The Piggy Farmer (The Barrington Patch Book 3), Emmy Ellis [electric book reader txt] 📗

still dead to the world, and anyroad, Lou would use that excuse of going for a drive, insomnia sending her out into the white night. However, if he had woken up, Cassie wasn’t in the right frame of mind for any questions being aired while she was there. Lou would have to deal with them by herself behind closed doors. Yes, Cassie and Mam were helping her to become The Piggy Farmer, but that didn’t mean they had to do so with every aspect.

No, Lou had to cover her own arse with her husband. Cassie would only step in if it was absolutely necessary, if it had the potential to bring hassle to her or Mam.

“I’m so knackered,” she whispered, her eyes gritty, bones weary. Her bed was calling, but she wasn’t likely to see it much before five a.m. at this rate. She might not even bother going to bed at all.

Mam chuckled. “It gets you like that, killing. I remember how I used to feel as though I’d been run over once the adrenaline wore off. A murder hangover.”

Cassie held her breath for a moment so she didn’t respond like a spoilt brat—Mam being involved in murder wasn’t something she’d known about until the last few hours, but they’d discussed it, and there wasn’t any sense in bringing it up again. The past was the past, and Cassie had more than enough in the now to deal with without raking up old stories and kept secrets, no matter how much it rankled.

She ploughed on with the news she hadn’t told Mam yet, what with Lou being at their house earlier, Bob’s death interrupting the flow. “Jason’s in the squat, pinned to the floor by a long nail. I used my weapon on him. He doesn’t have any eyelids.” It was so awful said out loud, and she was well aware of how detached she sounded. A coping mechanism?

Mam’s laugh was ominous and had a creepy cadence to it, like she relished the image that had probably perked up in her head, Jason unable to move, blood everywhere, his smug face wrecked. “No more than he deserves—he knows what you’re like and was stupid to think he’d be immune to any punishment. That’s his ego again, that is. So, you properly cottoned on in the end then, agreed with me. I knew he was dodgy. Didn’t I say he was right from the night your father died? I told you I wanted it on record how I felt.”

Cassie kept her voice low. “All right, no need to rub it in.” She pushed on so that train of conversation didn’t continue. “Jimmy recorded him in The Donny for me. Jason was definitely trying to take over the patch.”

“What a sly little bastard. What are your plans for him?” Mam’s cloud of breath floated past the open back door. “You know what I’d opt for.”

Cassie hugged herself for warmth. “Well, he can’t live, can he. Not after this.”

“Exactly my thought.”

Footsteps prevented them from discussing it further. Joe appeared, his cheek red from being pressed to a pillow. He’d dressed hastily by the look of him, his shirt done up wonky, the collar sitting wrong, higher on one side than the other, his canvas-type trousers open at the button. He fixed that and came towards them, socked feet whispering on the lino then deadening as he stepped onto the bristly mat.

“Another one?” He shook his head. “I don’t even want to know.”

“No, you don’t.” Cassie smiled. “So, shall we get on with it then?”

“I’ll need to get my wellies on.”

Joe ambled to the right of the mudroom, scratching the back of his head, and Lou came outside, her blanket wrapped even tighter around her.

Cassie wondered why Lou had insisted on waking him. Perhaps it was to secure her alibi in his eyes, her earlier mention coming into play of him not needing to know her secrets, that she’d been outside while he’d slept on, oblivious. Or maybe he’d said he should be present every time the pigs got an extra feed. Or Lou, although hiding the fact she’d killed a copper from him, and God knew who else, didn’t like to lie to him by letting Cassie and Mam into the barn without his knowledge. It was, after all, his farm. Whatever, the sooner they dumped Bob’s remains the better. Mam would return to the factory to wash out the plastic tub—she’d brought her own car—and Cassie had to nip to the squat to burn Bob’s clothes.

It didn’t take long to dispose of Mr Plod, the pigs gorging on the clumps of flesh, and afterwards, Lou disappeared into the farmhouse, Joe remaining on the doorstep.

“Fair warning, I’ll be bringing Jason here at some point.” Cassie stamped her feet to chase the chill off. “Might be tomorrow night, might be the one after, depending on how long I want to string things out. There’s shit I need him to admit first.”

“Jason?” His eyebrows arched.

“Yes.”

“Right. I don’t have to say I’ll be keeping that to myself.”

“I know, Joe. Thanks, and sorry for getting you up again.”

They left him, Mam driving towards the factory, Cassie going the other way. Out of curiosity, she sailed past the squat to the location of the previously burning car, satisfied her cleaners had come and gone, even going so far as to rake snow over the melted patch where the heat had got to it. No one would know owt had ever happened, what with more snow falling, fat flakes that settled on her hair.

She brushed them off and got back in the car, threw Bob’s phone battery into the bushes on the way, and arrived at the squat inside a couple of minutes. She messaged Jimmy to warn him she was there—so he didn’t shit himself or whatever—and studied the house to ensure no