a broken nose, cracked ribs and pissing blood from my kidneys for the next week or so.

That was the message Wheelan wanted to send – that nobody messes with him.

Not wanting the hood to know I'd gone, I didn't switch on the Audi's lights until I had driven out of Wheelan's and was back on the road. What had just happened made me think. Wheelan must be feeling supremely confident if he thought he could take McTeague's woman for his own and give me a beating. Confidence racing over the dial towards arrogance.

Like I say, I was still hungry so I drove out of Sleaford until I saw the golden arches above a drive-thru shining bright in the Lincolnshire darkness. I say I gave my order to the Pole working the window but the guy might have been a Lithuanian for all I know. He spoke as much English as I speak Polish. Or Lithuanian.

Eventually, I collected my food, drove round the back of the restaurant out of sight of the road. Behind the parking lot, the flat empty Lincolnshire fields stretched all the way to the North Sea. The wind blew against the side of my car but inside I felt all warm and secure inside like I was snug in a cocoon. The burgers filled my Audi with savoury aromas increasing my hunger ten-fold. Hungry like a wolf, I tore the paper bags open and ate. The hot, greasy food hit the spot. As I was on my own I belched long and loud after I finished. I smiled to myself. You can't do that in polite company.

After eating, I wadded the paper and polystyrene and tossed the bundle in the trash on my way over to the rest rooms. There I washed my face and brushed down my dirty suit under the driers and tried to make myself look presentable at least. Someone who followed me in with their toddler in tow looked at me strangely as I tidied myself up. They were glad when I'd finished, I think. If it wasn't for the quality of my suit I must have looked like someone with mental health issues to them.

Next to the drive-thru was a 24 hour garage with a mini-mart attached. With what I was going to make happen later tonight; there was no way I wanted my face appearing on any CCTV cameras. So I slipped my oversize grey hooded chain store sweatshirt over my jacket before driving across to the garage and filling up my Audi's tank. It covered my face nicely. No way could anyone I.D. me now.

After replacing the black nozzle I walked into the mini-mart to pay. At this hour, there wasn't much happening but I sort of guessed I could walk in at any hour and there wouldn't be much happening. I strolled along the aisles and picked up a few things from off the shelves I'd need later tonight.

Like you, I think it's amazing that these places stock so much booze. Haven't people heard there's laws against drinking and driving? All the same I bought half a dozen bottles of cheap white wine – the sort of stuff only one step above the industrial cider the park bench alkies drink – a box of super absorbent extra large Tampax tampons, mints and a lighter. The woman behind the glassed in counter gave me a funny, sympathetic look as she bagged them all up.

Reaching into my pocket, I paid using a credit card that had been cloned from one of Wheelan's, of course. It seemed appropriate in a way – making Wheelan pay for the devastation coming his way. After all, he should never have taken Claire McTeague. He must have known what would come his way.

Yeah, I know what you're thinking. What about my vehicle numberplates? They'd be recorded by the CCTV cameras. Except they were cloned plates, of course. After the ordure hit the air conditioning unit, some poor Audi driving woman in Sutton Coldfield; a pillar of the community no doubt – have you noticed they always are? – was going to lose a few hours of her life being sweated in some basement police cell until the cops established her innocence. She'd probably look back on the experience as the high spot of her year. It would give her something to talk about at her no doubt mind numbing dinner parties. Makes a change from talking about house prices, stable fees or her kids' private schools.

I drove back to the diner's car park and stopped furthest away from the glassed-in building. One of the security lights was out and that part of the tarmac expanse was almost as dark as the field on the other side of the wire fence. Getting out, I noticed the wind had got up and blew in a flat whine over the field and it cut though my clothes.

Crossing to the nearest drain, I poured away the cheap plonk. You didn't think I'd drink it, did you? I then unlocked the gas tank before pushing a length of plastic tubing into the tank. Grimacing with disgust at the foul taste and stink as I sucked petrol into my mouth, I then siphoned off enough gasoline to fill the six bottles. I then stuck the tampons into the bottles' necks. They make great wicks. It took most of the tube of mints to mask the petrochemical taste filling my mouth.

Then I carefully put my Molotovs in the passenger footwell and covered them from view. Not that anyone was likely to see them in the darkness in the middle of nowhere.

Once again, I used the rest rooms in the diner. One of the Polish or Lithuanian girls recognised me as I left and gave me a look as we passed but really, what interest is someone lucky to scrape by on the minimum wage and doesn't speak the language too well expected to take? Why should they care if someone uses their boss's nearly empty parking lot to crash out for a few hours during the night? I nodded to the girl as she entered the Ladies in turn.

Back in my Audi I set my cell phone's alarm, pushed the seat all the way down, wrapped myself up in my hoodie and fell into a thin doze for a few hours.

 

CHAPTER 3.

 

You're never properly asleep and I was awake, although unmoving, at least ten minutes before my BlackBerry's alarm shrilled into life. I stretched and rubbed my chin. At least I didn't have to shave. I rolled out of the diner's parking lot at three a.m. precisely. About the quietest time of the night. I turned the Audi's front towards Sleaford and a few minutes later I was driving through its deserted streets.

I'm from the city myself and I can't take these sleepy little towns where nothing happens from one year to another. It would drive me crazy. What was going to happen tonight would make the headlines. Give them all something to talk about how the world was going to hell in a hand-cart.

Maybe that's true, maybe the world has sold its soul for money, but Wheelan was about to find out a little about hell.

The other side of Sleaford, on East Road, I pulled up opposite a complex of mid-sized industrial units. You've seen the sort of thing – they've sprung up all over the country like mushrooms over the last few decades. Several huge metal hangars clustered together all spray coated a sort of greyish green. Maybe whoever built it thinks that will help the estate blend into the countryside. Or maybe they just don't care and greyish green is the cheapest option. Nothing to me either way.

One of these sheds was Wheelan's. The units were fenced off from the road with a sliding electric gate at the front controlling the access road. Next to the gate stood a little fibreglass security hut. I closed my Audi's door as quietly as possible and crossed the road. Inside the hut, a radio tuned to BBC Radio 2 finished playing a song from the 1980s I hadn't heard since the 1980s and then the distinctive voice of Alex Lester himself came on.

The guard was tipped back in his chair, his feet up on the desk and with his arms folded over his chest. I tapped on the glass. The guard jerked awake, his feet dropping to the floor. He blinked and then peered at me, his eyes taking a moment to focus.

"Help you?" he muttered, thickly as I held up a large padded envelope.

The guard slid his glass window panel to one side and leaned out into the night air. He blinked again in the chill.

I took my Beretta 92 from out the envelope and showed him the gun. That grabbed his attention.

"Unless your hut's bullet proof; open up," I said.

The guard blinked and thought. Not easy when you've only just woken from sleep and someone's threatening your life.

"Hurry," I said, tightening my finger on the trigger.

The guard pressed a red button on his desk and the electronic gate slid along its grooves. I walked past and opened the security hut's door. The interior was cluttered with a bank of CCTV monitors attached to obsolete looking computer terminals. Next to them stood his Tupperware lunch-box, Thermos and radio. Alex Lester's voice was going on about his cross-dressing truckers.

"Doesn't anyone ever clean this place? It's filthy," I said to him. The guard backed away into a corner. Pointing to his swivel chair I told him to sit. He did so.

From my pocket I took a roll of duct tape and ripped off a length. This was the dangerous part, when I was up close and personal with the guard. He might take it into his head to fight back and