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

by Jane Adams

  * * *

  Cate gave up on life just before dawn. Treven watched her face and saw that momentary transition that told him that her spirit had fled and the body was now empty of that which made it human in his eyes.

  He sighed and let his head drop into his hands.

  “Oh God,” Eldred whispered. “Oh sweet Jesus, no. He’s killed her!”

  “Hush man, you don’t know that.” Edmund’s voice, though reasonable, held no conviction.

  “Don’t I? Cate is dead and he was with her the night she died. I know that much, brother.”

  Edmund looked at Treven. “Can you account for his movements?” he asked. “Was he within your hall?”

  Treven would have liked to lie, but he could not. “Hugh returned late,” he said. “He told me he had been with Cate, but that she left him swiftly and vowed never to take time with him again.”

  “And he returned to you? At what hour?”

  Treven shook his head. “Late. Early. Not long before dawn. He said he had gone from Cate to . . . another. He did not name her.”

  “You should keep your reeve on a tighter leash,” Edmund said angrily. “Is this a taste of the King’s law? The King’s peace?”

  “It was my doing, not the Lord Aelfred’s,” Treven exploded angrily. “And you are right. I should have bound him tighter, even sent him from me, and I swear this to you, if Hugh is guilty he’ll be punished according to the law. If Hugh is guilty.”

  “Punished!” Eldred exploded. “So he’ll pay me gold in compensation? Cate paid with her life for her foolishness. Aye, and for mine in letting it pass without greater punishment.”

  “I’ve heard tell you punished her enough.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You beat the girl. It’s common knowledge. Small wonder she fell in with the likes of Hugh.”

  Eldred turned, fists raised and Edmund moved to intervene. Kendryk, sitting silent in his corner roused himself. “Is this a way to behave? Grown men, fighting over the body of one newly dead. Eldred, if you would accuse Hugh de Vries, then do so and we will have judgement over him, but you’ll not raise fists or brawl in my presence or in that of your dead wife. And you, Lord, you think any of this is seemly?”

  Treven shook his head. “None of it,” he said. “Hugh and I will face your judgement, but it is in my heart to ask, why, if you knew your woman was lying with another, why you did nothing?”

  “And what should I do? Kill her? Take his life?”

  “Had you discovered them and killed Hugh, I would have heard your plea and demanded recompense, but no law would have condemned you utterly. You should and could have made complaint. To me, to Abbot Kendryk here. To the shire courts.” He took a deep breath and asked. “You knew she was with child?”

  From his reaction it was clear that Edmund did not, but Eldred nodded.

  “And that the child, most like, was Hugh’s?”

  “It could have been mine.”

  “Could it?” Treven was not sure what moved him to ask that question, but it hit the mark. Eldred flushed scarlet and turned away.

  “Eldred?” Edmund was clearly not privy to this secret either.

  “You’d have welcomed the child as your own,” Treven said softly. He reached a hand towards the other man, then let it fall. “Eldred, you would not be the first to foster and love another man’s son when you could not make your own. Forgive me, I would have willingly left this unsaid, but it is pertinent in this instance.”

  “How so?” Edmund demanded. He was watching his brother’s face. Comprehension and pity now dawning on his own.

  “Because if your brother turned a blind eye to this, hoping that his wife would gain that which he could not provide, then he is complicit, if not in her death, then certainly in her infidelity.” He paused thoughtfully. “Cate told Hugh that the child could be his or yours. She gave no one reason to doubt you.”

  Eldred’s jaw worked, but no words came out. Finally, he managed. “I had regard and respect for my wife. Cate . . . riled me often, but the fault was not hers. I had no wish for a wife and if the choice had to be made, would have chosen some woman who could fend for herself. Someone older, wiser. I had little to offer Cate and she soon learned that. For all that I respected her . . . I could not feel desire. I tried, Edmund, I tried and I consummated my marriage, but the victory of that was hollow. If she ran to Hugh de Vries, then Treven is right, I must take part of the blame. But I hold that he killed her and the child she carried gave him the more purpose and reason.”

