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

the local council used in all its buildings. Most of this was covered by four matching red rugs, precisely placed so that their edges lined up with the squares of tiling. One had already been rolled back and the floor beneath checked, but Rozlyn guessed the others had been left in place precisely so that she could get the best impression of the room as it had been.

Charlie’s furniture was old and worn. A three-seater sofa, upholstered in the kind of sage green moquette that Rozlyn would always associate with nursing homes and two mis-matched armchairs; one blue, the other a dark shade of green.

“He’d covered them with throws,” Jenny told her, holding up a length of cream fabric.

Red cushions, Rozlyn noted, matching the rugs on the vinyl covered floor. The team had removed the covers and examined them before stacking them back on the sofa, covers folded on the arm; cushions on the seat. Rozlyn could almost feel Charlie’s anguish at this disorder and it was all she could do not to begin posting the plump cushion pads back into their velvet envelopes.

“Found anything?”

Jenny shrugged. “We only got here half an hour ago. Place was neat and tidy. No signs of anything untoward. SOCO was right, he wasn’t killed here. He took care of his place anyway and from what we’ve found so far, all his personal stuff is in those drawers over there. We thought we’d wait for you. Stan’s in the kitchen and I’ve sent Andy into the bedroom, but it won’t take either of them long.”

Rozlyn nodded thanks and went over to the sideboard Jenny had indicated. It was large, 1930s by the design, with art-deco carving running across the front of the two drawers and trimming the lower border of the cupboards beneath. It had been lovingly polished and cared for. A linen runner, crudely embroidered with flowers, protected the dull sheen of the unfashionably dark wood. A glass tray sat on top of this with matching moulded-glass candlesticks set with great precision on either side.

Charlie had a thing for charity shops, Rozlyn remembered. She wondered if this nasty little runner and cheap glass had been amongst his finds.

Rozlyn opened the cupboards first and peered inside. Crockery and glass, stacked with care on shelves lined with newspaper. Rozlyn bent her head round to see the date. Three months before and taken from a copy of the Sun. Charlie habitually read the Guardian in Rozlyn’s presence or scrounged Rozlyn’s copy of the Guardian, but he always made a point of reading a tabloid as well. He said he’d seen in some film or other that this was the only way to keep up with the news properly. Read a broadsheet and a tabloid every day and what one missed the other got. Charlie had no internet and so had never bothered with online news, as far as Rozlyn knew.

Rozlyn couldn’t recall which film he’d said it was.

“Check underneath the papers,” she reminded Jenny.

“Of course.”

She grinned at her and turned back to look at the drawers.

“Don’t know if you noticed,” Jenny commented. “Nothing in the cupboards match. He’d got a cheap dinner service in the kitchen, half a dozen mugs and the same of glasses, all from the same range, but those things in there . . . mostly thirties, I’d guess. There’s even the odd bit of Claris Cliff.”

Rozlyn looked again at the mix of glass and crockery in the sideboard and saw that Jenny was right. She took out a stack of plates and shuffled through them. “He liked charity shops and flea markets,” she said. “I remember him mentioning it a time or two, telling me what he found.” She remembered tuning him out, too, switching off what she saw as Charlie’s irrelevant chattering and was suddenly struck by a sharp and unexpected stab of regret. What had she really known about this lonely middle-aged man? She recalled Mouse Man’s declaration that Charlie had got into whatever it was that killed him to prove himself to Rozlyn and the shame that she’d taken so little notice of someone that clearly hung on her every word, deepened.

She frowned and mentally shook herself. Charlie was an informant. A tick of a man, just as she’d told Big Frank Parker. But, as she’d also told Big Frank, Charlie had been Rozlyn’s tick and, more and more, Rozlyn was feeling his death as a personal affront.

Charlie had made some cardboard dividers for the drawers. Each one was separated into four sections. Letters, bills and personal documents were filed like with like.

“You seen this?”

Jenny nodded, coming over to stand beside her. “Puts me to shame,” she said. “I just chuck everything in a pile. What was he like, this Charlie Higgins?”

Good question, Rozlyn thought.

“Middle aged. I’d have said fairly well educated, though he never had a proper job that I knew about. Did a lot of little backhanders. A bit of cleaning here and there . . .”

Jenny laughed. “Cleaning! He could have headed up one of those reality TV shows. You know where those two women tell you how filthy your house is?”

Rozlyn shook her head. “Can’t say I do.”

“Oh, I forgot. You don’t watch television.”

“Not often. No.”

Jenny laughed again. “Can’t imagine life without my telly,” she said. “Only thing I feel like doing when I get home. Glass of wine, ready meal, telly.”

“Oh, the sophistication! Left drawer or right?”

“Left. So, what else. You knew him what . . . ?”

“Seven years or so. But I wouldn’t say I knew him. Not as such. He was . . . part of the scenery, I suppose. Just . . . well, just there.”

“Hmmm,” Jenny slid her selected drawer from its space and paused to feel around inside the sideboard before carrying it over to the sofa and placing it carefully on the floor. Rozlyn followed her.

“Anyone to miss him?”