by Emmy Ellis
“Five. Today he’s just got to clean out the pigs.”
“What if he rolls over in bed and finds you’re not there?” Mam brought the drinks over and sat.
Lou shrugged. “I’ve gone for drives during the night before. He knows I get restless.”
Fine.
“Okay, what are your plans going forward? How many coppers are you going to ‘farm’?” It had given Cassie the willies when Lou had announced she was now The Piggy Farmer, intent on farming all the coppers out of the area, the ones who’d failed her daughter. That had to be a large number. The amount of police involved in a missing child case/murder ran into the hundreds, surely.
No way can we kill all of them.
“Four main ones. There were five, but one died already. Don’t worry, I don’t plan to bump off the whole force.” Lou laughed, picked up her coffee, and blew on it. She sipped, taking her time about it an’ all. “Bob was the first one, although originally he was last on my shit list, so there are three more.”
“Why Bob?” Cassie watched the steam rising from her cup and wished she was in the office filling in the coded ledger, not sitting here with some deranged woman.
“Because he did door-to-door enquiries and didn’t go inside The Mechanic’s house—in anyone’s house on his designated route. All the other uniforms went inside properties, but Bob? He was pals with The Mechanic, so of course he’d bloody well ignore his orders on that score. If he’d gone in, had a look around, he’d have found my Jess locked in that upstairs office. Alive.” Tears glistened in her eyes, eyes that no longer had the mad gleam but shadows of sadness. “I listen to gossip whenever I’m away from the farm, and everyone admitted he’d just spoken to them at their doors. He let my little girl down.”
Cassie swallowed the lump in her throat. She just about remembered playing with Jess, but those memories were hazy. Who could recall everything from when they were three? “What about the other pigs? Who are they?”
Lou’s face scrunched in distaste. “DCI Robin Gorley, DC Simon Knight, and DS Lisa Codderidge. They led the investigation, and none of them thought to check Bob’s route and what he’d done on it. Or hadn’t done.”
Cassie played devil’s advocate. “He might have lied on his reports, said he’d entered homes, so it wouldn’t be their fault.”
Lou didn’t appear to want to listen to that, wafting her hand about in dismissal. “Whatever, they didn’t find Jess, and they’re responsible for her death as much as Vance bastard Johnson. I want justice, and while Vance is now dead, it’s not enough anymore.”
Will it ever be enough? Will she ever stop searching for retribution? “How do you propose to kill the rest?”
Lou appeared smug. “I know where they go when they’re not at work. I’ve kept my ears and eyes open for a long while. Over twenty bloody years, Cass. You can think up a lot of revenge during that time. The DCI’s retired now. He likes his allotment, even goes there in this weather. Sits in his shed for hours on end instead of growing stuff. The DI and DS are having a fling, have been for yonks—they meet up at The Lion’s Head then shag behind it. You know the one, on the Moor estate. I’ve followed them, seen it with my own eyes.”
The Moor estate. Where Zhang Wei opened The Golden Dragon. “Was it just by chance you were driving earlier and saw Bob then, or did you already know his night shift routine if you’ve been following these people?”
“He always drove past the farm at the same time of night, like he had a route he stuck by. I stare out of the window a lot when I have insomnia. I just happened to go after him earlier. Couldn’t sleep again.” Lou rubbed her forehead. “I was fired up from feeding the pigs.”
That weird gleam came back.
Cassie suppressed a shudder. “So, you didn’t answer my question. How do you plan to kill the coppers?” She turned to Mam. “I take it you’re helping.”
Mam nodded. “We’ve discussed it, yes, but not to any great degree.”
Cassie sighed. “Then we need to plan. Properly. Four coppers going missing is going to create a stir. We act fast, get them all done as quickly as we can. Then maybe we can return to some form of normality.”
It was a nice thought, but somehow, Cassie knew that wasn’t going to happen. Running the Barrington meant she had to be on her toes at all times, so nowt was ever normal. There was always someone in the shadows, waiting to cause trouble.
