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

Kath pointed to the concrete just outside the door. “Wedged there. Look at the scrape on the ground.”

There was no denying it, someone had done this to prevent smokers coming outside and spotting them in the act. Bollocks. Whoever they were had a set of balls on them. As a smoker himself, in their position, Gary would have gone out the front and come round here to have a puff—a blocked door wouldn’t have stopped him.

“Okay, stick an evidence marker there. I just need to make a phone call to check on Trish, then I’ll be back.”

He strode down the side of the pub, signed the log, removed his booties (handing them over to the PC to put back on when he returned), then dipped beneath the cordon. He went left to stand beneath a lamppost, creating enough distance between him and the PC so he wasn’t overheard. Undoing his protective clothing zip, he took the work burner Francis had given him out of his inside suit jacket pocket, casually glancing at the PC to ensure he wasn’t being watched.

He wasn’t.

While it was a risk to have the burner on him during shift hours, it was a necessity, one of her rules. He connected the call, and Francis answered quickly.

“Yes?”

“Possible problem,” he said. “I’m at The Lion’s Head.”

“Oh dear. Can you handle it?”

So it was something to do with her. “Yes.”

“Make sure you do. I hear Trish can’t move out of her chair for the most part these days. It would be such a shame if someone broke in. She wouldn’t be able to get away…”

Gary closed his eyes. “I hear you.”

“Good man.”

That was debateable. Good wasn’t something he felt at the minute. “I’ll need more money to deal with this.”

“Of course you do. Tomorrow. A brown envelope in a Sainsbury’s carrier bag in the bin outside Sam’s Café. Ten a.m.”

She cut him off, and he tucked the phone away, his whole body shaking.

What the fucking hell had he got himself into?

Chapter Eighteen

Four torturous weeks after Stalker’s murder, Doreen meandered around the market. It was Saturday, her day off from the betting shop, and she couldn’t stand to be in the house any longer. Stifling, that’s what it was, and not only from the raging August heat. Mam had been on her earhole this morning about when she was going to move out again. Doreen couldn’t wait to leave either, and she hadn’t even been back long. God, if she could just find a room somewhere, she’d be gone like a shot.

She’d only lived with Lou and Janice for a few months, but in that time she’d grown used to doing her own thing without any questions, funny looks, or tsks. Mam had a nasty habit of poking her nose in whether Doreen wanted her to or not, and while she’d left home for just that reason, needing space and freedom, she hadn’t realised how bad Mam was with her probing until she’d gone back. It seemed to have got worse, or maybe it just felt that way. Dad, bless his heart, sat in his chair, mouth shut, knowing from years of experience it was either do that or get his head chewed off.

Doreen never had been of a mind to copy him, take the lead he so obviously showed her, instead biting back at Mam if she was riled enough, baiting her in return, and it always ended up with them shouting at each other, mother and daughter fighting for dominance, the matriarch usually winning.

Doreen worried, with the murder and everything, whether her anxiety and fears meant she’d eventually cow down, be so browbeaten by her memories and thoughts that Mam’s attacks would only serve to dim her light even more. So Doreen had made an attempt to stand up for herself. You know, remain the woman she’d been before she’d driven a blade into a man’s stomach and across his throat, not some changed soul beneath a shell that masqueraded as who she used to be.

It was getting more difficult to put on a front, not easier.

“Oh, give over, Mam,” Doreen had said, too loudly, too strident, her nerves so coiled she had the urge to punch the wall, something, anything to show Mam enough was enough. “I’ve been looking for a bedsit, don’t you worry. I mean, do you think I want to live here?”

“The cheek of it! My house was good enough to come back to, though, wasn’t it. Oh yes, you were fine about coming here when it suited you.”

“I didn’t mean it like that, and you know it.” God, why did Mam always have to put that spin on everything?

“Hmm. You never did say why you moved out of that lovely little place you had. Your own room, sharing the kitchen and bathroom with friends. It wasn’t strangers you had to clean up after, was it, but people you already knew, and that makes a big difference. You won’t get so lucky again, I’ll be bound.” Mam had folded her arms in that way she had, where it signalled a storm brewing; she was gearing up for a right old barny.

“I couldn’t afford it in the end, even with the extra cash you gave me.” Lie. “The gas meter scoffed so much money.”

“Why? It’s summer, you daft apeth. You don’t use so much gas then. You need to learn to budget better, my girl, that’s what I think. Gas, my eye. You’ve been spending too much time and money up The Donny and no mistake.” Mam had nodded to herself: I’m right, you know I am, and my friends told me anyroad, so up yours, Dor. “And Lou hasn’t been round since. Are you sure you haven’t had a falling out?”

“She’s busy, I’m busy, and we don’t have the time to catch up