  “How so?” Treven questioned.

  “She could have threatened to name him. Eldred could have demanded compensation.” Edmund suggested

  “And had she done so, Eldred’s secret would be exposed. Hugh had . . . has no reason to suppose a more than half likelihood of the child being his and, if anything, knowing that she was pregnant would have given him further pause.” Treven shook his head. “I cannot see Hugh striking down any woman he knew was with child.”

  “Was he so careful in battle?” Kendryk asked with seeming innocence.

  “That question isn’t worthy of you,” Treven told him sharply. “A man might commit in time of war many acts that haunt him. I do not believe that Hugh, in cold blood, could kill a woman and her unborn child.”

  “But you admit that my brother is within rights to call him to account?” Edmund demanded.

  “I will admit that,” Treven agreed. “But I warn you, both of you. Should Hugh see fit to make counter accusation against you, Eldred, then that too must be heard.”

  “And I will find oath takers enough to confirm my innocence,” Eldred replied with equal heat. “Can he expect the same. This stranger?”

  Treven scowled at him, but he said nothing more. He turned to Kendryk. “You had better come with me,” he said. “Be witness to this.”

  Kendryk rose and went with Treven to formally inform Hugh de Vries that he had been charged with murder.

  CHAPTER 19

  BILLINGTON. PRESENT DAY

  “Do you know who it was?”

  Mouse shook his head painfully. “He came out of the dark,” he explained.

  “Dark? Mouse you were attacked at three in the afternoon . . .”

  “I keep the curtains closed in the back room. He was waiting in the kitchen. The blind was down. I don’t like the neighbours peering in.”

  Rozlyn sighed. “OK, Mouse, so he came out of the kitchen. You were in the back room?” She’d been about to say the mouse room.

  “I’d just come in, see. I’d been out to the Co-op and when I got back I could hear them soon as I came in through the door. I knew something were wrong.”

  “Hear them?”

  “My pets. Scared they were, all squealing and squeaking and I felt one run past my foot so I hurried into them and he was there. Waiting.”

  “Did he say anything? Did you get a look at him?”

  “I told you, it was dark. He was big, that’s all I can tell. Bigger than me. Tall and wide and his hands . . . he squeezed my arms, picked me right up off the floor like I was a rag doll. Then he chucked me back against the wall. I hit the cages. The cages fell and the poor little blighters, they were everywhere, all over the floor and running around the walls trying to get away. He were bigger than me.”

  Most people, Rozlyn reflected, were bigger than the Mouse Man. “Did he say anything?” Rozlyn asked again.

  Mouse thought about it and then he nodded, wincing in pain. “He were asking about Charlie.”

  “Charlie?”

  “‘Where did he put it,’ he kept saying. ‘Where’s Charlie hidden it?’”

  “Did he say what Charlie had hidden?”

  “No. He seemed to think I knew what he were on about, but I didn’t, I swear I never knew.”

  “It’s OK, Mouse. I believe you.” Rozlyn thought for a minute. “There’s no way Charlie could have hidden anything at your place without you knowing about it? Did he visit often?”

&nb
sp; Mouse looked away as though suddenly troubled. Finally, he confessed. “Charlie didn’t like to come on account of my little pets. He said the way they smelt made him feel bad. So he never came. We was friends though,” he added emphatically, turning to look at Rozlyn once again, peering at her though his half-closed swollen eye. Even through the slits in the bruising Rozlyn could feel the intensity of his gaze.

  “I know you were friends,” she pacified. “Charlie thought a lot of you, Mouse. He really did.”

  “He told you that, Inspector Priest?”

  Charlie had said no such thing, but he’d always talked about Mouse with a kind of concerned, big brotherly affection — despite the fact that Mouse was probably ten or twenty years his senior.

  Rozlyn realised she had no idea how old Mouse Man was. She didn’t even know his proper name. She wondered how he’d been registered at the hospital. Jenny had left the ward number in her message, so Rozlyn hadn’t had to ask, but surely, he must have another moniker as well as just the Mouse Man?

