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) 📕

“Oh, antiques, antiquities, I find rare books. Whatever is required.”

“And that pays? Sorry. I’m being rude.”

Ethan smiled. “I made some wise investments a few years ago when the stock market was worthy of the name. My work here keeps things topped up nicely.” He got up and went over to where Rozlyn had laid the spear but still made no move to touch it. Instead, he remained standing with his hands clasped behind his back, gazing down as though almost afraid to make contact.

Rozlyn watched for a moment, impatience rising and then ebbing. Distracted, she glanced about the room, noting that, unlike the heavily clad walls of the rest, the chimney breast was remarkably bare. One single picture hung there, black ink on foxed paper. She got up to take a closer look. It looked like an etching, the lines finely wrought, spoiled somewhat by the brown spots of the foxing. The image portrayed, though, was crude. A cross, standing on a hillock with a man beside it. The man held a spear and, as Rozlyn examined it more closely, she realised that the spear carrier was actually part of the structure, enclosed within the outer boundaries of the carved cross and encompassed within a pattern of curving, interlacing lines which continued over the rounded head of the cross and down to the other side. A second figure balanced the spearman. A large bird, angled so that the wings fitted the shape, the spike of its beak pointing upward to echo the line of the spear on the other side.

The man on the cross had been nailed at the wrists and ankles, not at the palms and that struck Rozlyn as odd, so too were the ropes at his neck and knees and elbows. His naked feet touched the back of a wild boar, tusked and arch backed, which trampled leaves and berries beneath its feet. Rozlyn looked again at the face of the crucified man and was aware that Ethan watched her, his attention drawn from the spear back to Rozlyn.

“How come he only has one eye?” One eye was open, the other gouged and empty.

“The picture is a seventeenth-century copy of a stone cross said to stand out at Theadingford.”

“Theadingford? The dig site?”

Ethan nodded. “I did some work out there years ago. The stone cross was long gone by then, but the tradition of it being there remained even into this century.”

“Are we talking twentieth or twenty-first here?”

“Ah. I suppose I should catch up, shouldn’t I? The drawing, from which the etching was taken, was made by a student of Stukeleys, but he was copying what was left of the cross, and, apparently, an earlier drawing. It’s likely that the original was of wood and very old. If you look at the etching, it seems as though the cross has roots. See?”

Rozlyn peered at the writhing patterns. They did seem to go down into the earth, but roots? “Why would it have roots? And who was Stukeley?”

“He was an antiquarian who travelled the country recording ancient sites. Created a fad for Druidomania. Look him up. Interesting man. I have a theory that the original was carved directly onto a living tree. The tree eventually died, the cross remained until eventually it was replaced by stone and the design simply copied.” He shrugged. “Only speculation, of course. And the one eye? Sometimes Pagan and Christian traditions mirrored one another closely. The figure could be Jesus of Nazareth; it could equally well have been the god Odin.”

A movement out in the yard caught Rozlyn’s eye. A girl stood looking in at them, slender and small, mid-teens, Rozlyn guessed, with short dark hair and the most wonderful violet eyes. Rozlyn caught her breath. The girl returned her interested gaze and then smiled and turned away. Rozlyn saw her go through a door into the kitchen and wondered if that meant she would be coming in.

“Her name is Cassandra,” Ethan said. “Like the seer-ess.”

“The one no one believed?”

Ethan laughed. “I hope I have more sense than the poor benighted inhabitants of Troy,” he said.

“And is she a seer-ess?”

“No,” Ethan shook his head sadly. “She’s a child. Cassie has a mental age of about nine or ten.” He turned back to the spear and added. “You can see how that might be a problem.”

Rozlyn tried to hide her shock. The girl was strikingly beautiful. Her own reaction to Cassandra, though innocent, had been precisely the sort that Ethan must worry about. “Is she your daughter?”

“No, not mine. The child of an old friend. When he died, Cassie came to live with me.

“Now, about this spear.”

“We know it was definitely the murder weapon,” Rozlyn said, the image of it being refitted into Charlie’s wounds causing a shudder to pass through her. “What I’m most concerned with now, is where it might have come from.”

“You paid visits to the names I gave you.”

“I did, yes. One was abroad, but Mr Mark Richards gave me a little of his precious time.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“How did you find him?”

“Obnoxious. Rich. Uncooperative. I’m pretty sure he’s had something stolen, though he denies it, which makes me think that whatever was stolen wasn’t legit. Had it been, he’d have been tormenting the lives out of his insurers by now, not denying all knowledge.”

“You’ve shown him the spear?”

“No, only photographs. I only got it back yesterday, after the PM. Post-mortem, that is.”

“I know what it is. His reaction?”

“I asked him if it came from his collection and he said unfortunately not. He seemed to think it was a replica, he said on account of the condition. We know it’s been on display somewhere and that it had a shaft fitted to it.”

“Oh?”

“Um, forensics turned up fragments of paint