(Ebook) Knuckle Bones by Alex Smith ISBN B0BXJNNBRF

(Ebook) Knuckle Bones by Alex Smith ISBN B0BXJNNBRF

There was nothing on Earth more dangerous, thought Geoffrey Wileman, than a group of riled-up grannies high on tea and digestives.There were fourteen of them now, clustered around the edge of the building site, their hair the same colour as the miserable winter sky. Half were wrapped up in thick coats of tweed and tartan, the rest wore velour tracksuits in various shades of pink and green, but all were united by three things: the homemade signs they held, their expressions of outright indignation, and the words that were spewing out of their wrinkled mouths.“Stick your digger up your arsehole!” yelled one, loud enough to be heard over the fourteen-tonne JCB excavator that was carving trenches in the dirt. The woman was easily the most formidable of the lot, probably not far off fourteen tonnes herself. She held a sign that read, “Say NO to the expansion of County Hall!” It was gripped in both of her hands like a battle axe, her knuckles white. Geoffrey guessed she was in her late fifties, a good decade older than him, but he wouldn’t have fancied his chances against her in a fight.“And the rest of them!” shouted another woman, far smaller but no less terrifying. She was pouring tea from a thermos into a plastic cup with the mad-eyed determination of somebody about to launch a Molotov cocktail. “All the bloody diggers, right up your bumhole!”He pretended not to hear them, adjusting his hard hat and holding his clipboard like a shield. It had started to rain an hour ago—not proper rain, just that infuriating February drizzle that stuck to you like wet gauze. It had churned the construction site into a moonscape of mud, the ground sucking at his boots as he tried to walk. To his right, past the excavator and the huddle of terrifying old ladies, towered the enormous bulk of Norfolk’s County Hall—ten stories of brutalist bureaucratic ugliness that dominated the skyline. …