BURY ME DEEP an utterly gripping crime thriller with an epic twist (Detective Rozlyn Priest Book 1) by JANE ADAMS (best romantic books to read TXT) 📕

all but forgotten about the uniformed officer. Rozlyn scowled and then continued down the stairs, her hand still touching the sticky dampness of the shedding paper, needing something at least seemingly solid against her palm as though that would help to regain her equilibrium. Once outside, she sent her colleague back to the car to report Clara’s disappearance and summon the authorities to inspect the building.

Rozlyn was aware that her colleague watched as she stood and waited for the man in the suit to cross the road and saunter along the pavement towards her. The constable was miffed at being kept out of the loop; Rozlyn could see it in the sour look on her face.

“You’ve got a message for me?” Rozlyn prompted the big man, a handspan taller than Rozlyn, but also outhouse broad.

“Big Frank wants to see you, Inspector Priest. Eight o’clock, tonight. In the Queen’s. Says he’s buying.”

Rozlyn raised an eyebrow. “Tell him, in that case, I’ll be sure not to be late.”

The man nodded approval. “Big Frank likes people to be punctual.”

“I’ll not be late, unless it’s unavoidable. Criminals don’t keep regular hours, in my experience.”

The big man said nothing. He raised his chin, staring, for several seconds, beneath half-closed lids at the top floor of the house and then fixing his gaze back upon Rozlyn. “Someone done a runner, have they?”

“What makes you think that?”

He shrugged and turned away. “Eight o’clock, remember.”

“How could I forget?”

Walking back to the car, Rozlyn could feel the constable’s eyes on her, see the woman’s mouth still fixed in its stiff, disapproving line — which, Rozlyn figured, was quite a feat, considering she was talking on her mobile at the same time. Rozlyn wondered if the lack of movement clipped her words or sharpened them, or made her more difficult to understand, the stiff upper lip extending to her entire jaw.

“What was all that about?” the constable asked as Rozlyn returned to the car.

“Just a message.” Had it been Jenny, or Constable Patel she’d have explained, Rozlyn realised. She wasn’t certain what made it different with this woman. Perhaps her lack of interest in the person of Clara Buranou. The implied lack of compassion.

She turned the key in the ignition, wondering at her own despairing mood and aware that it extended, probably unfairly, to the rest of the human race.

CHAPTER 16

He had fallen asleep reading from the Heliand; the God Spell given to him by his father and one of Treven’s most treasured possessions. Before battle, when — however brave the man, however tried and tested the warrior — strange thoughts and doubts would creep unbidden into the mind, Treven would read the words of the Good Thegn Thomas and draw strength from the knowledge that to serve your Lord was the only option of an honourable man.

Thomas gimalda — uuas im githugan mann,

Diulic drohtines thegan -: ‘ne sculun uui . . .

Thomas, one of the Twelve and a man worthy of his Lord’s praise then spoke.

We should not argue with our Lord’s will, he said. Rather we should endure with him, our Lord and ruler. For this is a Thegn’s free choice, that we stand fast beside him and there die with him. For we all must die.

We will follow him wherever he goes and not count ourselves worthy of life, except that we, his people, live and die beside our leader. Upon this act will lie the judgement of God and of those who will come after us.

Treven had followed and Treven had endured and it seemed strange to him now that this should be his reward. A lifetime’s worth of troubled sleep and evil dreams.

Once again, he dreamed of Wotan and now the dark-skinned woman walked beside him. The stranger had loosed her hair. It curled and waved and writhed about her face and shoulders like a dark and living halo. She moved as though in a dream of her own, staring in wonder and stepping cautiously as one who wakes and finds themselves sleepwalking and standing on unfamiliar, dangerous ground.

In his dream Treven had found himself on the rise, between the banks and trees where the hanged man had dropped flesh on that first day he had come to Theadingford. He gagged on the stench of rotting meat, more noisome in his dream than it had been in reality. It was as though the corpses of all those slain in battle, the battles of years and the bodies of his lost friends and fallen enemies had been stacked high in this one place and the stench of them thickened the air so that he could hardly draw breath.

Even in his dream, Treven was choking, his lungs filled up with the stink of blood and shit and sweat that had filled his nostrils so often in battle. Even as he struggled for air he felt strong hands grasping at his ankles and, looking down, the faces of fallen warriors stared up at him, mouths open, silently screaming, their last breath rising up to block his lungs and their hands, so many hands, clasping at his ankles and threatening to drag him down.

He could not pull free.

Again and again he strove and struggled, heaving himself this way and that until at last, he drew his sword and cut downwards, slicing through the faces of the dead, slashing at the sinew through wrists and the iron fingers of his fallen comrades. In his dream he could name each one. In his dream he breathed the last agonies of their death. In his dream he fought them, terrified that he would die in his sleep and be trapped forever in their death throes.

Somehow he fought free. He struggled to the rising land where he had seen that carved wooden cross with its ambiguous figure. The Christ or the Lord Wotan? Treven could no longer tell,