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

awaiting the birth of their first child and was now heavy and uncomfortable and very much in need of rest. Her man was exhausted by the harvest and the task of rebuilding not only their own home but assisting others before the autumn gave way to winter.

So Cate, knowing that the old woman had little time left on this earth, had taken on the task of keeping vigil while they both slept.

Home was a single room, a box bed at one end for the married couple and a heap of bracken and pine at the other on which the old woman lay. A central hearth, the smoke from which lifted into the rafters and filtered out through the thatch, keeping the mice and vermin at bay. The miasma of rot and death rose from the body of the old woman. That Aedra had lingered for so long was, Cate thought, because she had received such love and such care from her family. Though it might have been better for all if she had been allowed to slip from their grasp sooner. It was time for her to be released from the pain of the mass that bulged her stomach and the second that broke the skin of her breast and for which Cate had no remedy. It was time as well for the couple to turn their thoughts and energy to the new life soon to come.

Aedra roused with a little gasp of pain and Cate knelt down beside her, slipping an arm behind frail shoulders, holding the fragile body close to her own and pressing a cup to cracked lips. “Drink, sweetness, drink and lose the pain for a while. There, that’s good.”

The lips parted and the woman did her best to swallow the infusion of honey, white bryony and other herbs. It was moot, Cate thought, which would kill her first — the remedy or the sickness — but at least she would pass with less pain.

Settling her gently, Cate fetched the water she had left to keep warm beside the fire, infused with more herbs to both sweeten the air and soothe the broken skin. Carefully she drew back the rags that absorbed Aedra’s urine, washed her carefully and placed fresh rags beneath her and between the stick like legs. Then she covered her warmly once more.

Stepping outside to place the soiled cloths in a bucket ready for washing, Cate stood for a while in the cold and the dark and gazed up at the stars. She doubted Aedra would live to see another dawn and she could not regret that. All life ended and Aedra had enjoyed her full season.

Tears sprang unbidden, but they were not for Aedra. Cate lay a hand on her still flat belly. She had not bled this month, she who was regular as the moon and whose blood kept pace with its waxing and waning could not yet be positive, but she knew her own body and had always had the facility for recognising early pregnancy in others. She was with child and, despite being married, she knew that the child could not be that of her husband.

CHAPTER 11

Vivid dreams had been something Rozlyn had endured in childhood but as she’d grown older, their richness of colour and intimidating reality had paled until her dreams were merely pastel-shaded imitations. This one was different.

A cool breeze blew past her cheeks, cold enough to nip the lobes of her ears, though a warm sun shone on her back and the sky was polished Delft, the exact shade of the blue on her mother’s little bowl.

They had come to Charlie’s funeral; Rozlyn, Mouse and Mrs Chinowski, the latter dressed from head to foot in deepest black, the depth of mourning relieved only by the dyed purple of the poppies decorating her wide brimmed hat.

Charlie himself lay uncovered in the grave, still dressed in his pinstriped suit and blood-stained shirt with its frayed cuffs and worn collar.

As Rozlyn watched, a stranger stepped forward, face hidden from Rozlyn’s view, screened out by a series of blocked pixels, like those used on television to hide someone’s identity. The stranger held the spear that had killed Charlie Higgins. He bent down and placed it carefully, close beside Charlie’s left hand and then, beside his right, a full glass of beer. Rozlyn knew the heavy mug — Charlie favoured glasses with handles — had come from the Queen’s and was filled with Speckled Hen.

She watched, sadly, as the diggers from the archaeological site gathered silently around and slowly began to fill the grave, shovelling the fine red earth to cover Charlie’s face and suit and stained white shirt.

Beside her, Mrs Chinowski began to cry; to wail, her body shaking until the poppies on the wide brimmed hat waved and stuttered and Rozlyn was forced to reach out her hand and hold them still.

“It’s all right, Inspector Priest. You’ll get the bastard.”

Startled, Rozlyn looked towards the line of rowan. Charlie Higgins stood, smiling at her. In his hand he held a long, green staff and, for some reason that Rozlyn could not fathom, his feet were bare. In an instance of that strange empathy that comes in dreams, Rozlyn could feel the chill as Charlie walked on dew-drenched grass and, as she looked, she saw that the early morning sun illuminated a myriad of spider webs, strung out across the grass and silvered in the early light.

Dazzled by the sight, Rozlyn blinked hard and, as she raised her eyes again, looking back to where the ghost of Charlie stood, it seemed that some persistence of vision carried the pattern of bejewelled webs far up into the open sky.

Rozlyn woke with a startled cry, hands brushing frantically across her face. She sat up and glanced urgently around. The room was just as clean and ordered and as normal as ever, no sign of