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

by Jane Adams

  “Someone knew he’d have recorded their number?” Jenny guessed. “Didn’t like the idea of it getting into the wrong hands?”

  Rozlyn nodded. “This book must have been replaced recently,” she explained, showing her the change in telephone number. “I bought my new phone three months ago.”

  “So, if whoever killed Charlie took the book and the mobile, they’d probably assume they’d covered their tracks. Probably wouldn’t have bothered coming here. Or maybe the body was found before they were ready?”

  “Maybe, though the timing was so precise . . . they had a window of maybe half an hour to dump Charlie’s body while everyone on site was eating breakfast. They must have known what went on at the dig site well enough to realise that. Given that, they must have been aware that the diggers would have reported it quickly and they made no attempt to hide Charlie’s identity.”

  “The dig site’s pretty remote,” Jenny observed. “You think it must have been someone local? For them to know how the place is run, I mean?”

  “Maybe. What I don’t get is why take him out there anyway. Charlie wasn’t killed there and he wasn’t killed here, so why not just leave him where he died?”

  “Because that would tell us something about the murderer or the motive,” Jenny guessed.

  Rozlyn nodded slowly. “So we need to know where. It’s not unreasonable to assume that the dig site is somewhere en route from the crime scene,” she added.

  “En route to where?” Jenny asked. “And does that help us?”

  “Not a whole lot.” Rozlyn took the more recent address book and sealed it in an evidence bag, then slipped it into her pocket. “Don’t forget to log that one with the others.”

  “As if I would.”

  “Personal letters?”

  “Nothing so far.”

  Rozlyn’s phone began to ring. She answered it and listened, then got to her feet. “Won’t be coming with you to check out the other flat,” she told Jenny. “Take Stan or Andy if you want some company and let me know when I get back.”

  “Will do. Developments?”

  Rozlyn nodded. “They’ve found the murder weapon,” she said.

  CHAPTER 7

  Rozlyn arrived by road this time, a winding single track that took its route along the ridge of a hill, between cultivated fields before falling sharply into the wooded valley.

  The entrance to the site gave Rozlyn a moment’s pause. She’d expected a farm gate, but instead, the entrance way was flanked by stone gateposts and the driveway leading to the dig was lined by a double row of small rowan trees. In the September sun they hung bright with crimson berries. She parked her car beside a half dozen others and checked herself in the rear-view mirror, tucking an errant strand of hair back behind her ear and checking that the rest was still held in place by the bright red band.

  Her mother always told her fondly that she had exuberant hair.

  She walked the remainder of the way onto the dig. She could see the rising land beyond the stream and the hedge that bounded the bullock field and, from where she now stood, could tell that the path she’d followed down to the plank bridge was well established, dug deep into the side of the steep bank as though through long usage it had eaten its way into the landscape. The day was warm; here in this sheltered valley, it had become more than warm. A heat haze rose from the higher ground and, just for a brief moment, Rozlyn fancied she saw something ranged up there on the hill. A tall, but simple structure. A building, she thought, or the memory of one . . . Of course, with sudden clarity she realised that this little valley would be a perfect place to live, but you’d need to defend it as well.

  Perhaps they’d had a watchtower of some kind up there on that ridge. From there, as she now knew, you could see for miles across the escarpment. How heavily wooded would it have been, back then? A sudden image of dense, wild woodland interspersed with avenues of coppiced trees filled her mind. She shook herself abruptly, irritated that she’d given in to fantasy when there was a job to do, but she couldn’t completely chase the memory away, for such it was, Rozlyn was sure. Neither could she dispel the sudden vision of an imperious, strongly built man, overseeing the building of the hill tower and gazing down proudly onto his land. It was there and then gone, but, like a dream that arrives almost on waking, it sat at the edge of her consciousness and would not be swept away.

  She frowned irritably. All her life she had seen things that might have been there, or might once have been there, and that no one else seemed to be aware of. Her mother always said she had an exuberant imagination too.

