BURY ME DEEP an utterly gripping crime thriller with an epic twist (Detective Rozlyn Priest Book 1)

by Jane Adams

  Hugh had been his friend and comrade at arms these past five years. To look at, the contrast could not have been greater and should any onlooker be asked to point out which was thegn of this place, they would have indicated Hugh as their first choice. The Kentish man was dressed in style. A soft grey tunic of finest wool worn over a shirt of linen with braid-trimmed cuffs and metal closures. His cloak was dyed a rich, fresh blue and fastened with a finely worked brooch, shaped like a shield boss and inlaid with red enamel work that sparkled in the autumn sun. Hugh’s fair hair had seen the recent services of a comb and lay neatly about his shoulders.

  By contrast, Treven was travel stained. He wore no shirt and his tunic was sleeveless, overlaid by a jerkin of boiled leather plates. His cloak had once been red but had faded to a russet brown. Thick and much mended, it had seen him through three winters without benefit of more than a sound beating when the caked-on mud grew thick enough to cause him grief. He had combed his fox-coloured hair, but that had been four days before, when they had left Winchester. On leaving, he had changed back into his travelling clothes and tossed his comb into his pack, there to lie forgotten.

  His horse was well cared for though, groomed, with its harness cleaned and greased to keep the leather supple and the fittings from rusting. And the sword he wore at his side was very fine, passed from father to son for generations and forged and pattern welded, so it was said, in Raedwald’s time, when Treven’s family on his father’s side had been close kin to the Kings of Anglia. It lay in a sheath of finely worked leather, lined with fleece, and the wax from the wool kept the blade clean and clear of rust.

  Treven, Hugh and their servants splashed through the shallow ford that gave Theadingford its name. Those he had sent ahead five days before stood in front of the ruined Hall tending to the fire and the pig spit roasting over it, coarse barley bread baked on hot stones resting close by. The three men tending to the food and fire looked far from happy. Osric, the elder of the three by a good many summers, stepped forward to take the reins of Treven’s horse as he dismounted. Osric had served his lord since both of them were boys. He was generally a man of few words, all of them direct and to the point.

  “I’ve turfed out the swine,” he said, jerking his head back towards the house, “but the place still stinks like a midden. The walls are rotten and the Abbot’s men have been here this morning. They say the land is now the property of the church and you have no rights here.”

  “Abbot?”

  “Abbot Kendryk.” Osric elaborated. “Abbey at Storton, an hour’s ride that way,” he nodded briefly to where Treven could see a trackway leading off into the wood. Having delivered all necessary information, Osric clucked his tongue and led the horse away.

  “A fine welcome,” Hugh commented sourly.

  Treven nodded. “We’ve had worse. At least there’s food at the end of this journey.”

  As Hugh fell hungrily upon the meat and bread, devouring both in great fistfuls, Treven glanced about with interest. Notwithstanding that the house leaned at an alarming angle and, if Osric was to be believed, was in a far worse state inside, Treven liked what he was seeing. Late afternoon sun slanted through oak and ash and thickets of hazel, set the rowan ablaze and bathed the valley in golden light, dancing and glancing off the stream. The manor itself had been built upon a slight rise in the land, keeping it safe from the winter floods. For the most part, the water coursed between steep banks, breaking out only at the shallow ford. There were signs of old defences — earth banks raised on the far side of the stream — though this was never designed to be a fortified manor. It was a farm, built, with unwarranted optimism, for times of peace. Perversely, man of war that he was, Treven liked the notion that he might settle in a place not designed for battle.

  Hugh, mouth full of pig and barley bread, cut through his thoughts. “We should refortify those banks,” he commented. “Build a palisade. And there’s a natural rise to the land behind the house, I noticed as we came down from the road. It could be made defensible.”

  Treven felt a sudden surge of anger, irritation that Hugh should tread upon even these momentary imaginings. But it soon passed. He recognised that Hugh was right. Guthrum and his army might have signed Peace with Aelfred back at Eastertime, but here they were so close to the enemy — and treaty or not, Treven found it hard to think of them any other way — that to hope to live here in peace meant that they must be prepared for war.

