The Noble Murder (The Barrington Patch Book 5)

by Emmy Ellis

  Henry had kept out of the bright light of suspicion, but Lionel hadn’t fared so well. If only he hadn’t touched them in public, his secret would have been safe, but no, Lionel had taken every opportunity to graze fingers with his or brush a hand up a bare leg.

  “A dalliance,” Cassie said. “Is that how you see it?”

  She wouldn’t understand. No one did unless they experienced the same feelings, the same needs.

  “She was Lionel’s favourite, you know.” He winced at his sore throat. “Water.”

  Someone fed him some more.

  Henry continued. “And I could tell that by the way he treated her.”

  “What do you mean?” Cassie asked.

  “I watched them. In the woods. What they did. That’s how I know she killed him.”

  “Yet you let Mark Benson go down for it?”

  Henry snapped his eyes open. How did she know about that? Had Francis told her? “We keep each other’s secrets, people like me, and we don’t go around letting folks know why one of us was murdered in cold blood.”

  “Cold blood? He was a raging fucking pervert,” Cassie hissed.

  “He loved her.”

  “That’s not love in my book.” She glared at him, fists clenched by her sides. “So she killed him. Good. What else do you have to tell me?”

  “She…she suffocated a baby.”

  “I know.”

  What? “So I told her I knew.”

  “It was you?” Cassie gaped at him but recovered quickly, blanking her face. “You were the one who threatened her?” She laughed, throwing her head back, then looked at Jimmy. “How fucking amazing is this? He’s fallen right in our laps.”

  What did she mean? Henry didn’t understand why she’d find this funny or amazing.

  “So what did she do?” Cassie asked.

  “Kidnapped my wife and murdered her.” The wicked arrow of grief entered his heart all over again—grief at being overruled by Francis. “To show me I wasn’t as clever as I thought. To let me know I’d never best her and she was the one in control. It happens, with girls who’ve been loved by us. Some of them grow up into nasty bitches who have to show the world they’re the boss, that they have a say in things.”

  Jimmy darted towards him, and Cassie grabbed his arm to hold him back.

  “Leave it,” she said.

  Jimmy seemed to have trouble obeying but nonetheless moved back to where he’d stood before.

  “How did she kill her?” Cassie said.

  Henry explained how Francis had got him to tie Beatrice up, how she’d used a gun to coerce them and, closing his eyes again, he saw his wife as he’d imagined she’d been in that field, the bag pressed so close to her face it could have been skin. He’d even held his breath a few times over the years to see what she must have felt, how her lungs had burned with the need for air. He’d even put a bag over one of his girl’s heads to watch how it played out, removing it at the last minute.

  At sixteen, that girl had killed herself.

  It wasn’t my fault.

  “How many girls have you messed with?” Cassie asked.

  Henry told her every name except for one.

  “And Lionel’s list?”

  He rattled off who he could recall. Sometimes, Lionel kept them secret. “What will you do?”

  “Check if they’re all right, what else? See if I can pay for private counselling. Something to try to fix the mess you two created.”

  “Mess?” He didn’t know what she meant. “How can love be mess?”

  Cassie glanced at Jimmy. “This prick’s getting on my fucking nerves.”

  Jimmy picked up a briefcase Henry hadn’t spotted until now. Held it up for Cassie. She clicked the gold-coloured locks open and raised the lid.

  “I’ll do this one,” she said and removed—

  The whip. The one everyone whispers about. Dear God…

  “She needs killing,” Henry babbled. “That mother of yours has to be stopped.”

  Cassie held the whip handle, the barbed tail hanging beside her. “Someone already did that before I got the chance.”

  What?

  “They shot her,” she said. “In a graveyard of all places.”

  Henry roared with rusty-sounding laughter, staring at the barbs, anticipating their bite, welcoming whatever she had to give him, because he was done here. He’d loved and he’d conquered, and the only regret he had was he couldn’t see Valerie again—couldn’t see her little girl. That’s why his lover had moved to Blackpool, to get away from his ‘pervert arse’. Michelle had seen to that.