  “Inspector. Over here.” A uniformed officer, white shirt sleeves rolled back in the heat, was waving to her from the entrance to one of the porta-cabins. Rozlyn became suddenly aware of the lack of activity on the site. She’d expected to catch glimpses of search teams moving though the undergrowth. To see the diggers, still redundant and increasingly irritated, sitting, drinking tea outside. But the whole place, apart from the waving policeman, looked deserted.

  Approaching the portacabin, she realised why. About twenty odd people were all packed inside and the feeling of excitement, coupled with an odd air of bewilderment was palpable.

  “What’s going on?”

  “We think we’ve got the murder weapon,” the constable informed her. “But it’s not . . . well, it’s not exactly what we expected.”

  * * *

  The diggers had been helping with the search, PC Patel told her. It had seemed like a good idea, since they were used to looking for stuff and bored stupid with sitting around. They’d been clearing the undergrowth from the west side of the dig, close beside the ford, where the stream turned back into the forest, when they’d seen it in the mud.

  “It looked like it’d been thrown there, but, fortunately, it’d landed haft side down with the pointed end clear of the mud.” He grinned at her. “The diggers have been teaching me all the technical terms. Scientific support was still here and we got it photographed in situ.” He paused, pointing to the dozen or so images pinned to the board. “We took these as well. I thought you’d like to see something straight away. The diggers printed them out for us.”

  Rozlyn nodded. “Good thinking,” she said. Then frowned. “It’s a bloody spear!”

  “Quite.”

  Rozlyn turned to look at this new speaker and found herself confronted by the dig director, Emlyn Reece. He’d been introduced briefly on her earlier visit.

  “Come and look, Inspector. You won’t see many of these in a lifetime.”

  Rozlyn looked. Even to her unpractised eye, it was obvious that this was something special. There was no shaft fitted into the socket, but the socket itself was decorated with a twisting, writhing pattern that shone dully in the strong sunlight, which poured through the cabin windows. It was evidently very old, though the metal didn’t seem rusted or decayed. More inlay embroidered the neck, where the end of the haft would have been fitted and, as Rozlyn moved to look more closely and the reflected light shifted across the surface, a pattern emerged, faint but clearly there. It looked for all the world like watered silk. Watered silk, now heavily stained with darkened blood.

  She looked sharply at Reece, her expression asking all the questions for her.

  “Your experts have confirmed that’s blood,” Reece said. “The object itself is indeed a spearhead and it’s either a fantastic replica or it’s at a guess ninth, tenth century.”

  “You’re kidding me?”

  Reece shook his head. The suppressed excitement caused his short, slight body to tremble. “I’ve never seen anything more perfect. If it is a replica, then whoever made it is a craftsman. A true artist.”

  “Do you think it is a replica?”

  “I can think, offhand, of three people in the country capable of it, so it shouldn’t take much checking, but no. I know their work. This . . . this is something else.”

  “It didn’t come from here? From the dig, I mean. Isn’t this supposed to be a ninth-century site?�
��

  Reece laughed. “Your constable asked the same question, Inspector, so we showed him this.” He gestured at one of his assistants who produced a large plastic box and laid it on the table. Inside was a lump of what looked to Rozlyn like rusted metal and dark red clay studded with the odd stone.

  “This is the state in which metal comes out of the ground. It’s probably a knife. Too short for a sword and, even in Christian burial, we do sometimes find knives. Believe me, Inspector, if I found something like this in a dig, I’d be dancing naked in the streets of Stamford.”

  Rozlyn studied both finds again. “I’ve seen stuff in museums,” she said. “I mean, recognisable swords and the like. So, how do you get from that lump of crud, to something like this?”

  “This ‘lump of crud’ will go to be cleaned and conserved and probably end up in storage somewhere. It will be recognisable as a knife, by the time our experts have done with it, but it won’t look anything like this. This spear was buried in what must have been ideal conditions. If it was buried at all, and frankly, I have my doubts. Grave sites have been found in which metals have been discovered in an amazing state of preservation, but this . . . this is so rare, so unusual . . . and it didn’t come from here. That, regretfully, I can attest and affirm.”

