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

purple that clashed with the neon-yellow nail polish. She’d shoehorned herself into dark skinny jeans and an orange chunky-knit jumper, and her hair sat in a bun on her crown.

Inside, gagging for a coffee and a fag to steady her nerves, Brenda led her to the kitchen, turning on the light. She scrolled the blind up above the sink then flicked the kettle on, anxious because Cassie would be here soon, and while the element crackled and rumbled, Sharon taking a seat at the table, Brenda sent her boss a message: Sharon’s here.

Phone on the worktop farthest from her unwanted guest, Brenda got on with spooning instant coffee into two mugs—she couldn’t wait for her machine to filter, it took at least twenty minutes. She ought to clean really, the plates and whatnot from last night’s late dinner still sitting in the bowl ready for the dishwasher. She’d been too tired from looking after Sid Watson, one of her elderly marks, to bother loading it. “So, where’s the fire? It’s a bit early for this kind of malarky, isn’t it?”

Sharon sighed, picking at a fingernail, the tick, tick, tick of it loud. “Look, I’ve got to talk to someone. There’s stuff you don’t know about Karen…”

I know plenty, duck. “Oh right.” Feigning nonchalance came so easily. It had to when you worked for Cassie. A poker face was part of your armour, something she’d learnt while under Lenny’s rule. Never show your opponent what’s on your mind until you’re prepared to speak. He’d said that to her once, and she’d taken it on board.

Sharon stuffed the fingernail between her teeth and ripped it off.

“Don’t even think about spitting that on my floor, you dirty cow,” Brenda said. “The bin’s just there.” She nodded to the grey flip-top by the internal door.

Sharon got up and disposed of the result of her gnawing, returning to her seat with a weary thump. “She’s got some stupid scheme on the go, and I’m worried she’s gone and done it.”

“Done what?” Will she admit it?

“I know I said I needed to talk, but I can’t say.” Sharon studied the fruit bowl, maybe the already-going-brown bananas, a bunch that had Ripens Over Time on the bag.

Well, Brenda had only bought them two days ago, so that claim was a load of old bollocks. That was the thing with bananas. One minute they were green, and the next time you looked, they had bruises, the yellow stage a mystery.

She told herself off for letting her mind wander.

“I can’t grass on her,” Sharon reiterated.

Loyal to the last then. “Is that why you’re panicking, walloping her door at ten to six in the chuffing morning?” Brenda added sugar. “I mean, it’s enough to wake all the neighbours, and if Karen’s ‘scheme’ is meant to be kept quiet, you haven’t done a good job at making sure it stays that way.”

“I didn’t want fuck all to do with it, I said no when she asked me, I wasn’t going to be in on it, but she’ll do it anyroad. She’s obsessed, that one.”

“So because she hasn’t answered your texts or her door, you think something’s happened, is that it?” Brenda flinched at her phone going off.

She read the message from Cassie: Perfect.

What the fuck was going on?

“Yes.” Sharon got up and opened the long pale-pink curtains in front of the back door, staring out at the garden, the fir tree branches in Mrs Roderick’s border weighed down with snow, the bushes covered in a glaring white wig, an old lady’s perm. “I should get hold of Cassie. Should never have kept this to myself. But Karen’s my mate…”

Brenda sighed inwardly. Karen was supposedly her best mate, although Brenda had long since realised Karen only bothered with her when she wanted something. It didn’t sting as much as it should, and Brenda had got used to only being needed when it was convenient. She acknowledged there and then that she hadn’t been such a good friend herself. If she had, she’d have tried harder, gone to see Karen a bit more, but saying that, why should she when it was clear she wasn’t wanted in that way anymore?

Life, it changed things. It got busy, and there wasn’t enough time in the day to continue nurturing friendships. Neither of them were who they’d been when they’d first become pals.

“Do you get it, though?” Sharon’s breath turned to condensation on the glass in the door, and she drew a sad face on it. “It’s not like Karen is the same lately, is it. I mean, she barely comes to see you. Not being funny, but she uses you when I’m not available.”

“Shit happens.” Brenda poured water into the cups, thinking life didn’t change that much.

Here they were, still talking like they were in their teens, going against their friend, although Brenda hadn’t said owt bad. A trio of mates was never ideal. One always spoke about either of the others, then made out they didn’t when faced with the person they’d slagged off. It wasn’t Brenda’s style these days, she was way past that, but how unsettling that Sharon had gone down that route now, a regression of sorts. Why bring that up? Why tell Brenda something that could potentially hurt her? Was she jealous Karen was mates with Brenda?

“And, wicked as it sounds, I was relieved when she turned to you,” Sharon went on. “There’s only so much of Karen you can take, know what I mean? She’s got so arrogant as she’s aged. Or more arrogant.” Her cheeks flushed. “That sounded bad. But you must know what I’m saying. She can be a bit full-on, and recently, she’s been even more so. I can’t cope with her by myself—I don’t want to cope with her. I’m getting on in years and just want a bit of peace