by Emmy Ellis
Lies, it’ll all be lies.
I may even believe some of them like I have with all the others.
You cut me out, and I tried so hard to get past that, but most of all, you made decisions for me. I waited twenty-three years to have you all to myself again, and you rejected that. I had nowt at the end of my prison sentence of a life. Nowt.
But soon I’ll have it all, you can bank on it.
Cassie couldn’t see for the tears, but one thing was certain. If she’d known all this before, she’d have gladly pulled the trigger herself. Not just for Micky, Lee, Janey, and Beatrice, but for Gramps, Nan, and Dad.
Dad.
“Oh God…”
She rushed into the en suite, throwing her guts up, thinking of when she’d come home to find Mam with that jumper. Had she held it on purpose? Had she sat like that—with the drink she’d mentioned in the note!—and played out the part she’d predicted? How sick was that?
If this had taught Cassie owt, it was never to fully trust another soul. Ever. If Mam could lie so convincingly, knowingly, if she could kill behind a serene smile and act afterwards as though she hadn’t been the one to commit murder, she was a human of the worst kind.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The Barrington Life – Your Weekly
MOVING ON
Michelle Forster – All Things Crime in our Time
Sharon Barnett – Chief Editor
SATURDAY MARCH 20TH 2021
News just in. Lou Wilson’s family — Paul, Lisa, and Ben — have left the Barrington to live in the beautiful countryside of Ireland. The grief over Lou was too much for Paul to handle on top of the loss of his daughter many years ago. We wish them well in their lives, and may their new beginning bring happiness.
There may be an opening now on Handel Farm, so please contact Joe Wilson regarding that.
As you know, today is the start of the February Fayre, which has been shifted due to Doreen Prince’s death. All the stalls have been filled, and someone stepped forward to be a clown for the day, so get your kiddies down there to pick up their free balloon. Be there or be square!
Michelle posted the last leaflet through the letterbox, still annoyed at Cassie denying her the pleasure of meeting Marlene. It wasn’t as if she could express that, though. In the meantime, she’d get busy compiling the first edition of the new Life, featuring stories and whatnot from residents.
With Noble gone, and that whacky Dawn, nowt was standing in Michelle’s way of having a better life, one where she wasn’t angry at her ex-boss, one where she had purpose and could claim she’d written each article in The Life, even if Sharon had edited the shit out of what she’d sent her so far.
It didn’t matter. Michelle’s name was down as the author, and that was all she’d ever wanted, recognition for her efforts. She smiled. If you worked for it hard enough, you got what you wanted, so on to the next goal.
Getting inside Cassie’s inner circle and meeting Marlene.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Cassie sat in a stolen car with Jimmy, both of them in disguise. She’d cut the engine in the parking area at the high-rise, wanting a chance to speak to him without anyone butting in while they were observing the comings and goings. Over a takeaway coffee, he’d told her about Shirl’s reaction to the news. She’d broken down with relief and had slept soundly for the first time since Noble had appeared in her life.
“Will she be okay, d’you think, Jim?”
“Shit like that will never go away, but it’ll help her move on, no doubt.”
Cassie hoped that was true for her, too, and while she’d told herself not to fully trust anyone again, still she felt Jimmy was the only person she’d ever open up properly to. So she told him about the confessions, the ones she’d read then burnt last night.
Jimmy shifted in the passenger seat so his top half faced her. “She killed Lenny?”
“I don’t…I can’t go into how I feel about it because I don’t even know. It’s all so…so fucking evil and unnecessary. Nan, Gramps, what was wrong with her?”
“Not sticking up for her, but you can kind of understand her parents. In her eyes they didn’t protect her. If they had, Lionel wouldn’t have come anywhere near. As for your dad, I’m fucked if I understand that. She killed him because he didn’t do what she wanted? That’s what it boils down to.”
“That and him forcing her to have me—that’s how she saw it anyroad—then stepping back from the patch and having to live a life she didn’t want yet again, like she had to as a kid.” She blinked tears away. “At least she liked me, she wrote as much.”
“It must be hard for you. How can you know what was genuine and what wasn’t if she didn’t even know?”
“I’ll work that out as time goes by. For now, there’s a funeral to arrange once her body’s released, and we’ll find all those people, the names Noble gave me, and see if we can help the victims.”
“Some might have moved away.”
“Then we’ll help the ones we can. I have to do something for them.”
