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

by the allotment for some serenity away from a wife who’d badgered him throughout his career about not being at home much, not being a ‘present father or husband’, and she still did it now, harping on and on. He’d told her once that she’d known what she’d signed up for when she’d married a copper, but clearly, she hadn’t realised the truth of that at first.

Melinda’s ranting pushed him to escape her, when all along, his retirement was supposed to be about them reconnecting, making up for the lost time he’d spent on case after case. He’d pledged that promise to her years ago to stop her from leaving him—“I swear, if you don’t give us some attention, we’re going, Robin, do you understand?”—but he’d inevitably broken it.

Or maybe she’d forced him to with her constant jibes.

This morning, never one to not make a point when she could, she’d said, “You spend just as much time away from me now as you did before you left your job. What are you doing at that bloody allotment, because it certainly isn’t growing owt at the moment bar a few fucking runner beans? Got a fancy piece on the go, have you?”

Like he would. Melinda would have his guts for garters if she found out—and she would, her friends were gossips—and besides, his downstairs equipment wasn’t working like it should nowadays, what with his age. He’d blame brewer’s droop but didn’t drink that much, years seeing the results of drunken fights outside the pubs in town putting him off, and the Viagra Melinda had suggested didn’t sit well with him.

“So you’re saying you don’t want to do it with me anymore, is that it?” she’d screeched.

And his mind had screeched back: Please, please, just be quiet.

He hadn’t verbalised his thought, instead walking out of their kitchen, his three flasks of coffee cradled to his fast-narrowing chest instead of its wide form when he’d been in his prime, coming here to sit in his little shed, his sanctuary with two pictures on a whiteboard like the one in the incident room, names written down and red arrows pointing to clues—well, supposition, suspicions he’d had back in the day but hadn’t said them out loud regarding a couple of cases that still bothered him.

The small heater warmed his toes, the aroma of gas from the cannister tainting the air, and he held a coffee from one of his flasks. He always made enough to last him for hours, plus brought a packed lunch along, although he hadn’t had time to make that today. Melinda had started on him as he’d twisted the cup on the third flask, and he’d legged it to get away from her complaints. Still, Gregg’s had been open, and he’d treated himself to some sausage rolls and a couple of glazed ring doughnuts. That’d see him right.

What he hadn’t told his wife was that certain cases still haunted him, ones he’d never been able to solve—or one in particular he hadn’t been allowed to. She’d go mad if he admitted he thought about them: “God, just let it go, Robin!” Despite his desire for peace, he wished he was still at work, sitting at a desk going over old crimes, desperate to find whoever had remained elusive, especially now Lenny Grafton was dead. One case had always concerned him, the disappearance then murder of Jessica Wilson, a three-year-old belonging to Joe and Lou, the farmers out at Handel.

There had been rumours that Lenny had dealt with the killer. Rumours. Who was Robin kidding? He knew full well Lenny had murdered The Mechanic, and Robin had taken a backhander and risked his job to hand over Jess’ wellies and raincoat out of the evidence store—stealing it, for fuck’s sake, a copper turned rogue, and it had left more than a rancid taste in his mouth.

Robin had shit bricks, worrying every day since that he’d get caught for it, reminding himself there hadn’t been CCTV in the store back then to point the finger at him, but he’d been frightened of Lenny more than any camera. The man had been a right mad bastard, and Robin hadn’t wanted to die by his hand—or that Marlene woman’s. He’d tried to work out who she was, find her, but that name had to be a fake one. Surprisingly, no residents in town were called Marlene.

The holiday in Tenerife, paid for in cash with the bribe money, hadn’t been as enjoyable as Robin had hoped. He’d thought time away would erase what he’d done, bring him and Melinda closer, but he’d been grumpy and out of sorts, the constant reminder that the holiday was paid for with ill-gotten gains turning the array of cocktails sour on his tongue, the good food curdling in his belly, the laughter of his wife and children somehow exacerbating his guilt-drenched emotions.

With Lenny having his heart attack and dying recently, Robin had breathed a massive sigh of relief—awful, absolutely awful to be glad someone was dead, but there you have it. Robin was free now, but that didn’t mean he’d stopped thinking about Jess, or how he’d fobbed her mother off that time—the unpleasantness of that gave him nightmares, the woman coming after him in his dreams, begging him to find a clue, no matter how small, so they could catch the bastards. As far as he was aware, no one else knew what he’d done, and the knowledge had died with the former patch leader. Still, Robin shouldn’t have taken Lenny’s word for it that The Mechanic was responsible, nor should he have urged his superior to shut the case down, as per Lenny’s instructions, Robin’s reasoning being there had never been any leads apart from the white van, the person in the back, and the man in a balaclava wielding a firearm, and those had turned into dead ends.

Rear Van Man, as Robin