She pulled herself out of her head and cocked it at Jason, a nudge for him to respond to what she’d said. “So, do you think it’s the dealer Richie was involved with?”
“I doubt it. All right, he was stupid enough to put Richie on our streets, but to come here and steal from us via Li Jun? Got to be mental. If I were him, I wouldn’t want owt to do with me and you—like, he must know I killed Richie.” Jason puffed himself up, clearly proud of what he’d done. “Or that someone did on your dad’s behalf.”
What he’d said made sense. There was stepping on Grafton turf to flog a few baggies, then there was asking for a bullet in your head by coming to the Jade. The fact a machete was used maybe meant the masked man didn’t have a firearm—so was he some two-bit ponce who’d tried his luck and ran off after he’d killed Jiang? Had the death been an error?
She’d find out soon enough once she spoke to Li Jun. For now, Jason could put the body in a bag inside his boot, then she’d message Ted and Felix Smith, cousins originally from Yorkshire, old men who’d worked for Dad at the meat factory for years and ran a butcher’s stall on the Saturday market. Their other job was feeding Marlene then driving to Handel Farm to dispose of the mince.
So many people were involved with Cassie running the estate, people she couldn’t do without. Well, she’d need them now, to become her ears, listening out for rumours, but first, she’d place a call to Karen Scholes. An edition of The Barrington Life needed sending out.
And whoever had murdered Jiang had a date with Marlene in their future. No question.
Chapter Two
Li Jun had helped Jason put the body in the bag and carry it to the boot. Fucking hell, that machete had almost chopped Jiang’s head off, and as they’d lifted the poor bastard, the head flopped back, hanging by the skin on the nape, which threatened to rip and send Jiang’s bonce rolling across the road where Jason had parked. He was fascinated by the mess, the gore, the way Li Jun cradled the head so it didn’t fall, but hid his true feelings on the matter. If Li Jun copped on that he’d enjoyed seeing the bloodied flesh and whatnot, it wouldn’t go down well with Cassie.
He couldn’t afford to piss her off.
Yet.
Jason drove away, a despondent and seriously grieving Li Jun watching him go, his shoulders shuddering with his sobs, face wet with tears. Jason supposed it would be sad for your nephew to get a blade to the throat, but he didn’t have time for sentiment. Nor did he care.
He headed for the meat factory. Cassie had messaged Ted and Felix, so they’d be there by the time Jason arrived. No need to lay the body on the ground and cover it with the tarpaulin, hiding it until the men got there, something he usually did. The cousins could heft the corpse straight out of the boot and do what they did best while Jason paid a visit to the knob who’d fucked up the Jade job.
The lights and silhouettes of houses grew smaller in his rearview mirror, hedges, trees, and fields taking over either side, blackened skeletons dancing against a dark-grey sky, the wind letting off a mournful howl. The meat factory stood ahead on the right, a business front for the Graftons, the only bad thing going on there the mincing of humans who’d taken a step too far and found themselves in the bad books.
Jason didn’t plan on being one of them.
As far as anyone not in the know was concerned, the factory was legit, but if he didn’t get his ultimate goal—becoming leader of the Barrington—he’d tip off the coppers and direct them to Marlene. No matter how many times that mincer was washed, it wouldn’t hide her sins. Human DNA lurked on it somewhere, and forensics would find it.
How many people have been minced since Lenny started? Got to be hundreds. And how many people in these parts have eaten pork from pigs who’ve scoffed that mince?
The masked man came to mind, and Jason gritted his teeth. What had the dick been thinking, actually using the machete? He was supposed to go in, threaten everyone with it, and nick the drugs. They were Jason’s ticket to buying Mam a house on New Barrington, but look what had happened. The damn drugs were still at the Jade, locked up in a fridge.
“If you want a job done properly, you do it yourself,” he muttered.
The problem was, if he’d done it, he might have slipped up. While he’d been the one to skim the takings off the sex workers’ earnings to frame Nathan Abbott, therefore putting not only a spanner in the works but a ruddy great hammer, he couldn’t risk doing the Jade job.
Cassie had suggested it was the dealer Richie had worked for. Not likely, and he’d steered her away from that particular can of maggots. Jason had chosen someone he’d known since school, a rough little bastard who didn’t even know it was Jason directing him. He’d done it all via a burner phone, changing his voice, dropping off the first half of the payment in a bin outside Greggs, a disguise on, and the second half was meant to go to him later, after the meal with Cassie.
“Like that’s going to happen now.”
Cassie wasn’t supposed to go to the Jade until after their date at
