Written in the Scars (The Estate Series Book 4) (2 page)

‘What’s wrong?’ Sarah was already at Donna’s side. She touched her lightly on the arm.

Donna took a few deep breaths, trying to keep her panic at bay. ‘Sam’s had an accident involving a chainsaw.’ Her eyes glistened with tears. ‘He’s been rushed to A&E.’

Lewis Prophett sat on the bus, shoulder against the window, glad that the seat next to him was unoccupied so that he didn’t have to make unnecessary conversation. Staring through the ripples of rain streaking down the glass, a brief summer storm just finishing, he looked out but didn’t focus on anything.

It had been hard to make his way back to the Mitchell Estate after leaving the job centre. Before his marriage had ended a few months earlier and Lewis had returned home to live with his mum, the last time he’d been on the estate for any longer than a month was back in his teens. All he’d ever wanted to do when he left school was to get away from the place he’d grown up, even though it had meant leaving his childhood sweetheart behind. He couldn’t wait to join the army, get a trade and make new friends.

Even after all this time, Lewis still felt like he was returning home as his eighteen-year-old self. He’d signed up because he felt that he didn’t fit in anywhere and now here he was, feeling exactly the same again. He’d added his name to a waiting list with the housing association in the vague hope that a flat might come up for rent. Wow, so much to look forward to.

The army had been the perfect choice for Lewis and his twelve years spent there had been enjoyable. But since he’d come home to Stockleigh two years ago, everything had started to unravel. His wife, Amy, and their son, Daniel, who had been eleven at the time, hadn’t known how to react to his mood swings. For a time, he and Amy had tried getting reacquainted but, after he had come home one day and raised a hand to her – not using it, but raising it in a threat – Amy had thrown him out. He knew things had gone too far, but he couldn’t do anything about it. She wasn’t willing to take him back after eighteen months of hell and he’d been back at his mum’s for six months now. It seemed his marriage was over, as well as his career.

Twenty minutes later, the bus pulled in to Vincent Square in the middle of the estate and Lewis got off. The Mitchell Estate was made up of over fifteen hundred houses, flats and bungalows. Some were owned by the local council, a few were owner-occupied but most were rented from Mitchell Housing Association. The estate itself was split in two by a main thoroughfare, Davy Road. Above Davy Road was known locally as living ‘on the Mitch’ – the better part of the estate. Below Davy Road was known as living ‘on the ‘hell’. Lewis often wondered if any of it had true meaning. After all, they were only houses and people. Places shouldn’t define people, although they often did. Take Afghanistan, for instance.

It was sad to see that the area had hardly changed since he’d been away. The square was still a dirty, untidy place for shops to be situated, and at least half of them were now boarded up. All around him, there were signs of anti-social behaviour. Rubbish bins were either missing or thrown onto the floor, litter scattered everywhere in the breeze. Fluorescent coloured graffiti was scrawled over roller shutters and doorways. To his right was the car park where he’d ripped open his knee after falling from his skateboard as a youngster, still looking in bad need of repair. The whole area felt like it had been forgotten, neglected. Pretty much how Lewis felt about himself.

He walked on past the local supermarket, Shop&Save. Lewis was surprised it had survived through the years, although shops he wasn’t familiar with had sprung up alongside it – the nearest selling second-hand clothes and toys. Next to it was a drop-in centre for the locals to talk about careers. Lewis sniggered to himself, unsure why it wasn’t already closed. From what he could remember, most of the kids he’d gone to school with had had no hope. Many of them still lived on the estate; most had done nothing with their lives. At least Lewis could say he’d seen some of the world.

He waited for a car to pass before crossing over Davy Road and made his way along Ronald Street. The houses either side were an exact same replica as his mum’s and exactly the same as where he had been living with Amy until they had separated. Two bedrooms, semi-detached, postage stamp gardens, some with room enough to park a car on the front, most without space to swing a cat. He glanced at the houses as he went past. If you were lucky, you had a nice neighbour joining on to you. If you weren’t, you’d be granted the neighbour from hell. Just lately, Lewis had had a few run-ins with one of the housing officers from the association. He’d been warned about his behaviour when he was drunk, shouting at the neighbours, arguing in the street. Of course he couldn’t remember much of it the next morning, but the guilt would overwhelm him. So he’d return to the pub to try and drown out his sorrows.