  Yes, that was a regret.

  The flash of silver spikes, then them landing on his face stopped the laughter, a cry of pain coming out instead. Cassie’s eyes held a manic glint, and she lashed out at him again and again. Mesmerising bobbles of blood flew through the air, and with each rip of his skin, Henry thought of the ones he’d loved. This was the end, the beautiful, painful end. Pain had always been his friend with his special little people.

  It was just a shame, as a punch was landed to his face by Jimmy, said man calling him all the names under the sun, that in Henry’s last moments he didn’t have a penis to show them how exciting this was.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Felix and Ted had just got home when the call had come in about another two feeds for Marlene and the pigs. Cassie was on a roll tonight, a busy bee, and maybe that was a good thing. It’d take her mind off the pain of her mam being gunned down. The dead must have something to do with Francis’ murder, although why Ben, Lisa, and Paul would kill her was a mystery to Felix, if they even had. And who were the other two being delivered? Were they all linked?

  Ted drove them back towards the factory, the March night cold, meaning they had the heat blasting through the vents. It smelt of flowers from the plug-in air freshener. “We’ll have all that cleaning up to do again. I’m fair knobbed off about having to go back. I wanted to watch that thing on the telly.”

  Felix frowned at having to once again be a mind reader when it came to his cousin not explaining shit properly. “What thing?”

  “About the murder of that woman.”

  “What woman?”

  “I can’t remember what the programme’s called.”

  Felix shook his head. “I don’t know why you watch that sort of thing when we help clean up the aftermath. Isn’t that enough gore for you? We should be more interested in why that family we minced copped it, not some woman we don’t even know. Joe’s going to find out sooner or later that his wife’s kin have disappeared, and let me tell you, when we dropped that mince off, I felt bloody awful knowing who it belonged to and not saying owt.”

  “It’s not for us to pass on any information unless we’re told to,” Ted said. “I don’t know why you insist on asking questions these days. You got away with it when it came to Lenny, but Cassie? Don’t push the lass. Her not getting out of the car should have told you she wasn’t in her usual state, and hearing you being nosy, especially when the bodies must be something to do with her mam, well, you’re insensitive.”

  Felix wouldn’t call it that. It was more to do with him wanting to know what was going on inside Cassie’s head. He didn’t want her turning into a copy of her mother and father, wreaking too much havoc, unnecessary havoc. He’d watched the lass grow up and had a soft spot for her. When she’d been named as the one to take over once Lenny got ill, Felix had cringed. The poor girl had had her whole life mapped out, going to uni to be a teacher, doing good in the world instead of bad, but her dad had decided otherwise, erasing all her hard work, all that studying, all that freedom away from patch madness.

  The thing with Lenny was, he’d seen the housing estate as his legacy, something that belonged to him and that he had the right to pass it down, but he didn’t. He’d just got lucky back in the day, running how things went by foul means rather than fair. The Barrington wasn’t a possession he could hand down like a fucking gold ring. Secretly, Felix had wished t
hat with Lenny’s heart being dodgy, that would have been the end of it. News that he’d been training Cassie along with Glen come the end had saddened Felix something chronic.

  Now look at her, getting Jimmy to kill that family for her and God knew who else. And as for Jimmy, what a bloody shame she’d chosen him to corrupt. She was no better than Lenny, and Felix was maybe the only person who could tell her so without ending up dead for it.

  Ted drove up the track and parked in their usual spot behind the factory. They hadn’t let Joe know they’d be turning up at the farm again tonight, they’d have to wait for Cassie’s say-so, but the poor man had looked tired and beaten earlier, sick of taking the mince and making sure the pigs ate the lot.

  “There’s a bit of New York cheesecake with my name on it in the fridge,” Ted said.

  “Oi, that’s mine. You’ve already had yours.”

  “No I bloody didn’t! I had a quarter after our tea last night, so in my book, there’s still a quarter left.”

  “You owe me that quarter from the last time. You ate my spare bit of banoffee.”

