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

knew every road and pathway on their patch, but the Moor, she’d only been there once or twice to visit an old school friend, and that had been a month or so after the Stalker business.

She hadn’t been tempted to tell Josephine about it, the promise she’d made to Doreen as strong as ever. The horror of it had taken two weeks to fade a little, Lou’s terrible dreams lessening, her fear of being caught diminishing somewhat, although it was all still there, lurking in the dark recesses inside her, ready to come out when she wasn’t expecting it. Sleep and a bad situation had an unspoken agreement: to torment you with whatever happened, chasing you in your nightmares, no matter how much time had passed.

Doreen hadn’t been able to handle staying at the house, saying the garden gave her the willies every time she glanced out there or pegged her washing on the line. She imagined Stalker moaning from the bottom of the well, or whispering to her at night, and had convinced herself Robby Denzil had watched them commit murder and would grass them up, even though his house had been in darkness and he hadn’t said owt or acted funny when they’d seen him two days later. She’d moved back home to her mam’s. Lou had stayed, getting herself accustomed to their final agreement on the day Doreen had walked out: they’d avoid each other as much as possible, so they weren’t tempted to discuss it and risk being overheard, but remain friends deep down. How could they not be friends when joined by the common thread of murder? Doreen had stabbed him in the stomach and sliced his throat to protect them, and Lou would never forget that.

To appear ‘normal’, she’d got herself caught up the flurry of a bubbly new housemate, Deborah, moving in. She’d hid a grimace when Deb—“I prefer being called that, Deborah is so formal…”—pushed open the kitchen window one night, her hand on where the blood had spattered. Janice hadn’t spotted owt amiss when she’d got back from her holiday, but Doreen was convinced she would. Janice was a strict cleaner and would spy even a tiny drop of blood. She’d queried the missing knife, though, and Lou had lied: “No idea where it’s gone, love, sorry.”

That added to the fear.

Lou blinked herself out of the past and focused on tonight. Cassie had brought a map of the Moor up on her laptop earlier, and they’d studied their entry and exit routes, any possible alternatives if things went wrong. Cassie had grumbled that she didn’t know where all the CCTV cameras were, and wasn’t that just a kick in the teeth, then said they’d have to pray they didn’t get clocked. She’d sounded arsey, like Lou’s quest was a pain in her rear end and she didn’t want owt to do with it.

Talk about rude.

I bet Jess wouldn’t treat me like that.

Lou didn’t see the problem, CCTV or not. They had another stolen car, false plates, and balaclavas, so what did it matter whether they were caught on camera? Once they got back onto the Barrington, Cassie could lose them in the maze of streets easily, then take the car to the scrappy bloke, switch into hers, and be done with it.

Cassie had provided black boilersuits to put on over their clothes, and along with leather gloves, plus the wool covering Lou’s face, she was sweating buckets. A thrill went through her at imagining Joe thinking she was curled up on Francis’ sofa, wine in hand, all of them chatting, then she bumped down to earth with guilt paying her a nasty unwanted visit. She shouldn’t delight in deceiving him tonight, but hadn’t she done that for the whole of their relationship, minus the revelling in it? If he knew she’d stabbed Stalker in the heart and pushed him down a bloody well, and nudged Superintendent Black into the canal when she’d followed him from The Donny that time, he’d be devastated, not only because of the deception but he’d ask himself who the chuff he’d married—and whether he should tell the police about her.

Don’t think about it. Get these coppers killed and that’s an end to it.

It had to be the end. She couldn’t continue in this way. Lying to Joe…should she confess her past and what she’d done recently? Would he leave her or understand why she’d done it? He was a kind man, the best, and didn’t deserve a liar for a wife.

Francis’ arm brushed Lou’s, reminding her she wasn’t alone. Lou often went inside her head, examining her memories, trying not to acknowledge how her warped brain strung together completely unconnected events. Like Janice going to Cornwall, so Lou had sent Jess there to keep her safe, the same as Janice had been safe from having owt to do with the murder of the creepy flower man. Doreen had confessed once, during a rare chat in the market, that Cassie’s eyes gave her the creeps because they were the same shade as his. Maybe Lou wasn’t so weird after all and everyone’s brain worked the same way, joining events by association.

“What’s taking them so long?” Cassie whispered.

Still grouchy then.

Upon arrival, headlights off, Cassie had reversed the car between the yard’s high brick wall and a stack of empty beer barrels, muttering that the car had better not be seen or there’d be trouble.

“Creep up the side of the pub and look through the window to see if Knight and Codderidge are inside yet—and stay back in the dark,” Cassie had said.

As if Lou wouldn’t know that. As if she’d let people see her in a fucking balaclava.

“I wasn’t born yesterday,” Lou had sniped back and sidled along the wall, making a show of doing it right.

They were sitting at a table, those pigs, plates of food piled high—carb