BURY ME DEEP an utterly gripping crime thriller with an epic twist (Detective Rozlyn Priest Book 1) JANE ADAMS (fox in socks read aloud TXT) 📖

“Back up a bit,” Rozlyn told him. “The library. You’re talking about the library at Albermy?”

“Odd, isn’t it? But you’ve got to remember that houses like Albermy were often sold with their contents and furnishings more or less intact. The banker who owned it in 1922 lost almost everything a few years later. Killed himself, I believe. He was an American you see, and even before the famous Wall Street Crash he was making rather bad investments. Selling Albermy was the first of his attempts to . . . downsize, I suppose you’d say now. When Richards bought the place, the library had been locked for years, all through its time as a hospital and a children’s home. At the time of the excavation there were conservators in Richards’ pay going through it and rescuing what they could, but he knew my work and allowed me free rein. Donovan soon realised we would have to go to Richards with this ‘find’. We could hardly move the altar stone without him noticing and, understand, Rozlyn — Mark Richards is an educated man with a genuine interest in his subject. He spent a part of every day on the site.”

Rozlyn frowned. There had been something else in Ethan’s account that puzzled her. “You believe this Kendryk fellow had been buried beneath the altar too? You know, there’s only a small gap, about a foot depth, I’d have said. Is that enough room for a body?”

“Probably, but it’s more likely they’d have simply buried his bones there, possibly in a reliquary of some sort. Anyway, I never had the opportunity to find out. I agreed we should go to Mark Richards. He was as excited as we were, but over the next days I began to feel as though I was being sidelined in some way and I also became aware of rumours concerning Donovan Baker . . . there are always rumours, of course. The academic world breeds jealousies and rivalries much as any other, but these came from a source I had to take note of.”

“Oh?”

“I had a visit from the police. A Detective Chief Inspector, would you believe? All the way from the Metropolitan Police. The evidence they showed me, combined with odd things Donovan had said convinced me that they may have a case and slowly I began to understand that Donovan was using his position to steal.”

“As your father had done,” Rozlyn stated softly.

Ethan closed his eyes. He nodded. “My father justified his acquisition and maintenance of these items by saying that he saw the value of them when others — the rightful owners included — would not have done. That was nonsense, of course. Between the wars there was a flowering of Anglo-Saxonism that has since largely withered. Later I began to realise that, for my father at least, this was not the point. He owned a secret and, as I soon discovered, this was not the only thing he owned that rightly belonged elsewhere. My father was, in his own way, as much a thief as Donovan Baker, the only difference being that my father never sought to profit financially from his thefts. I came to understand also, that, to the very end of his life, my father was consumed by the wish to see what else had been concealed within the chantry.”

“What else was there?

Ethan took the second book from the box. Leaning forward Rozlyn could see that the cover on this volume had been faced with enamelled metal. It gleamed in the light from Ethan’s small fire, gold and red and vivid blue figured into the shape of a cross. Hanged upon that cross was a one-eyed man, a spear thrust deep into his side. Rozlyn glanced up at the image above the fireplace. “It’s the same!”

“There are some differences, but essentially, yes.”

“My God, that’s magnificent.” She reached across and drew her fingers reverently across the gleaming surface. “I can understand why he didn’t want to give it up. Though of course,” she added quickly, “I can’t condone it.”

Ethan smiled, his lips thin and pained. He opened the book a few pages from the back and began to read. Rozlyn didn’t understand the words, but it was evidently some kind of list. Ethan paused and translated, his words dropping softly into the breathless silence of the room. “Two swords, one with a gold and granulated hilt; a spear head, woven from fine metals and with a long socket; coin to the value of fifty shillings of silver and some twenty more in gold. Harness fittings, gold and silver both, with an ornament like a bear’s head and . . .” he paused and looked Rozlyn in the eye. “A brooch, like to a shield boss made in gold and with a trim of red enamel. Let these things lie for all eternity, bought in blood as they were and carried in sin. As Treven wished, these objects shall not be passed on to taint a second generation. Let men yet to come with more wisdom than I lay claim to, do as they please with them, but for me, I am content to give them to the blessings of time and the weaving of the web.”

“This brooch? You found this brooch?”

“I found nothing,” Ethan said. “I made a second mistake. I felt that Donovan deserved the right to answer the charges that were being laid at his door and I told him what I knew. I have never seen such a rage. If a man was ever possessed by evil then that man was Donovan Baker on that afternoon. He ordered me from the site and I left, certain now that the story the police had given me was true. I called Mark Richards, but it became clear that he was