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) 📖

The verge was muddy and the heavy fall of leaves damply fragrant beneath her tread. Rozlyn inhaled deeply of the summer ghosts and was refreshed by the warm pungency of the rain-washed, wet-leaf scent. Once past the line of trees she could see the chantry. Two walls remained, one around eight feet in height, then the end wall that she had glimpsed from the house, towering much higher. An arched window had been set into the wall at this tallest end and she tried to recall what little she knew about ecclesiastical building. She assumed that this portion must be the church and, from what scatter of low, ruined walls she could pick out in the long grass, that there had been other buildings surrounding and supporting this.

The highest wall leaned at an alarming angle and Rozlyn moved round to the outside of it to get a better view. Its final fall had been delayed by one of the ugliest constructions Rozlyn had ever seen. A cruel frame, arched and welded out of box section, had been wedged tightly against the wall, tracking around the windows, cross bracing the main wall and with its base firmly set against the ground. That, in turn, was propped by a metal column, set at a forty-five-degree angle, pushing back against the metal frame and preventing the entire structure from crashing earthward.

Rozlyn stared at it, shocked by the brutality of the metal work and struck by the thought that it might be better to allow the ruin to fall, to be reclaimed by the nature that had provided stone and mortar and was now encroaching across its structure, whether Mark Richards would have it or not. Tiny plants clung to the stonework, some winter-browned and decayed, others still fresh and vibrant against the grey.

She was aware that Albert had begun to cross from the house even before she saw him, as though the knowledge that he and Richards would soon realise she had not passed through the gates had alerted and sharpened her senses. She moved back to what would once have been the interior of the building, and discerned deep russet tiles on the ancient floor that gleamed like river-smoothed pebbles amongst the grass and dying nettles. A rough stone block suggested an altar, although its position seemed odd. She’d read somewhere that in early churches the altar was placed somewhere else than she would have expected in a modern church, but she couldn’t think where. Near the entrance? This didn’t look to be aligned with anything, though, and she examined the stone and its position with increased interest. It was carved with a pattern of intertwined animals and plants. The shadow cast by the walls and the heavy clouds darkened the day and made it hard for her to see but, as she dragged her fingers across the surface and as they helped her eyes to pick out the shapes, she understood that this was a complex and beautiful work and that it deserved better than to be standing here in this unsheltered spot, torn from its roots and abandoned to the weather and the years.

“You were told to leave. I’ve called the local constabulary.”

“Really, that’s nice. Many hands make light work, as they say.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that they’ll send a patrol car around and when they realise your intruder is a detective inspector who outranks them, then they’ll either take themselves off or they’ll be asking me what they can do to be helpful.” She turned with a pleasant smile. “Albert, where did this stone originally stand? It was the altar, wasn’t it?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Albert told her frostily.

“You couldn’t move it far. It must weigh a ton.” She circled it, looking not at the altar stone but around it. Two feet away, almost hidden by the overgrowth of grass and bramble and nettles, she saw it, the stone base on which the altar must have been placed and, as she glanced again at the altar, she saw that the great block was carved on only four of the sides that she could see. “Three sides and the top, then. Probably the fourth side too. This here . . .” she bent and examined the unadorned section more closely. “This here, must have been the base.” She looked curiously at Albert. “It was rolled,” she said. “Just turfed sideways and here, I can see where the crow bar was rammed beneath it.” She stood and went to look at the plinth. Beneath the level at which the altar must have rested was a hollow, only ten or twelve inches deep, but lined with dressed stone broad enough to support the weight of the great slab. “Find anything?”

“Did I find anything where?”

Rozlyn laughed. “Oh, Albert, you’re a bad liar,” she said. “You get many trespassers here, do you?”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Or maybe undesirables wanting to see your boss?”

He frowned. “We have security, as you are well aware.”

“Sure you do, but you’ve also got a lot of unguarded wall. The reality is, anyone could get in, couldn’t they, Albert. So, do you get many unwelcome visitors? Like, for instance, a little man with short grey hair and wearing a pinstriped suit?”

It was there, Rozlyn thought, that slight twitch of recognition. Albert knew who she meant.

She walked slowly back to the car, Albert watching her as she left. Only when she had turned the ignition on did she look at the tiny fragment of cloth she held now in her left hand. It had been caught on a bramble close to the altar and she would have missed it if she’d not bent closer to look at the carving and caught her own sleeve on the thorns. Suiting, cheap and synthetic, black with a hint of paler stripe. It could have