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

flashes of yellow, coral and beige. Megan often wondered if the nicer surroundings helped people to get better; if the older wards prolonged illnesses by leaving their patients in a state of despair.
    She gave Sam a friendly wave.
    ‘How are you feeling?’ she asked, as she dragged over the cleaning trolley.
    ‘All the better for seeing your pretty face.’
    ‘You’re a relation to Mary Marshall, aren’t you?’
    ‘Yeah, she’s my nan. Do you know her?’
    Megan nodded. ‘I work at Poplar Court in the afternoons. She’s a resident there, isn’t she? She hasn’t been there long.’
    ‘God, you’re a nosy one.’ Sam’s tone was jokey, so Megan smiled.
    ‘I know your mum, too,’ she admitted.
    ‘Lucky you. Do you still live on the estate then?’
     Startled by his bluntness, she decided to be nonchalant. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You?’
    ‘If I told you, I’d have to shoot you.’
    ‘Really?’ She raised her eyebrows.
    ‘I live in Benedict Road.’
    Megan knew it was near to where she lived in Rosamund Street. ‘That’s on the ‘hell, isn’t it?’
    ‘Just about.’
    ‘Ouch – I live on the mitch.’ She said it without thinking, then cursed inwardly for giving personal information out when she didn’t know him very well.
    Sam laughed.
    ‘What’s so funny?’
    ‘I should have realised.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Because if you didn’t live on the Mitchell estate, you’d be a nurse rather than a cleaner.’
    Megan pouted. ‘I don’t think that’s fair, and it isn’t true, either.’
    ‘You don’t want to be a nurse?’
    Megan shook her head. ‘I’d hate to work with all that blood and sick and poo.’ She wrinkled up her nose. ‘Not me, no sirree.’
    ‘Isn’t that what you clean up anyway?’
    ‘Sometimes but not often.’ She began to mop again. ‘Only if anything happens when I’m on my rounds. Other than that, someone else gets to do it. I have set rounds, you see.’
    ‘Well, in that case … Oh, fuck.’
    Megan looked up to see a policeman walking towards them. As he stopped at Sam’s bed, she moved away to give them a bit of privacy.
     
    Sam swore under his breath.
    ‘Mr Harvey.’ PC Andy Shenton nodded in greeting as he stopped in front of him. ‘Mind if I pull up a chair and have a word?’
    ‘Yes, I do mind. I’m waiting to see the doctor and you’re only going to give me grief – like every other time I see you.’ Sam went to fold his arms, then realised with the bandages on that he couldn’t.
    ‘Likewise,’ said Andy. ‘How’s the hand?’
    ‘Hurts like fuck.’
    Andy pulled a chair from a stack of three and sat down next to the bed. ‘I suppose you know what I’m here for?’
    Sam said nothing.
    ‘Do you want to tell me what you were doing on private property?’
    ‘We weren’t – I mean, I wasn’t.’
    ‘So you were on your own when the accident happened?’ Andy raised his eyebrows.
    ‘Yeah, I was.’
    ‘Oh, come off it, Harvey.’ Andy folded his arms next. ‘Do you really think I’d believe you attacked yourself with a chainsaw? You were with Scott Johnstone, weren’t you?’
    Sam frowned. How the hell had he got that information so quickly?
    ‘I checked the hospital CCTV to see who brought you in. Nice of him to abandon you on the car park, though.’
    ‘That says nothing,’ said Sam. ‘I could have gone home and then Scott brought me here when he saw the state I was in.’
    ‘What were you doing there?’
    ‘I’m not admitting to anything.’
    ‘We have a witness who said—’
    ‘Okay, okay.’ Sam sighed. ‘We were clearing land.’
    ‘To plan a getaway?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Let’s face it, if things had gone better than they had, you might have been going home that night with a van full of … let me take a guess, electrical goods to sell on? That would be quite some tidy profit.’
    Sam shifted on the bed. He’d better be careful what he said, there was too much of a notion there already.
    ‘Are you arresting me?’ he