The Button Man: A Hugo Marston Novel (18 page)

Hugo turned right out of the parking lot and drove slowly toward the church, which he remembered being about two miles away. The road seemed windier and narrower than before, and twice he had to brake as rabbits darted in front of him, heading for safety in the roadside hedgerow, their breakfast foraging interrupted by the purring behemoth that was Hugo’s car.

A small signpost warned Hugo of the turn toward his destination and he swung the car onto Church Lane, which angled sharply upward. He drove for forty yards and then saw the police cars, their rooftop lights curiously off considering this was, seemingly, an emergency. As Hugo found a place to park, he saw an ambulance in his rearview mirror, following him into the gravel lot. Two policemen detached themselves from the iron gate that was the entrance to the church, one heading for him, the other for the ambulance.

The constable held Hugo’s door as he climbed out but blocked any further movement. He was Indian or Pakistani, Hugo thought, but spoke with the diction of an English gentleman. “Good morning, sir, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave the church premises for a while. We have a bit of a situation right now.”

A voice called out from by the gate, DCI Upton dressed in a green Barbour jacket and flat cap.

“He’s with me, Agarwal, bring him over.”

Agarwal waved an apologetic hand at Upton, then turned back to Hugo. “Sorry sir, I had no idea. This way.”

Hugo followed the constable through the gates and looked around. The church lay ahead and to his right, occupying the top corner of the property. The rest was taken up by a large, full, and well-tended graveyard, with a cinder path leading through it to the church doors. A low stone wall, as old as the church itself, kept the graveyard from spilling into a neighboring field that was ridged with recently plowed furrows.

He took a few steps in, looked to his left, and paused. There it was, the pride of Weston village, the final resting place of a legend still told.

“You’ve heard of Jack O’Legs, sir?” Agarwal said, stopping beside Hugo.

“People keep asking me that. Yes, I have.”

“Bit of an amateur historian, I am. Great story, though I’ve always wondered why no one’s dug him up to see how big he really was.”

Hugo smiled. “I wondered the same thing and got yelled at for saying so.”

“I’ve had the same reaction.” Agarwal looked up. “We should get going, sir.”

Ahead, at the far side of the graveyard, half a dozen police officers were milling around as if waiting for instructions or direction. A couple of officers leaned against the cemetery wall, which was higher there, looking as though they wanted to smoke but didn’t dare. Near them, a tremendous oak tree towered over the wall, massive branches reaching out over the gravestones as if to provide as much shade and shelter to Weston’s dearly departed as it could manage.

Upton was waiting by the entrance to the church, standing with a young woman dressed in jeans and a heavy sweater. She held a book in her left hand and held out her right for Hugo to shake as Upton made the introductions.

“This is Reverend Kinnison—she’s the vicar here. She found him. Reverend Kinnison, meet Hugo Marston.”

“Call me Kristi. How do you do?”

Her grip was firm, and Hugo saw that the book was a Bible. More interesting was the tattoo that encircled her wrist, a snake that looked like it slithered up her forearm. “Nice to meet you,” he said, then turned to Upton. “Clive, what the hell—excuse me, what the heck is going on here? She found who?”

“You were right the first time, I think,” Revered Kinnison said. “You guys go do your thing—come talk to me when you’re ready. I have plenty to keep me busy.” She turned and went into the church without looking back.

“Clive?”

“She’s right, I’m afraid. This is getting worse and worse. Come and see for yourself.” He started toward the gathering of constables, then turned to Agarwal, “I need you to go to the Rising Moon and fetch Lord Stopford-Pendrith. You know where it is?”

“Yes, sir.”

“With any luck he’ll know you’re coming and be waiting in the car park. I left a message for him about three minutes ago. Hopefully woke the bugger up. And if you see a young lady there, she’s not invited. Mr. Marston will be back for her later, got it?”

“Yes, sir.” Agarwal nodded and started back down the path to the church parking lot.

“OK, let’s go,” Upton said, and led Hugo toward the back of the churchyard in silence.

