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) 📖

betrayed the fact that this was a repeat performance. In his left hand was a large blue mug, gripped tight as though he worried someone might take it away and alongside that a tray with a family-sized tea pot and a milk jug and sugar bowl.

The pub was closed and the main lights off. One of Frank’s boys sat in an opposite corner chatting to the barman and playing what looked like Texas hold ’em. Rozlyn felt a pang. It was years since she had played. She pointedly ignored the stack of coins lined up beside each player.

Mouse beamed at her from across the room and beckoned with his sandwich. The borrowed raincoat hung over the back of a chair and his pyjamas were spattered with mud, the hems caked in it. Soaked slippers steamed on the radiator and his feet were clad in a pair of thick fisherman’s socks. Borrowed from the barman, Rozlyn guessed. Frank’s boys subscribed to the sort of sartorial elegance that didn’t call for heavyweight socks.

“Mouse, just what do you think you were doing? You should be in the hospital, not traipsing the streets in your PJs. What the hell were you playing at?”

Mouse’s sandwich waved the objections aside. “I found him, Inspector Priest. I seen Donovan.”

“You what! Mouse, what were you thinking? What do you mean you’ve seen him?”

“I seen him,” Mouse repeated. “At his office place.”

“His office . . . Mouse, start at the beginning and tell me what the hell you’re on about.”

Mouse looked somewhat offended by her tone. He took another large bite of sandwich and swig of tea before he continued. “I remembered what Charlie told me,” he said. “Charlie said Mr Donovan collected his messages on a Friday because he was in town doing something else. I don’t know what the something else was, but he told me Mr Donovan came and got his messages and his letters and any letters or anything Charlie found when he cleaned he had to leave at Donovan’s office on Fridays so he could fetch them.”

“Donovan. You’re saying Donovan was connected to Thomas Thompson and the houses Charlie cleaned?”

Mouse nodded. “I told you that,” he asserted proudly.

“No, Mouse, you didn’t tell me.”

“Yes I did, I told you just now.”

Rozlyn sighed. “OK, Mouse, you get on with the story and I’ll ask questions at the end.”

“His office place is behind a shop. I went there with Charlie one day. I wasn’t supposed to but it was early and Charlie knew he wouldn’t be there that early so he said it was all right but today I sat on the fire escape back of the other shop and I watched for him and he came. I wanted to know, see, if it was him that came to my house and killed my little pets and hurt me before I told you about him. I didn’t want to go accusing the wrong man, did I? That wouldn’t be right, Inspector Priest, not right at all. And it was him,” he added triumphantly. “It was that Mr Donovan.”

“Mouse,” Rozlyn forgot she’d promised not to interrupt. “What the hell were you thinking? He’d half killed you already. You want him to finish the job?”

“I was all right,” Mouse told her earnestly. “That big man was hanging about. Donovan didn’t see me but if he had the big man would have sorted him.”

“Big man? What big man?”

“The big man I saw waiting outside of the Queen’s one night. I told you about him. I was scared of him then, but this time I knew he was all right.”

“How did you know? Mouse. What does he look like? Who is he?”

Mouse shrugged and reached for the tea pot. “I just knew,” he said. “He’s a big man with long red hair.”

“Red hair?” Rozlyn shook her head, the image of Treven in that circle of snowy trees suddenly impinging. She thrust it aside and focused back on Mouse. “This office, we’re talking about the building back side of the shops on Thurlmere Road, right?”

Mouse nodded. “That’s the one.”

“Right. Charlie had the number in one of his books. We’re supposed to be keeping obs.”

“He wasn’t supposed to write the number down,” Mouse said solemnly. “He told me so, but he said it was untidy just to keep things in your brain and not write them down proper like.”

Rozlyn smiled. That was so Charlie. But that tidy streak might also have contributed to his death. And where the hell were the officers on watch if both Mouse and Donovan Baker could sneak past them? “Mouse, what did this Donovan do at the office?”

Mouse looked relieved now that Rozlyn was asking for actual information. “He put things in bags,” he said. “I could see some of it through the window, but not everything. He put the telephone in a bag and then he went away. He dumped the bag in a skip just up the street. I seen him.”

“You followed him!”

“No, I ain’t quite that stupid. I waited ‘til he’d gone out of the place at the back of the shops and then I went to the place where the alley opens onto the road and I looked. He dumped the bag in a skip, so . . .” He paused and smiled broadly.

Rozlyn could guess what was coming. “You went and got it.”

Mouse beamed. He got up and shuffled round to where the borrowed coat was hanging. On the chair was a black dustbin bag. Puzzled, Rozlyn opened the neck and peered in.

“Careful!” Mouse warned. “Don’t you touch the bag inside, there might be fingerprints.” He nodded to emphasis the point.

“Fingerprints?”

“He carried the bag and he didn’t wear no gloves. I asked at the greengrocer’s shop for a dustbin bag. They looked at me like I was a down and out, but they gave