  Rozlyn looked at the photographs ranged on the cabin wall, frowning as she took this all in. Aw, come on! She thought. This was just too crazy for words. A Dark Age spear used to kill Charlie Higgins was bad enough, but for him then to be dumped on a dig site contemporaneous with the murder weapon. That was all too much.

  “We’re sure this is the murder weapon?” she asked Patel.

  “The post-mortem will confirm it, ma’am, but there doesn’t seem to be any doubt. The victim was killed by a single stab wound, it’d be a bit much to find two bloody weapons on site. We’d have to find ourselves another body.”

  A ripple of laughter greeted Patel’s comments and Rozlyn allowed herself a wry smile. Patel was enjoying himself, she thought. An appreciative audience and the knowledge that, not only had he done a good job, but he’d unearthed a bloody good mystery into the bargain.

  “You’d better show me the site,” Rozlyn said. Everyone around her moved and Rozlyn got the impression they intended to follow. “If you don’t mind, I’d rather you all stayed put.” She saw the disappointment on Reece’s face and relented slightly. “Apart from Doctor Reece, of course. You could, maybe, give me an insight into the lay of the land. And PC Patel, naturally. You can talk me through how the spearhead was discovered.”

  Reece nodded enthusiastically and the others subsided with a collective sigh of disappointment. Odd, Rozlyn thought, now that the body was safely out of the way and they could detach themselves slightly from the fact that a man’s life was ended, this event was transformed into a bit of excitement that no doubt they’d be dining out on for months to come.

  * * *

  Almost dancing at her side in a mood of puppylike excitement, Reece led them around the perimeter of the dig. Despite his exuberance he was as careful of preserving his domain as Rozlyn would have been in guarding the integrity of a crime scene. He pointed out the areas of greatest interest as they passed.

  “The main house would have been there. It’s an unusual structure, stone foundations and walls, we think to about two feet in height, then wattle and daub and also some planking. Thatched roof, presumably. We’ve found a number of post holes and the remains of two hearths.”

  “Two?” Something leapt in Rozlyn’s memory, but she could not place the reference. “Isn’t that unusual?”

  “It is, yes. Generally, there’d have been a central hearth used for heating and cooking, but this one seems to have had a doorway at the midpoint of the long wall, there, look. Hearths at either end. Stone built, too, not a scraping in the ground lined with rock. Whoever owned this place knew what they wanted and went for it.”

  Rozlyn nodded slowly, her gaze drawn back towards the bank above the stream. “Anything up there?” She asked.

  “I don’t know. We did a general survey, but our time is so limited. We’ve got to push on here, find out as much as we can before we lose the site.”

  “That definite, is it? I was told this area will be flooded.”

  Reece shrugged. “There’s a final appeal. If that’s successful, there’ll be a public inquiry and that might reverse the decision. From our point of view, it’s bloody disastrous. This valley is so rich in Dark Age finds. We lost God knows what when Rutland Water was created. The teams working on that barely scratched the surface. If you ever find yourself in Oakham, you can get a flavour of what they uncovered in the museum, but they knew there was a mountain of stuff they didn’t have time to reach and, of course, that’s gone for ever now. I’m still hopeful we may at least get a further stay of execution. If there was some way of convincing the authorities that this spear head came from here we’d be laughing.”

  “I went to school in Oakham,” Rozlyn mused. “I know the museum. Where do you think it came from?”

  Reece shrugged. “Private collection somewhere, probably. Of course, if it is a replica, that changes things. If it’s the real thing — and I’d stake my reputation that it is — then there are collectors out there . . . It’s not been catalogued, at least not that I could see. No mark on it.”

  “Catalogued?”

  “A piece like that, you’d need to know where it was found, the circumstances, the context. That way, it becomes part of the overall picture of the community. Who made it, where? How the community lived. It would have belonged to an important man. Or possibly a woman, that’s a little more unusual, but as we’re beginning to discover, it’s definitely a possibility. A museum or a serious collector would have painted a reference number on it and that reference would have led us to a catalogue and all the rest of the information.”