  Guthrum might have accepted his defeat, even accepted baptism, with King Aelfred as his godfather. He had taken a new name, a Christian name of Athelstan, but frankly Treven did not believe a word of it. Guthrum might now publicly address his prayers to Jesus Christ, but Treven would be willing to wager that any kill he made in battle would be dedicated still to Odin.

  CHAPTER 3

  BILLINGTON. PRESENT DAY

  The Queen’s Head on the corner of Mortimer Street and Cradely Road was packed by nine o’clock at night. It still carried the vestiges of its Victorian past; a glass divider set into wooden panelling that separated the public bar from the lounge and the marble-topped counters, complete with old fashioned beer pumps, long ago decommissioned but kept on for their looks. The Queen’s Head, now simply ‘the Queen’s,’ had supposedly become a theme pub. The “head” had been dropped from its title and a gaudily painted sign showing three drag artists in large blond wigs hung proudly over the entrance.

  Not that it made a fig of difference to the clientele. Much to the discomfort of the new owners, hoping to turn the place into a trendy student dive — the University, one-time Billington Polytechnic, being a scant half mile away — the Queen’s had stubbornly refused to be reformed and the new landlords seriously regretted not having done more on-the-spot market research. The students, knowing that the Queen’s catered for a particular sector of the local community, still went a half a mile in the other direction, taking themselves off to the wine bars and nightclubs and converted banks in town; and the locals signed a petition against the flashing lights and equally flashy music and backed it by the threat of more direct action, as they informed the new landlord that if he didn’t cut the bloody piped music and remove the glitter ball, he was likely to find it jammed somewhere it wouldn’t glitter nearly so well.

  Six months on, the only thing left of the hoped-for transformation was the coloured sign depicting the garishly clad impersonators, permitted to remain, so it was rumoured, because Big Frank Parker had a soft spot for Lily Savage on TV and nobody with an ounce of sense was going to argue with Big Frank.

  Inside, the only remaining indicator of the change of management was the introduction of ‘guest beers’ — a move generally welcomed by the clientele.

  The Queen’s had been a favourite haunt of Charlie Higgins’ and, being the venue of choice for a number of the local hard men, a verdant pasture for his intelligence gathering. It was the third watering hole that Rozlyn had entered that night, the first two being in the town centre, crowded early and more anonymous. Rozlyn had asked questions, received few useful answers and been unable to find the one man she had really hoped to see. She had no notion that her quarry might be here, for the Queen’s was not the kind of stop in which the Mouse Man was likely to feel at home. It had no sense of anonymity. This was a venue in which everyone was either a regular or the guest of one and strangers stood out like . . . Rozlyn Priest.

  Rozlyn knew that in this crowd — folk who could tell a copper by the scent of his aftershave or the size of her feet — the idea of anonymity was someone’s idea of a tasteless joke. Hers was also the only non-white face in the place. She walked in feeling like a bit player in a bad Western, where the stranger enters and the room falls silent just a scant few seconds before the gunshots ring out.

  She wasn’t wrong about the silence.

  Rozlyn glanced around looking for Big Frank. He was holding court in a corner of the lounge. Then Rozlyn crossed to the bar, and took her time surveying the list of specialty beers, settling finally on
a Budwar. She was aware of Frank watching and the hum of expectancy in the crowded room. The murmur of conversation picked up again, only to drop as Rozlyn turned to look at Big Frank and gestured towards the bar and tilting her hand in a drinking gesture.

  Momentarily put out, Frank hesitated before raising a half empty glass.

  “Whatever he’s drinking,” Rozlyn told the barman and then crossed the lounge, stepping carefully between the stools and small round tables, carrying her own beer and a bottle of something called Speckled Hen.

  “Give the lady a stool,” Frank commanded, and a stool arrived and was squeezed into a narrow space between two of Frank’s “boys”. Rozlyn sat down and handed Frank his beer. No one spoke while Frank set about refilling his now drained glass, tilting it just so, allowing the gasses to escape and a level, half-inch head to form. Rozlyn admired his expertise.

  “Charlie Higgins,” she said. Frank’s gaze flicked her way for the merest instant, then drifted back to his beer.

