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

A naked Jason wasn’t a sight Jimmy ever thought he’d see, the traitor’s clothes and the nails in a pile on the floor.

“Oh, he’s hairless all over.” Cassie shuddered.

“Even round his meat and two veg!” Ted roared with laughter.

“I bet he’s even had his arsehole waxed,” Felix said.

Jimmy couldn’t get over how they acted so normal.

Cassie swept the clothes and nails up and stuffed them into a carrier bag she got out from under the sink, the supermarket logo on the side, something so familiar but alien at the same time. Ted gripped Jason’s ankles, and Felix tucked his hands beneath the armpits. Felix walked backwards up the steps then moved to the side to feed Jason’s head and shoulders into the chute.

“Go on, fire her up,” he said.

Jason’s going in there?

Cassie pressed a button, and the machine rumbled to life, something grinding inside. Ted went up two steps, pushing Jason farther until his arse sat on the lip of the chute. Together, they gave him a shove.

“That’s it, Marlene girl, you eat him up,” Ted shouted.

The machine was Marlene? What?

Jimmy turned to Cassie, who smiled.

“It never was a woman,” she yelled over the din. “People just assumed.”

Jimmy glanced back at the chute. It had flesh and blood on the inside, spatter from where the machine—Marlene!—went to work. The heels of Jason’s feet rested on the lip now, and Marlene’s sound changed—fuck, some kind of grinding was going on. Cutting up his head? Jimmy heaved, his hand over his mouth, and then movement to his left grabbed him, and he stared in horror at mince coming out of the thingy.

Oh my fucking God.

He ran to the sink and spewed, his mind spinning, his heart racing, coffee the first to emerge, then bile burning his throat.

Cassie’s loud laughter floated over, and he knew then, without a shadow of a doubt, that sometimes, she really was mad.

Chapter Twenty-One

The Barrington Life

MISSING MAN ALERT!

Karen Scholes – All Things Crime in our Time

Sharon Barnett – Chief Editor

EDITION ONE

Me and Sharon reckon this is the easiest way to let you all know things at once regarding crime and such on the estate. Saves us spreading the gossip, and I’ve never been a fan of Chinese whispers. Whenever something really important goes on, we’ll be posting these flyers from now on. Dunno why we didn’t think of this before. Mind, the expense of getting them printed is a bit much, so we won’t be doing it often — at least not until we can afford one of those fancy computers.

I was in Betty’s Blooms the other day, and she told me some fella has gone missing. About a month ago, it was — well, more like five weeks now — a bloke from Yorkshire; young lad, dark hair, blue eyes, about twenty or so. He’d been living on the Barrington, renting a room at Vera’s, like, so that makes it our business. He’s called Steve, by the way, no idea what his surname is.

Anyroad, his brother came to look for him because the family hadn’t heard owt for weeks, and he asked our Lou at Betty’s Blooms if she was seeing him, because that’s what this Steve had said. Well, Lou only knew him from when he’d gone into the florist’s to buy flowers, and she certainly wasn’t his girlfriend.

So, the point of this flyer is, if you’ve seen a man around with really blue eyes, and you made friends with him or whatever, if you know owt, contact the police. It doesn’t sit well that someone’s gone missing from our estate, so let’s do the decent thing and band together to find Steve so his family can get answers.

Incensed at her name being in the flyer, Lou scrunched it up and threw it in the bin. Saturdays were meant to be for relaxing and catching up on her washing, not getting angry and wanting to strangle Karen and Sharon. Who they thought they were she didn’t know. The way they gadded about on the estate as if they owned it got right on her nerves, but people appeared to be listening to the pair of silly cows, doing whatever they told them.

Well, Lou wasn’t one of those people, especially when any poking about into Stalker’s disappearance meant her and Doreen could be right up the swanny.

She called out to Janice and Deb that she was off out and left the house, storming up the road towards Doreen’s mam’s. Yes, they’d promised to keep apart, but this visit was needed, as was the one Doreen had made to Betty’s. It was all very well saying they’d avoid each other—which was stupid anyroad because who’d suspect them of murder?—but when shit like this happened, they had to speak face to face.

In Doreen’s road, she took a deep breath and marched up to the front door. Penny answered, Dor’s mother, her smile bright, her arms held out in welcome. Odd. Lou smiled and reared back to avoid being grabbed for a hug.

Penny lowered her arms. “How are you, duck?”

“All right, ta. Is Dor in?”

“In her room, as usual.”

Penny stepped back, and Lou entered, grabbed by Penny anyroad and squeezed too hard.

“We’ve missed you,” she said. “Why did you stop coming round?” Then she whispered in her ear, “Did you two fall out?”

Lou extracted herself and moved to the safe distance of the stairs. “No, we haven’t had a row or owt. I was a bit busy, that’s all.”

“Still, you’re here now.” Penny closed the door and made to approach.

Lou skittered up the stairs, unnerved by Penny’s unusual display of emotion. She’d always been brusque before, and Lou suspected it was all a play so she could whisper what she had. Of course it would look weird that