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

there others who hated her style of command and planned to snatch the estate from her? Why did they think they had the right?

“We’ll have a coffee while we make plans,” she said, “then we’ll go to the factory. The crew are sorting the police car.” She gave Lou a dirty look. “Mam, you’ll deal with Bob and Marlene—you’ll also need to sort the brains Lou put in a carrier bag. Once we’re finished, I’ll go to the squat to burn the bag and Bob’s clothes.”

“This is so exciting” Lou said.

You bloody weirdo.

Mam shivered, pausing with her hand on a mug, and Cassie took it that her mother thought Lou was disturbed, too.

No more disturbed than me putting the flaps of Karen’s stomach skin in my pocket.

Cassie eyed the nutter. “Lou, me and you will clean up the ground behind the factory and also scrub your boot and the tyres—there’s no way I can get the valet on it unless you can cover your arse with Joe. He’ll wonder where your car is if I drop you off.” She glanced at the clock on the wall. “Speaking of Joe. What time does he get up?”

“Five. Today he’s just got to clean out the pigs.”

“What if he rolls over in bed and finds you’re not there?” Mam brought the drinks over and sat.

Lou shrugged. “I’ve gone for drives during the night before. He knows I get restless.”

Fine.

“Okay, what are your plans going forward? How many coppers are you going to ‘farm’?” It had given Cassie the willies when Lou had announced she was now The Piggy Farmer, intent on farming all the coppers out of the area, the ones who’d failed her daughter. That had to be a large number. The amount of police involved in a missing child case/murder ran into the hundreds, surely.

No way can we kill all of them.

“Four main ones. There were five, but one died already. Don’t worry, I don’t plan to bump off the whole force.” Lou laughed, picked up her coffee, and blew on it. She sipped, taking her time about it an’ all. “Bob was the first one, although originally he was last on my shit list, so there are three more.”

“Why Bob?” Cassie watched the steam rising from her cup and wished she was in the office filling in the coded ledger, not sitting here with some deranged woman.

“Because he did door-to-door enquiries and didn’t go inside The Mechanic’s house—in anyone’s house on his designated route. All the other uniforms went inside properties, but Bob? He was pals with The Mechanic, so of course he’d bloody well ignore his orders on that score. If he’d gone in, had a look around, he’d have found my Jess locked in that upstairs office. Alive.” Tears glistened in her eyes, eyes that no longer had the mad gleam but shadows of sadness. “I listen to gossip whenever I’m away from the farm, and everyone admitted he’d just spoken to them at their doors. He let my little girl down.”

Cassie swallowed the lump in her throat. She just about remembered playing with Jess, but those memories were hazy. Who could recall everything from when they were three? “What about the other pigs? Who are they?”

Lou’s face scrunched in distaste. “DCI Robin Gorley, DC Simon Knight, and DS Lisa Codderidge. They led the investigation, and none of them thought to check Bob’s route and what he’d done on it. Or hadn’t done.”

Cassie played devil’s advocate. “He might have lied on his reports, said he’d entered homes, so it wouldn’t be their fault.”

Lou didn’t appear to want to listen to that, wafting her hand about in dismissal. “Whatever, they didn’t find Jess, and they’re responsible for her death as much as Vance bastard Johnson. I want justice, and while Vance is now dead, it’s not enough anymore.”

Will it ever be enough? Will she ever stop searching for retribution? “How do you propose to kill the rest?”

Lou appeared smug. “I know where they go when they’re not at work. I’ve kept my ears and eyes open for a long while. Over twenty bloody years, Cass. You can think up a lot of revenge during that time. The DCI’s retired now. He likes his allotment, even goes there in this weather. Sits in his shed for hours on end instead of growing stuff. The DI and DS are having a fling, have been for yonks—they meet up at The Lion’s Head then shag behind it. You know the one, on the Moor estate. I’ve followed them, seen it with my own eyes.”

The Moor estate. Where Zhang Wei opened The Golden Dragon. “Was it just by chance you were driving earlier and saw Bob then, or did you already know his night shift routine if you’ve been following these people?”

“He always drove past the farm at the same time of night, like he had a route he stuck by. I stare out of the window a lot when I have insomnia. I just happened to go after him earlier. Couldn’t sleep again.” Lou rubbed her forehead. “I was fired up from feeding the pigs.”

That weird gleam came back.

Cassie suppressed a shudder. “So, you didn’t answer my question. How do you plan to kill the coppers?” She turned to Mam. “I take it you’re helping.”

Mam nodded. “We’ve discussed it, yes, but not to any great degree.”

Cassie sighed. “Then we need to plan. Properly. Four coppers going missing is going to create a stir. We act fast, get them all done as quickly as we can. Then maybe we can return to some form of normality.”

It was a nice thought, but somehow, Cassie knew that wasn’t going to happen. Running the Barrington meant she had to be on her toes at all times, so nowt was ever normal. There was always someone in the shadows,