The Piggy Farmer (The Barrington Patch Book 3)

by Emmy Ellis

  Gary, in protective clothing himself, approached Evan, who’d moved on to the female victim. And it hit him then, that while it sounded fantastical, these two murders might not be connected to Gorley and Bob. The first two could be unrelated—Bob had pissed the Graftons off, for whatever reason, and Gorley had placed something too close to his gas fire and died.

  No, the latter wasn’t right, not that anyone else knew that. Just in case it was a Grafton hit, Gary, being the first on scene after the firefighters, had spotted a padlock in the ashes, in the locked position, and carefully, with his back to the fire crew, he’d swiped it up, placing it in his coat pocket. If it had been on the outside of the shed door, it would point to murder, and he for one didn’t want to be the SIO on that situation (but he was, to cover for Francis). The post-mortem results hadn’t come back for Gorley yet, it was perhaps too soon, and Gary prayed the bloke had just been burnt and there were no signs of foul play.

  This scene… Had one of their spouses finally found out about the years-long affair, following them? Had they seen what was so obviously happening, going off on one? With nowt here that could have been used as a weapon, they had to have brought one—or two—with them, so it was premeditated, a conscious decision to harm. This had all the signs of a rage attack, personal, what with the state of the woman’s face. Someone had gone to town on it, blood spatter everywhere, her cheeks ripped, one of her eyes hanging out, for Pete’s sake. Her bottom lip had been torn and, attached only by a slither of skin, had flopped over the bottom of her cheek, her lower teeth bared.

  He’d have to visit their next of kin to inform them of the tragic news and, much as he detested it, ask them where they were this evening. That was standard, but it would be a loaded question because of the emotion involved in Codderidge’s murder. Most killers, in his experience, didn’t try to obliterate a face unless they were incensed with love or hate.

  Or both.

  “Got any thoughts for me, Evan?” Gary stood on an evidence step at the dead woman’s feet, his white overalls rustling in a soft breeze. Jesus, it was so cold tonight.

  Evan didn’t turn his face to him. His bushy black eyebrows scrunched, and he swiped a gloved hand beneath blood-matted hair to brush it away from the victim’s neck, some of it clinging to the bloodied gashes there. The photographer had already been, and Gary had given the all-clear for the pathologist to do his job, allowing him to touch the body if he had a mind. It’d be in his hands in the lab anyroad.

  Evan sighed, his mask puffing out. “I’m thinking… And this isn’t to tell you how to suck eggs with regards to working out what happened here.”

  “I always value your input. We’re a team, all of us in it together.” He was slightly sickened by saying that. He wasn’t a full team member anymore, he was bent, but Trish… He was doing this for her, had to keep reminding himself of that. “You help with listening to the dead telling their final story, and it always gives me something to run with. Go on.”

  “Kind of you to say. Gorley would have rolled his eyes—oh, and I have some news for you there, some findings from the post, although I haven’t completed it yet. I’ll tell you in a minute.”

  God…

  Evan shifted on his haunches, his calf muscles probably giving him gyp. “Back to this case. Knight may have been hit to subdue him, get him out of the way while Codderidge was attacked. Perhaps the real rage was against her, not him, considering she’s in this mess and he fared a little better, although that smack to his face, blunt force trauma with what I suspect was a bat—seen enough of those wounds to be certain that’s what it is—was a pretty hard one, and the wounds on his neck, they’d have finished him off if the head blow didn’t.”

  “So, a male assailant?”

  Evan laughed, the hoot of an owl, his crows’ feet concertinaing. “Come on now. You know as well as I do a woman could have done this. A bat, wielded by anyone angry enough, can create this kind of damage. As you’ve probably seen, it caved his forehead in, a bit of brain on show, skull fragments, whatever.”

  Gary winced. Evan’s blasé way of describing things always unnerved him, but the man had seen all sorts of horrors at scenes and on his post-mortem table. He was probably desensitised, had to be to remain sane. Gary was sort of the same, although he had become jaded from seeing so much destruction so wasn’t as jolly as the pathologist.

  “But back to Codderidge,” Evan said. “It appears several sharp implements at once entered not only her face but the top of her head—those in the skull are in a uniform pattern.”

  Gary’s stomach muscles tightened. Fuck it. “Like barbed wire?”

  “No, that would make an altogether different mess—and I said uniform, don’t forget. Think of a scrubbing brush, except instead of bristles, you have pointed…nails maybe, or something of that nature. They’re long.”

  A homemade weapon? Like Cassie’s whip?

  Gary always read The Life but had never done owt about what was written in the flyers, because there seemed to be hidden messages between the lines that only the civvy residents of the Barrington knew how to interpret. Of course, there was outright admittance of things, like the barbed wire whip, but unless Cassie was caught with it in her possession, the carrying of a weapon with intent to harm, or they suspected someone had been barbed by her, he couldn’t very well walk up to her and demand to see it. No one who’d been barbed had come forward, and he reckoned they couldn’t—they were most likely bloody dead. Over the years, officers at the station had either expressed their feelings or shown it on their faces when it came to dealing with things on the Barrington—no thanks, I’ll stay away from there, let Lenny or Cassie deal with it.

  Lenny had carved it in stone, the way things went, and while it was wrong for coppers to have let him—and now Cassie—go on their merry way, the Graftons were so canny, Gary doubted they’d be able to pin owt on them anyroad.

  A waste of time and the public’s money to drag them in for an interview.

  He’d have to speak to Francis in a bit, about the possibility Cassie had made a second weapon.

  Shit.

  Evan glanced his way then back to the victim. “She’s still warmish.”

  Gary’s tummy churned. “That marries with what the man said about the time he found them.”

