BURY ME DEEP an utterly gripping crime thriller with an epic twist (Detective Rozlyn Priest Book 1) by JANE ADAMS (best book reader .txt) 📗

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 came 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.

There was a second room downstairs which housed a couple of chairs and a television and from which could be seen a filthy kitchen. Rozlyn as usual declined the offer of refreshment. This room might have been almost liveable if it hadn’t been for the smell. It was a musky, musty, sour and choking odour that Rozlyn knew from experience she’d be hours getting out of her nose and clothes. The same smell clung to Mouse Man himself, emanating from him in waves of body heat.

Rozlyn stood in the middle of the room, trying not to touch anything, while all around in cages, stacked three high, squeaked and scrambled and stank a load of tiny, long-tailed, big-eared rodents, breeding and scrapping and squealing and now chewing on the handfuls of grains that Mouse man tipped into their cages.

“Look,” he said. “More little ones.”

He pulled his hand from the nearest cage and held it out to Rozlyn. His palm was filled with pink, writhing, grub-like creatures, naked and almost tailless.

“Nice,” Rozlyn said briefly, then regretted the need to speak as the foul air flooded into her lungs. “Mouse, this place stinks even on the outside. Don’t your neighbours complain?”

Mouse shrugged.