The Piggy Farmer (The Barrington Patch Book 3) by Emmy Ellis (smart books to read .TXT) 📕

The Piggy Farmer - Text copyright © Emmy Ellis 2021

Cover Art by Emmy Ellis @ studioenp.com © 2021

All Rights Reserved

The Piggy Farmer is a work of fiction. All characters, places, and events are from the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.

The author respectfully recognises the use of any and all trademarks.

With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the author.

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Contents

A Word of Advice, Cass

Dear Diary

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

 A Word of Advice, Cass

“There have been times I’ve kept shit to myself. Didn’t want to burden your mam, see. The thing is, if you let people know everything about you, they’ve got you trapped. Keep something back, always. Besides, it adds a bit of mystery to you. Folks get intrigued, they want to know what you’re hiding, figure you out like you’re some kind of riddle, and that’s when you’ll spot the ones who just want info from you. They’ll stand out a mile once you twig. I hope you never get shafted, but it’s inevitable. I only hope I’m around to see them off. I’d kill anyone who hurt you. If I’m not there…well, you know what to do. Fucking kill them yourself.”

– Lenny Grafton, ex-leader of the Barrington

Dear Diary

All this crap with the Jade has shown me I can’t trust anyone—even Mam was hiding stuff from me. Finding out via that diary what she used to get up to… I know she’s entitled to her secrets, but for me to not have known she’d gadded about with Dad, helping him keep the patch in order…

She’s killed people, helped make them disappear.

Fucking hell.

Maybe Dad had told her to keep something of herself back, too.

At least I know now. I can count on Mam to help me like she did with Karen and Zhang Wei. For all I know, she’s been suppressed all these years, looking after me instead of being in the thick of it. Why didn’t she go back to doing her thing once I was an adult?

Dad probably said no.

He said a lot of things.

He didn’t say a lot of things, too.

I’m fast learning that his advice went deep when he took it himself. He kept a lot back, not just ‘something’. I’m wondering now whether he only showed us a percentage of himself. Maybe fifty. The other half…God knows what we’re unaware of. I get why he kept Doreen’s secret, but to not even put it in the ledgers?

And as for Doreen… She committed the act of murder with intent. She didn’t hit Karen over the head like she had with Sharon’s ex, she stabbed the shit out of Karen’s face and slit the woman’s throat, for God’s sake.

Should I ask her to be my right hand?

Or is Mam the one I need by my side?

Chapter One

Cassie was in the same situation as when she’d been staring at Jiang on the concrete round the back of the Jade. Here she was, presented with a body in a car boot, except this time, it was going to be dodgy as eff covering it up. A risk.

Lou Wilson had killed a copper. PC Bob Holworth’s face, squashed, had a tyre mark across it. He didn’t appear to have much of his brains left, like the top of his head had exploded from the pressure of the weight when she’d run him over. At least Cassie assumed that was what had happened.

What had Lou been doing out in the middle of the night? Cassie, Mam, and Doreen had left her at Handel Farm after they’d taken Karen’s and Zhang Wei’s minced-up bodies to the barn for the pigs to eat. Lou must have waited for her husband, Joe, to fall asleep, then went out and did…this.

A chill wind sliced across the back of Cassie’s neck, creating a ripple of shivers down her spine. From the darkened driveway, she glanced at the upstairs windows. No lights. Only the one on the porch glowed, something Mam kept on if Cassie wasn’t home yet. She shifted her sights to her flat above the garage.

She’d move back in there soon.

She was knackered—it had been a bloody long day—and she’d arrived home from torturing her useless right hand, Jason, to fill in the ledger then go to bed. Instead, she stood beside a creepy-as-fuck Lou, who’d gone even weirder than she usually was.

Cassie recalled their recent conversation and looked in the boot, cringing. The interior light showcased blood and brain matter on the dark-grey carpet and Bob curled into a pretzel where Lou had somehow packed him inside. Killing a police officer was bad news.

“You said you’re ‘The Piggy Farmer’.” Cassie closed the boot—she didn’t need any nosy neighbours clocking a dead uniformed officer, and besides, she couldn’t stand looking at him any longer. She’d need to warn residents to keep their gobs shut if they spotted Bob, and quite frankly, she couldn’t be arsed. “You also said you want to kill all the police who were involved with Jess’ disappearance.”

Everyone knew Lou still hadn’t got over the murder of her three-year-old daughter, but for fuck’s sake, killing coppers? Why now, all these years