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

went downstairs, and she added their clothing to the bag. She was trusting Lou to get rid of her own.

“I’ve got to speak to Hua so will be back in about an hour,” Cassie said. “Have the police gone from the burn site?” She swiped up the black bag, needing to know the answer because she had to burn it and the contents at the squat.

“Yes. I didn’t want to say an awful lot in front of Lou. Our new contact is DI Gary Branding, and he turned up there alone, saw no patrol car, and reported the location as vacant, that there must have been a glitch in the tracker for it to report Bob as being there. He didn’t even get out and poke around and wrote in his report that no snow had been disturbed.”

“Fine. So he replaces Gorley, yes?”

Mam nodded. “He’s been hankering to help for years, so it was an easy decision to choose him.”

“Then I’ll pop in and visit Jason, burn this,” she held up the bag, “and see if I can get some information out of him today. A confession.”

“Good luck there.” Mam smiled. “Make sure you get home quick. You need sleep to be on your game tonight.”

Cassie nodded and left the house. She put the wigs in the bag and stuck it in the boot. In the car, she sighed with exhaustion, lethargy taking hold of her, but she pushed on, driving to the Jade despite her eyes hurting, gritty from lack of sleep. It was ‘weigh day’, and Hua would be in the office using the little scales and bagging the drugs—unless she was so upset about Zhang Wei she’d asked Yenay to do it.

She parked and used her key for the takeaway, seeing as it wasn’t open yet. Noon was an hour and fifteen minutes away. Li Jun stood in the kitchen, and he peered through the rectangular cutout in the wall behind the counter, pausing in his task of slicing onions. His sons, the skinny Dequan and the chubby Tai, carved various meats on white plastic chopping boards. Yenay stirred the boiling rice in a huge steel pan on the hob, appearing lost in thought. That or the milky-looking water was mesmerising.

Cassie lifted the counter hatch and went into the kitchen. “Is Hua in the office?”

“Yes.” Li Jun bobbed his head. “She is upset, as we all are.”

“I can imagine.”

Cassie glanced at his sons, who kept their heads down, expressions blank, then she eyed Yenay. The young woman didn’t stare belligerently, as Cassie had thought she would. Instead, she appeared ashamed.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “My dad shouldn’t have done what he did. We all know the rules, and he broke one.”

“I’m sorry, too.” Cassie gave a taut smile. “But you know what has to happen when people don’t toe the line. It was quick, he wouldn’t have suffered, so there is that.”

“Thank you.” Yenay used a tea towel to lift the pot by the handles and moved to the sink.

Discussion over then.

Cassie walked into the office and closed the door. Hua sat at the desk, a pile of weed in a baking tray, small baggies, and the weighing scales on top. She peered across at Cassie, her eyes red, her cheeks swollen from crying. Up on her feet, she came to Cassie and hugged her, taking her aback.

“I am so humiliated by my husband’s actions,” she said. “Your father gave us a good life, and Zhang disrespected that. I love him, I will always love him, but I am disappointed in him.”

Cassie pushed her away—gently, but she needed to separate them all the same. “He was doing what he thought was right. For his son. I understand that, but despite me telling him Jiang’s death had been avenged, he wouldn’t listen. He felt the killer’s family had to pay. That’s not how it works. If the rest of the family are innocent and know nothing of what their relation did, they remain alive; you get the same courtesy.”

Hua slumped onto the chair, defeated, no doubt, confused as to why Zhang Wei had left their takeaway intent on badgering Cassie, trying to get her to see things his way. “He was crazed with grief. Did not know what he was doing.”

“I imagine he was.” But he knew exactly what he was bloody doing. “Have you seen The Life?”

Hua nodded, her fringe swaying, and she worried her hands. “Zhang has gone to China. I will always say this. When people ask, this is what I tell them.”

Cassie believed her, but she had to ask, “Will there be any more problems? From you or Yenay? Li Jun? His wife and sons?”

Cassie didn’t think Li Jun would dare, and his missus, Nuwa, had been the one to persuade him to work for Dad all those years ago, agreeing to the terms no matter what. They knew the rules, the whole lot of them, but they must be conflicted. They’d thought of Lenny as family, treated Cassie and Mam as such, too, yet a member of their true family had hurt the ‘adopted’ ones. It had to burn, having their loyalty tested like this.

Hua shook her head. “No. We will continue as we did when Jiang was murdered. As Li Jun says, we smile on the outside and cry on the inside.” She gestured to the drugs. “I am here, as usual. I will always be here, the same day every week.”

“And The Golden Dragon?”

“It is in my name, Zhang Wei wanted it that way. I will run it.”

Satisfied this saga was over, Cassie left the room, nodding to Li Jun to let him know she’d drawn a line under the whole sorry business and no further action was needed. And that he mustn’t bring this up again. Sad as it was, and much as