  “Cheers,” he said and lifted it to his lips, drinking deep before setting the once more half-empty vessel down on the cluttered table. The glass collectors weren’t exactly respecting their calling in this corner, Rozlyn observed.

  “He was murdered.” Rozlyn said. “Early this morning as far as we can make out. We’ll know more after the autopsy, of course, but it looks like a single stab wound straight into the heart.”

  Frank’s gaze lifted again and this time he held Rozlyn’s. Frank was as big as his nickname implied. Tall and stout and powerful, with cold grey eyes and a delicate little cupid’s bow of a mouth that rightfully belonged on an advert for lipstick.

  Holding his gaze was akin to trying to outstare a shark. Rozlyn didn’t even try, she reached for her drink and took a sip of beer, a prissy little sip compared to Franks great thirsty gulps.

  “I’ll send flowers to his funeral.”

  “Kind of you. Who’d want to kill him, Frank? He was such a shrimp of a man, it hardly seems worth anybody’s time to stab him then dump his body miles away from anywhere.”

  “I hear you had a use for him.”

  “A use for him! Frank, the man was a garbage pail of bits and scraps of useless information.”

  “For which you paid him,” Frank observed.

  “For which I paid him when it warranted and the only times it warranted were those times when you let slip a tasty bit of something, knowing he’d pass it on to me. Something that made you look good and made a few difficulties for your business rivals, shall we say.”

  “You think I had him killed?”

  “No. No, actually, I don’t. Charlie was occasionally useful to you, same way he was to me, but otherwise he wasn’t big enough for you to notice. Charlie was a tick on a sheep’s backside. A loser. Week on week I expected him to turn up dead in an alley somewhere because he’d hit on the wrong guy or been mugged for something he didn’t have.”

  “If he was such a tick, why the interest?”

  “It’s still a murder.” Rozlyn took another sip of beer. “Anyway, he may have been a tick, but he was my tick and I would hate to think that something he tried to find out on my behalf might have got him killed.”

  Frank smiled. It was not the most beautiful of sights. “The girl’s got a conscience,” he said, and his boys laughed at his joke.

  Frank leaned forward and placed a great, meaty hand on Rozlyn’s, his pasty white skin contrasting against the deep brown of hers. He patted her fingers with an almost avuncular air but then the hand was removed, the smile gone and the glass lifted again, this time drained to the bottom in a single gulp. He set it down again with a purposeful thud on the wooden table and Rozlyn knew that her audience was effectively at an end.

  “I’ll be in touch,” Frank said. “If I hear anything about a murdered tick.”

  A ripple of appreciative laughter drifted around the table and Rozlyn reluctantly got to her feet. She would learn nothing more from Frank tonight, that much was clear, but she had the odd feeling that Frank would be true to his word.

  * * *

  Rozlyn stepped out into the rain, relieved to be out of the Queen’s. Behind her the volume had picked up again.

  The day had been warm and bright but the wind had risen in the early evening and the rain began while Rozlyn was bar hopping in town. It brought with it an almost winter chill and she was glad she’d had the foresight to wear a coat.

  Pulling up her collar and tucking her hair inside, Rozlyn turned left into Mortimer Street and headed back towards the town centre. The streets were deserted and it wasn’t just the rain keeping people inside. The area was not one for walking in at night. Streets of terraced houses were interspersed with waste ground where demolition had begun but the promised redevelopment had stalled. The little streets around the Queen’s were not quite close enough to the newly fashionable canal basin to have benefited from the move towards Urban Living that the local council was doing its damnedest to promote. It was working after a fashion, Rozlyn had to admit. The area around the canal, between that and the university campus, had been planted with avenues of trees, had its old factories converted into ultra-expensive loft-style apartments with secure underground parking and was attracting the single professional types who made the most of the motorway links to work in London and could still commute to the less expensive hinterland.

  The locals didn’t stand a chance of affording these so-called New York-style des reses. It was a description that Rozlyn took issue with, doubting that the designers had ever been anywhere near her beloved Manhattan, but it was better, she supposed, than the often-beautiful old buildings falling into the canal from pure neglect.

