The Button Man: A Hugo Marston Novel (22 page)

Hugo smiled and angled left toward the door. When he got there, he paused to check for curious eyes and, seeing none, pushed open the door and slipped out of the Cellar.

He found himself in a small alcove. The door to the outside was on his right, and to his left was a set of stone steps—the fire escape, he assumed. He trotted up the stairs, feet scuffing against the stone, his ears pricked for sound. He went up to the first landing and paused by the door, which bore a sign that read: “Private Residence. Keep Out.” He put his ear to the door. All was quiet, so he pressed the metal bar and opened it. This was Nicholas Braxton’s side of the house, according to Merlyn, and while the fat little man himself was in the Cellar, friends, family, or guests could still be here.

Hugo stood still for a moment, watching, listening. A hallway extended to his left, opening into what looked like a living room, and to his right, where it ended in large double doors. Hugo guessed the doors opened into the more public area of the house, which meant they could be his escape route into safer territory, even to the front door.

He moved to his left, walking on the rug that ran down the center of the wooden floor. A half-open door to his right made him pause, but it was dark as well as quiet. He poked his head in and waited for his eyes to adjust. Beginner’s luck, Hugo thought, as he found himself looking into Braxton’s study. If there was going to be a list of the hall’s members, or a stack of waivers, this is where they’d be.

And something was bothering him. He had no real reason to think Pendrith was connected to this place, but coincidences always made him hesitate. Sure, it could be chance that Pendrith had inserted himself into this investigation without knowing any of the players, but his interest in Harper had seemed . . . unusual. And here Hugo was, in a secretive mansion in the very territory Pendrith claimed to know so well. And if Pendrith was indeed aboveboard and not hiding anything, how come he’d disappeared in a puff of smoke? Hugo wondered if an answer to one of those questions, or at least the hint of an answer, lay filed away in this room.

What of Walton? Had he decided on his story and left for London? Somehow Hugo didn’t think so, though again he couldn’t come up with any reason why Walton should be up to no good.
A gut instinct
, Hugo thought,
no more and no less
. And he never dismissed those instincts entirely, not until he was sure they were leading him astray.

He closed the door behind him before flicking on the overhead light. Tall filing cabinets flanked the door, while directly opposite was an impressive wooden desk. Heavy green curtains covered a bank of windows to his right, and in the far corner, behind the desk and opposite the windows, a shoulder-high safe squatted in the corner.

He ignored the safe, knowing he didn’t have time to mess with it and almost certainly didn’t have the skill to open it. An image of a good friend, one he’d not seen in a while, in far too long, popped into his head; Tom Green, his roommate at the FBI Academy and close friend ever after, would be able to get into the safe, one way or another. Hugo rounded the desk and pulled open drawers, rifling through papers but not seeing anything resembling a member list. He turned his attention to the filing cabinets, starting at the top and working his way down. He found copies of bills and old legal documents, brochures for real estate in London and others for the kind of equipment Hugo had seen in the Cellar.

But no list of names.

Hugo stood by the door, his hand on the light switch, when he spotted a leather-bound ledger sitting on top of the safe, near the back edge. He went over and opened it, smiling to himself when he saw a long list of initials.

What was it Merlyn had said when they signed in?
MHS from Putney.
The list was three pages long and written in the same format as Merlyn’s self-description to Cat Woman at the door. Just a column of initials, followed by a list of towns. He checked to make sure he was looking at the right thing by locating Merlyn’s initials. A thought occurred and he looked for Harry Walton’s initials, knowing that the reporter came from the Hertfordshire area. But no
HW
on the list. He then scoured it for Pendrith.

There it was, surely.
GSP. Chelsea/Paris.

Paris? Hugo knew Pendrith lived in Chelsea, he’d said so during the brief car ride with Harper. But Paris? No surprise that he had the money to buy a place there—wealth being another indication that maybe this
GSP
was indeed Graham Stopford-Pendrith.
No wonder he’d inserted himself into this investigation
, Hugo thought. He remembered the MP’s obvious sincerity, the gentleness in his voice when he expressed his sympathy to Harper for his wife’s death.
They knew each other.

He turned as the door to the study opened behind him. The doorway was filled by a bald and very muscular man in a tight, black T-shirt and jeans, about an inch shorter than Hugo but forty pounds of solid muscle heavier. Not dressed for the party, Hugo noted. Dressed like security, with a clipboard in his hand.

“Who are you?” the man said.

