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

create this kind of damage. As you’ve probably seen, it caved his forehead in, a bit of brain on show, skull fragments, whatever.”

Gary winced. Evan’s blasé way of describing things always unnerved him, but the man had seen all sorts of horrors at scenes and on his post-mortem table. He was probably desensitised, had to be to remain sane. Gary was sort of the same, although he had become jaded from seeing so much destruction so wasn’t as jolly as the pathologist.

“But back to Codderidge,” Evan said. “It appears several sharp implements at once entered not only her face but the top of her head—those in the skull are in a uniform pattern.”

Gary’s stomach muscles tightened. Fuck it. “Like barbed wire?”

“No, that would make an altogether different mess—and I said uniform, don’t forget. Think of a scrubbing brush, except instead of bristles, you have pointed…nails maybe, or something of that nature. They’re long.”

A homemade weapon? Like Cassie’s whip?

Gary always read The Life but had never done owt about what was written in the flyers, because there seemed to be hidden messages between the lines that only the civvy residents of the Barrington knew how to interpret. Of course, there was outright admittance of things, like the barbed wire whip, but unless Cassie was caught with it in her possession, the carrying of a weapon with intent to harm, or they suspected someone had been barbed by her, he couldn’t very well walk up to her and demand to see it. No one who’d been barbed had come forward, and he reckoned they couldn’t—they were most likely bloody dead. Over the years, officers at the station had either expressed their feelings or shown it on their faces when it came to dealing with things on the Barrington—no thanks, I’ll stay away from there, let Lenny or Cassie deal with it.

Lenny had carved it in stone, the way things went, and while it was wrong for coppers to have let him—and now Cassie—go on their merry way, the Graftons were so canny, Gary doubted they’d be able to pin owt on them anyroad.

A waste of time and the public’s money to drag them in for an interview.

He’d have to speak to Francis in a bit, about the possibility Cassie had made a second weapon.

Shit.

Evan glanced his way then back to the victim. “She’s still warmish.”

Gary’s tummy churned. “That marries with what the man said about the time he found them.”

One Dennis Abraham, a skinny young bloke, had come outside for a ‘cheeky’ cigarette ‘innit’ after the murders, texting his girlfriend while smoking and pacing, and he’d ventured as far as the wheelie bins, tripping on Codderidge’s outstretched leg. He’d stumbled and righted himself by the time he’d met with a dead Knight—“It was nowt but a lump, like, cos it was dark.”—and used his phone torch see what was ahead of him, then flashed it at Codderidge. One vomit session later, quite the splashback from several lagers and a plate of cheesy chips, his cigarette thrown in panic, Dennis had run to the back door, digested what he’d seen, and phoned the police.

No one else had witnessed a thing.

Good.

“So, about Gorley?” Gary held his breath. Fuck knows what Evan has to say. Please let it just be a fire.

“I’m afraid the weapon used on these two was probably also used on Gorley—not the bat, you understand, the other one.”

Gary’s body turned frozen, so, so cold. “How can you tell? From what I saw, all his skin was charred.”

“Damage to the lower jaw bone and piercings in the gum and the flesh, the bones in his neck, striations caused by something like what I described, the nail scrubbing brush. He had three teeth missing, swallowing two, and they had to have been during an attack as the gums showed evidence of recent tooth removal.”

He wasn’t burnt enough, God, he wasn’t fucking burnt enough.

“Okay, so were the teeth removed by another implement, say pliers during torture, or because of the weapon?”

“Once I get the chance to have another look, I’ll be saying it’s the weapon in my report. As you can imagine, the police deaths here, plus Gorley dead using the same tool, for want of a better word, and Bob missing… Four officers. Someone’s out there picking you all off?”

I don’t need this. “I bloody hope not.”

“Me, too. I quite like you, and tending to your dead body isn’t something I want to be doing.” Evan rose and faced Gary. “Keep as safe as you can, pal. There are many nutters out there.”

Don’t I know it, and two are called Francis and Cassie. “I’ll do my best.”

Gary swivelled to find his DS, Kath Lowry, who stood by the pub door, bending to examine the handle for some reason. Bloody hell, what now?

“I’ll catch you later, Ev.” He left the evidence step, the crunch of grit beneath his shoes a crackle in the quiet.

“Yep, I’ll be here for a while. Oh, and neither victim fought back, going by their fingernails, but that opinion may change once I scrape them. The attack was probably too quick for them to think of scratching the assailant.”

“Cheers.” Gary walked to Kath, imagining the fear his dead colleagues had experienced, hating himself for being prepared to cover owt up.

Another officer had joined Kath, one of the forensic lot, difficult to tell who as Gary didn’t recognise their eyes above the mask.

“What’s going on here then?” he asked. All he needed was to have added ‘Hello, hello, hello’ at the start to become a complete cliché, what with his home troubles, his need for a few scotches after work, and his defection of duty. He was a walking thriller novel detective, riddled with demons.

“I think something was used to force the handle up so it didn’t come down.”