  She wondered if the drive towards improvement would ever spread to Mortimer Street and if it did how many local councillors and builders Big Frank would buy off just to keep the Queen’s intact.

  She turned to cross Mortimer Street, planning on cutting down Hazel Street and then back across behind the University. Glancing sideways, more from habit than an expectation of traffic, she caught sight of movement, as though someone had dodged back into the shadow of a house wall.

  Not breaking her stride, Rozlyn crossed the road and walked down into Hazel Street. The houses in these Victorian terraces had a common entryway leading to the back yards, one entry shared between two. Most had doors or locked gates blocking the way but a half dozen houses down, Rozlyn spotted an open door. Twice since leaving the Queen’s she had sensed someone following but had ignored it. She had heard no footsteps bar her own echoing off the houses and sounds that might have carried had been distorted by the heavily falling rain.

  Rozlyn waited now, breathing through her mouth the better to hear, back pressed tight against the entry wall, peering through the gap between gate and wall. Had Frank sent someone after her? She dismissed the thought at once. For one thing, Frank’s men rarely travelled in less than pairs. For another, Rozlyn was sure she’d done nothing to rattle the big man’s cage. Frank had been amused by her audacity, but nothing more.

  She pressed closer to the wall changing the restricted view of the road end. A slight shuffling sound told her that there was someone out there, someone who paused before turning into the street and looked anxiously around. The figure that hove into view was small and slight, but it was the smell that Rozlyn recognised even before the light of a streetlamp confirmed the features.

  “Hey, Mouse Man,” Rozlyn called softly and was gratified to see the man leap what looked like a good three feet into the air and on landing stagger back, looking as though the devil himself had called his name.

  Rozlyn stepped out from the entry. Mouse clutched at his heart, his face grey and pale in the light of the lamp.

  “God, you could have killed me.” He glanced nervously around, skittering back against the wall, away from the yellow light.

  “What are you doing here, Mouse Man?”

  “Looking for you. I saw you go into the Queen’s and I waited outside, then when you left, that man ca
me and stood outside and I daren’t come after. Not ‘til he’d gone away.”

  “What man? Who was he, Mouse?”

  “Don’t know, don’t know. Big man, tall with long hair. I don’t know where he went.”

  Mouse stared anxiously about once again and then looked back at Rozlyn. “We can’t talk here. You shouldn’t have come looking for me like that in town. You were asking around for me. That’s not good news. Not good news.”

  Rozlyn frowned. The Mouse was always jumpy, but she’d never seen him quite like this.

  “My place,” Mouse said. “We’ll go back to my place. Need to talk to you about Charlie. That’s why you looked for me, wasn’t it? Talk about Charlie?”

  “Your place,” Rozlyn groaned inwardly but the little man was practically wetting himself with fear. “Ok,” she said. “We’ll go back to yours, but you open the goddamned windows, you hear?”

  * * *

  Mouse Man derived his name from one of his varied occupations. He lived in a run-down terraced house about a mile from the Queen’s, a couple of streets outside of Big Frank’s territory. Downstairs in Mouse’s domain was a front living room that Rozlyn had never actually entered, though she knew from peering through the door that it was stacked from floor to ceiling with stuff that Mouse bought at auctions when he had the funds. These were not everyday auctions, but sales of old computer stuff and office equipment. With so many local firms going bust in the past decade, the auction houses for this type of merchandise were doing a good trade. Mouse didn’t bid. He went around afterwards, at the end of the business day, buying up for pence what no other purchaser had wanted. Mouse had got it into his head that this was the computer age and so anything that said computer on the box was bound to be a seller. It never seemed to occur to him that there might be a good reason for the stuff he bought to have remained unsold at the auction. That it might be obsolete, incomplete or simply busted and his failure to sell on didn’t make an iota of difference to his optimism. He bought, he stored, he bought some more. When Rozlyn had once commented that he might get lucky one day and discover these were real museum pieces, Mouse’s face had lit with such a pleased smile that Rozlyn had felt mean to have made a joke at Mouse’s expense. Especially one that the man just did not understand.