“Did you notice he never gave you Shirl’s name?”
“I did, afterwards, when you told me what he’d done. Maybe he didn’t know whether you knew about it so kept his mouth shut until the pain of the barbs got too much. Who can tell with these people? Mam’s a prime example of a person hiding things for reasons only they know about.”
She caught movement in the high-rise lobby.
Victor came out and glanced both ways, then came straight at them.
“Shit, have we been made?” Cassie was dressed as a bloke and had a short wig and a bushy beard on.
Jimmy, in a long wig, an even longer beard that covered his belly, and a pair of John Lennon sunglasses, lunged forward and grabbed Cassie in a hug. He whispered in her ear, “As far as he’s concerned, we’re a couple having a bit of a fumble.”
“Right…” She had her cheek against the seat and faced away from her side window, Jimmy’s head blocking her view of the windscreen. “What’s he doing?”
“Getting in that Transit, the one with the lion’s head decal on the side.”
Cassie couldn’t breathe properly. “Move back a bit, for God’s sake.”
Jimmy pulled away. “Sorry about that, boss.”
Cassie ignored him and looked in the rearview. The Transit reversed.
“We’ll follow him.” She started the engine and backed out of her spot, tailing the van at a non-obvious distance.
Victor drove towards Sculptor’s Field.
“What, is he going to the fucking Fayre?” Cassie said.
“Seems like it.”
Victor turned left instead of right.
“Maybe not,” Jimmy said.
They continued behind him until Victor took a right onto the trading estate. Cassie hung back, and as Victor indicated to go left, she indicated to go right so he’d think she was going to do some revamping at home by visiting Luxury Bathrooms. Then she stopped, did a U-turn, and went the way the Transit had.
“There it is,” Jimmy said. “The arse end is poking out from the side of the cement place. See it?”
Cassie veered into the parking area of the unit opposite, behind a lorry, and got out. Jimmy followed, and they peered around the lorry’s back end, Jimmy behind her, watching over her head. Another car came by, a red one, and it parked behind the Transit.
Michelle Forster got out.
“What the fuck?” Cassie whispered.
Victor exited the van and stood in front of Michelle’s car. The woman joined him, holding a brown envelope. Victor handed her a package, took the envelope, then pointed in her face.
“Has he sold her a fucking gun?” Jimmy said.
“I don’t know, but he’d better not have.”
“What are you going to do? Ask her outright now?”
“No, we’ll give her a visit and get someone to keep tabs on him twenty-four-seven.”
“What do you think she’d want one for?” Jimmy’s
breath ruffled the top of Cassie’s hair.
“No idea…”
“Bloody hell.”
Michelle shouted, “What do you take me for, someone with a screw loose? Why would I tell Cassie what you’ve sold me?”
“Make sure you don’t,” Victor blared back at her, “or I’ll come for you. I don’t need her knowing my business.”
Michelle got in her car and peeled away in a racket of squealing tyres, Cassie watching her all the way up the road. A pop sounded, and Cassie pulled her attention away from Michelle and back to the Transit. Victor was on the ground, bleeding from the head, and a man stood over him, a gun aimed downwards.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. I’m not having this on my patch.” Cassie took her own gun out.
“Don’t,” Jimmy said. “We don’t know what we’re dealing with yet.”
The man shot Victor again, in the foot, then bundled him in the back of the Transit. He sprinkled some powder on the blood.
“Who has that stuff unless they know there’s going to be claret?” Cassie said.
Someone else emerged from the building and got on with cleaning up. A woman, about twenty-four. The bloke got in the van and drove away, down the road a bit to another unit. Cassie and Jimmy legged it to her stolen car, and Cassie eased down the road, cruising past the parking area where the Transit had backed up to a double-wide garage door. She caught a glimpse of other vans inside, parked side-on.
All of them had the lion’s head decal on the side.
“What the fuck is going on?” She drifted past, took a left, and stopped the car beside the wholesale dried flower place.
“I don’t know,” Jimmy said, “but it doesn’t look good.”
“No, and we’re going to find out what that decal represents.”
“How?”
“We’ll start with a visit to Michelle fucking Forster. That woman has some explaining to do.”
Cassie revved the engine and sped off, Lenny and Francis careening through her veins. Whoever was fucking about on her patch had to pay.
No more dreams of being the nice girl.
The monster was back.
To be continued in The Barrington Patch 6
The Lion Cartel