Lewis sat down at the top of the steps that would take him down to the green and on to Graham Street, where his mum lived. Running a hand over his close-shaved head, he gulped in a deep breath. A tower of a man shouldn’t feel panicked as he did. Gone was the Lewis that had left the estate as a teenager. He had hoped that it wouldn’t take too long for him to adapt to civilian life again. But every night his dreams turned to nightmares as he relived what had happened. Damn the memories for coming home with him.

Moments later, Lewis stood up. Even though every footstep felt like he was going backwards rather than forwards, he shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans and walked back in the direction he’d come from, heading for The Butcher’s Arms. Drinking wasn’t the answer, but he didn’t want to stop either. Unable to live with what had happened, it was much easier to block everything out. Either that, or he would end up hurting himself, or someone else, and regret that too.

Because one thing Lewis couldn’t erase was his guilt.

It was his fault that Nathan had been killed.

Chapter Two

The city of Stockleigh had a population of less than two hundred thousand residents. Based in the Midlands, it had pockets of crime and depravity alongside areas of affluence, like most cities.

Stockleigh’s main hospital was situated near to the centre, five miles from the Mitchell Estate. Donna had raced to her car immediately after receiving the phone call about Sam, praying that the old thing would start but, even allowing for traffic on the ring road, it had taken thirty minutes to get there and find a parking space. She tore across the car park, through the automatic doors into the A&E department.

The waiting room was full to bursting with people sitting and standing everywhere. A man in paint-splattered white dungarees sat with a makeshift bandage around two of his fingers, while a girl of around ten years old, with what looked like a nasty bump to the head, was holding onto her left wrist with her right hand. Several people were sitting in wheelchairs, waiting to be seen. One man stood up on crutches, his left ankle off the floor.

Without a second’s hesitation, Donna rushed to the front of a queue of people at the main desk.

‘Samuel Harvey,’ she cried. ‘My son’s been brought in as an emergency.’ She turned to the woman beside her. ‘Sorry, I— I just need to see he’s okay.’

‘We’ve all had accidents but we’re waiting our turn to be seen,’ a man in dark overalls, his right arm in a sling, shouted to her.

Donna turned to him with narrowed eyes. ‘I don’t need to be seen!’

‘I’m just saying that—’

‘He’s nearly ripped his bloody hand off!’

A couple with a small baby sitting to her right grimaced at each other.

‘Look, I just want to see if he’s—’ Donna’s voice broke.

‘You can come through the doors, here to your left,’ the woman behind the desk told her. ‘He’s in cubicle nine.’

‘Thank you.’

A buzzer went off. Donna opened the door and stepped into a corridor. Three trolley beds were queued in a line, their occupants all elderly, relatives and nurses fussing over them. Instantly, Donna was reminded of how frail her mum was and a sob escaped her. Why did this have to happen now? Didn’t she have enough to worry about?

Fresh tears glistened in her eyes as she rushed to cubicle nine. As she drew level with it, she could see Sam lying on a bed, propped up with a pillow behind his head. His right hand was bandaged loosely and raised in the air, the third finger flopping down of its own accord. Dried blood sat underneath his fingernails, drips splattered over his other hand and there was a smudge of red across his chin. He’d been stripped of his clothes and put into a hospital gown.

‘Sam!’ Donna rushed to his side.

‘Mum!’ Sam’s face creased up as he spotted her. ‘It hurts like fuck.’

Donna ran a hand over his hair as if he were a child. ‘Don’t worry, son,’ she soothed.

‘But I might lose my finger.’ His tears fell freely then as shock took over. ‘I don’t want to look like a freak.’

