The Button Man: A Hugo Marston Novel (26 page)

“This is all insane,” she said. Hugo heard a faint beep, then Merlyn’s voice again. “Someone’s calling through, can I put you on hold?”

“No need, just call me back when you’re done. I need to do a little more poking around here and I can’t do that while I’m holding a phone.” A sudden thought. “Who’s calling?”

“I’ll look.” Her voice went quieter as she checked her caller ID and spoke. “Holy shit, it’s that reporter, Harry Walton. What the hell does he want?”

“Merlyn, wait—”

“I know, I know. Tell you what he says. I will, don’t worry—I’ll call right back. Bye, Hugo.”

“Merlyn, wait!” Hugo heard the desperation in his own voice, felt the fear clutching at his throat, and he fought the panic that surged in his chest as he saw that the connection with Merlyn was lost.

She was gone.

He tried calling her but was sent straight to voicemail. He tried two minutes later, then two minutes after that. He left three messages telling her to call him back, telling her to stay where she was, telling her not to go anywhere with anyone, no matter what. He didn’t tell her that Walton was the killer, he wasn’t even sure that he was right.

But nothing else made any sense.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

D
CI Upton sounded both relieved and irritated to hear from Hugo. But his professionalism kicked in when Hugo asked him, almost ordered him, to send officers to Merlyn’s apartment.

“I’ll do it, Hugo, but I want an explanation.”

“Fine. Do that first, then call me back.”

It took a minute, then Hugo’s phone rang. “I’ve got uniforms on the way, lights and sirens, the works.”

“Thanks. Let me know when she’s safe.”

“Will do. Look, the chief constable is looking to nail my hide to the wall. What’s going on?”

“I wish I knew. I’m working on it, and when I find out, I promise you’ll be the first to know.”

“Somehow that’s not very reassuring. Where are you now?”

“I’m in Paris. At Pendrith’s apartment.”

“He’s with you?”

“Kind of. He’s dead.”

“Jesus, Hugo, what are you into? Have you called the locals?”

“Not yet, I don’t fancy being caught up in a Parisian murder investigation right now.”

“Murder? What the hell happened?”

“I think Walton is our man. I think there was more to his relationship with Pendrith than we knew. I think there was more to Pendrith than we knew.”

“Walton’s dead, Hugo. We found his body in his car, burned to a crisp. I told one of your guys about that, he didn’t tell you?”

“He told me you found a charred body in Walton’s car, one that matched Walton’s height and frame. Did you confirm an ID yet?”

“No, but who else would it be?”

“No idea,” said Hugo. “But I don’t think it’s him. And if I’m right, we’re going to want to know more about his association with Pendrith.”

“OK, until we get the body identified I can have some people look into that, but what are you thinking? What’s your theory?”

“Pendrith had a bunch of papers on his desk, all to do with recidivism.”

“So?”

“At the pub he told me about a bill he was trying to push through, to get more inmates released, older ones, even people who’d been convicted of murder.” Hugo wandered over to Pendrith’s desk.
What did any of this have to do with Walton
?
“Can you get someone to pull all of Walton’s articles for the last few years? Anything to do with prisons, criminal justice, stuff like that.”

“Sure, what are we looking for?”

“I’m not sure yet. But look into his background a little more. I’m wondering what he did in his year off, where he was. We’ve missed something important about him. I’ll have my people look, too, but you’ll have more resources than I do.”

“You really think Walton killed all those people? Harper, Ginny Ferro, Brian Drinker? And now Pendrith?”

“I know what you’re thinking.”

“I’m wondering what the hell’s the connection, the motive.”

“Me too. But I think if we look hard enough at Walton, we’ll find it. Or find something that will lead us to it. Speaking of which, can you send some people to his house, or apartment, or wherever he lives?”

“You think we’ll find something?”

“I do, but make sure you have enough for a proper warrant. I’d hate to find evidence and have it thrown out because we didn’t paper the trail properly.”

“I’ll see if we can find a friendly magistrate. Are you coming straight back?”

“Yes. But I need to try Merlyn again, and I’ll keep calling all the way to the Channel Tunnel.”

“Our men should be at her place in about ten minutes. I’ll ring and let you know when they have her, but you should call the locals in Paris, let them come take care of Pendrith. And don’t touch anything, for crying out loud.”

“I won’t,” said Hugo, slipping Pendrith’s phone into his pocket. “And I’ll call the police just as soon as I find a pay phone.”

He strode to the Maubert-Mutualité metro station, his head down and his hands deep in his pockets, immune to the swell of the evening traffic starting to choke the Paris streets. Occasional spits of rain made him blink, but the warm glow of the sidewalk cafés went unnoticed as Hugo’s mind worked against the tide of sleep that fogged his brain and drained him of the ability to find any pleasure in his favorite city.

It took less than ten minutes to reach the metro station, and he immediately looked for a phone, knowing that a public one would allow the cops to record the call but not trace it to him. He took a deep breath and dialed the police, grateful for the shuffle and scrape of busy feet around him that provided the mask of anonymity he needed.

The call made, he waited for his southbound train, sitting in one of the odd orange seats unique to the station, a whole row of them that looked more like discs than chairs. The train would take him south to Austerlitz station, where he’d change lines and head north to the Gard du Nord and get back on a train to London.

