The Button Man: A Hugo Marston Novel (30 page)

“No sign of him. That bastard, how evil can he be?”

“He doesn’t see it that way,” Hugo said, kneeling beside Kinnison. “In fact, he sees her as the bad one, the murderer who got away with it. He’s just doing what he thinks his father would have done, should have been able to do.”

“The executioner.”

“Right.”

“You sure that’s what’s going on?”

“I am.”

“But why the grave for her? He didn’t dig one for the others.”

“Because she buried her dead husband in their garden. But forget that, we need to figure out who’s next.”

“You think there’s more?”

Hugo touched Reverend Kinnison’s throat again, sure this time he felt a pulse; her skin was certainly warm. He looked up. “I don’t know. I also don’t get Pendrith’s involvement in this. It’s like they should be on opposite sides, don’t you think?”

“Right. Pendrith wanted to let convicted killers out of prison early, and Walton wanting them all hanged. They were on the opposite ends of the law-and-order scale.”

“Unless they weren’t.” Hugo stood. “Walk with me. Agarwal, can you stay with her a moment?”

“Yes, sir, of course.”

Hugo felt the burn of an idea in his mind, a flickering that he needed to nurture and coax into life, but not beside the wounded figure of Reverend Kinnison. Somehow, dealing with hypotheticals and theories, necessary though they were, seemed disrespectful within earshot of where she lay fighting for her life.

“What if their goal was the same, but they were just getting there different ways?”

“What do you mean?”

“Follow my logic, see what you think of this: for some reason, Pendrith was in league with Walton, and I can only think it was because he was doing something he didn’t want people to know about.”

“Sure, that makes sense.”

“Now, when you make a deal with the devil, sometimes it doesn’t go the way you want it to.”

“The devil can be deceitful,” Upton said. “It’s kind of his shtick.”

“Right. Walton’s sins were prompted by some kind of psychotic break, something Pendrith couldn’t necessarily know the extent of and certainly couldn’t control.”

“OK, keep going . . .”

“I don’t think Pendrith foresaw any killing. He’s an MP, for God’s sake, an elected politician. No, I think he was running a sneaky little public relations campaign with Walton, almost an anti-public-relations campaign.”

“Now you’ve lost me.”

Hugo looked out over the fields as the distant wail of a siren cut through the murky morning. “Basically, I think they were both after the same thing. The return of the death penalty.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes. Before he became an MP, Pendrith was in favor of it but abandoned that position because it made him unelectable. It goes without saying that Walton wanted it restored, too.”

“So how do you explain Pendrith’s bill to get killers released?”

“Simple reverse psychology. He probably thought they’d come out and be a danger to society, maybe even hoped they would.”

Upton nodded. “I’ll admit that there’s nothing gets the people stirred up as a killer released from prison who kills again. You can’t buy that kind of publicity.”

“Right. But I think Walton messed with that scheme, had his own vision of justice that got in the way.”

“Those suicides. Sean Bywater hanged himself after being released.”

“Right. Except I’m betting you Harry Walton had a hand in that. If I remember the story, Bywater supposedly carved the word
SORRY
into the wall.”

“Seems appropriate given what he did to his victims,” Upton said.

“True, but if you’re Walton it’s also a nice way to avoid having to forge a suicide note. And Bywater isn’t the only one who died after being released.”

Upton snapped his fingers, excited now. “Walton’s car. Remember where it was found?”

“Church parking lot, or a parking lot owned by the church.”

“Exactly. Not a church but a halfway house run by the Church of England.”

“So to find out who burned up in the car, we just need to see who checked in to the halfway house in the last week or two and hasn’t been seen for a few days.”

The siren was loud now, and Hugo could hear several more close behind.

“Here comes the cavalry,” Upton said. “Let’s head back.”

They wound their way between a dozen headstones to where Agarwal sat on the ground holding Kinnison’s hand, talking softly to her, his voice reassuring, encouraging. Hugo knelt again, touched her throat, and shook his head. He stayed there for a moment, then stood and spoke quietly to Upton. “Weak pulse. We have to hope there’s not too much structural damage or, God forbid, brain damage.”

