Sleaford Noir 1 Read online

CHAPTER 6.

   

  My BlackBerry rang as I approached the outer suburbs of Sleaford. I pulled the phone from my pocket but I didn't recognise the number so I let the phone ring and ring until the caller gave up. I was on the Holdingham roundabout when my phone rang again. This time I took the call. I recognised the voice of Wheelan's friend and, in police terms, 'associate'.

  A man called Mulhearn. I think he was some distant relation of Wheelan – a second cousin or something like that. Whatever, the two men had grown up together on the same estate; been friends since primary school, and whilst Wheelan had worked for McTeague, the old boss had never taken on Mulhearn.

  Not that Mulhearn wasn't capable enough. Okay, through Wheelan, McTeague had thrown Mulhearn a few bones from time to time, a few scraps from his table, made use of his talents, but the man was – well, flaky. He didn't use violence strictly as a means to achieve an end but used it for its own sake. He got off on violence way too much. Mulhearn was trouble with a great big capital T; a man who got you noticed – and not in a good way.

  "Mulhearn. Good to hear from you," I said. For a second, I wondered if Wheelan had authorised this call, but on reflection I realised he must have. Although I wondered why Wheelan hadn't called me direct. Probably he was showing me he was far too important these days. Above my level. If that was the case Wheelan would soon find out he wasn't. I'd bring him down to earth in a hurry.

  "You've been a bit lively, Hennessy," Mulhearn said.

  "Me?" acting the innocent. "Don't know what you're talking about."

  "Don't hand me that, Hennessy. We know you've been making things rather 'hot' in Sleaford."

  I didn't need to say anything. I let the silence spin out between us. It was Mulhearn paying for the call after all. Eventually, Mulhearn spoke.

  "We need to meet, Hennessy. Get this SNAFU sorted. The King's Arms Hotel, twelve hundred hours. Okay with you?" Mulhearn said. I remembered Mulhearn had been the army and still liked to salt his talk with military slang.

  You'd think a man with his record would have tried to put his army past behind him. He drew a dishonourable discharge after some business when he and some others in his unit went too far interrogating a bunch of Afghan prisoners of war. I heard that at the time, the army simply wanted to brush their misdeeds under the carpet before news hungry journos found out. The way the war was going, it would have been too politically embarrassing if that story ever leaked out when we were supposed to be winning the Afghans' 'hearts and minds'.

  Which was an impossible task anyway.

  So the court martial concentrated on his 'misappropriation of medical supplies' instead. Basically Mulhearn, and others, were stealing as many medicines and drugs and selling them on via a camp orderly to the Afghans. It's not like Mulhearn and his squad were the only ones at it.

  Way I heard it, the biggest quartermaster for the insurgency in the area was the British army. Body armour, night scopes, boots, rations, you name it; equipment flowed out of the camp gates. Some of it in the same boxes it had been delivered in earlier that day. If our squaddies could've sold the Afghans a Challenger 2 tank, then they would have. But Mulhearn was caught out, drew a year at the Colchester glasshouse and then made his way back north to team up with his old mate, Wheelan. Inevitably, a harder and more dangerous man after leaving the army than he'd been when he'd signed up as a rookie.

  However, as far as I was concerned it was a 'Situation Normal, All Fouled Up' scenario. After my quick snatch from the Beauticians had failed, I knew I'd have to up the ante.

  "Only thing to talk about is Claire McTeague. Make sure you bring her along with you," I said.

  "That's not going to happen, Hennessy. But we need to rendezvous – maybe come to some alternative arrangements."

  I agreed even though I knew that the only way this was going to finish was with Claire McTeague back where she belonged – at McTeague's side for as long as he wanted her.

  Checking my watch, I had a few hours to kill before the meet so I drove to the massive Tesco Extra supermarket over on Northgate. I went along Boston Road, looped around Old Place and slowly drove past McTeague's house. The gates were shut tight closed so I saw no sign of my fire-bombing.

  So I turned around, picked up speed and a few minutes later I was parking outside the Tesco Extra. The car park was a wide windswept expanse of grey asphalt stretching out to the horizon under the grey sky. I parked as far as possible from the store – and the gang of Poles offering to wash your car for a fiver or valet it for fifteen.