“Michael Sudduth,” Hugo lied, intentionally disguising his accent.

Instinctively the man looked down at the clipboard, and Hugo knew he’d guessed right about it being the guest list. “Middle name, and where from, please.”

“Harry, from Putney.”

The man grunted and looked up, apparently satisfied with the
MHS Putney
that Hugo knew was on the list. “What are you doing in here?”

“Looking for something,” Hugo said. “But I found it, thanks.” He started toward the doorway but the man didn’t budge.

The man’s eyes narrowed. “You American?”

“Texan, actually. You?”

“Funny man, eh?”

Hugo shrugged and smiled. “I try. After all, look at what I’m wearing.”

“Stay where you are pal, I don’t want to hurt you.”

“That makes two of us,” said Hugo. “But I should be getting back to the party.”

The smile on Hugo’s face disappeared as the man reached behind his back and tugged at something in his waistband. The man pulled out a walkie-talkie, his eyes never leaving Hugo. “I got him. Mr. B’s study.” A crackle of noise and the words “Hold him there” came through. The man nodded to no one and tucked the walkie-talkie away. He stood in the doorway like a sentry, arms crossed over his chest, feet planted wide apart like the roots of an old elm tree anchoring him to the ground.

“Here’s the thing,” Hugo said. “I have no beef with you, your boss, or what you guys get up to here. None at all. But I’m looking for someone who has gone missing, and I’m responsible for his safety.” Not a literal truth, but Hugo did feel that he should have foreseen or somehow prevented Pendrith’s disappearance.

“You can tell it to the boss.”

“Yeah, except I don’t have time for that.”

“Oh?” A sardonic smile touched the man’s lips. “Gonna throw yourself out a window? I wouldn’t bother, they’re reinforced glass.”

“That’s OK,” Hugo said, walking to within two feet of the man. “I think I’ll play it conventional.” Hugo wafted his left hand in the air, a simple but effective distraction that gave him the split second he needed to drive his first and second knuckles into the man’s sternum. Size didn’t matter when you couldn’t breathe, a lesson Hugo had learned for himself in the past.

As the bald man doubled over, gasping for air, Hugo gave him a follow up blow to his side, up under his ribs, and the man fell like a log onto the floor. Hugo stepped around him and looked through the doorway. He assumed the reinforcements would come charging through the main door to Braxton’s apartment, so he headed back the way he’d come, trotting along the hallway and barging through the fire door into the stairwell.

He slipped back into the play area and let the beat and dark of the Cellar wrap a protective shield around him, turning him into just another anonymous set of initials in a sea of leather bodies. He drifted through the room, which had filled considerably in the ten minutes he’d been upstairs, looking for Merlyn. He found her chatting with the handsome Jensen, who was tightening a heavy strap around the Annabelle’s waist as she lay facedown on one of the sawhorses.

“Hi,” Annabelle said, looking back over her shoulder. “Come to play?”

Hugo smiled but didn’t know what to say, unsure exactly which game was afoot. He took Merlyn by the arm and spoke into her ear.

“I found something. Not much but something. Trouble is, they found me, so I have to split.”

“I’m coming too,” she said.

“Bad idea. They don’t know you’re with me, so you’re safe to stay here.”

She looked down at Annabelle and then back to Hugo. “Tempting, but no. I want to know what’s going on.”

“Well, I can’t tell you that yet,” said Hugo. He didn’t have time to argue, so he waved a hand at their new friends and started for the exit. Jensen called out to them, but his voice was lost in the rising tide of music that swept them toward the door.

“What about our coats?” Merlyn asked.

“We’ll have to come back for them.” He patted his vest. “I’m finally glad for all these pockets and zippers.”

“Keys and wallet?”

“Exactly.” Once outside, Hugo put his arm around Merlyn. “Two lovers out for some fresh air.”

“A little chilly for that, isn’t it?”

She was right. Whatever warmth had been generated by the day had fled into the night, leaving the air with a vindictive chill that bit at Hugo’s bare arms.

As they approached the row of cars, Hugo saw a man standing by the passenger side of his Cadillac, in much the same arms-crossed position the bald man had adopted while blocking Hugo’s exit from Braxton’s study.

“Time to make yourself useful,” Hugo said.

“How so?”

“Simple. Act as if you’re getting into the car next to mine. Make like you dropped the keys and can’t reach them under the car. Show some flesh if you want.”

“Hugo, as if!”