  She made a mental note to ask before she left. Somehow, asking Mouse about his regular name seemed almost insulting.

  “Go and see to my pets,” Mouse begged her. “They were so scared, like, and the cages were bust open and there’s been no one to feed them either.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Rozlyn soothed him. She’d had the first reports from the SOCO team that morning. They’d talked about a lot of dead mice strewn amongst the outfall from a very untidy search. Rozlyn thought she’d better wait until she’d assessed the situation before telling Mouse any of that. “Look,” she said. “I’ve got to be going. Your house is first stop on my list. I promise.”

  Mouse looked satisfied and relaxed into the pillows. “I feel so tired, Inspector Priest.”

  “You get some sleep. I’ll be back to talk to you later. See if you can remember anything more about the man that attacked you.” She hesitated for a moment. Talking had clearly exhausted the old man and she didn’t want to disturb him anymore. Not yet. The ward sister was hovering and Rozlyn didn’t think she was above calling security to turf her out if she upset the patient. “Mouse, d’you think this was anything to do with Donovan?”

  Mouse’s eye flew open and he lifted himself off the pillow with a gasp. “Donovan’s a bad man, Inspector Priest. You stay away from him.”

  “Mouse, I’d stand a better chance of keeping out of his way if I knew where he could be found.”

  Mouse said nothing, but his pallor had increased and the sister was moving towards him about to shoo Rozlyn away. “Where can I find him, Mouse? Where would I start looking for this Donovan?”

  Mouse shook his head as violently as the pain in his head would allow. “I wouldn’t know,” he said, so fervently that Rozlyn was inclined to believe him. “Charlie warned me about him. Said he was an evil man to rile, but I don’t know where to find him out.”

  “You’d better go,” the sister told Rozlyn.

  “Yeah, OK, but Mouse, think about anything Charlie said about this Donovan. You think of anything he said, you be sure and tell me.”

  “I said you’d better go.”

  Rozlyn held up her hands in mock submission. “I’m going,” she said.

  The sister escorted her to the ward door just to be sure. “Is there anything he needs?”

  “Well, I’d say pyjamas, but if you do decide to bring them, do us all a favour and buy new. I’ve sealed the clothes he was wearing in double bags. Oh, and toilet articles would be helpful, and magazines and bottled water. He doesn’t like the taste of it from the taps.”

  “Bottled . . . OK, OK, I’ll make myself a list. Oh, by the way, I meant to ask. I’ve only ever known him by his nickname. Does he have a proper one?”

  The sister looked vaguely disapproving. “His name,” she said, “is Arnold Simmonds and I’m sure Mr Simmonds will be very grateful when you bring those things in.”

  The sister turned her back on Rozlyn then and let the door close with a thud. Rozlyn found herself on the outside, peering in, watching as she crossed back to Mouse and checked his pulse and his drip stand.

  “Arnold Simmonds,” she mused. “Ok, Arnold, I wonder what magazines you like to read and if there are any out there on fancy mice.”

  * * *

  The house, never tidy, was now a scene of absolute devastation.

  Mouse Man’s collection of obsolete electronics had been smashed to small pieces and lay shard sharp across the front-room floor. What hadn’t been smashed was toppled sideways in a dangerous-looking pile that threatened any moment to fall on the SOCO working below it.

  Blood was smeared across the walls in the doorway of the middle room, pooling on the floor where Mouse had fallen, trailed down the hall floor where he’d dragged himself along. A smeared handprint wrapped around the lower section of the door told Rozlyn that he had pulled it open from there. He must have been attacked even before he’d had time to close the front door, Rozlyn thought. Though that was probably just as well. He’d never have made it to his feet in order to undo the latch. He would have died inside and probably lay undiscovered until someone noticed he’d not been to church or until Rozlyn had another question for him.

  She checked with the SOCO that it was OK, then went through into the second room. “Bloody hell!”

  “Mess, isn’t it. I’ve counted fifty of them so far. That’s the dead ones.”

  “Any left alive?”