  Inside the store the smell of fresh baked bread filled my nose. After what I'd eaten in Bostongrad, the smell made my stomach roll slowly inside. Breathing shallowly, I picked up some toiletries, underwear and looked along the racks until I found another grey suit that fitted. It wasn't designer or anything but it still looked way better than the crumpled, soiled outfit I was still wearing. Once again, I paid using Wheelan's cloned credit card.

  "Clubcard?" the smiling blonde girl behind the till asked with an accent that came from way east of the Oder river.

  I shook my head. McTeague hadn't bothered cloning Wheelan's Tesco clubcard.

  "Where's the toilets?" I asked the girl. Still with a smile on her face, she pointed me in the right direction. The store was so big I only got lost once before I found them. Another woman from some village on the Baltic Sea was mopping the tiled floor. A yellow cart surrounded by yellow 'wet floor' signs filled the space.

  "Later," I told her, holding open the door.

  "No – is my schedule. I clean now," she said, gripping the mop a little tighter.

  I took a fiver from my pocket and held it out to the woman. She looked at the note like it might bite her. Until I showed her a couple of its sisters as well. She looked up at me and then snatched the notes from my hand.

  "I clean other toilets first," she said.

  "Take your time – twenty minutes," I told her as she left. I took an 'out of order' sign from her trolley and propped it outside the toilet door. Hopefully, I'd be left alone as I didn't want to be disturbed. The cubicles were all immaculate and smelled of pine disinfectant. They didn't really need cleaning but I approved of the woman's attention to detail.

  After I'd finished in the cubicle, I had a strip wash, sprayed on deodorant and then changed into my new underwear and suit, hopping on one leg as I did so before bundling the old clothes into the carrier bag. I brushed my hair. Yes, I looked the part now. More businesslike. I opened the toilet door to see the cleaner mopping the corridor. I nodded to the woman as I passed.

  "Was a queue but I send away," she said to me.

  "Thanks," I said.

  It had started to rain as I left the supermarket. One of those fine drizzles that gets into your clothes and soaks you before you know it. I didn't want to take my Audi to the meet with Mulhearn at The King's Arms so I strolled along the covered walkway outside the superstore and took the first cab on the stand.

  The driver, an overweight man wearing grey sweat pants and purple fleece; a man who looked beaten down by life, switched on his meter, flicked on his wipers and drove out of the expanse of parking lot and made a right onto Northgate.

  Immediately, he launched into a diatribe about all the eastern Europeans coming over here, taking all the jobs, their private hires keeping all the fares down, how you can't make a living any more before moving on to how much they drink, that decent local women can't walk about in safety no more... I grunted in the right places and was glad it was only a short journey into the centre of Sleaford. At least the cabbie hadn't got time to tell me how he would 'pull the lever myself' or how he would deal with all nonces except all the politicians are...

  Stepping out in front of The King's Arms Hotel, I told the cabbie to keep the change. I thought about suggesting he use it to buy a copy of The Guardian newspaper to get a different slant on life but somehow I didn't think he'd appreciate my suggestion.

  Looking up, I saw the King's Arms was, perhaps inevi
tably, a mock Jacobean building with exposed black painted beams. The upper floors were larger than the lower giving the whole a top heavy appearance. An ornate, if faded, heraldic royal coat of arms hung from the inn sign. The hotel's windows were all leaded with small diamond panes surrounding stained glass coats of arms. Warm light shone out, breaking up from the myriad tiny panes.

  I ran in out of the rain, pushing through the heavily studded oak doors. My footsteps died away on the dark red, deep pile carpets inside the lobby. Bypassing a rack of tourist leaflets I walked over to the lounge on the left past the reception desk. A quick glance at my watch showed I was still early. I found a corner seat but made sure it was near to a side door.

  The lounge was done up with heavy, baronial furnishings to match the Jacobean exterior. As soon as I sat down, a skinny, pale blonde girl wearing a white blouse and burgundy skirt came over. Her gilt coloured name badge told me she was called Morela. With barely a trace of an accent, Morela asked me if I wanted something to eat or drink.

  Although I was still full from my breakfast in Bostongrad, I ordered a plate of sandwiches and coffee. The lounge was mostly empty except for a few couples having a break from shopping. They were well dressed, elderly, the men wearing tweed jackets and cavalry twill trousers, the women favouring knitted navy twin sets. Relics from a bygone age. I wondered if I'd see my friend from the gastropub yesterday. My coffee and sandwiches arrived and I settled back to wait for Mulhearn. I yawned once...

