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

the pity, the ‘we’d love to keep looking for your daughter, but he won’t let us’.

Lies. All lies.

Knight led Codderidge to their usual tryst spot, and this was where Lou had winced when Cassie had laid out the plan. They had to stand there and let them get into it, trousers down at his ankles, then strike. It made sense, but having to hear them doing it again had Lou’s guts rolling. She glared over at the coppers who were partial shadows, the light from the window sending the blackness grey where they were, perhaps a dimmer bulb than before, but it was enough to differentiate the shapes and work out what they were.

“God, I can’t get enough of you,” Knight said.

God, I can’t wait to rip your fucking face off.

Lou gritted her teeth and flexed her fingers beneath the weapon across her knuckles. Francis’ breathing got faster, and Lou could only hope it wasn’t because of what those two were doing, but anger on Lou’s behalf that the pigs acted as if they didn’t have a care in the world when Jess was likely bones in that coffin by now—

no, she’s on the beach; she’s playing with her pink bucket.

—forgotten, her cute little face but a memory to them, one they couldn’t remember because they’d filed her away, case closed, now move on.

A strange growl echoed, and Lou’s disgust level went up a notch until Francis elbowed her and Lou realised it was coming out of her own mouth. Pain, that was what it sounded like, a terrible expression of the grief she still experienced.

Knight’s trousers dropped, his pasty skin two slim trunks in the gloom. Lou gagged, sweat breaking out beneath the mask, and while Knight did all the moves associated with that, Cassie crept away, a bat in one hand, the wood plank in the other.

Game on.

Chapter Sixteen

The coppers were so caught up in what they were doing, they didn’t stop to look over and spot Cassie wedging the length of wood beneath the door handle, nor did they perk up at the soft scrape of it on the ground.

Her nerves were serrated being so close to the light coming from a top window—and she hated doing business outside the Barrington—but if this stopped Lou from taking matters into her own hands again, murder had to be done. The woman was seriously doing her head in, butting in during the planning phase this afternoon and generally grumping about the decisions.

“Who knows how these things work?” Cassie had shouted. “Me and Mam, not you!”

Lou had narrowed her eyes at her and sulked.

With no snow in the yard, it made things easier, although Cassie had cringed in case the shagging pigs had copped on to her footsteps on the way over to the pub. She held her breath and sidled to the wheelie bin, gasps from Codderidge infecting the air. Cassie raised her bat, stepped out behind Knight, prayed Mam was already coming out of her hiding place, and brought the weapon down on the back of his head. He fell to his knees, and there was a millisecond where Cassie stared at Codderidge’s shadowed face, then Mam’s bat connected with the copper’s forehead.

With both of them on the ground, Cassie managed to drag a moaning Knight and dropped him away from the bin. Lou swept in and went straight for Codderidge, who groaned and possibly held a hand up to her face, difficult to tell, the side of the extra-large bin blocking the light. The nail weapon launched, Lou grunted, then stepped back, only to swing her arm in a downwards arc and stab Codderidge in the top of the head. Knight shifted, so Mam walloped him again, probably on the leg, and he cried out.

It was frustrating doing this in the dark. Cassie couldn’t properly see what either of her partners in crime were doing, their figures murky, darting about around Knight. If they didn’t need to be careful about being spotted, she’d have put on her night-vision goggles with the head torch on the front.

“You fucking piece of pig-shit scum bastard,” Lou said quietly. “Let’s see how you like dying.”

A sickening thud followed by a wet squelch, and Cassie had an idea Lou had stabbed him in the throat. It had worked for Gorley, so why not? Movement to Cassie’s left had her spinning that way, adrenaline pumping. Codderidge was getting up, moaning and crying.

“Shut up,” Cassie warned her.

Lou barrelled into Cassie, sending her shifting to the side, and a blur of ghost-like shadows danced, the noises of boots scuffing the ground and strange growls creating a disturbance they didn’t need. Too disorientated to scream, Codderidge mumbled incoherently, and Lou lugged her out from beside the bin. She attacked her face, her arm lashing out violently, swipe after swipe. Cassie turned to look for Mam, who crouched beside Knight.

“This one’s gone,” Mam said and stood.

So Lou’s weapon had finished him off.

Animal sounds came out of Lou, who was going to town on her victim, possessed, seemingly unable to stop. Cassie gripped the back of Lou’s boilersuit and tried hauling her away, but the silly cow was too frenzied, too strong with anger. She’d fuck this right up if she wasn’t careful. There wasn’t enough time to have the luxury of wrecking Codderidge’s face.

“Mam,” Cassie whispered. “Help me get her off.”

Mam used her bat and hit Lou’s weapon arm enough to hurt but not to break any bones. Lou spun around, the nail block raised, stepping farther into the edge of the light. One side of the balaclava was somewhat visible. Blood that appeared black had splashed onto the skin around Lou’s eye.

“Don’t you fucking dare come at me with that,” Mam said. “Finish her off, for God’s sake. We need to go.”

Cassie glanced over at the door.