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

I know the feeling. It was the same with Lou.

“And,” Jimmy went on, “to think I was scared of him that night you came to my flat. He showed me his gun, you know; it was in a holster. Now, he’s just pitiful, no one to be frightened of at all. The tables have turned, because now I’m the one with the gun.”

Was Jimmy saying he was glad he was the scary one now? It sounded promising. She’d make a hardman out of him yet.

Cassie got a flash of Jason’s ruined face in her mind. “Hmm, he is a bit of a state, and I told him off about the gun business, he should never have done that. Anyroad, I’ve decided he’ll be dead tonight, so you won’t have to be here anymore. Well, not once we’ve removed the body.”

Jimmy’s eyes widened, and he opened his mouth to speak, but Cassie got there first.

“Don’t worry. I’ll treat this as if you’ve killed him and give you the twenty grand.”

“Fuck me.”

“Much as I like you, Jim, no thanks.”

He laughed and reached for his drink. “I didn’t mean… Shirl would kill me if I touched you like that.”

“So would I.”

They chuckled for a bit, and it was good to release some tension, good he’d taken what she’d said as banter. Laughter was apparently the best medicine, and whoever had originally said it, they could be onto something. Cassie didn’t have much to laugh about, though, or maybe she wasn’t looking hard enough, trying hard enough to find the bright spots in life. How could she when murder and treachery were all around her, taking up her time?

Drink finished, she sighed. “Right, we’d best be getting on then. Prepare yourself, because this won’t be pretty. Not only will you watch me kill him, but you’ll be coming to see Marlene with me. And if you breathe a word about who she is, I’ll give you to her.” How quickly she’d banished the bonhomie, but Jimmy needed to know she was serious.

“I won’t say owt,” he stuttered. “I swear it.”

She smiled again, nicely, none of that tight-lipped rubbish. “I wouldn’t either if I knew I was getting twenty K, tax free.”

Chapter Seventeen

Forty-five-year-old DI Gary Branding stood in the light from three halogens on tall stands placed around The Lion’s Head yard. Forensics milled about doing their thing, white-suited and sombre, hoods up, masks on, booties covering their shoes. Pale spectres, that was what they looked like, sent to haunt the crime scene, searching for clues to bring the killer to justice. Another team were still at the allotment, working beneath the cover of a white tent, sifting through the burnt remains, although Gorley’s husk of a body had been removed.

A tent was in the process of being set up here, too, and another one would follow, shielding the bodies from any snow should it come down, but most importantly, anyone who gawped out of the pub’s rear windows—they were still being questioned by PCs and DC Strong in the bar area, but it wasn’t uncommon for a nosy wanker to drift away from distracted officers, on the guise of using the toilet, to have a butcher’s. The side driveway had been cordoned off, blocking entry, and a PC stood there with the log for signing in and out of the scene.

He silently thanked the landlord for clearing the yard of snow. The logistics involved in preserving the scene had it been covered in white was something Gary didn’t want to think about.

It could be any one of the murder situations he’d found himself in over the years. Except it wasn’t. The whole thing had an extra layer of iffy, and he’d need to have his wits about him to get through it—and he’d have sleepless nights worrying whether he’d missed owt. He was the appointed Senior Investigating Officer, thank God, and would be on hand to divert his colleagues’ attention away from things they shouldn’t be aware of if the need arose, but he couldn’t keep an eye on them all the time, couldn’t know every piece of evidence written in their notebooks until the full reports came through. And then? He could hardly tell them to change their findings, exposing himself as bent, which meant he’d have to chat to the team in incident room briefings so he could steer those clues in another direction prior to reports being written: away from the truth.

The Dracula-lookalike pathologist, Evan Merton, crouched beside the male victim, whose grey trousers and red boxers bunched around his ankles. Male victim—Gary had to think of him as that while studying him in order to remain objective; just a body, no one in particular. He’d done the same at Gorley’s scene, finding it difficult to hold back emotions regarding his ex-superior, who’d been a good friend, stuffing his feelings deep down, bringing his detective heart into play—and his criminal one now he worked for Francis and Cassie.

Two of their own, DC Simon Knight and DS Lisa Codderidge, had been murdered a few metres away from the pub. Had this been on the Barrington, he’d suspect people in the boozer had been warned to keep their mouths shut, to lie, too scared to do otherwise, but this was the Moor estate. Although… Codderidge’s face was a bloody, ripped-up mess, so this could be Cassie’s doing, using her barbs. Why would she kill more officers, though? If she’d killed Bob. Francis hadn’t said whether the man was dead, hadn’t warned him of owt like this going down either, and he’d like to think she would have, seeing as she’d employed him to cover up any dirty work. All she’d spoken to him about was Bob, that he was ‘missing’, but that implied death, didn’t it? With Gorley and these