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

sun slanted through oak and ash and thickets of hazel, set the rowan ablaze and bathed the valley in golden light, dancing and glancing off the stream. The manor itself had been built upon a slight rise in the land, keeping it safe from the winter floods. For the most part, the water coursed between steep banks, breaking out only at the shallow ford. There were signs of old defences — earth banks raised on the far side of the stream — though this was never designed to be a fortified manor. It was a farm, built, with unwarranted optimism, for times of peace. Perversely, man of war that he was, Treven liked the notion that he might settle in a place not designed for battle.

Hugh, mouth full of pig and barley bread, cut through his thoughts. “We should refortify those banks,” he commented. “Build a palisade. And there’s a natural rise to the land behind the house, I noticed as we came down from the road. It could be made defensible.”

Treven felt a sudden surge of anger, irritation that Hugh should tread upon even these momentary imaginings. But it soon passed. He recognised that Hugh was right. Guthrum and his army might have signed Peace with Aelfred back at Eastertime, but here they were so close to the enemy — and treaty or not, Treven found it hard to think of them any other way — that to hope to live here in peace meant that they must be prepared for war.

Guthrum might have accepted his defeat, even accepted baptism, with King Aelfred as his godfather. He had taken a new name, a Christian name of Athelstan, but frankly Treven did not believe a word of it. Guthrum might now publicly address his prayers to Jesus Christ, but Treven would be willing to wager that any kill he made in battle would be dedicated still to Odin.

CHAPTER 3

BILLINGTON. PRESENT DAY

The Queen’s Head on the corner of Mortimer Street and Cradely Road was packed by nine o’clock at night. It still carried the vestiges of its Victorian past; a glass divider set into wooden panelling that separated the public bar from the lounge and the marble-topped counters, complete with old fashioned beer pumps, long ago decommissioned but kept on for their looks. The Queen’s Head, now simply ‘the Queen’s,’ had supposedly become a theme pub. The “head” had been dropped from its title and a gaudily painted sign showing three drag artists in large blond wigs hung proudly over the entrance.

Not that it made a fig of difference to the clientele. Much to the discomfort of the new owners, hoping to turn the place into a trendy student dive — the University, one-time Billington Polytechnic, being a scant half mile away — the Queen’s had stubbornly refused to be reformed and the new landlords seriously regretted not having done more on-the-spot market research. The students, knowing that the Queen’s catered for a particular sector of the local community, still went a half a mile in the other direction, taking themselves off to the wine bars and nightclubs and converted banks in town; and the locals signed a petition against the flashing lights and equally flashy music and backed it by the threat of more direct action, as they informed the new landlord that if he didn’t cut the bloody piped music and remove the glitter ball, he was likely to find it jammed somewhere it wouldn’t glitter nearly so well.

Six months on, the only thing left of the hoped-for transformation was the coloured sign depicting the garishly clad impersonators, permitted to remain, so it was rumoured, because Big Frank Parker had a soft spot for Lily Savage on TV and nobody with an ounce of sense was going to argue with Big Frank.

Inside, the only remaining indicator of the change of management was the introduction of ‘guest beers’ — a move generally welcomed by the clientele.

The Queen’s had been a favourite haunt of Charlie Higgins’ and, being the venue of choice for a number of the local hard men, a verdant pasture for his intelligence gathering. It was the third watering hole that Rozlyn had entered that night, the first two being in the town centre, crowded early and more anonymous. Rozlyn had asked questions, received few useful answers and been unable to find the one man she had really hoped to see. She had no notion that her quarry might be here, for the Queen’s was not the kind of stop in which the Mouse Man was likely to feel at home. It had no sense of anonymity. This was a venue in which everyone was either a regular or the guest of one and strangers stood out like . . . Rozlyn Priest.

Rozlyn knew that in this crowd — folk who could tell a copper by the scent of his aftershave or the size of her feet — the idea of anonymity was someone’s idea of a tasteless joke. Hers was also the only non-white face in the place. She walked in feeling like a bit player in a bad Western, where the stranger enters and the room falls silent just a scant few seconds before the gunshots ring out.

She wasn’t wrong about the silence.

Rozlyn glanced around looking for Big Frank. He was holding court in a corner of the lounge. Then Rozlyn crossed to the bar, and took her time surveying the list of specialty beers, settling finally on a Budwar. She was aware of Frank watching and the hum of expectancy in the crowded room. The murmur of conversation picked up again, only to drop as Rozlyn turned to look at Big Frank and gestured towards the bar and tilting her hand in a drinking gesture.

Momentarily put out, Frank hesitated before raising a half empty glass.

“Whatever he’s drinking,” Rozlyn told the barman and then crossed the lounge, stepping carefully between the stools and small