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

and quiet, to leave my day job at the supermarket and edit The Life. I swear, if I could tell you what she’s up to, I would, but if she pulls it off, I need to be on her good side.”

Because you think she’ll be running the patch.

Brenda added milk and stirred, using the time to think about what to say. She wouldn’t go against Cassie, and that last text told her the boss had something she wanted to say to Sharon if she thought it was perfect the woman was here. “I don’t need to know all the ins and outs—like you, I don’t want to get involved with stuff if I can help it. I’ve got enough guilt trips of my own to deal with. Here, get this down you.” She pushed a coffee across the worktop. “And let’s not act like we’re kids, talking about Karen in that way when she isn’t here. I don’t like it, never did; I only went along with it years ago because of some misguided idea that if I didn’t, I wouldn’t have friends. I’ve since realised I don’t need them.”

Brenda lit a fag and inhaled deeply. That was better.

The doorbell trilled, and her stomach rolled over. Here we go.

“That might be Karen.” Sharon darted as if to rush from the room.

“It isn’t. Stay put or sit back down.” Brenda stuffed the work burner in her pocket so Sharon wasn’t tempted to peek, left the room, closed the door, and hurried along the dark hallway, puffing on her ciggie. She flung the door open, automatically glancing up and down for nosy neighbours, and ushered Cassie inside.

Door shut, Cassie stamped snow from her boots onto the mat.

Brenda launched into the latest information, whispering, “Sharon’s been trying to get hold of Karen—texting and banging on her door. She’s guffing on about Karen being up to something and that she should have told you. We both know what that means.”

Dark shadows sat beneath Cassie’s eyes, evident by the light coming in from the lamp outside. “Makes sense she’d do that. It’s why I’m here. About Karen. I can tell you both at the same time. Saves me having to repeat myself, doesn’t it. In the kitchen, is she?”

Brenda nodded and followed Cassie into the room, taking another huge puff of her fag, her nerves strung to their limit. Sharon’s eyes widened at the sight of the patch leader, and she staggered to the side, coffee in hand sloshing, and plonked down onto her chair.

“Morning. You look a bit peaky,” Cassie said. “Like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Brenda held back a chuckle at that. Sharon clearly hadn’t expected Cassie to appear. Brenda would bet she’d entertained ideas of Cassie being killed overnight, so to see her now… Well, she would seem like a ghost.

“I-I-I… Oh, fucking hell.” Sharon burst into tears.

Cassie stared at Brenda who shrugged and turned to the kettle again. Cassie sat opposite Sharon while Brenda made another coffee, and the tension in the air was so thick she swore she could touch it, hold it in her shaking hand. Silence ruled the time it took for her to finish the drink and take it to Cassie, then she collected her own and sat at the head of the table, leaning across to the worktop to pick up her cigarettes, and a lighter, the one with Paris written on the side and a picture of the Eiffel Tower, something she’d stolen from Sid last week. She had a habit of nicking things, even though she could afford them herself, and had been arrested for it once in her younger days.

“Right, I’ll come straight out with it.” Cassie glared at Sharon. “Karen’s gone and got herself disappeared.”

The shock on Sharon’s face spread her features out with her watery eyes going massive and her mouth hanging open. The crows’ feet bunched, a tear anchored in one, and her chin turned into a double. “W-what?”

“I’m warning you, don’t play coy with me, Sharon. I didn’t get to bed last night and I’m in no mood to play games.” Cassie blew her coffee then sipped.

“I told her it wasn’t right.” Sharon wiped the tears from her cheeks, the nail with the missing tip standing out amongst the longer ones. Again with the neon-yellow polish. “I said I wanted nowt to do with it.”

“But you didn’t tell me.” Cassie doodled on the tabletop with the pad of her thumb, and the action seemed portentous, the calm before a violent storm that would blow Brenda’s kitchen up something chronic. “You didn’t feel it was necessary to warn me that your best pal was going to kill me and my mam. Me, I can deal with that, but Mam? No fucking way. No one threatens her.”

“She’s off her rocker, obsessed with taking over,” Sharon babbled. “Karen, I mean, not Francis. I’d never say owt mean about Francis.”

Brenda doubted that, she’d been there when Sharon had badmouthed her in the past, but whatever. She gulped some coffee and burnt her tongue and the roof of her mouth. Christ, today was getting mankier by the second. The icing on the cake would be Sid dying when he hadn’t withdrawn the money, something she got all of her victims to do, which she handed over for Cassie to launder, then received a percentage.

Sharon burbled on. “I told Karen it was stupid, that we’re too old to be gallivanting around the estate now, issuing orders, but she was convinced she was owed the patch. Like, it was ours before Lenny came along and stole it. She’s never been happy about that. Me? I was glad we didn’t have to be bullies anymore. I never did like it. Editing The Life and listening out for trouble suits me, and that’s all I want to do.”

Cassie’s stare gave Brenda the willies.

Shit, will she