‘Hey, come on now,’ Donna soothed. She hadn’t seen Sam cry since his dad had left when he was twelve. Although Joe Harvey wasn’t his biological father, they had been close as Sam was growing up. Even after the truth had come out that his real father was someone else living on the estate, Sam had still wanted to think of Joe as his dad, despite not seeing too much of him now that he’d moved out of the area, remarried and had two further children.

Sam had Donna’s long build and limbs, and his hair was dark like hers. Deep blue eyes were staring up at her, willing her to say that everything was going to be okay. For all his brave face and hard man attitude, Sam would always be her little boy. But he had some questions to answer, nonetheless. She waited for his tears to subside before speaking to him again.

‘Are you feeling calmer now?’ she asked.

Sam nodded, wiping at his eyes.

‘Right then.’ She leaned in close to him and whispered, ‘Would you mind telling me how the
hell
this happened?’

Sam swallowed. ‘We were doing a job – cutting down some trees and we wanted it doing quicker—’

‘We being you and …’

Sam gnawed on his bottom lip. ‘Scott Johnstone.’ His eyes dropped.

‘I might have bloody known!’ In frustration, Donna raised her hand in the air and brought it down on the bed, narrowly missing Sam’s thigh. ‘He’s only just come out of prison! You know he’s trouble. I told you time and time again not to get involved with that good-for-nothing and what do you do? Lose half your hand and …’ Stopping when she realised Sam was crying again, she searched around in her handbag for a tissue and handed it to him. ‘Sorry. Go on.’

‘We were on a bankside and it was covered with piles of bricks and rubble. Scott had the chainsaw. I tried to put a large piece into the barrow to wheel it to the trailer but it kept rolling out. So I picked it up and held it out for him to cut through.’

‘Good God! And you didn’t think that was a dangerous thing to do?’

‘The blade snagged on a knot in the wood! When it came loose, it went over my hand. If I hadn’t been wearing gloves, the doctor said it would have sliced all three fingers off as well.’

Donna whimpered at the mental image of her son being left with a disabled hand. Her knees went weak and she sat down on a chair.

‘There was blood everywhere.’ Sam glanced at her, tears spilling again. ‘I’m going to be scarred for life, aren’t I?’

‘Let’s wait to see what the doctor says.’

Watching as the numbers crept up on the blood pressure monitor by his side, Donna knew she’d have to keep Sam calm or scarring would be the last thing on his mind. She checked her watch: half past one. She’d have to try and catch Keera. Hopefully she could pop in to see if Mum was okay.

A man wearing a blue shirt, dark trousers and a bright lilac tie joined them in the cubicle. ‘I’m Richard,’ he introduced himself. ‘I’m the consultant on duty.’

Donna tried not to show her surprise. He didn’t look old enough to be a doctor of any kind. To her mind, he didn’t seem any older than Sam. His bedside manner was welcoming though, his eyes behind black thick-rimmed glasses having a friendly sparkle to them.

Richard smiled at them both in turn before addressing Sam. ‘You do realise you’re the talk of the department? Everyone wants to see the chainsaw man.’

‘I don’t care. You need to give me something for the fucking pain!’ Sam cursed.

‘I will once we’ve looked you over.’ Richard’s tone was calm.

A nurse came into the cubicle to check the blood pressure monitor. Red-faced and sweating profusely due to her size, her stance gave the impression that nothing much would faze her. Donna couldn’t help but frown: she barely looked old enough to be out of school either. Or was it just that she was getting old?

‘I want something now!’ Sam yelled, making them all jump. ‘I can’t fucking stand it!’

‘Sam,’ said Donna. ‘Watch your language.’

‘But—’

‘Let us do our job and assess you,’ said Richard, ‘and we can get on to giving you the correct pain relief. Can you tell me what happened?’ He reached for Sam’s hand.

‘Don’t take the bandage off!’ Sam screeched, pressing his body into the back of the trolley bed. ‘It wouldn’t stop bleeding before. I’ll die of blood loss. I’m telling you, man, it gushed out.’

‘I need to assess it.’ Richard continued regardless.