  Mulhearn stood in front of my table. My coffee had gone cold with a milky skin on its surface. I sat up straighter and blinked the sleep from my eyes.

  "Very lax. Could have killed you there, Hennessy. Should have done," Mulhearn said.

  I looked up at Mulhearn. The man was of only average height – five eight or thereabouts, but powerfully built. He had a broad, ugly face deeply tanned as if he'd only just come back from a tour of some middle eastern hell-hole. However, the tan must have come from the electric beach as Mulhearn had been out of the army for a few years now. He wore a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to show off regimental and other tattoos.

  "Trying to kill me would be the worst and last mistake of your life," I said, pushing a chair away from the table with my foot. Mulhearn sat and I called Morela back over and ordered two more filter coffees. I felt fresher, more alert after my cat-nap.

  "Wheelan's angry with you," Mulhearn said as soon as Morela was out of earshot.

  "Hurt him, have I?"

  "No," said Mulhearn but his eyes told a different story. I doubted if the actual fire-bombings had damaged his empire much but when news of what I'd done inevitably reached back up the food chain it would make Wheelan look weak to the big-shots of Nottingham and Birmingham. The real big-shots would sit back and wait to see whether this upstart Wheelan could stick or fold.

  "Then I'll have to do something that will hurt. Twist the knife a little. Maybe I'll take a trip to Rotterdam and go after Wheelan's Dutch contacts. He's still dealing with that ex-Provo, Finnigan, isn't he? Let them know they're only hurting because Wheelan won't give up McTeague's woman."

  Mulhearn lifted his coffee cup. "That might be too hard an ask even of you, Hennessy. Finnigan's protected by the Romanian now."

  I nodded. The Romanian was one bad man and I didn't think even McTeague would want me to go up against him merely for the sake of getting his runaway second wife back.

  I looked Mulhearn straight in the eye. They were muddy as if his tan had leaked into the whites of his eyes.

  "Then I have no choice. I'll have to bring down Wheelan – and anyone working with him will be so much collateral damage. I can do it, too. Remember what happened to the Kirkham brothers of Hull?"

  Mulhearn did. Everyone in our line of work knew what happened to the late Kirkham brothers. The extremely late brothers. One died slowly. The other lingered for days. Apart from a missing persons report in the local rag, the story never made the papers.

  "It doesn't have to be like that, Hennessy," Mulhearn said. "Wheelan's prepared to cut a deal, you know."

  "Go ahead."

  "He's built his business up more than McTeague ever did. And Wheelan's opened up some new lines of work. Lines." Mulhearn leaned forward over the table, pressed one nostril closed with his finger and mimed snorting up a couple of lines of coke. That was one of the Romanian's specialities after all. Looking up, I saw Morela and another waitress glance our way. I smiled at them to show there was nothing silly going on.

  "Cut it out. What's Wheelan offering?"

  Mulhearn's answer was too quick. "Fifteen per cent. Of everything. Even the new business. Even the lines."

  I laughed. This wasn't an insult. It was a joke. Wheelan must have a sense of humour after all.

  Even Mulhearn looked ashamed. "Twenty per cent, then."

  Now we were edging into the realm of insult.

  "And what about Claire McTeague herself?"

  "She stays. Wheelan's not giving her up. And she doesn't want to go back to your boss anyway. They're getting divorced."

  As if Claire McTeague's wants had anything to do with the situation.

  I shook my head. "No. Claire McTeague's non-negotiable. She's going home..."

  "Whether she likes it or not?"

  "That's right. She's going home. If McTeague chooses later to give her up – maybe even let her shack up with Wheelan – then that's his decision. Certainly not Claire's or Wheelan's."

  "I'm surprised at you saying that, Hennessy. I thought you of all people would have more sympathy with Claire," Mulhearn said.

  I shook my head. "No. Claire knew full well what she was getting into when she married McTeague. She can't change the rules of the game now." I looked Mulhearn full in the face again, getting the full attention of Wheelan's lieutenant. Making sure the man fully understood what I was saying. "And neither can Wheelan."

  "And neither can you or me, Hennessy."

  "True. We're just pawns, Mulhearn. Pawns with teeth and claws but that's all we are at the end of the day."

  "So there's no way you'll go without taking Claire with you?"

  I thought I'd already made that crystal clear but I shook my head. "No."

  Mulhearn thought for a moment and took out his Nokia. "I need to touch base with Wheelan. Give me a moment?"

  I nodded and stood to give him privacy.