Not for the first time, she cursed her father’s dodgy heart. She wouldn’t be surprised if hers went the same way, what with all the stress.
Chapter Two
The Barrington Life – Your Weekly
JESS WILSON’S FUNERAL
Karen Scholes – All Things Crime in our Time
Sharon Barnett – Chief Editor
FRIDAY EVENING EDITION. JULY 11TH 1997
As many of you know, our lovely little Jessica Wilson was laid to rest, the police finally releasing her body to her parents. What a turnout. Thanks to everyone who came to show Joe and Lou their support — and thank you for doing what they wanted by buying your children something nice rather than spending it on flowers.
What I came to realise as I stood in that church and stared at that tiny coffin was: life is never guaranteed. We gad about thinking we have all the time in the world, don’t we, making plans for the future, when that very future isn’t always there waiting for us. Jess was supposed to grow up and fall in love, marry, and have kids. Instead… Well, we all know what happened. Tragic.
No bones about it, the police are useless. I’m not sorry for saying that either. I mean, come on, what were they doing, picking their noses? That child should never have been snatched, never have been held against her will, and never, ever should she have been dumped by The Beast on Sculptor’s Field. What kind of society do we live in for that to happen? Makes me sick.
The second kidnapper who was in the back of the van is still at large. We need to remain vigilant, watch our kiddies, in case whoever that was decides to do it again. Hold your child’s hand a bit tighter. Don’t let the smaller ones play outside by themselves. If it takes sitting on your doorstep while they kick a football in the road or whatever, that’s what you have to do. They’re precious, our kids, and if I find out someone’s ignored these rules, I’ll be letting Lenny know. He’ll deal with you.
Anyroad, I got carried away there. Once again, thank you for going to the funeral. Big hugs to Sharon for buying the balloons with Jess’ name on them. When we all let them go, I got massive goosebumps and hoped Jess could see them from Heaven. She’s an angel now, forever in our hearts.
Lou sighed and pushed The Barrington Life leaflet across the kitchen table. It had arrived an hour ago, Karen Scholes probably rushing home to write it. Sometimes, that woman was macabre the way she jumped on anyone’s misfortune and spread it around the Barrington. All right, Lenny had probably told her to do it, but still, some things could be left alone, couldn’t they? At least until tomorrow. It wasn’t that Lou didn’t want Jess in the forefront of people’s minds, she did, just not this minute.
She was drained from the funeral, absolutely washed out having to speak to so many people, accepting their condolences, lying and saying she’d be okay when she fucking well wouldn’t. She’d never be okay again. It had seemed like her body didn’t belong to her anymore, going through the motions, shaking hands, allowing people to hug her, and all the while, her soul had screamed: “Stop! Make this stop! Please, just leave me be.”
While she was grateful they’d come, taking the time out of their lives to attend, she wished she’d limited it to family and close friends. Instead, it seemed all of the Barrington had turned up, hundreds coming together as a community to mourn the heart-breaking loss of her child, some having to remain outside the church. Or, as she’d bitterly contemplated when the crowd was twenty-deep around the hole in the ground, they’d come for the excitement, something to bring drama to an otherwise shite day, and then had a reason to get bladdered in The Donny from the free b
ar Lenny had provided, not to mention the gorgeous spread, a buffet he’d paid some company to make. There had even been a cake made by Nicola in The Shoppe Pudding, little pink wellies on top, anchors for a fondant girl with curly blonde hair and a pretty ballerina dress.
A sweet Jess, as she’d been while alive.
Lou had taken it, wrapped it in a napkin, and once home, she’d placed it in a box and hid it at the back of a kitchen cupboard. One day it would crack, become distorted, a memory ruined by time, and she’d mourn that fondant girl along with the real thing.
No one would mourn more than her, she was sure of that. She was still in a state of shock, living in a surreal world where her daughter was gone but her heart refused to accept it. To get through since the discovery of the body, she’d pretended Jess was staying with family, on an extended holiday down south. Cornwall, playing in the sand, building castles. She’d have a pink bucket—Jess loved pink—and a pink spade, and she’d have a strawberry ice cream in a cone. She’d giggle when the sea whooshed up to bite her tiny toes, screeching as it chased her up the beach.
