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

found out it was him who’d suppressed the case? He was sure he’d worded it in their meeting so it was ambiguous as to who’d pushed to close it down. Had DC Simon Knight and DS Lisa Codderidge blabbed to her? Lisa, definitely, because she’d been well upset at the time. Now there was no fear of Robin reprimanding them, now he wasn’t their superior, they might well have spoken to Lou. Thick as thieves, those two, and having a long-standing affair to boot.

You couldn’t trust anyone these days, could you.

They hadn’t known why he’d had to get the case closed, just that he’d done it, but it stood out a mile it had been his idea. They hadn’t been best pleased. A waste of all that hard work, they’d said, plus there was letting the kidnap accomplice get away with it, allowing him to do it again to some other kiddie.

“What’s the problem, Lou?” He used his police voice, the one that had him sounding authoritative, in control, when really, inside he was losing it.

“You know damn well what the problem is.”

Lou stepped away from the gap and, oh God, Francis Grafton appeared. Had Lenny told her about Robin’s part in Jess’ case and she’d kept quiet? Now he was dead, had she decided to spill the beans to her friend, relieved to relinquish the burden?

“Open up,” Francis said, her eyes narrowed, no sign of grief about her. Anyone would think her husband was still alive the way she glared at Robin.

She’d always been all-business, though. Always stoic beside her husband. Seemed his death hadn’t changed her.

Robin swallowed and took the chain away, pulling the door wider. Francis and Lou stepped inside, cramping the place up and, further adding to the claustrophobia, Cassie entered.

Robin groaned. He’d heard the rumours through Melinda about how this young woman had taken over the estate with her brand of warped reasoning. Lenny was one thing, a force to be reckoned with, but Cassie was apparently a tornado, whipping up a tsunami that soaked the town.

“You may well moan,” Lou said. “Because the past has caught up with you, fucker.”

Chapter Eight

Lou’s weapon sat in her bag, which she’d strapped diagonally over her torso to save it swinging around with what she had in mind. She’d taken a leaf out of Cassie’s book and created her own murder tool this morning while her nephew, Ben, mucked the pigs out instead of her husband.

Joe worked part-time at the meat factory again now, and while today wasn’t one of his shifts, the recently appointed newer manager, Marcus James, had phoned in sick, something about his teenager bringing home the lurgy from sixth form. Joe had to go in, of course he did, and Ben had come to take over his chores, meaning he’d lost his day off.

It suited Lou down to the ground. Fate couldn’t have helped her out more if it’d tried. She hoped Marcus was off for longer, say a week, then she could get the coppers done over with Joe right out of the way, none the wiser. She’d be home in time today to cook dinner—they’d driven here at ten a.m.—so plenty of hours left to mince Gorley. Or set fire to him like Cassie wanted. Whatever happened, so long as he was dead by the end of it, Lou didn’t care. They’d come here via the outskirts, no cameras to catch their images or Cassie’s stolen car with the fake plates, no people other than Barney Lipton tending to his plants.

Ben, God bless him, wasn’t the cleverest of souls, so Lou swanning off during the day, well, he wouldn’t take much notice, his mind full of those Xbox games he liked to play well into the night. All right, maybe he’d wonder why she’d suddenly taken to leaving the farm when she usually remained there by choice, only venturing out when Joe urged her, but she doubted he’d dwell on it.

“It’s not good for you, hiding out here all the time. Let’s go and have a bevvy at The Donny.” Joe said that every now and then, concerned she remained inside too much.

And he was right. Although it was a chore to leave the farm, to get ready and plaster on a fake smile, she felt marginally better once she was away from it.

Her memories went with her, though.

She snapped out of her thoughts and crowded Gorley, Francis and Cassie at her back. Their presence bolstered the steel in her spine, giving her the extra courage to proceed.

It was bloody stifling with four bodies and a gas heater going full blast, and sweat sprang out in Lou’s armpits.

“Stick the lamp on.” She pointed at a swan-neck black one on the wooden bench going along the back of the shed, opposite the door.

Gorley frowned, blinking, not doing as she’d asked. “What?”

Lou ignored him. He was a frail bugger now, a withered version of his former upright self. She glanced to her left, startled by an image of Jess on a whiteboard above the bench. Or was that her mind playing tricks? What was this, his own little investigation room? Or did he have that picture for other, more sinister reasons?

Yes, he did.

She jerked a thumb in Jess’ direction. “What the hell is my child doing on there? What are you, some kind of paedo?” God, he ran a ring, didn’t he, had set up a website where freaks of nature logged on and stared at kiddies. She was sure of it. “Is that why you’re always in this shed? Do you come here to fiddle with your fucking filthy self, you bastard?”

Gorley spluttered, shaking his head.

He was rejecting her truth. No wonder he lived in a nice house on New Barrington. He got subscription money off pervs to pay the big mortgage. They handed over their