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

ramming it into his cheek, the momentum wrenching his head to the left. This time, his scream didn’t come from an open mouth but one clamped shut by nails in his gums. His eyes bulged, his skin going purple, the cords in his neck rising, straining. Blood poured, trailing over his jawline and onto the side of his throat in rivulets, his head back against the side of the shed beside a newspaper clipping with the headline: CHILD GOES MISSING. One elbow propped on the bench stopped him from falling onto his skinny arse, and she was surprised he hadn’t passed out.

He cried, tears mingling with the blood, and stared at her with true fear in his eyes, a cornered animal—and he was an animal. She smiled at another of Jess’ ghostly giggles and, hand on his forehead, bracing herself for what she was about to do, ripped the nails out then sliced down. His wail filled the space, his cheek tearing into macabre, claw-like downward slashes, and he choked, spat a tooth out along with a stream of saliva-laced blood. Francis laughed with Jess, and Lou stepped back, readying herself for another attack.

She walloped him again, the nails driving into his throat, slight resistance at the Adam’s apple, and she pushed with all her body weight, Cassie pressing in from behind, until the base of the nails hit skin. The breath from the gurgle spluttering out of him spattered Lou’s face with warm blood that gushed between his lips, and he brought a hand up to clasp her wrist.

Please… She thought he’d whispered that, asking her with his eyes to keep the nails where they were. Taking them out would create so much damage. And death.

Cassie karate-chopped his arm, and he let Lou go. Lou snatched the nails out, blood arcing, water through a colander, falling to his shirt, on her coat, one errant stream casting a few dotted lines on the wooden side of the shed. Cassie moved out of the way, and Lou took a step or two back, watching him slump to the floor—fascinating—his hands scrabbling to stop the blood, his scarlet-soaked, ruined face skewed in pain.

Cassie took Lou’s prime spot and loomed over him. “It’s been said you never cross a Grafton, but as you’ve gathered, you don’t cross a Wilson either.” She turned to Francis. “Go and speak to Barney, make sure he remembers the score. Tell him to fuck off until tomorrow. Give him that envelope I put in the car door cubby.”

Francis squeezed outside, closing the door, and Lou moved to the window, her back to it, and studied a steadily dying Gorley. Blood seeped between his fingers at his throat, and down from his wrecked cheek to drip onto the back of his wrist. He whimpered, groaned, air sawing out of him, painful rasps, ones Jess might have released while Vance had strangled her.

It was enough to urge Lou to kick out at Gorley, the thick sole of her sturdy farm boot connecting with his nose. The sickening—beautiful—crunch of bone and cartilage gave her immense satisfaction, a sound she’d play over and over in her head on the nights she became an insomniac. She kicked again and again, like those kids you saw on the telly, an episode of Crimewatch, caught on CCTV beating someone up. With each strike, the back of his head whacked the wall, his hand dropping from his neck to rest on his thigh. Blood still pulsed, faster now, from fear, she hoped, and her last assault saw her boot breaking through the threads of skin holding his cheek together, the toe tip lodged in his mouth between his molars.

She lowered her foot to the floor. Looked at Jess on the whiteboard.

I’m doing it all for you, my little darling. All for you.

Jess laughed.

Chapter Nine

The Barrington Life – Your Weekly

FOR PETE’S SAKE, STOP SENDING BLOODY FLOWERS!

Karen Scholes – All Things Crime in our Time

Sharon Barnett – Chief Editor

JULY 1997

Look, you know what was said in a previous version of The Life. Joe and Lou don’t want any flowers — stop getting them delivered to the farm. Spend the money on your own kids, or grandchildren, like they wanted. How come you’re so intent on sending bouquets, paying out for them, when it took me getting seriously arsey to make you all donate towards the horse-and-carriage hearse? (Which, I might add, was a damn sight more important than a few roses and carnations.)

How do you think Lou feels, seeing reminders that her little girl has gone, all those bunches in vases? You mean well, I get that, but pack it in. Lenny will be having a word with everyone who sends any after this, so consider yourselves warned. Betty from Blooms will be keeping a record of all purchases.

Likewise, no visitors to the farm — you know who you are. Lou can’t handle it. Anyone who turns up will get their lights punched out.

Behave.

Two weeks after the funeral, Lou stared at a kitchen full of half-dying flowers, their smell cloying, the varying scents getting down her throat. People had sent them, maybe hoping they’d make her feel better. She couldn’t stand them, all those petals, the colours, the leaves. Joe had bought her a bunch a week right from the beginning of their relationship, but she’d have to tell him not to bother now. She hadn’t told him, back when he’d presented her with bouquets, why she didn’t want to receive them, why each one stirred unrest inside her. It was a part of her past she’d never reveal to him; flowers were something she’d prefer not to receive.

They were a painful reminder of what had happened, back then and now.

She’d compost them. Later.

Lou had remained in the house since the funeral, but a few people had dropped by. She hadn’t opened the door