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) 📖

She left the single chair for Jenny on the grounds that she was wearing a skirt and seated herself on the edge of Clara’s bed. Clara sat down too, moving to the end, as far from her visitors as the cramped space and skinny mattress allowed. She wrapped her arms around her knees and peered at them through a curtain of heavy, wavy hair. Rozlyn resisted the impulse to push it back from her face and to dig in her pocket for a spare hair band.

“You heard about Charlie Higgins. About him being killed?”

She nodded, a quick upward jerk of her head. “I saw it in the paper. I cannot believe it. Charlie was a good man.”

Her accent, Rozlyn noted, was heavy and her English, though essentially sound, was spoken with the hesitation of someone searching for the next word. Rather like Rozlyn herself attempting to converse in her schoolgirl German. “How did you get to know Charlie?”

Clara shrugged and looked away. “I do not remember.”

“How long have you known him, then?”

She shrugged again. “A year. Maybe more.”

“But you can’t remember.”

“No,” she shook her head. “I can’t remember.”

“But Charlie must have felt he knew you well enough to suggest you to Mrs Chinowski.”

“I don’t know. She is difficult. No one stay. I need the job, she need the cleaning. Charlie arrange for me to go.”

“Do you get on OK with Mrs Chinowski?”

Clara pulled a face which made her look very young, like a child anticipating a bad taste. ”It is money,” she said. “I need to earn money.”

“And how long have you been here?” Jenny asked.

Rozlyn could have kicked her. At this stage it was the last question she wanted to ask. She noted the fear in Clara’s eyes and changed the subject swiftly. “Do you clean anywhere else or work at any other jobs?”

She looked uncomfortable, but she answered these questions. “I work for old people, at the Larks. In the kitchen. I go to college to get my better English, then they will send me on a hygiene course for the kitchen.”

“That’s good, Clara,” Rozlyn approved. “Can you think of anyone who’d want to hurt Charlie?”

This time the headshake was emphatic. “Charlie is a good man,” she insisted, as though Rozlyn might dare to disagree. “He would hurt no one.”

Rozlyn hesitated about the next question. Finally, she asked, “Clara, Charlie cleaned houses for a man called Thomas Thompson. Did you know him, or did you ever help Charlie clean for him?”

Her blank look was, Rozlyn decided, genuine. The name meant nothing to her, but then, it was unlikely she knew who had owned the safe house she must first have been taken to. She knew that most of the illegal immigrants coming into the country were let loose to fend for themselves pretty soon after their arrival. The lucky ones might be given some form of new identity; some degree of support or, if they were truly fortunate, have friends and family in the community to take them in.

“Do you have family in the UK, Clara?”

She hesitated and then shook her head. “I work,” she said. “Then I come back here. One day I will go back home.” Her lips tightened on the word as though it was not something she generally allowed herself to say.

“And where is home, Clara? Croatia?”

It was a guess, but she nodded. Rozlyn wondered if she was telling the truth or if it had just been easier to agree.

She could feel Jenny’s impatience and, glancing up, saw her about to pursue this line. Rozlyn warned her off with a look and took a business card from the pocket of her coat. “I know you want us to get the person that killed Charlie,” she told Clara. “If you think of anything, this is how you can contact me. Understand?”

Clara’s hand closed over it. Tightly. Rozlyn saw the card fold in her palm, crease unevenly in her grip. She’s really scared, she thought. “Clara, did Charlie ever mention someone called Donovan?”

She shook her head, that rapid jerk. Her eyes said no, she had never heard of Donovan. Charlie had not spoken of such a man.

Rozlyn got to her feet, carefully avoiding the sloping ceiling and gestured to Jenny to follow. “Remember. Call me,” she said.

* * *

Outside, Jenny was bristling with annoyance. “You know she’s an illegal. We should be taking her in.”

Rozlyn nodded. “I don’t doubt it,” she said. “I’ll try and organise some surveillance, see if she contacts anyone else and we’ll get someone over to the Larks — check their records or lack of.” She frowned. “That’s where that old man lives. The one Charlie befriended?”

Jenny nodded. “God,” she said. “Living like that. I’d pack my bags and be off home to Croatia or wherever she came from.”

“To do that you need money and a passport. I doubt she’s got either.” Rozlyn shrugged. “We’d probably be doing her a favour getting her deported.”

Jenny glanced up at the house. “What a dump,” she said. “It’s a fire trap too. No escape from Clara’s room. Did you notice?”

Rozlyn hadn’t. She figured that the landlord failed to declare rental on the attic space.

“And you’ll be lucky to get surveillance,” Jenny went on.

“Oh?”

“Brook’s got every available body watching those addresses you gave him. He’s out to make good on that before we have to hand it on to immigration.”

“I’d figured that one,” Rozlyn said wryly. She frowned, wondering. If they were so short of officers, she should bring Clara in for questioning now. She decided to talk to Brook first.

She opened the car door and slid into her seat then closed her eyes, feeling the slight rock of the vehicle as Jenny got in the other side. “You