The Button Man: A Hugo Marston Novel (19 page)

The landlord told Hugo and DCI Upton the same thing he’d told the constable, adding for Hugo’s benefit the observation that just because a guest had walked off into the sunset, or sunrise, as the case may be, and just because the cops were all worried, didn’t mean those rooms didn’t need to be paid for.

Hugo dug out his wallet and handed the man cash, then dialed Pendrith’s phone for the third time in ten minutes. When it went to voicemail, Hugo climbed the stairs with Upton and stood at the entrance to Pendrith’s small room. The landlord assured them that the rooms hadn’t been touched, what with his wife being sick, which was the first good news Hugo had heard in hours. The bed had been made, as Agarwal had said, and a cursory search also confirmed what was obvious from the outset: no indication of where Pendrith had gone or why he’d left.

“No signs of a struggle,” Upton said. “That’s something.”

“I guess.” Hugo stood at the end of the bed and ran his hand over the blanket. He looked down at it. “Did you go to boarding school, Clive?”

“Boarding school? No, why?”

“How about the military?”

“Nope. Local grammar school, local university, local police. My life in a nutshell. Why?”

“Look at the bed, the way it’s made.”

“Like a maid did it,” Upton shrugged. “A nicely made bed, your point being that he wasn’t in a hurry?”

“My point being that perhaps he didn’t make it.”

“Explain.”

“The FBI is famous for its training and application of the behavioral sciences, right?”

“Profiling, you mean. Yes, that’s right.”

“But you Brits are pretty good at it, too. I came over here a few years ago and took a course with a guy from Scotland Yard. Anyway, profiling courses and training are naturally full of examples, real-life examples, that show a little about the unsub.”

“
Unsub
?”

“Unknown subject, sorry,” Hugo smiled. “Anyway, one example this Scotland Yard guy gave us really stuck in my head. There had been a few murders in a town called Colchester, women raped and strangled in their beds. The locals didn’t have any idea who did it or why, so these guys from Scotland Yard came and looked at pictures of the crime scenes. This detective saw what the local police had seen, that the unsub killed these women and then left them in their beds but remade them, tucked them in almost. But what this Yard detective saw was the way the beds were made. The corners had been tucked a certain way, I think he called them hospital corners.”

“Hospital corners, right. So . . . ?”

“So we know that people are creatures of habit, especially when carrying out an action they can do without thinking, an action they’ve done thousands of times before. Pendrith went to boarding school and was in the military. For years the guy made his own bed, and every time the same way, which means that he’d make his bed with hospital corners no matter how much of a hurry he was in because it’d be easier and quicker for him. He’d probably not even think about it.”

“And these are not hospital corners.”

“Correct.”

“Meaning someone else made his bed for him.” The men looked at each other, and Upton raised an eyebrow. “You think he was kidnapped?”

“I think he had company of some sort. Let’s not jump to conclusions about kidnapping, though.”

“I’m open to suggestions.”

Hugo stroked his chin. “Well, first we should make doubly sure he’s not around here somewhere.”

“OK, I’ll have my men search the pub grounds right away.”

“Good.” Hugo frowned. “And have them canvas the houses around here. Pendrith didn’t have a car, so maybe someone saw him walking along the main road, down one of the public paths, or maybe even gave him a ride.”

Upton nodded and started down the stairs, leaving Hugo to stare into Pendrith’s room. As always, when he failed to come up with a definitive, helpful clue, he knew he was missing something. And while the hospital corners were definitive in his mind, he didn’t see them as a helpful clue, simply because a clue should answer part of the riddle, not make it more complicated. Who would have wanted to kidnap Pendrith? More to the point, who would have been able to? The old boy would not have gone quietly, Hugo assumed, nor would he have fallen for some trick. He was too wily for that.

He turned in the doorway and walked across the sitting area to Walton’s room. The reporter had not been seen since the previous day, and Hugo couldn’t think of a single reason in the world why he’d want to take Pendrith. And how the hell would such a scrawny little weasel manage it? A gun?

Possibly. All things were possible when you were at the right end of a gun, Hugo had seen that time and again.

