Susan Lewis - Home Truths

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

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London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2019

Copyright © Susan Lewis 2019

Cover design by Claire Ward © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2019

Cover photograph © Alison Archinuk / Trevillion Images

Susan Lewis asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008286781

Ebook Edition © August 2019 ISBN: 9780008286804

Version: 2019-07-09

To Rachel Parfitt

and to everyone who gives

so selflessly of their time and expertise

to help those in need

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

‘Don’t go! Please …

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading …

About the Author

Also by Susan Lewis

About the Publisher

‘Don’t go! Please … Oh God, no, please don’t …’

‘I can’t take any more, Angie. I swear … If you’d seen what I just have …’

‘Whatever it is …’

‘Our five-year-old son had a syringe in his hand,’ he raged, almost choking on the words.

‘Oh my God. Oh Steve …’

‘I need to find Liam, and when I do I’m turning him in to the police along with every other one of those lowlife bastards …’

‘No! No! ’

He could still hear his wife screaming down the phone, begging him to stop as he tossed his mobile on to the passenger seat and steered the van, almost on two wheels, out of the street.

He’d had enough. He didn’t care about the danger he was putting himself in, or what might happen after, he was too enraged for that. You bastard! How dare you … He’s a child, for God’s sake … The words circled endlessly through his head.

It took a while to get across town. He barely even saw the traffic, or the red lights that tried to delay him, as though giving him some time to think. He didn’t want it. He was past thinking, past caring about anything other than the need to make this stop.

When he reached the hellish streets, the sore at the heart of the sprawling estate, he screeched to a halt on the infamous Colemead Lane and leapt out. He was so pumped with fury that his fists were already clenched, his muscles tensed for attack. His rationale had fled, along with his temper and sense of self-preservation.

He looked around, his eyes fierce. The mostly destitute houses with boarded-up windows and padlocked doors were as silent as graves. The tower blocks at the end with graffitied walls and urine-soaked stairwells rose drearily towards a patched grey sky. Even the pub looked deserted, its sign dangling from one hinge, its barred windows telling their own story.

‘I know you’re here,’ he roared at the top of his lungs. ‘Liam Watts! Get out here now!’

His rage echoed around the silence like useless gunshot scattering over a ghost town.

‘ Liam Watts! Show your face.’

Everything remained still.

Seconds ticked by as though the world was holding its breath, waiting to see what would happen next. He sensed he wasn’t alone, that he was being watched, that this was a charged hiatus before the storm broke.

He was ready for it. His whole body was primed to take it.

There was a scuffling behind him, sharp yet muffled, and he spun round, heart thudding thickly with fury and fear, eyes blazing.

‘Go home,’ a wretched young woman hissed from a nearby doorway. She was thin, shaking, her eyes seeming to bleed in their sockets. She waved feebly in no particular direction before stumbling into a side alley and disappearing.

He didn’t see them coming at first, he only heard them: faint, deliberate footsteps crunching, pounding, almost military in their pace. He peered around, trying to get a sense of where they were. How many they were.

‘ Liam Watts! ’ he roared again.

The sun slipped its cover of cloud, dazzling him, throwing a rich golden glow over the street, as though to paint this purgatory into something glorious.