  “That cage over there. Another in the kitchen. We fed them. There’s a bag of grain and stuff.” Rozlyn nodded. The second SOCO was a young woman. Rozlyn had met her a couple of times before and knew she was about halfway through her training.

  “Were they killed in the struggle?” she asked. “Or . . .”

  She shook her head. “Look at this one. There are more like it all over. Can’t say I’m that fond of mice, myself, but whoever did this really had something against the little critters.”

  Rozlyn crouched down to look at the tiny body and saw what she meant. “Jesus.” It had been squashed flat and the remains spread, like road kill across the carpet. The tread from the sole of someone’s boot was clearly visible in the blood and flesh that remained.

  “Mouse said he nearly trod on one when he came in . . .”

  “Mouse?”

  “Oh. Arnold Simmonds, the guy who owns this place.”

  She shook her head. “This wasn’t trodden on. This was stomped, then spread around like it was some sort of game.”

  * * *

  Treven had ridden out to the place where Cate’s body was found. The sun was coming up, now, reaching that point in the sky where it had strength enough to burn off the heaviest of the dew and was visible above the line of trees. It was hot for the time of year, welcome heat on Treven’s back as he crouched beside the track looking at the sign. It eased the knot between his shoulders and the pain lower down from his night of watching, seated in the hard, wooden chair.

  The fire in his gut was back and he wished he’d had the foresight to ask Osric for his potion before leaving. The pain was made worse when he did not eat and he had not waited to break his fast, eager, instead to see the place as soon as it was light. Treven knew that a full day had passed since Cate had been found and that any sign he might have found to help him unravel this tangle would be stale or even gone. It had not rained now for three nights, but the dew lay heavy on cold ground and the yellow sky and band of bruised grey cloud he had seen at dawn, caused him to expect rain before the day was out.

  The grass had been flattened where Cate had fallen and her blood, moistened again by the dew fall, stained brown when Treven touched it with his fingers. There was a great deal of blood.

  “You saw her lying here?”

  Ranuf, the charcoal burner, nodded. “I thought she was already dead. Then I saw her breath. The air was cold and her breath misted. I ran for help and brought my brother back with me to carry her home.”

  “Why delay?” Treven demanded. “The lady was
of no weight. You could have carried her home yourself.”

  The man cast his eyes down. “I should have done, Lord. The truth is, I was so frighted by the scene, I did not think clearly. I thought . . . I thought that the one who’d harmed her would still be close by.”

  “So you left him to finish her?” Treven snorted his disgust, but the matter would have to wait. He didn’t think the fellow’s tardiness made much difference to the outcome — Cate would have died anyway — but it seemed unconscionable to have left her lying in the open longer than necessary.

  Treven got to his feet and scanned the area. The narrow trackway led off the main path from Theading towards Theadingford. It was about two miles distant from the village, Treven guessed, but the going was rough once the main path had been left behind and could be reached only on foot or by horseback.

  Woodland surrounded them. On one side of the trackway it had been cleared and coppiced. Hazel and ash thickets of some three years growth showed careful tending. They would be cut back again next spring and for a season or two the increase in light would allow bramble and nettles to thrive if the woodsman did not keep the ground free. Further back, beyond the stand of birch that stood white in the autumn sun, this year’s growth of coppiced wood waved slender branches in the little breeze. The wood was golden, sunlit, tamed, unlike that which stood to Treven’s back.

  Here, was wild wood. Thickset oak and slender birch. Hazel, grown into a tangle through the branches of the larger trees. Late woodbind filled the air with a heady fragrance and the fierce thorns of brambles guarded the last of the shining berries. At his right hand, where a spring rose and trickled into a shallow stream, the track was lined with withys and a single, ancient crack willow, hollow hearted but still full of life. Treven had a deep affection for such trees and was glad that this one, though of no practical use, had been allowed to stand. He knew from boyhood conversations that the withymen often left an old guardian tree like this out of some ancient respect and belief long past words or stories and, Pagan though he supposed this was, Treven was glad the custom seemed to have been followed here.