He walked slowly into Walton’s room, lifting the pillows from the bed, then the top blankets and sheet. They had been pulled up rather than made, as if straightened by the occupant rather than made by the landlord or his wife. No hospital corners here either, Hugo smiled to himself. He opened the dresser drawers and saw nothing, even looked into the two wastepaper baskets. Empty. Had he disappeared into the same vortex that had swallowed Pendrith? Had they gone together willingly or was one of them the coercer? Or someone else . . . ?

Hugo walked back out to an armchair and sank into it, wrinkling his nose at the musty odor that enveloped him when he sat. He pulled out his cell phone and called his office, asking to be put through to the agent who’d been at the pub watching over Cooper, Bart Denum.

“Bart, it’s Hugo. Busy?”

“Nope, all quiet on the London front. I hear you’ve been a little preoccupied, though.”

“You could say that. I need your help with something. Lickety-split, if you can.”

“Sure, whatever you need.”

“Pen and paper ready?”

“Always.”

“Good.” Hugo read off Pendrith’s phone number. “I need you to start pinging towers to see if we can locate the owner. I also need you to dig up as much as you can on a reporter called Harry Walton. He’s about sixty years old, a freelancer. Can’t give you anything more than that, I’m afraid.”

“No problem. OK to use one of the other guys here, or you need this to stay hush-hush?”

“Use whoever you can of our people, sure. Speed is the key here.”

“Will do. And boss?”

“What is it, Bart?”

“Been online lately?”

“No.”

“Our wandering minstrel is all over the news sites—the story is out.”

Hugo grimaced. “It was bound to happen. Thanks Bart. Call me when you get anything on that number, or anything interesting on Walton.”

“Will do. Oh, Ambassador Cooper asked me to tell you about the Ferro autopsy.”

“Good, what have you got?”

“That’s the thing,” Denum said. “Nothing. Seems like there’s a bit of a jurisdictional battle here. Brits want to do it as she died on their turf and, I gather, was once a British citizen. We want to do it because she’s now a US citizen and because we don’t trust anyone who’s not American to get it right.”

Hugo heard the smile in his voice but knew he was only half-joking. Nevertheless, this kind of bureaucracy was precisely why Hugo got nervous every time he was promoted. And in the State Department he’d seen even more red tape than he had in the FBI, which he’d never thought possible.

“In the meantime,” Hugo said, “she’s on ice and the investigation goes nowhere. That’s absurd, Bart.”

“Yeah, I agree. But I don’t think it’s Cooper making the call, to be fair.”

Hugo was pleased to hear that, at least. “OK, let me know if anything changes.” He closed his phone, then looked up as DCI Upton crested the stairs. “Any luck?” Hugo asked.

“I’m afraid not. No word from or about Pendrith at all.”

“And no sign of Harry Walton?” he asked.

“Nothing.” Upton sank into the empty armchair and looked at Hugo. “What the hell is going on?”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

H
ugo held the car door for Merlyn, looking over her shoulder to see DCI Upton saluting a tall and powerfully built woman in police uniform bearing the crown on her epaulet. The chief constable, Upton’s boss, who’d come running when Dayton Harper’s name hit the headlines. He’d been dead a matter of hours and everyone knew that this crime, if that’s what it was, had to be solved immediately.

Inside the car, he turned to Merlyn. “You doing OK?”

“Fuck no, what do you think?”

“That’s what I thought.” He started the engine. “I also think we need to talk.”

“OK.”

“I need to fill in some gaps, make some connections . . .” He waved a hand. “Whatever you want to call it.”

“Where are we going?”

“To the church.” He felt her stiffen beside him. “It’s OK, they took him away an hour ago. I just do my best thinking at crime scenes.”

“That’s weird, Hugo.” The vague hint of a smile in her voice.

He looked over and winked. “From you, missy, that’s a compliment.”

They drove in silence for the five minutes it took to get to the church. A police constable stood guard at the entrance but recognized Hugo and let him through with a polite “Good morning, sir.”