I’ll never hear that giggle again except in my head.
Joe had gone to bed, dog-tired from grief, from the enormity of standing there while such an obscenely small casket had been lowered into a just as obscenely small hole, so Lou had some time to herself now, precious time away from someone worrying over her. She got up and wandered upstairs to Jess’ room, quiet, so Joe didn’t hear her in his sleep and wake, asking if she was okay.
Everything was exactly as it should be in this toddler’s paradise, and every night since the kidnap, Lou had closed the curtains and switched on the lamp. Every morning she did the opposite, letting in the light of day, telling herself Jess would be back soon, sand between her toes, in her sandals, and the bottom of her suitcase.
It had helped her get through.
Two items of Jess’ had been returned despite the police saying they’d be needed as evidence. Lenny had worked his magic, telling a high-up pig in his pocket that the man who’d killed Jess would be quietly dealt with, so why hold on to those possessions? Somehow—rules broken, Lou had no doubt of that—she’d received the pink wellies and the transparent rainbow coat.
The post-mortem had revealed strangulation, the marks of hands around her dainty throat emerging an hour or so after Karen Scholes had found the body on Sculptor’s Field, the broken hyoid bone, the tiny red spots around her eyes—all of it evidence that someone had throttled her child.
Who could do such a thing?
Jess sat on the bed with its ballerina duvet and smoothed her hand over the pillow. One of Jess’ hairs snagged on the diamond of her engagement ring, and Lou held it up to the light from the lamp, crying at the way that hair glimmered. It had always glimmered, but now the rest of it was beneath the ground in a box, ready to rot. Eventually, her baby would have bugs eating her eyes and crawling in her mouth and—
She imagined this sort of thing daily, tormenting herself. Was it any wonder she’d gone slightly mad? Who in their right mind could cope with such images and the hurt they produced? But she couldn’t help it; seemed she wanted to feel the pain as penance for not being at the factory when Jess had been stolen. If she’d been there, the man wouldn’t have taken her. Lou would’ve fought to snatch her from his arms.
Correction: the man wouldn’t have got near her in the first place, as Lou always, always held her hand and kept her close.
Did she blame Joe? A little—how could she not? With grief, you had to blame someone, didn’t you, had to have one or two people you held accountable. He should have been holding her hand. He should have fought harder. But he had tried, and she wasn’t so mental and twisted that she couldn’t see how such situations spiralled out of control. Everyone who’d been there had told her he’d turned into a lion, defending his cub, and it had happened so fast he hadn’t been able to stop it.
Then there was the gun pointed his way.
Ninety-five percent of her didn’t hold him responsible, but the other five… She’d have to work hard not to let her feelings show, keep them tucked away inside, find someone else to settle her blame on. Joe was broken, and he carried enough guilt as it was.
What about the police?
She allowed scenarios to enter her mind, watching them as film snippets: her spying on the coppers involved; planning how to waylay them without being seen; killing them for their part in this. Yes, that would keep her going throughout the coming years. She’d have a focus, even if she didn’t follow through.
She couldn’t let herself remain on that train of thought and told herself such things would never happen. No, she’d never kill a police officer—she’d killed someone with Doreen Prince once, and that was enough for her. And Jess would never have bugs crawling all over her, not in Lou’s mind. She’d remain preserved in the coffin, as perfect in death as she’d been in life.
And anyroad, she was in Cornwall, wasn’t she, living down there.
It was better to tell herself that.
Chapter Three
Jason was dreaming. Or, more to the point, having a nightmare. Odd how you knew it was a dream, yet you were asleep and should know no such thing. Pain soared in his leg, and if he wasn’t mistaken, it was nailed to the floor. He wasn’t sure how he knew that, but dreams had a way about them where they just told you stuff, didn’t they, gave you knowledge. There you were, in whatever situation—he was usually fighting his dad and killing him, saving Mam from the arsehole—all the information there.