They followed the path past the end of the church, then walked for another twenty yards before stepping onto the grass, weaving their way between gravestones. Like the ones he’d seen in Whitechapel, many were ancient and washed clean of identifiers, or had the names and dates covered with moss or lichen. But unlike those in London, these stones sat up straight and proud, like patient dogs watching over their fallen masters, waiting year after year for them to rise back into the land of the living. Bright sprigs of color lay at the base of many of the newer stones, flashes of remembrance or respect for the recently gone. To his left, a good distance from the police activity, an old woman stood watching them, her gray hair piled high on her head, both hands clutching a bouquet of blue flowers.
To the dearly departed, from the nearly departed
, Hugo thought.

As Hugo and Upton closed in on the crime scene, the constables stood to attention and moved apart, as if the senior officer were a pebble dropped into a pond, and they the ripples. He hadn’t noticed it before, but blue-and-white tape cordoned off the scene, waist-high plastic strung between gravestones.

As soon as Hugo ducked under the tape, he saw the dead man. He lay with his back propped against the stone wall, hands on his lap, a bloody hole in his chest where his heart had once beat. A white, silk hood covered the man’s head.

“Who is it?” Hugo asked.

“We haven’t touched him, so we’ve not confirmed anything yet. Judging by the footwear, he’s not local, so . . .”

So you’re thinking the same thing as me
. “Did your crime-scene people finish up?”

Upton snorted. “Lazy bastards aren’t here yet. It’ll be the same team as at the farm last night, probably, so a little hard to wake after a night’s work. But that’s why we haven’t touched him. I feel like this is getting to be too big; I didn’t want some clumsy copper screwing up the evidence by putting his paws where they don’t belong. And I’m talking about me, of course.”

Hugo smiled thinly. “Good decision. But we need to know who it is.”

They both knew already, which is why, Hugo thought, Upton just nodded and said, “Then help yourself.”

Hugo looked at the ground as he walked, eyes scanning for footprints or other evidence. He’d done this a thousand times at crime scenes, moving in and touching things before the techs arrived with their paper suits and plastic bags. But a dozen eyes watched him now, a foreigner operating in a foreign land.

Hugo moved in at an angle, leaving clear the most direct route to the body from the pathway, assuming that would have been the murderer’s route, assuming there would be a shred of evidence to be found by someone with more time and a magnifying glass. Three feet from the body, he stopped and studied the area around the man. He was small, but the hands gave him away as a man, if only just. And the shoes: expensive and not from anywhere near here. Upton was right about the shoes.

On the other side of the body from Hugo lay the only piece of visible evidence, a gun. A .22 by the looks of it, but other than that, nothing. Confident he wasn’t trampling on evidence, Hugo knelt by the body and placed his fingertips on an upturned wrist. It was a routine gesture, not a realistic hope for life, the first people to find him would have made sure of that.

Hugo reached into his pocket and pulled out a pen. Careful not to disturb the man’s position, he slowly raised the front of the silk hood that hid his face. This, too, was a formality in large part. He and Upton had guessed, and up close Hugo knew before looking. But the visual identification of a body was a time-honored tradition and a ritual to be observed, no matter what.

Hugo knelt beside the man he had sworn to protect and looked into the eyes that had made him a star, that had captured the hearts of a million women, that in life had twinkled and danced across a thousand movie screens, but that in death held the cold charm of two children’s marbles, unseeing, unfeeling, and soon to fade from memory, lost to the passage of time.

Hugo let the cloth fall back over Dayton Harper’s face so the photographer could capture him as he was found, but he stayed on one knee for a few seconds before looking back at DCI Upton.

There merest of nods, a shared moment of sadness between two men who faced it daily but never quite got used to it.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

H
ugo and DCI Upton returned to the church as the crime-scene team went to work filming and collecting evidence. It was the same pair as the night before, and they’d apologized for being late but also looked at Hugo and Upton quizzically, as if wondering about the American grim reaper who’d twice pulled them away from their usual crop of robberies and burglaries.

They got no explanations, because they didn’t need them to do their job and because there were none—not good ones, anyway.

Hugo and Upton sank onto rough wooden benches in the porch outside the main door of the church, away from the other officers, silent for a moment as they processed as best they could. Finally Upton spoke, one word.