“God forbid. We also have to figure out what’s next,” Upton said in a low voice. “Is he just going to keep killing?”

Hugo watched Agarwal tuck his coat tightly around Reverend Kinnison as the ambulance pulled into the parking lot and its siren died. “I don’t think so,” he said to Upton. “Honestly, if I had to guess, I’d say he’s going out with a bang. He knows the game is up and he’ll want as much publicity, as much media coverage, as he can muster.”

“So he’s going to make one more kill?”

Hugo nodded. “But I can’t imagine—”

The lawmen moved aside as two paramedics passed by and went to Kinnison, crouching over her as they went to work.

“You need to understand that even though we call profiling behavioral science, the truth is that much of it is guesswork based on experience.”

“So give me your best guess.”

“I think he’s got one more kill in him. Someone that will bring the newspapers running and have the TV cameras close by to capture the aftermath.” He held Upton’s eye. “Maybe even capture the murder itself.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

T
hey made no promises, but the paramedics said she’d live, prompting Hugo and the two English policemen to exchange relieved looks. After Reverend Kinnison had been gently laid on a stretcher, the three followed slowly behind and decided to head back to their inn to discuss what to do next. And maybe get some coffee.

They made small talk in the dining room as their host, the stocky and smiling publican, poured fresh coffee and called back orders for breakfast to his wife in the kitchen. As his cup was refilled, Hugo wanted to get to the one question they needed to address: Who was next on Walton’s list?

Before sitting down, he and Upton had called their respective offices and asked them to check for all convicted murderers on their way back into society in the previous and upcoming two weeks, information they might need before that question could be addressed.

Upton was wiping the last of the runny yolk from his plate with a piece of toast when his phone rang. He listened for almost a minute, pushing his plate aside to take notes in a small leather-backed pad. When he hung up, he looked at Hugo and Agarwal. “We’ve got just five names from the whole of England and Scotland that fit our criteria. Four men and one woman.”

“Who’s the woman?” Hugo asked, always inclined to examine the outlier.

Upton looked at his notes. “Stanton. June Michelle Stanton,” he said.

“June Stanton.” The name floated in a haze, familiar to Hugo, yet he wasn’t immediately clear why. Then it came to him. “She killed a police officer, didn’t she?” Now he could picture her face on the television, a face he’d seen the same day he met Harper.

“She got forty years,” Upton nodded. “She served twenty-five years, now getting out. Used to be gorgeous but got hooked on drugs, lost her modeling contracts, and ended up robbing banks with her boyfriend. Quite a downward spiral, and it didn’t turn out well for either of them. He got himself killed during a robbery, and she was arrested in the car outside.”

“And the other four?” Hugo wanted to be thorough, not jump to conclusions because he recognized one person. Upton read them off, and Hugo said, “The names don’t mean anything, but maybe their crimes . . . ?”

“One murderer, three rapists. None of them famous, their crimes not especially heinous. Relatively speaking, of course.”

“Of course. So if you want to go out with a big splash, you go for Stanton.”

“Yep,” said Upton. “Which means we need to find her.”

“Where was she released from, when, and do we know where she’s going?”

“Yes.” Upton looked at his notes. “From Houseblock Two, Her Majesty’s Prison in Peterborough. Jesus—yesterday.”

“Which is why Walton wanted us in Edinburgh, far away from what he has planned. Where is she going?”

“According to this, she was released last night to her daughter and sister, who live in Hendon.”

“That’s north London, isn’t it?” asked Hugo, remembering his trip out of the city.

“Right. Not my area of operations, as it were.”

“Seriously?” Hugo looked up. “I thought you guys weren’t worried about jurisdictional crap.”

Upton smiled. “I’m not. Some others might be.”

“Well, until they speak up, it’s you, me, and PC Agarwal.” Hugo turned to the constable. “You have a first name, right?”

“No, sir.” Agarwal stood and picked up his cap from the seat beside him, ready to go. “Not until I’m a sergeant.”

“Shouldn’t be long. Just tell me you know how to get to Hendon.”

“That I do.”

“Excellent,” said Hugo. “Then you drive and I’ll use your phone.”