  “Fuck me, talk about keeping tabs.” Ted nodded at the windscreen. “Headlights through the trees, look.”

  “Probably Cassie. We’d better get out, show willing.” Felix wasn’t willing, though, not tonight. He was weary of death, of the mincing, of Lenny’s iron fist still remaining even after he was cold in the ground.

  Felix went to stand by the factory door, and Ted sorted the alarm and opened up. He disappeared inside to collect the trolley, one they’d so recently scrubbed, one that may well get bloodied again, depending on how the people had been murdered. Felix stamped his feet, hands beneath his armpits, and watched the flicker of headlights through the leaves vanish where the side of the building blocked the view. Then came the rumble of an engine, the clatter of the trolley wheels, and the telltale crinkle of tyres over loose grit on the ground. Cassie drove around the corner and reversed at the same time Ted parked the trolley beside Felix.

  “Remember,” Ted warned out of the side of his mouth, “keep your questions to your bloody self.”

  Felix nodded, although he had no intention of doing so if the right opportunity presented itself. Any chance to see how Cassie was faring was better than none. Jimmy and Cassie got out this time, and she took charge, opening the boot. The bodies were stacked again, so Felix could only assume they were slender people for them both to fit. The bottom one was in a body bag; the material poked out beneath the top one, which had been dumped with its back facing upwards. A man, going by the hairy legs and arse crack.

  “Why doesn’t he have trousers or underwear on?” Felix eyed the blood on the inner thighs in the light of the little lamp in the boot.

  “Because someone took them off to lop at his filthy cock,” Cassie said, her voice all piss and vinegar. “He’s a nonce, this one, and he isn’t dead. Yet.”

  Oh, bugger me, she’s going to feed him into the chute alive. That was always so messy.

  “Right.” Felix nudged Ted. “Let’s put him on the top shelf in case he wakes up.”

  They lifted the man out, placing him on his back. Whoever he was had suffered with the barbed whip, his face obliterated. How he was still alive was a miracle, as his throat had gouges in it, some flaps of skin curled over.

  “Who’s this unfortunate fucker then?” Felix asked.

  “Henry Noble.”

  Dumbfounded wasn’t the word. “Him, a nonce?”

  “Hmm,” Cassie said. “Probably why his dick’s been removed. I didn’t ask.”

  “A justified murder then,” Ted said. “Can’t beat a bit of paedo killing, can you. Them folks who trap the likes of him online, well, let’s say I don’t disagree with what they’re doing, providing they catch the right person, that is.” He pointed at the body bag. “Is that a nonce an’ all?”

  Cassie shook her head. “No, this daft mare found out about him being tortured and thought she could make a few quid out of it.”

  “Blackmail?” Ted shook his head. “A dodgy business, that.”

  “So these are separate to the other three then?” Felix’s need to get answers far outweighed any bollocking Cassie would give him. Or Ted. Maybe he should have backed down about the cheesecake to soften him up.

  Seemed Cassie wasn’t in the mood to have a go when she said, “Separate yet weirdly connected. You don’t need to know owt else.” She raised her eyebrows at Felix in a challenge.

  No, he wasn’t going to push for more now.

  He and Ted got on with loading the ‘daft mare’, then all of them entered the factory. Cassie locked up, and Ted pushed the trolley ahead while Felix walked beside Jimmy, a hand on his shoulder.

  “All right, lad?”

  “Yep.”

  “You doing him?”

  Jimmy nodded, his face set in a grim expression. “Yep.” He took a gun out of a holster previously hidden by his suit jacket.

  “Aww, fuck, that’s going to make a right pig’s ear of the walls.” Felix sighed and entered the side room. “Blood everywhere.”

  “I don’t give a fuck,” Jimmy said. “I’ll clean it up.”

  “No need,” Cassie said behind them. “I’ll get Crew One in. This needs to be done properly if we’re talking the red stuff going up the walls. It took us ages that time before to wash it, and I’m too tired tonight.”

  With them all in Marlene’s room, Ted already dragging the body bag off the bottom shelf onto the floor, Cassie shut the door.