“Shot.”

“I didn’t see any other trauma,” Hugo said. “Looked like one shot to the heart.”

“Suicide?”

“Maybe.”

“It fits. The love of his life is dead, he’s wracked with guilt at killing young Quincy Drinker, and he’s shot and killed the father for some damn reason. His acting career is over, he’s looking at a long time in prison . . .” Upton shrugged. “Seems to fit.”

“Yes,” Hugo nodded. “It seems to fit.” And yet it didn’t. If Harper had shot Old Man Drinker it might. But he hadn’t, and in Hugo’s mind it made the rest of the puzzle fall apart.

“We’ll know more soon. They’ll swab his hands for gunshot residue—that’ll tell us something.”

“Not much,” Hugo said. “Assuming your guys do it within about four hours of his death and they find something, it’ll tell us he was in the presence of a gun that was discharged. Which we kinda know already.”

“I’ve not had much experience with that particular science,” Upton said sheepishly. “Shot plenty of weapons, but we don’t get to enjoy the delights of GSR much in Hertfordshire. Thank God.”

“Like all police work,” Hugo said, “it ain’t like on TV. As you know, I’m sure. We see it a lot at home, too much, where someone is shot and ends up with lead in their chest and gunshot residue on their skin. Had a case where a guy fired an AK-47 from the back seat of a minivan and killed two people. His buddies in front of the van also tested positive for GSR, setting up a nice defense for the shooter.”

“Great,” Upton said. “We’ll see if we can trace the gun—that might get us somewhere. Where the hell would a Hollywood star get a gun in the middle of the English countryside?”

Hugo thought about that. “Well, given he’s a movie star, he’d probably just have to ask. Who’s going to say no? But he’d need to find someone who has a gun first.”

“Those movie weapons,” Upton said. “Are they real? If they are and just fire blanks, it seems like getting a few bullets might be easier than the gun itself.”

“No idea,” said Hugo. “Though I’m sure we can find out.”

“Any problem with this getting out to the media?” Upton asked. “Even if these young coppers haven’t figured out who he is, they will pretty soon, and it only takes one of them to talk.”

Hugo shook his head, but in disappointment not disagreement. He’d been involved in his share of high-profile cases in the past, profiling and catching several serial killers, and helping unravel a plot to assassinate the Russian ambassador in Washington. But nothing like this. Politics and violence commanded headlines, he knew, but not like celebrities. And this story would have it all: sex, tragedy, love, and murder. Some of which he could have prevented. Should have prevented.

He rose. “I need to call Ambassador Cooper, let him know what’s happened.”

“Sounds like a fun call,” Upton said.

“If you like being posted to Bangladesh, sure,” Hugo smiled grimly. “Me, I’m getting used to the rain.”

“Don’t worry, they have rain there, too. Want me to talk to him?”

“I got it.” He pulled out his phone but stopped when he saw two people striding toward them. Constable Agarwal was almost trotting to keep up with the figure ahead of him, making a beeline for Hugo and Upton.

“I told him she wasn’t invited,” Upton said, standing and moving into the path. “Agarwal, I told you—”

“It’s OK,” Hugo said. “No harm done.”

Merlyn reached them, out of breath and seething. “What the hell’s going on? If it wasn’t for me, you’d be chasing your fucking tails still.” She noticed the activity at the far end of the graveyard. “What’s that about?”

Hugo took her by the elbow and steered her into the porch, pulling her down to sit next to him. He told her slowly and gently, taking her hand when her face paled, waiting quietly for a moment, holding her hands as she sobbed. After a moment, he stood and moved over to where Upton and Agarwal were deep in discussion.

“Pendrith taking a leak in the trees or something?” Hugo asked.

Upton turned and looked at him, no trace of a smile on his face. “He wasn’t at the pub.”

“What?”

“He wasn’t there, sir,” Agarwal confirmed. “The landlord hadn’t seen him, nor had the young lady. No one’s seen him since last night.”

“You checked his room?”

“Yes, sir. Cleaned up and cleaned out, nothing there at all. He even made the bed before he left.”