The Wild Heart Read Online Free PDF Page A

something big and heavy over the garden wall. It was another man but he looked like he was asleep.
         Wendy ran out and scooped Matthew up in her arms. The car screeched off and was gone. She looked down at the body and screamed. That set Matthew off and the other two appeared at the doorway but she raged at them to go back inside. She ran in and closed the door, bolting it behind her. Then she and Ben ran round the rest of the house making sure that every window and every door was bolted whilst Helen looked after Matthew. Finally she gathered her family together and ushered them into the dining room. She closed the curtains and locked the door.
         Graham arrived home only minutes later to find the body of Jamie Robertson on his front lawn. He’d been shot through the back of his head and from the state of him it looked like they’d made him suffer right up until his last breath.  
     
         That night Graham and his family were moved to a safe house under the protection of the local squad. It was thought that they’d only have to stay there for a week or so until the dust settled but taking this precautionary measure couldn’t do any harm.
         Graham watched his children go to sleep and then went through to the kitchen where Wendy had made some tea.
         ‘ I’m sorry, love’ he said.
         ‘ It’s okay’ said Wendy. ‘ I knew it might come to this when I married you’.
         ‘ I’m just worried about the kids’
         ‘ They’ll be okay’ said Wendy ‘ Kids are more resilient than you might think’.
         Graham pulled his wife into an embrace. ‘ What would I do without you?’
         ‘ You’d be lost’.
         ‘ I know’ said Graham, smiling at his wife’s banter.
         ‘ Do you know how all this is going to end?’
         ‘ No’ said Graham. ‘ Do you remember someone called Duncan Laurence?’
         ‘ Yeah?’ said Wendy. ‘ He was that friend of yours who got killed. What’s he got to do with any of this?’
         ‘ I don’t know’ said Graham ‘ But it seems like the dead can come back to life’.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER THREE
    Ian had always enjoyed the camaraderie of the building site. Just a bunch of lads working to pay their bills, feed their kids, look after their part in life’s ongoing cycle. None of them were trying to be something they weren’t. They were working-class and proud. He didn’t employ anybody younger than their mid-twenties because he’d found that the young guys these days didn’t have the same respect for the job that his own generation did. The young ones wanted paying but didn’t expect to do much for it.
         He was drinking his tea sitting on the steps of the site office. It was lunchtime and the rest of the lads were stood about, smoking cigarettes, going through the red tops, swigging from cans of coke. The two Polish lads he’d taken on, Marek and Tomas, dark eyes, olive skin, expected nothing but the chance to show how hard they could work and they were grafters alright, nice lads too, standing with their heads back so their faces could catch some of the bright sunshine. Standing with them was Colin, just turned thirty and the bricklayer of bricklayers as far as Ian was concerned, a real team player. Colin went out clubbing every weekend with Marek and Tomas and Ian imagined their combined scorecard must run into high figures. The three of them were fit, handsome, and had van loads of the right chat with which to snare the ladies. Ian had been out with them a couple of times. They were a treat to watch when they were on the pull.
         He looked up just in time to see Ronnie, sat on the ground with his back against the site office, pick his nose and flick it to the ground. Ronnie was in his late forties but could be said to be older because of the whisky-induced potmarks on his face that made him look like a poor man’s Keith