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

Rozlyn shrugged and began to walk, Mouse falling into step beside her.

“Why did you want to see me?”

“I’ve been looking at Charlie’s flat. His address books in particular.”

“Books? He had more than one?”

Rozlyn paused and stared at him. “That significant, Mouse Man?”

“I don’t know enough people to fill even the one, that’s all.” Mouse shrugged and moved on and Rozlyn let it lie.

“I found a few names I’ve not managed to follow up. I figured you might be able to help me out.”

“What makes you think that?”

“You knew Charlie better than most. He might have mentioned something.”

“Charlie liked to talk. I like to listen,” he said.

“Meaning, I didn’t.”

Mouse shrugged again but didn’t deny it. “So,” he said. “What names?”

“There are two,” Rozlyn told him. “One is someone called Mr T. Thompson. Mean anything to you?”

Mouse nodded enthusiastically. “Thomas Thompson,” he said. “Parents with no imagination. He runs a house business.”

“House business?”

“Yes, you know, people rent them, then they go away again. Move out, move on. He rents them out again.”

“Oh, so he’s a landlord?”

“Landlords run pubs, he has a house business.”

Rozlyn decided not to split hairs. Mouse Man definitions were frequently a little contrary. “And what connection did Charlie have with him?”

“Charlie cleaned. When the people moved out and moved on, Charlie cleaned ready for the next. Thomas Thompson knew he could trust Charlie to clean. He let Charlie keep anything that got left behind and he paid him over a hundred pounds every time he did it.”

Judging by Charlie’s flat it was probably worth every penny, Rozlyn thought. “Charlie listed his work numbers as work numbers, Mouse. Works one, two and three in his book. You got any idea why he’d not list Mr T that way?”

Mouse man nodded. “Sure,” he said. “Because it wasn’t like other work he did. He did work for two pubs, the Queen’s, the Ship and a working man’s club. He paid taxes on those.”

Mouse Man sounded impressed at the idea of paying tax. “Mr Thomas Thompson gave him money in an envelope. That’s why he didn’t put it in his book as a work number. Charlie wasn’t stupid.”

“How often did he clean for Mr T?”

“Two, three times a month, I think.”

“You’re sure? That’s a lot of moving on for people to be doing.”

Mouse Man shrugged again, this time with an injured air as though hurt that Rozlyn expressed such disbelief. “Like I told you, people come, then they go somewhere else. Charlie cleaned and kept anything they left behind.”

Alarm bells were ringing in Rozlyn’s head. Maybe Mouse Man’s insistence that this man was not a landlord meant more than just his off-kilter way of defining things. “Do you know where any of these houses were, Mouse, and what sort of things got left behind? Things that Charlie kept?"

Mouse had to stand still to think about that one, unable to process complex information and walk at the same time. “Charlie wanted to tell you about it,” he said, “but if he had done, he would have lost the work and he had dependants, you see?”

“Dependants? I know about the old lady on the third floor, Charlie paid her phone bills.”

“Yes, she was one. But Charlie couldn’t tell you about the houses. He said there was something funny about the way people came and then went on somewhere else. He said he had to clean really well in these houses and sometimes he found things that had been left behind that people wouldn’t usually leave behind.”

“Like what, Mouse?”

Mouse Man’s face grew anxious. “He didn’t tell me.” Then he brightened. “He gave me a radio once. A little radio. I’ve still got it if you want to see? It had writing on it in a funny language, Charlie told me it was Chinese. But I can still get Radio Two in the morning, so I don’t mind if it’s a foreign radio.”

Rozlyn was momentarily distracted. “Radio Two?”

“Terry Wogan,” Mouse told her as though it was such an obvious thing it didn’t need explaining. “We both like Terry Wogan, Charlie and me. Listen every day. My radio broke and then Charlie gave me this little one with the foreign writing on it.” He turned fully to look at Rozlyn, a sudden cloud of anxiety darkening his pale blue eyes. “If I showed you the radio, you’d take it away from me, wouldn’t you? You’d say it was evidence?”

“I thought Terry Wogan was dead,” Rozlyn said.

Mouse shook his head emphatically. “I know that’s what people say,” he told her. “But it isn’t true.”

Rozlyn thought it best to let that one go. “Mouse,” Rozlyn found herself saying. “If, for any reason, I had to take your radio away, I’d give you a new one to take its place. I wouldn’t leave you without your music, or your Terry Wogan. I promise. Now, these houses, Charlie cleaned. You can tell me where?”

Mouse studied her for a moment as though to make certain she was telling the truth, then he nodded and the shadow passed from his watery eyes. “I can show you one,” he said. “Maybe two. I don’t know the others. Charlie said there were more than two.”

“Near here?”

“Two near here. I don’t know about the rest. But I wouldn’t go too close, Inspector Priest. Charlie said it was OK for him to go and clean, but only when the places were empty. If they had people there, before they went on somewhere else, he had to stay off from them.”

I’ll bet he did, Rozlyn thought. “Mouse, did Charlie ever mention someone called Donovan to you?”

Mouse Man halted again and began to turn away.

“Hey, where are you going?”

“I told you enough, Inspector Priest.