Trains rumbled around him and he sat lost in thought, then started as his phone buzzed again, surprised at getting reception underground. He recognized the number immediately.

“Upton, this is Hugo. Do you have her?”

“Hugo.”
He sounds tired. I bet I do, too
. “No, I’m sorry, she wasn’t there.”

“Dammit.”

“I know. Our uniforms got there and tried to make contact. She didn’t come to the door so, after what you said, we were worried about a hostage situation. I’d sent a TAC team behind the uniforms, and when they went in, she was gone.”

“Gone how, any idea?”

“Of her own accord, best we can tell. No signs of a struggle, nothing broken in the apartment.”

“I wouldn’t expect there to have been a struggle,” Hugo said. “That’s not what I’m worried about.”

“What do you mean?”

“If Walton killed Pendrith, he’s not even on English soil,” he said, irritated at having to explain, more irritated at leaving Merlyn unprotected. “He told her to go somewhere, and she did.”

“She’s still not answering her phone?”

“No. He probably told her to turn it off, said she was in danger and could be tracked if her phone was on.” Hugo shook his head. “If I wanted someone to disappear off the grid, that’s what I’d do.”

“Sneaky bastard.”

“That he is,” said Hugo. “He must have told her to meet him somewhere. We need to figure out where.”

“Why would he hurt her? What’s this about?”

“I don’t know what this is about, but he might assume Pendrith told her. Maybe he knows they were both visitors to Braxton Hall, figures they were somehow in cahoots, that she knows something. Whatever happens, we have to find her.” Hugo heard the desperate note in his own voice, and it shocked him a little.

“Wait, what does Braxton Hall have to do with this?”

“Little bits of this make sense, but I don’t know exactly . . . and I still don’t know why he’s doing this. If you can get me anything and everything on Walton, from research and from his home, maybe that’ll help. I have Pendrith’s phone, maybe I can find something on it that will connect them.” He felt the desperation creep back into his voice. “In the meantime, find Merlyn. She’s an innocent in this.”

Upton paused before speaking. “You’re sure about that, Hugo? If we don’t know what’s going on, how can we know about her for sure?”

“I know it,” Hugo said. But he’d not considered the alternative, it had never even crossed his mind.

“Well, I don’t. She’s as much in the middle of this as Pendrith and Walton, and remember, you told me that she’s the one who showed up at Braxton Hall.”

“She did, that’s true. But I got her into this, Clive, I’m sure she’s on our side.” As he said the words, he knew he was partly wrong, he knew that he shouldn’t rule Merlyn out of the mix on the basis of some gut instinct, and yet he was doing just that. “It’s Walton, not Merlyn,” Hugo said. “And we need to find her before he does. If I’m right, he’s coming in from France. Can’t you watch the border, the trains and ferries?”

“I’ll do what I can,” Upton said.

“He may be using a different name and, if so, there might be evidence of it at his house. Another reason to look, and look now.”

“Like I said, I’ll do what I can. But remember, borders aren’t what they used to be.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

H
ugo was the last to board the train back to London, hurrying on and barely seated when the platform outside his window began to slide away.

He wanted to rest, to close his eyes and give his mind and body a few moments to catch up and recharge. He’d not slept in two days, and the velvet cloak of darkness that slipped around the train as it left the bright lights of the city seemed to wrap around his exhausted body, too, its softness and the rocking of the train an irresistible lullaby singing his tired limbs and mind to sleep. It took a force of will for him to find his phone and call Merlyn, yet again. Still no answer.

There was little he could do. Bart and DCI Upton were both mining into Walton’s life, trying to connect him to Pendrith, to find something they had in common, something that put Pendrith into Walton’s sights, find whatever got the MP killed.

Hugo sat forward, mentally urging energy back into his body and fighting the desire to close his eyes. He pulled Pendrith’s phone from his pocket and brought it to life, bleary eyes taking extra seconds to focus on the screen. He’d start with the man’s e-mails.

Two minutes later, Hugo had been through all the correspondence, what little there was. A few messages to staffers, but nothing personal. It seemed clear that Pendrith wasn’t big on e-mailing—no surprise for someone of his generation.

So why have a smartphone instead of a regular one?
Hugo wondered. He turned to the other applications, opening the web browser to try and see where, if anywhere, Pendrith had been surfing the Internet. But Hugo’s poor knowledge of technical things was a barrier, and he soon became frustrated, resigning himself to the fact that one of his tech guys would have to search it for any data.

He glanced through the other applications and one looked like a notebook, so he opened it and started reading. The very first words stung him, jolted adrenalin into his blood, and made his head swim.

It was a confession. At least, a kind of confession, though Hugo had no clue what Pendrith had meant to do with it. Send it to the media? His colleagues in Parliament? The police? Worse, it didn’t answer any of the substantive questions rattling around in Hugo’s head, although it did, possibly, change one of his conclusions. After all, a confession written by a man found with a gun by his side was usually called a suicide note. As he read and reread the words, Hugo wondered whether he’d been wrong, wondered whether Pendrith had taken his own life, after all.