Written in the Scars (The Estate Series Book 4) by Mel Sherratt Read Free Book Online

boots.
    ‘Hey, what are you doing?’
    Lewis turned around in a circle but he couldn’t see anyone.
    ‘You can’t just damage other people’s property like that.’
    He looked again for whoever had spoken. Finally, in the shadows, he spotted someone on the doorstep of the house he stood in front of. ‘Go back inside and mind your own business, you nosy cow,’ he told her.
    ‘I beg your pardon!’
    ‘You people, you’re all the same.’ Lewis pointed at her, swaying as he stepped forward. ‘Wind your neck in and bugger off back inside.’
    ‘You can’t speak to me like that.’
    ‘Kicking this is much better than taking it out on a person.’
    ‘I’ve a good mind to report you in the morning for—’
    ‘Yeah, yeah, you do that.’ Lewis brushed aside the comment with his hand and walked away. Silly bitch – what did she know?
    He continued in the direction of Graham Street, hoping that his mum wasn’t waiting up for him again. She’d done that the last few times, greeting him with folded arms and a firm stare, before giving him a telling off the next morning. It was worse than being with Amy. She’d given him the stare too. Well, he wasn’t a child anymore. No one told him what to do now that he had come out of the army. So screw his mum – and screw Amy.
    When he arrived home, music was blasting out from a house several doors away. Every window at the front of the property was open, a number of youths on the front lawn chatting loudly. Lewis resisted the urge to go over and punch someone’s lights out: for once he knew he was too drunk to fight. Instead, he pushed open the garden gate, negotiated the last few steps, and finally managed to get his key in the lock of the front door.
    He went straight upstairs and sat on the edge of his bed, dropping his boots noisily onto the carpet. Muttering obscenities to himself, he flopped to his side and collapsed, fully clothed. Maybe sleep would come to him now that he had alcohol in his system. Shut him down for a few hours so that he could get some rest. Not that he would feel rested after the sleep of a drunk, but anything beat sitting on the edge of the bed watching the sun rising every morning.
    The room began to spin, taking him back to a time when he was in a helicopter with the rest of his regiment, going out on a mission. The noise of the blades, the beating of his heart as adrenaline coursed through him, praying that they would all return. The crunch of their boots as they walked for miles, eyes everywhere, finger on the trigger awaiting any eventuality. The blood pouring from the bullet wound in Nathan’s neck …
    Not even alcohol could block out those kind of bad memories.
     

 
    Chapter Seven
     
    At ten o’clock the next morning, Josie Mellor walked up the pathway of seventeen, Graham Street. It was the second time in as many weeks that she had visited this property. She knocked on the door and glanced around as she waited for it to be answered, fitting into her old role as easily as if she’d never been away from it.
    For the past three years, Josie had been on a secondment at The Workshop, an enterprise centre on the estate. She’d been in charge of overseeing it when it was refurbished, and then had been based there working on a domestic violence initiative, funded by the government. Although The Workshop was surviving, now that her funding had dried up, she’d soon be returning to her original role as housing officer, so had started taking over a few cases in preparation.
    She knew she’d miss being based at The Workshop but, on days like these when the sun was in the sky and the weather was glorious, Josie was glad she could work outside. Being out on the patch was never easy but at least she had regulars who she could keep an eye on once more. Good and bad ones - like Margaret Sidworth with her untidy garden next door at number nineteen.
    In contrast, the garden of number seventeen was tidy, the driveway cleared of weeds and general