Merlyn shivered and wrapped her arms around herself as they started up the path to the church. For the first time in days Hugo looked up and saw blue sky, but the cloudless night had brought with it a frost that painted the grass in the churchyard a silvery white, dusting also the gravel beneath their feet. Hugo looked ahead to the high stone wall against which Dayton Harper had either propped himself or been left by another. The sturdy branches of the oak tree held still, but at their tips the bare and brittle twigs bobbed up and down, rubbing against each other as if for warmth. They stopped by the entrance to the church, and Hugo turned to Merlyn.

“I need to ask you something,” he said.

“Sure,” she said with a glance.

“Did either Pendrith or Harry Walton ever go to Braxton Hall?”

“You mean as guests? Or breaking and entering, like you did?”

“As guests.”

“Not that I know of.”

“Are you sure? I know you need to protect the place, but this is bigger now; whatever secrets you have I can try to keep, but people are dead, Merlyn, and it may not be over. Walton and Pendrith are both missing, and I don’t know why.”

“And you think Braxton Hall has something to do with it?”

“I have no idea. I’m just trying to find connections between everyone and everything. Braxton Hall may be that connection.”

“I don’t know everyone who goes there, Hugo. How could I? And I know this is important, more important than anything.” She shrugged. “I’ll help as best I can, but I don’t know the answer to your question. All I can say is, I’ve never seen them there.”

“Does the guy who runs it keep records?”

“His name is Nicholas Braxton. And yes. Actually, he asked me to work for him once, as kind of hostess-cum-secretary. I declined because I didn’t want to leave London. Plus he’s a little creepy. Anyway, he showed me the office, and I know he keeps records because whenever you first go there you have to give your real name and show some sort of identification, which he copies and locks away. He also makes everyone sign confidentiality agreements and a legal waiver.”

“A waiver?”

“All BDSM dungeons do it, in case someone plays too rough and gets hurt. Also, he uses people’s initials to identify them at the door and for stuff like place settings and room reservations. I’m guessing he has the master list in a safe somewhere, and I’m also guessing he won’t willingly hand it over.”

“That’s a safe bet,” Hugo said.

“Search warrant?” she suggested.

“I think under English law they’re easy to get if you have someone in custody. We don’t. In fact, we don’t even know who we’re looking for, and no judge or magistrate would give us a search warrant to poke around someone’s house on the off chance we’ll find something.”

“Especially if a judge or a magistrate is a guest at Braxton Hall,” Merlyn said.

“Precisely. Is that the case?”

“I’m not telling,” she said with a smile. “Anyway, why not ask Upton about the warrant?”

“Because I don’t want him to know. I’m pretty certain we wouldn’t get one, which means we need to poke around some other way. And I don’t know how it works here, but in the States, any evidence obtained by law enforcement without a warrant, like we’re talking about doing, is not admissible in trial.”

“If you say so. I don’t know anything about that stuff.”

“I’m just thinking aloud.” He smiled. “And I’m getting ahead of myself. The point is, we’re not law enforcement, so if we happen to find anything at Braxton Hall, it can be evidence in court.”

“And you think that if Upton knows we’re about to go poking around . . .”

“Exactly,” said Hugo. “If he knows, we become law enforcement in the eyes of the law, and the evidence gets excluded.”

“It works that way?”

“In England? I have no idea. But it does in the United States, and our system is based on yours, so better to play it safe.”

“OK then,” she said. “But how do you expect to get into Braxton Hall?”

“That’s where I need your help.”

“To break in? You expect me to break you in? No chance, mate. Not happening.” She shook her head emphatically. Then she turned to face him. “Unless . . .”

“Unless what?” A smile had spread across her face and mischief danced in her eyes. “What are you thinking?” Hugo asked, suddenly wary.

“Once a month, on a Friday night,” she said, “there’s a party.”

“A party?”

“Not the kind you’re used to.”

“You’re proposing taking me to some kind of . . .” He didn’t even know what to call it. “This Friday? Wait, that’s . . .”

“Yep,” she said. “Tonight. Got any assless chaps?”

“Great,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I can see this is going to be an experience.”

“You’re doing it for king and country. Or whatever the American version is. And yes, it certainly is going to be an experience.”

“This doesn’t sound like the best idea, so let’s see if we can think of something else,” he said. “In the meantime, I need to walk over to the crime scene. Stay here if you want.”

“No, it’s OK, I’ll come. But what if we touch something we shouldn’t?”