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

grassy ledge, the ground dropping off quite steeply in front of them. A narrow but mercifully dry path followed the contours of the land and promised a fairly easy way down. Below them lay an open area, enclosed on three sides by dense hawthorn hedges and tall trees, while the fourth side, directly below them, was protected by a shallow but lively stream that disappeared from view here and there between high banks. A wooden bridge, little more than a plank with a broken handrail, crossed at a point where the banks fell away and the stream spread wider as though taking advantage of its sudden freedom. A ford, once upon a time, Rozlyn guessed.

In the centre of the open area she could see deep trenches, some of them covering quite an expanse of land and, seen from above, their positioning gave her a sense of the layout of the place as it must have been. Two corners and a section of wall had been defined of the main building. Others pegged and marked with red striped tape some way behind. Smaller trenches, ranging from a few feet long, right down to squares that could be little more than a foot wide showed her the locations of other sites of interest. The outbuildings, perhaps? To her unpractised eye they looked a little random and oddly placed for that.

“Over there,” PC Mills was pointing to an area half hidden by an outgrowth of rowan trees, planted in a line, straight and defined as though to act as a deliberate screen or as boundary markers. Bright ruby berries glowed against leaves just touched with gold. “That’s the grave site.”

“Ah.” That part of the scene at least she understood. Blue-and-white tape marked out the police line. Uniformed police in shirt sleeves stood around drinking tea and waiting for the white clad figures of the forensic team to finish so that they could have the body moved and take possession of the site. A small knot of people — staff from the dig, she assumed — stood or sat in front of a portacabin. She wondered briefly how they’d got it through the bullock field and felt a momentary surge of irritation that there might have been a cleaner, easier way of getting here that no one had told her about. From time to time the civilians who’d had their workplace so disrupted glanced across at the other group. She was too far away to see their faces but their body language spoke of anxiety and deep resentment and the usual upset that came with finding a freshly dead person where you had no reason to expect one to be.

“You say the body was found in an old grave?”

“Yes.”

“Someone had a sense of the appropriate.”

“Sure did. It’s really pissed the diggers off though.”

“Murderers are not the most considerate of social groups.”

“No, I guess they’re not. It isn’t just that though. I mean, they’re all upset by it, of course. I guess digging up old bones doesn’t prepare you for having a corpse dumped in your back yard so to speak. One or two asked to leave the site but DCI Brook wouldn’t have it, not ’til they’d all been interviewed. Wanted them around so they could explain exactly how and when the body was found.”

“Brook?” Rozlyn interrupted her. “It was Martyn that called me. I thought he was the SIO.”

“No. It’s Brook.” The PC flashed her a curious look.

Brook, Rozlyn thought. Her suspicion about there being an easier route began to gnaw again. Brook was the type who’d find it funny to see her gored by a ruddy bull. Not, she admitted, that their horns had been very much in evidence. Her companion, realising no doubt that her curiosity was not about to be satisfied, had continued with her train of thought as though Rozlyn had not interrupted.

“Originally it was rescue archaeology, you see.” She spoke the words with the air of one who has discovered a new buzzword. “They’d only got a limited time to excavate before the work started. Apparently they’ve had two seasons here,” she frowned. “They can’t dig all year round, I suppose — just late spring into autumn and the dig leader called that a season. Anyway, there’ve been objections to the plans so he reckons they might even get another season after this and they’ve been able to extend their trenches. Though with a murder investigation going on . . . I think he’s worried it’s going to really slow things down.”

“What are they planning? Another road?”

She shook her head. “The whole valley’s going to be flooded. New reservoir.”

Rozlyn looked at her in surprise. For some reason she had thought that sort of thing didn’t happen anymore. She turned back to look down into the valley. Country lover that she wasn’t, she still felt an unexpected and equally sharp stab of pain at the thought, and the sudden overwhelming sense of loss completely caught her off guard.

“That’s a shame,” she said softly, noting uncomfortably that her voice seemed to shake a little. “A real shame.”

* * *

Brook hauled himself up from the side of the trench. At five feet seven, he was a good few inches shorter than Rozlyn, but he made up for the deficit in width and attitude. Rozlyn had never met another man with Brook’s ability to make her seem so much smaller than she was.

“Someone’s taken a dislike to one of your snouts,” Brook said. “Go on, don’t be shy, take a good look.”

He stepped aside to allow Rozlyn access to the trench and then leaned over her shoulder, breathing heavily as Rozlyn crouched down.

“Charlie Higgins.” Rozlyn said. “Yes, he’s one of mine. What the hell’s he doing out here?”

The dead man lay upon his back with his arms outstretched on either side. His position reminded Rozlyn of a game she used to