The Jade Garden (The Barrington Patch Book 2) by Emmy Ellis (reading diary txt) 📗

There was a fly in the ointment in the form of Doreen fucking Prince, who Cassie had insisted should ‘help’ Karen and Sharon with The Life—why, Karen had no idea, but now she came to think of it, maybe Cassie had got wind of the proposed takeover and Doreen was a spy. She had to be, didn’t she? Why did they need a helper when they’d been doing The Life for years quite fine on their own, thank you very much?

Karen certainly hadn’t told anyone what she was planning, so the only other person who knew was Sharon. Oh, and Brenda, Karen’s best friend—she’d forgotten she’d nattered about it to her. They’d been pals for decades, so surely Brenda wouldn’t have whispered in Cassie’s ear, would she? Brenda was well in with the Graftons but had always said she’d go with whoever led the Barrington.

Doubt crept into Karen’s mind, and she tromped down a gravelled garden path, slipping on the stupid stones. God, she’d almost landed on her arse then. She stuffed a flyer through the letterbox, uncaring that the flap rattled and could wake the resident. It was getting on a bit now, coming up to ten, but she’d be finished by half past, she reckoned, then she could climb into her own bed and seethe in private beneath sheets she’d hung on the line earlier and finished in the tumble dryer.

She entered Doreen’s street, smug the woman wouldn’t know about this flyer until it landed on her doormat. It was the small things that pleased Karen. The lights were off in the house—Doreen was probably under the duvet with that Harry—so contrary to her thoughts, Karen made a meal out of clattering the flap, just because she could.

She moved towards the bedsits where Richie, Doreen’s son, used to live and approached the main door, startled at Doreen calling out to her from behind.

“Loud enough, were you?” she shouted, which was ironic, considering she was moaning about the noise. All right for her to wake folks up but not for Karen. “What’s all this about Jiang?”

Karen turned. Doreen, in a red dressing gown held closed by what appeared to be a pair of American Tan tights—what a skank—waved the flyer from the rise of her doorstep.

Karen sighed and ambled back to Doreen’s, opening the gate and pushing her weary arse up the path. All right, she’d hoped she’d wake Doreen, but now she had to deal with her, she wished she hadn’t. “Did you not read it? Everything you need to know is on there.”

Doreen’s bottle-blonde hair was squashed on one side from a pillow. “But why is it an emergency that we get told he fucked off to China, like?”

Karen had wondered the same thing herself and thought something untoward had gone on. Lenny used to get her to write flyers when he made someone ‘disappear’, like The Mechanic, who’d snatched little Jess Wilson all those years ago. The Mechanic had apparently left his wife, too, poor Alisha who wouldn’t say boo to a goose. This news smacked of that. Cassie must have had reason to send Jiang to that bloody Marlene—and that was another thing. How come no one but Cassie’s closest allies knew who that woman was?

“I don’t know, do I?” Karen held back a snarl of irritation. “I just do what I’m told. The ins and outs of the cat’s arsehole are nowt to do with me. If Cassie wants everyone to know, then that’s none of my concern.”

Doreen nodded to herself, as if coming to a conclusion. “I’ll have a word, see if she’ll tell me owt.”

Karen scoffed. “What, you think she’ll take you into her confidence because you work for her now? Good luck there.”

Doreen gave Karen a funny look, like that was exactly what Cassie would do, and it got right on Karen’s threepenny bits. How come Doreen could know the secrets when she’d only just started taking wages off Cassie? Karen had been here forever, and the redheaded bitch had never taken her into her confidence.

That’s given me the right hump now.

“Whatever, Doreen,” she said. “I have to go. Some of us still have work to do.”

Karen stalked off with her remaining flyers clutched in her fist, so tight she crinkled the paper, the sound of it a crack in the night. The click of Doreen’s door closing gave her a measure of satisfaction, though, a reply to what she’d said hopefully lost inside Doreen’s big fat gob.

She pushed a few flyers into the bedsit letterboxes, mumbling, “Like anyone who lives here will read the fucking things, the drugged-up bastards.”

Only the rest of this street to go, then she could bugger off home. She swivelled round, jolting at a car without headlights on coming towards her. It went past, slowing outside that little prat’s house, Brett Davis, then moved on, veering left at the end. It was too dark to make out who it was. It wouldn’t surprise her if whoever was in that car was after Brett. He owed money all over the shop for drugs. Maybe he’d borrowed from some loan shark or other. That’d piss Cassie off, seeing as she was the main one round here. Karen would bet they’d come back once she’d gone. They wouldn’t want any witnesses if they planned to go into his hovel and beat the shite out of him.

She hurried with the last few flyers. She didn’t fancy being around if the car returned. While she’d enjoyed being a bully when she’d run the Barrington, she didn’t want to observe anyone being walloped. Not tonight, at least. She was too tired to give a fuck what happened to him, the oily sodding weasel.

Chapter Five

Lenny lifted his pint of lager in The Donny and sipped, watching the other customers but making out he wasn’t. He liked to show his face here, let