The Piggy Farmer (The Barrington Patch Book 3) Emmy Ellis (notion reading list TXT) š
- Author: Emmy Ellis
Book online Ā«The Piggy Farmer (The Barrington Patch Book 3) Emmy Ellis (notion reading list TXT) šĀ». Author Emmy Ellis
Melindaās ranting pushed him to escape her, when all along, his retirement was supposed to be about them reconnecting, making up for the lost time heād spent on case after case. Heād pledged that promise to her years ago to stop her from leaving himāāI swear, if you donāt give us some attention, weāre going, Robin, do you understand?āābut heād inevitably broken it.
Or maybe sheād forced him to with her constant jibes.
This morning, never one to not make a point when she could, sheād said, āYou spend just as much time away from me now as you did before you left your job. What are you doing at that bloody allotment, because it certainly isnāt growing owt at the moment bar a few fucking runner beans? Got a fancy piece on the go, have you?ā
Like he would. Melinda would have his guts for garters if she found outāand she would, her friends were gossipsāand besides, his downstairs equipment wasnāt working like it should nowadays, what with his age. Heād blame brewerās droop but didnāt drink that much, years seeing the results of drunken fights outside the pubs in town putting him off, and the Viagra Melinda had suggested didnāt sit well with him.
āSo youāre saying you donāt want to do it with me anymore, is that it?ā sheād screeched.
And his mind had screeched back: Please, please, just be quiet.
He hadnāt verbalised his thought, instead walking out of their kitchen, his three flasks of coffee cradled to his fast-narrowing chest instead of its wide form when heād been in his prime, coming here to sit in his little shed, his sanctuary with two pictures on a whiteboard like the one in the incident room, names written down and red arrows pointing to cluesāwell, supposition, suspicions heād had back in the day but hadnāt said them out loud regarding a couple of cases that still bothered him.
The small heater warmed his toes, the aroma of gas from the cannister tainting the air, and he held a coffee from one of his flasks. He always made enough to last him for hours, plus brought a packed lunch along, although he hadnāt had time to make that today. Melinda had started on him as heād twisted the cup on the third flask, and heād legged it to get away from her complaints. Still, Greggās had been open, and heād treated himself to some sausage rolls and a couple of glazed ring doughnuts. Thatād see him right.
What he hadnāt told his wife was that certain cases still haunted him, ones heād never been able to solveāor one in particular he hadnāt been allowed to. Sheād go mad if he admitted he thought about them: āGod, just let it go, Robin!ā Despite his desire for peace, he wished he was still at work, sitting at a desk going over old crimes, desperate to find whoever had remained elusive, especially now Lenny Grafton was dead. One case had always concerned him, the disappearance then murder of Jessica Wilson, a three-year-old belonging to Joe and Lou, the farmers out at Handel.
There had been rumours that Lenny had dealt with the killer. Rumours. Who was Robin kidding? He knew full well Lenny had murdered The Mechanic, and Robin had taken a backhander and risked his job to hand over Jessā wellies and raincoat out of the evidence storeāstealing it, for fuckās sake, a copper turned rogue, and it had left more than a rancid taste in his mouth.
Robin had shit bricks, worrying every day since that heād get caught for it, reminding himself there hadnāt been CCTV in the store back then to point the finger at him, but heād been frightened of Lenny more than any camera. The man had been a right mad bastard, and Robin hadnāt wanted to die by his handāor that Marlene womanās. Heād tried to work out who she was, find her, but that name had to be a fake one. Surprisingly, no residents in town were called Marlene.
The holiday in Tenerife, paid for in cash with the bribe money, hadnāt been as enjoyable as Robin had hoped. Heād thought time away would erase what heād done, bring him and Melinda closer, but heād been grumpy and out of sorts, the constant reminder that the holiday was paid for with ill-gotten gains turning the array of cocktails sour on his tongue, the good food curdling in his belly, the laughter of his wife and children somehow exacerbating his guilt-drenched emotions.
With Lenny having his heart attack and dying recently, Robin had breathed a massive sigh of reliefāawful, absolutely awful to be glad someone was dead, but there you have it. Robin was free now, but that didnāt mean heād stopped thinking about Jess, or how heād fobbed her mother off that timeāthe unpleasantness of that gave him nightmares, the woman coming after him in his dreams, begging him to find a clue, no matter how small, so they could catch the bastards. As far as he was aware, no one else knew what heād done, and the knowledge had died with the former patch leader. Still, Robin shouldnāt have taken Lennyās word for it that The Mechanic was responsible, nor should he have urged his superior to shut the case down, as per Lennyās instructions, Robinās reasoning being there had never been any leads apart from the white van, the person in the back, and the man in a balaclava wielding a firearm, and those had turned into dead ends.
Rear Van Man, as Robin
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