“Yeah, I know. Anyway, once he’s helping you look I’ll hop into my car and drive slowly enough that he’ll run after me. You head the other way, I’ll just loop around and pick you up.”

“You think he’ll be that stupid?”

“No, it’s psychology. Everything he does will be based on instinct, and if we keep changing the stimulus, he won’t have time to figure out he’s being played.” He pulled out his keys and took off the one for the Cadillac. “Wave these at him as you approach. And if you can just pretend to lose them, I’d be grateful.”

Merlyn took the keys and smiled up at him. “You giving me the keys to your apartment, mister?”

Hugo wagged a finger. “Married, remember.”

Merlyn kept smiling, but shrugged as she walked toward the lone guard. Hugo moved into the row of cars to stay out of sight, working his way to the Cadillac, keeping his head down. As he got close, he heard Merlyn’s voice and the low, unintelligible response of the guard. Hugo dropped to one knee and peered under the two cars between him and them. He saw Merlyn’s shins and the soles of a man’s shoes. He got silently to his feet and moved past the remaining cars to his, putting the key in the lock as quietly as he could. He couldn’t tell whether the man heard the loud click, but he didn’t wait to find out. He pulled himself behind the steering wheel and started the engine, surging out of his parking spot into the driveway, heading across the front of the house.

He looked in the rearview mirror and saw the silhouette of a man closing in on the rear of the Cadillac. Hugo touched the gas pedal and the man shrank away, so he slowed again, too much, and the man caught up and slammed his fists against the rear window.
Good enough
, Hugo thought, swinging the car off the driveway into a sharp U-turn on the strip of lawn fronting the house, spinning the wheels on the grass and leaving his chaser standing in the light of the security lamps, flat-footed and no doubt furious.

Hugo gunned the engine as four people tumbled down the stone steps of the house’s main entrance, fanning out on the gravel drive, threatening to block his path to freedom and, more importantly, to Merlyn. He flicked his lights to bright, making the foursome think he’d turned toward them, delaying them for the second it took to get the lead on them and get to the curve in the driveway before they could. In moments he was past them, barreling toward the main gate, and ahead he saw a slim figure jogging along the grass, waving a hand. He pulled past her and then hit the brakes, and in a second she was beside him, breathing hard, smiling, her first high-octane experience of connivance and deceit in the furtherance of their mission.

“That was fun,” she said, breathless and grinning. She reached for her seatbelt as they passed through the gates and onto the little road to Baldock. “Where to now?”

“London for a quick stop, and then Paris. First thing in the morning.”

“Paris?” She sat back and Hugo recognized the excitement in her voice. “Now that’s cool. We flying or taking the train?”

“The train,” he said. “And it’s not ‘we.’”

“What do you mean?” She turned in her seat to glare at him.

“I’m going by myself, I’m sorry.”

“Oh, no. No way. I took a lot of risks getting you in tonight and you’re not dumping me now. I’ve played along every step of the way and I deserve to see this thing through.” She was still glaring at him. “So let’s just make our quick stop in London and get going. I’ll call for tickets, just to show that I can still play my part.”

“This isn’t a game, Merlyn.” He glanced over and saw anger in her eyes. “I’m sorry, but dropping you off
is
the quick stop in London.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

A
t seven the next morning, Hugo arrived at the refurbished Saint Pancras station. Newly open for business, the Victorian Gothic building had replaced Waterloo as the departure point for trains heading out of London to the English Channel and on to France.

He set up on the small patio outside Carluccio’s Caffé with some panettone, a plate of parma ham, and an oversized latte. He watched the crowds ebb and flow before him, tides of scurrying feet that flooded the platform when a train arrived, then receded as another departed. He was amused by the range and easy predictability of expressions; the drawn faces of suitcase-bearing travelers, tired but intent on reaching their destination, flashing dirty looks as their rapid steps were impeded by wide-eyed youngsters sporting backpacks. The calm and determined elderly couples in town to shop, or perhaps for a medical appointment, bound to each other with interlocked arms, drifting through the terminal when the current took them, standing patiently to one side when it went the wrong way. The most worried faces, harried perhaps, belonged to the parents and their children who clung to one another as if afraid the tide would sweep the little ones onto the tracks or under the wheels of the lumbering luggage carts, those whales of the station, propelled by the tired but cheerful porters who leaned as they pushed, wending their way through the squalls of travelers with the plodding precision of experienced tugboat captains.