  She stood in front of Marlene, arms crossed, and looked at Felix. “Jimmy killing Noble in a few, that stays on the quiet. I don’t like to wax lyrical, you know the score already, but I want to say it so there’s no confusion later down the line if you happened to open your mouth by accident and claimed you weren’t specifically warned to keep your mouth shut.”

  Offended, Felix snapped, “I don’t make a habit of going against the rules.”

  “But you do,” she said. “Lately, you keep asking questions when it’s…none…of your…fucking…business.”

  She’s on the verge of turning into Lenny and walloping me one. “Lass, I’m just worried about you, where your head goes.”

  “Don’t. I can take care of myself. Things will be different around here after this anyroad. I won’t be going at things half-cocked without thinking it through first. I don’t want to be like my parents anymore, leaping in. That should stop you fretting.”

  Felix relaxed with relief. She’d seen the light, seen them for who and what they were, what she’d been becoming. Felix had loved Lenny like a son, but not how he’d gone about things. To see this kid here follow the same path in such an evil manner would break his heart.

  “Glad to hear it.” He stared at the open body bag, his mouth sagging. “Dawn?”

  “Don’t ask.” Cassie prodded the button to fire Marlene up, cutting off the avenue of conversation, then placed a tall plastic tub beneath the opening where the mince would come out.

  Felix and Ted got to work, undressing Dawn then feeding her into the chute. She was sucked in and gobbled up, all of them stepping back to prevent blood and gore spattering out at them.

  Felix was sad Dawn had resorted to blackmail. Her mother would be devastated, and he could only imagine how Cassie would play it. With Ben, Lisa, and Paul being explained as moving away, it’d be a bit off if they said the same for Dawn and Noble.

  Still, like Cassie had so plainly pointed out…

  It was none of his fucking business.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Marlene silent, the box of Dawn mince secured with a lid, Jimmy stared at an awake Noble who sat against the wall where Felix and Ted had propped him. Jimmy sensed their stares on his back, the anticipation in the air, them waiting for him to pull the trigger and end this piece of shit’s life.

  “I’ll fucking kill him,” Jimmy said.

  “No, leave it, please. I don’t want any hassle.” Shirl curled up into a ball on their bed in the high-rise
, seeming to want to make herself as small as possible.

  “Does anyone else know?” Jimmy’s heart thudded so hard it hurt.

  “No. Just me and him.”

  “I’ll only keep my hands off him because that’s what you want.”

  “I do.”

  “You’ll get through this, I’m here now. You can talk about it as much as you want.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  He reached out to stroke her face. “I love you, Shirl.”

  “I know you do.”

  “I’d do anything for you. Even serve time. Just telling you, so you know.”

  “You didn’t need to say. I’ve always known.”

  Noble’s eyes were the only thing on his face not fucked up. Jimmy had itched to use the barb himself back at Michelle’s but reckoned Cassie had needed an outlet, to hurt Lionel through Noble, to give him what she couldn’t give the man who’d abused her mam—pain. When she’d finished, Noble had smiled, his teeth pink with blood in a mashed face.

  “I want to end him,” Jimmy had said.

  “No, he’s mine.”

  “Please.” Jimmy had listened to the sound of her harsh breathing. “Please.”

  Noble had wheezed out a laugh. “He wants to do it for his girl.”

  Cassie had stared at Jimmy. “Shirl? Him?”

  Jimmy had nodded. “He’s a dead man. By my hand, not yours.”

  The boss had nodded, tears in her eyes. “Whatever you need, Jim.”

  Shirl waded through a cornfield, her chest tight from running, her nerves on edge from knowing he was chasing her.

  “Wait for me, little girl,” he called. “You know you love me.”

  She upped her pace, fear of a repeat performance pushing her towards the edge of the Barrington, to home, to safety. He’d caught her just the once, but that had been enough. Behind the school in the hut in the shape of a bus, complete with a steering wheel and seats for passengers. It was supposed to be a place to play, to have fun, but it hadn’t been fun.