Hurt (The Hurt Series) Read Online Free Page A

bunch of fairies. Ricky, who’d just arrived after oversleeping and being kicked out of his favourite doorway, was not yet fully awake and was humouring George with weary nods.
    Knowing George was on one of his legendary rants, and that he wouldn’t concede his point until he’d pass out for his noon nap, Neil hadn’t offered an opinion. Just sat on the cold concrete beneath the bridge and watched the dark river tumble and swell from the rain his precious daughter Emily used to love to splash around in so much.
    He wondered if Emily still remembered her love for the rain after all these years, or if the memory had been lost in time like the name of her loser father, whose failings in life had found him residing in shelters and drinking high strength lager under bridges.
    Lurch offered no greeting as he dumped the cider laden carrier bag down beside George. Tired of even bothering to try and make conversation with the coiled newcomer, Neil just sat back and watched Lurch step towards the river’s edge and stare into the rapid water.
    Yeah, he thought, one more step and whatever demons are haunting those glazed eyes of yours will all be exorcised for good. Take the easy way out, weirdo, and leave us the fuck alone.
    ‘Early today,’ George said, finally acknowledging their newest friend and reaching into the shopping bag. ‘So what’s the news, Lurch?’
    Lurch ignored the question, choosing instead to pick at the ridiculously long key chain that hung from his jeans waistband.
    Neil glanced at his drinking buddy, who yesterday had made a sport out of trying to goad Lurch into speaking. Yellowed by jaundice, and with a death rattle cough, George had little time left, and so even littler reason to waste it. So if lecturing about the city’s football team’s glory days and teasing Lurch made him happy, who was Neil to deny an old man his last bit of fun?
    ‘Hey, Lurch,’ George called. ‘What’s with that fucking keychain, anyway? I mean, you got the keys to your mansion and your Ferrari on that thing or something?’
    Sitting beside George, Ricky, whose time on the street had earned the twenty-five-year-old a jagged scar over his left eye, let out a laugh. ‘Yeah, Lurch...You gonna pick us up and take us for a spin to your mansion for cocktails some time?’
    Neil fidgeted, his honed instinct for trouble alerting him something was different about Lurch today. Sure he was dressed the same, but something about his initial appearance as he’d dropped the bag differed from yesterday.
    ‘It’s a dog lead, not a keychain.’
    Lurch's hoarse voice sent a chill down Neil’s back. He sat up and frowned his concern at his two buddies.
    ‘It speaks!’ Ricky announced.
    ‘So where’s the dog?’ George pushed. ‘In your pocket?’
    ‘Spartan’s dead.’ Lurch turned from the river bank, pulled a knife from his coat pocket. ‘There is neither happiness or misery in the world: there is only the comparison of one state to another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness.’
    And that’s when Neil saw it, the difference between Lurch yesterday and today. A minute detail, sure, but noticing such details was what had kept Neil alive on the streets all this time. Where yesterday Lurch's trainers were scuffed and dirty, now the laces and toes were blotched with crimson, as if someone had bled on them.

Chapter Five
    Six blocks of six flats, all within a fifty meter diameter of one another. All with the same view of the grass roundabout in the centre of the cul-de-sac. All occupied on this dreary, damp Sunday morning. Excluding Tanya and Carly and the residents’ kids, that meant thirty-four potential eyewitnesses.
    And yet, not one of the single mothers had seen a damn thing.
    Of course, Jessop knew this not to be true. People generally had a survival instinct that kicked in when it came to inviting avoidable trouble into their lives. Gone was any compassion toward