  Rozlyn nodded, recalling that she’d seen such numbers on museum objects. “I thought, if it was ninth or tenth century, then . . . I guess what I’m asking is, they didn’t bury grave goods then, did they? At least not in a Christian burial.”

  “Generally, no. It could be earlier, but the pattern around the haft . . . I’d say later. It’s less fine, looser, somehow. There are subtle differences, but you’d need someone with a more detailed knowledge than me to fill you in on that. Look, that’s where it was found.” He pointed and PC Patel took over, moving them forward carefully on a track designated with blue-and-white tape, between tall trees, until they stood on the bank of the stream some six feet or so from where the spear had been recovered.

  “No footprints.”

  Patel shook his head. “The little path we came on is baked hard. But I’ll bet you could stand on the edge of the grave and chuck the thing and it’d end up here.”

  Rozlyn turned and looked back through the trees. From where she stood, she could make out the portacabins and the tape marking the hall and, yes, the grave in which Charlie’s body had been dumped. “It’d take a good throw,” she said, “but it’s possible.” She turned back to Reece. “You mentioned collectors and catalogues . . .”

  Reece nodded. “A piece of that importance would normally end up in a museum,” he said. “But there are private collectors, some more legitimate than others.”

  “Would it be valuable? I mean in monetary terms?”

  Reece nodded. “Things are better now than they were. The government brought in the portable antiquities scheme, you see, so it’s in everybody’s interest to report finds. Before that, you’d get metal detectorists, for instance, just keeping what they found, or selling it on. Oh, not all of course. Most have always been aware that archaeology is as much about context as it is about finds. We’ve had a local group working with us here, for instance, going through the spoil heaps and surveying the area. They’ve been terrific and most of them know nearly as much as our diggers do,” he laughed. “Puts the odd nose out of joint, that does. But there’s a lot of stuff out there unrecorded and uncatalogued and so, howev
er beautiful it might be, it’s almost useless from an archaeological perspective. Of course, to the people who pay big money to collect on the black market, that doesn’t matter a damn.”

  “And, if they acquired this illegally, they’re not going to report it stolen now,” Patel filled in.

  “Shouldn’t think so. No.”

  “Anyone local?” Rozlyn asked

  Emlyn Reece shrugged again. “I wouldn’t know. I’m not from round here, but the man to ask is Ethan Merril. Lives in Stamford, runs a little shop there now and writes the occasional book. He retired from academia two or three years back, but he’s the man to ask. Irascible old sod, mind you. He’ll only talk to you if he’s a mind to.”

  Ethan Merril, Rozlyn thought, wondering where she’d heard that name before.

  CHAPTER 8

  There had been a message waiting for her on the answerphone when she got back home. It was from PC Jenny Harper, about the phone bills found in Charlie’s flat. If anything, it deepened the sense of mystery that now surrounded him.

  “They’re for a Mrs Chinowski,” Jenny said. “She’s ancient, practically housebound. Charlie looked after her, she says. He paid her phone bill and sorted out someone from the social to come in five days a week to do her shopping and cleaning. She was absolutely devastated when I told her Charlie was gone. I sat with her as long as I could, then tried to get a neighbour to come in. Mrs C wouldn’t have it. Said they were all no-goods and thieves, but I think this needs a follow-up call at the very least.”

  Listening to the message, Rozlyn nodded in agreement. It seemed that Charlie Higgins had left a bigger footprint on the world than anyone would have guessed . . . or maybe Rozlyn would have known, had she listened properly.

  Rozlyn dumped her keys in the blue and white dish that sat next to the phone. It was chipped and cracked, mended with an ugly rivet and she probably wasn’t helping its survival by using it as a key depository. It had been her mother’s, one of the few things of hers that Rozlyn retained and, though she hated the look of the thing, she couldn’t quite bear to let it go. When she touched it, it was as if a memory had been triggered in her brain. No, not quite a memory . . . it was as if she were seeing it through her mother’s eyes, feeling her affection for its chipped and battered self.