They moved quickly across the parking lot toward Upton’s Vauxhall and had just opened the doors when two police cars turned in and headed toward them. The first stopped yards away and the rear door opened an instant before the car had even come to a stop. The solid figure of Upton’s boss, the chief constable, stepped out and strode across toward them.

“Oh shit,” murmured Upton. “This isn’t good.”

She got to where Hugo and Upton stood by the open rear doors of the car and stopped, her hands perched on wide hips. Hugo wanted to smile when Agarwal slid behind the wheel, as if taking shelter from the impending storm.

“Going somewhere, Detective Chief Inspector?”

“Chief Blazey, I didn’t know you were coming.”

“How could you know,” she said, a thick eyebrow raised high, “you’ve been a little out of touch lately.”

“Well, we’ve had some new information about—”

“I don’t think this is a conversation we need to be having in front of our American cousin,” Blazey said icily. “Why don’t we go inside?” She turned to Hugo, “Please excuse us, Mr. Marston, we have police business to discuss.”

“Chief Constable, if I may,” Hugo began, “DCI Upton has been—”

“I’m well aware of what he’s been and what he hasn’t been,” Blazey said. “And while I appreciate you Americans haven’t intended to cause all this trouble, nonetheless several people are dead, and so far you’ve not done the most exacting job at finding out who or why, so you’ll forgive me if the British police return to following orders from their British superiors. We may not have as many murders as you do, but we’re quite good at solving those we do have. As I said, please excuse us while we discuss police business inside.” She shot an icy look at Agarwal as he climbed out of the car and stood to attention. “You too, Constable.”

She turned on her heel and started toward the pub, and Upton looked quickly at Hugo before following, his blank expression saying plenty. Agarwal followed, too, rounding the front of the car and passing close to Hugo on the passenger side. Hugo started to move out of his way then saw the keys in his open palm, saw the look in Agarwal’s eyes. He palmed the keys like a spy as the constable brushed by and fought the urge to smile at the man’s whispered words.

“Remember,” Agarwal said, “we drive on the left.”

Chief Constable Blazey’s driver and two other uniformed officers traipsed behind Agarwal into the pub, leaving Hugo alone in the parking lot. He moved around to the driver’s side of the car and slipped behind the wheel.
First step, get on the road to London. Second step, call Bart Denum for the address and directions
. But when he started the engine he saw that Agarwal had gotten into the car for a reason: he’d programmed the GPS system with Stanton’s address.

He pulled out of the lot and followed the calm and directing voice that drew him through the web of country lanes toward the A1 motorway and London. As he passed the first exit, he noticed his gas tank was near empty. He smiled. If he was borrowing a police car, the least he could do was fuel it up.

He left the highway at the next sign for a gas station, beating a blue Ford to the only open pump. He took a moment to locate the right buttons and the right fuel, then stood patiently as the machine beside him throbbed and the pleasant smell of gasoline drifted up from the tank. He looked over his shoulder to see if the Ford had found a pump, feeling slightly guilty about screeching to the head of the line. But the Ford was tucked between two SUVs in front of the station’s convenience store, doing other business.

He turned his thoughts to what he was going to tell Stanton, aware that he was going into this situation with no authority, no proof, and no weapon. But at the very least he could warn her, let her disappear of her own accord until this thing was over.

As the pump clicked off automatically, Hugo felt a sudden pressure in the small of his back. Words spoken closely to his neck sounded like the hiss of a snake.

“It’s loaded and you know I’m willing to use it. At this point, I have no reason not to.”

“I believe you, Walton, don’t worry. What do you want me to do?”

“Finish up here and get back in the car. And don’t do anything stupid. Even if you do manage to get away from me, I see several other people I can shoot.”

“Seems to me you don’t shoot innocents.” Hugo turned to face him and felt the nub of the gun in his stomach. “Am I right? Isn’t that the point of this?”

“
Innocent
is a relative term,” Walton snarled. “And right now, what I have planned is more important. The bigger picture, if you like.”

Hugo held his eye and nodded slowly. “Fine. Where are we going?”

“Finish up and get in,” Walton said. He tucked the gun back in his coat pocket.
Confident I’ll obey. Which means he’s desperate and dangerous.