It was the agony that was the biggest clue regarding the nail, and the constant feel of it; if he moved his leg even a millimetre, the solid spike made itself known, as did the pain, the heat, the utter wretchedness, the broken bone where the nail had pierced through it.
He urged himself to wake up—in his bed, not the squat where he guessed his subconscious mind had placed him—but the struggle was too much. He was tired, and alcohol still floated through his body. Was that part of the dream or reality? Had he been on a bender? The remnants of Jack Daniel’s clung to his furry tongue, so that was a possibility, but the taste of old blood didn’t make sense.
Alcohol-induced nightmares were a right old wanker.
A noise. Someone shuffling? It sounded like shoes shushing over carpet.
“Ah, you’re coming round then. Do you need some painkillers?” A pause. “If you give me any bother, Cassie says I have to knock you back out, just so you know. Punch you, like.”
Jason frowned, and the action hurt his sore face. It was on fire, tight with what he could only assume was dried blood. The smell of it was strong, the copper pennies of childhood inside a piggy bank.
And…hang on, why the fuck was Jimmy Lews talking to him?
Jason opened his eyes—or he thought he did. They seemed already open, scratchy and dry, and they’d just rolled down from on high, as though he didn’t have any eyelids. He breathed in through his nose, and more air than usual entered—one nostril was bigger than the other?
A gauzy Jimmy bent over him, peering right into Jason’s face. Jesus Christ, that acne of his… It was a hair’s breadth away, livid, some spots with yellow pus on the verge of breaking through the surface.
You’d think he’d make a visit to Superdrug, wouldn’t you, get some cream.
“Gerraway,” Jason mumbled, his bottom lip heavy. He tried to bat Jimmy off, but his hands were tied behind his back. Was this situation showing him what it was like to be held captive at the squat? Did a small part of him feel guilty over what he’d done to people here and it was manifesting in a dream?
No, he never felt guilty, so what was this all about?
“Are you going to behave?” Jimmy eased back, and he grew smaller, indistinct, a dark fuzzy shadow surrounded by yellow light, too yellow to just be the bare bulb dangling above his head. “Because I don’t want to hit you. Don’t forget I’ve got a gun an’ all. I’ll use it, but it doesn’t mean I’ll get any joy from it.”
Ja
son scrabbled to work this out. Jimmy with a gun didn’t sound right. The pimply fuckface was someone Lenny had used as a message runner in the past, but he wasn’t the sort to have a weapon. Where would he have got it from? It didn’t make sense.
Shit, did he steal mine?
“Gun?” Jason managed to grind out. God, his bottom lip hurt, throbbed. It was thick, swollen, and taut in one section, as if something held it together. Invisible pliers.
Jimmy’s shadow nodded, the head moving in stuttered slow motion. “Yeah. What’s up with you? Don’t you remember?”
Remember what?
Jason hated not being in control, and this dream was doing his bloody nut in. Fresh pain speared his leg, joining the relentless ache-burn, and he moaned, too tired to scream. His throat was sore anyroad, as though he’d already screeched for England or it was parched from lack of water, and his energy level was too low—he needed to keep what he had to think, and even that was difficult.
“Cazzee…?” he said and detested how that word had come out.
“You were a right prat messing with her.” Jimmy loomed back into view, one of his spots about to erupt far too close for comfort. “Only a prick would try to take the patch off her.”
Prick. Jimmy had called him a prick.
Rage festered in Jason’s gut, more so because he didn’t have it in him to react to the slur, one his waste-of-space father had always called him. The dream-nightmare was doing a number on him, preventing him from acting as he usually would, and he didn’t like it. If he could get his hands free, stand, he’d beat the shit out of Jimmy.
“Pizz…off.” He hovered on the brink of going deeper under or waking up. Which one needed more effort? Waking. It would be so easy to let himself drift, and he longed for oblivion to take him.