  One Dennis Abraham, a skinny young bloke, had come outside for a ‘cheeky’ cigarette ‘innit’ after the murders, texting his girlfriend while smoking and pacing, and he’d ventured as far as the wheelie bins, tripping on Codderidge’s outstretched leg. He’d stumbled and righted himself by the time he’d met with a dead Knight—“It was nowt but a lump, like, cos it was dark.”—and used his phone torch see what was ahead of him, then flashed it at Codderidge. One vomit session later, quite the splashback from several lagers and a plate of cheesy chips, his cigarette thrown in panic, Dennis had run to the back door, digested what he’d seen, and phoned the police.

  No one else had witnessed a thing.

  Good.

  “So, about Gorley?” Gary held his breath. Fuck knows what Evan has to say. Please let it just be a fire.

  “I’m afraid the weapon used on these two was probably also used on Gorley—not the bat, you understand, the other one.”

  Gary’s body turned frozen, so, so cold. “How can you tell? From what I saw, all his skin was charred.”

  “Damage to the lower jaw bone and piercings in the gum and the flesh, the bones in his neck, striations caused by something like what I described, the nail scrubbing brush. He had three teeth missing, swallowing two, and they had to have been during an attack as the gums showed evidence of recent tooth removal.”

  He wasn’t burnt enough, God, he wasn’t fucking burnt enough.

  “Okay, so were the teeth removed by another implement, say pliers during torture, or because of the weapon?”

  “Once I get the chance to have another look, I’ll be saying it’s the weapon in my report. As you can imagine, the police deaths here, plus Gorley
dead using the same tool, for want of a better word, and Bob missing… Four officers. Someone’s out there picking you all off?”

  I don’t need this. “I bloody hope not.”

  “Me, too. I quite like you, and tending to your dead body isn’t something I want to be doing.” Evan rose and faced Gary. “Keep as safe as you can, pal. There are many nutters out there.”

  Don’t I know it, and two are called Francis and Cassie. “I’ll do my best.”

  Gary swivelled to find his DS, Kath Lowry, who stood by the pub door, bending to examine the handle for some reason. Bloody hell, what now?

  “I’ll catch you later, Ev.” He left the evidence step, the crunch of grit beneath his shoes a crackle in the quiet.

  “Yep, I’ll be here for a while. Oh, and neither victim fought back, going by their fingernails, but that opinion may change once I scrape them. The attack was probably too quick for them to think of scratching the assailant.”

  “Cheers.” Gary walked to Kath, imagining the fear his dead colleagues had experienced, hating himself for being prepared to cover owt up.

  Another officer had joined Kath, one of the forensic lot, difficult to tell who as Gary didn’t recognise their eyes above the mask.

  “What’s going on here then?” he asked. All he needed was to have added ‘Hello, hello, hello’ at the start to become a complete cliché, what with his home troubles, his need for a few scotches after work, and his defection of duty. He was a walking thriller novel detective, riddled with demons.

  “I think something was used to force the handle up so it didn’t come down.” 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 now. She’s taken extra shifts at Betty’s, then there’s that flower arranging course she’s doing.”

  “Well, I’m sure I wouldn’t know owt about that, because you never said until now. You don’t share owt. Funny she hasn’t nipped in, because you were in each other’s pockets at one point. Something’s happened, I know it; you just don’t want to admit it.”

  Doreen had held back a scream. Mam was poking too hard at an abscess that might pop. “I’m not talking to you when you’re in this kind of mood, it only leads to a row. I’m off to the market. Do you want owt?”

  “A cauli and some carrots for tomorrow’s roast.”

  Mam hadn’t dipped her hand in her purse or said thank you.

  Now, Doreen sighed and eyed a dress, but if she bought it, Mam would comment on it, saying how it was too short, too tight, and people would think Doreen was a tart if she ‘swanned’ up to The Donny in it. “Legs aren’t for flashing, our Doreen.”

  She turned away from it, missing the nights she’d put on whatever she liked a
nd Mam hadn’t seen it, walking to the pub with Lou and Janice, having a right laugh, no chance of Mam turning up because she didn’t hold with ‘drinking and cavorting’, unlike some people.

  Christ, always there with a barb.

  Bloody hell, maybe Doreen should have stayed with her friends, but it was too late now as some girl called Deborah had taken Doreen’s place, and she doubted any of them would want her bunking in one of their rooms on a camp bed. And besides, Stalker calling her from the well had seemed so real at the time, and knowing his body was down the bottom of it… She couldn’t cope with it. She swore a faint rotting meat smell had wafted out, too, the peat not doing enough to hide it, the summer so hot it drew the whiff up.

  Lou had said, “But surely it’ll be cold down there, so far under the ground, so the smell stayed there? You must have imagined it.”

  But I bloody didn’t.

  She moved on to the shoe stall, one with racks around the edges beneath the red-and-white-striped marquee. The woman who ran it wasn’t about, probably gassing to someone elsewhere, another market trader, so Doreen browsed what was on offer, again telling herself not to bother buying any because…Mam. The old gal meant well, had a good heart when the chips were really down, but sodding hell.

  “Those ones are nice,” someone said in a Yorkshire accent.

  Doreen turned to whoever had spoken, and her breath caught, her heart stalling. Eyes, those bloody blue eyes stared, and for one terrible second she thought they belonged to Stalker, that he’d clawed his way out of the well, taken himself to hospital, and was now all better. He couldn’t have, though. It was too deep, there was no ladder, and it was just her silly mind playing tricks. And this man was a couple of inches taller, although he had the same colour hair, but it wasn’t him, oh God, it wasn’t him.