The Button Man: A Hugo Marston Novel

by Pryor, Mark

  “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

  They 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.

  Hugo slid the nozzle back into its slot, collected his receipt from the pump, and moved to the driver’s door. He looked over at the blue Ford, wondering where Walton had stolen it from, furious that he’d not noticed being followed. Walton walked to the front of the police car, a hard eye on Hugo, who got behind the wheel and put the key in the ignition. The journalist then walked to the rear door and slid in behind the passenger seat. He had a lightweight travel bag slung over his shoulder.

  “You were watching us at the pub?” Hugo asked.

  “Well, I couldn’t very well go home, could I? You forget that watching is what I do for a living, and you people are operating on my turf,” Walton said. “You better believe I was.”

  “And the Ford?”

  Walton smiled thinly. “I borrow cars too, you know. If we do happen to pick up a tail, a quick squawk on the radio will redirect them here to it. A nice distraction for us all.”

  “Nicely done,” Hugo said. “Where to now?”

  “Just get back to the motorway, and leave your seatbelt off.”

  To stop me intentionally crashing, Hugo thought. Again, smart move. Hugo drove slowly out of the gas station and headed back onto the A1, merging carefully with the passing traffic, letting Walton know he was going to cooperate and not wanting to risk a bullet in the back, which would likely take out more than just him at these speeds.

  The traffic thickened as they made their way south, trucks and vans clogging the slow lanes as the faster cars dodged by, tapping their brakes when they realized the Vauxhall was a police car. Twice they passed patrol units perched on the side of the road, but neither moved to intercept them. Hugo didn’t expect them to, not really. Chief Constable Blazey would put out an APB if she knew Hugo was driving one of her cars, but Agarwal and Upton would do all they could to keep her from finding out—for their own sake as much as his.

  “It’s something of an irony, isn’t it?” Walton said from behind Hugo’s left ear.

  “What is?”

  “All these people slowing down around us, afraid we’ll pounce. Yet it’s you, in the seat of power as far as they are concerned, sitting there begging for a policeman to light us up.”

  “Begging?” Hugo said, raising an eyebrow. “Hardly.”

  “No?” Walton’s voice was soft, but turned hard. “Then that’s your mistake.”

  “I’m curious about one thing,” Hugo said. He wanted to keep Walton talking, not with any specific goal in mind, but because he’d learn nothing sitting in silence. And silence also gave Walton more time to plan, to think. “What’s Pendrith’s role in all this?”

  “In all what? You think you know what’s going on?”

  “I think you’re living in the past, Harry. You really think there’s a chance in hell that the death penalty will be reinstated?”

  “That was Pendrith’s thing, not mine.”

  “Bull. I’ve read some of your articles, or should I call them rants? You want to drag Britain back to the sixties, back to the good old days when guilty men and women were strung up for their crimes.”

  “Shut up, Marston. You don’t know a damn thing.”

  “Then enlighten me, Harry. Fill me in.” He risked a look over his shoulder, but Walton hadn’t budged, sitting forward with his left shoulder against the passenger seat, his eyes drifting between Hugo’s hands, the GPS device, and the road ahead. A thought occurred to Hugo, one he decided to try on Walton. “So did Pendrith double-cross you? Did he start believing in his new cause? Is that why you killed him?”

  “Me, kill Pendrith?” In the mirror, Walton wore a smirk. “He committed suicide.”

  “Right, with a passport in his pocket and an hour after telling me he was fleeing the country. No one’s going to buy that story, Harry.”

  “Like I said before, you don’t know the first thing about Pendrith. He was a duplicitous bastard and cared about one thing: Lord Stopford-Pendrith. You know why he fought against reinstating the death penalty when he first ran for Parliament? Because he knew damn well it was the popular thing to do. No way he was going to win if he kept supporting it, and he’d be a flip-flopper if he just changed sides, so he had to publicly see the light, become a champion against hanging.” Walton snorted. “Imagine that, a lying politician.”

  “Less original than a murderous journalist, I grant you,” Hugo said.

  “Murderous? Coming from an American that’s pretty rich. The place with the highest murder rate in the world, where everyone gets to carry a gun and you dumb bastards wonder why you have more homicides per capita than fucking anywhere else. And you, you, coming from the state that happily executes . . . how many people a year? More than fucking China, that’s how many. No, no, you don’t get to call anyone else murderous.” Walton leaned closer, spittle flying from his lips like venom from an angry cobra. “And it’s not murder when you kill killers. It’s justice.”

  “So Harper, Ferro, and Pendrith. They all deserved the death penalty?”

  “Damn right.” Walton sat back again, eyes on the road. “If I hadn’t stepped in, you would have smuggled those spoiled, pampered Hollywood brats back to America where they would have been given a hero’s reception, as if they were dissidents who’d made it home from the gulag instead of common criminals getting away with murder.”

  “I would have smuggled them? So what does that make me?”

  “Now you are understanding your situation.” Walton’s voice was calm, matter of fact. “An accomplice to murder, of course.”

  “What about Drinker? You killed a grieving father, a man who’d done nothing except lose his only son. What does that make you, Harry?”

  There was a pause, and when he spoke Walton’s voice quavered. “That was unavoidable. And yet somehow . . . a perfect irony.”

  “An irony? That was a man’s life you ended, not a goddamn irony.”

  “Shut up,” Walton snapped. “You should be a little more afraid of me, Hugo Marston.”

  Hugo kept his tone flat. “You think this is the first time I’ve sat near a serial killer? I did that for a decade, Harry, and the one thing I learned was that in the daylight, when they’re done sneaking around in the night, they’re no different from other people. Crazy, sure, but flesh and blood.”

  “You think I’m a serial killer?” Walton laughed, a dry, cracking noise.

  “You’
ve killed a series of people, Harry. Wake up, you’re not some vigilante imposing justice. You’re a mentally ill man with a gun and a vendetta.”

  “Now I’m mentally ill? You know what I really am, Marston?”

  “I just told you, Harry, though I can think of other words to use if you like.”

  “I’m a fucking executioner, that’s what I am. It’s what my dad was until those wet, cowardly do-gooders decided that murderers had the right to take other people’s lives but hang onto their own. What fucking sense does that make? Huh?”

  “Harry—”

  “No, you shut up and listen, Marston. Because soon they might do it in your country too, stack a bunch of vicious, evil men in a cage and let them out, one by one, in the dead of night or the early morning. Cage them together so they can share their evil ways and be better prepared when they get out to kill again, and this time to do it without getting caught. That’s where things are headed, my American friend, make no mistake. Headed to the place we were at in 1965, when they gave life back to cold-blooded killers and in the process took it away from my dad. Might as well have poured the drink down his throat themselves, and not so much as a pension. Took a career away from me, too. Luckily my dad had given interviews to someone at the Hitchin Gazette, so he got me a job there instead. Writing about murder instead of putting a stop to it.” The derision in his voice was unmistakable, as if reporting on crime was tantamount to committing it.

  “You? You were going to be an executioner?”

  “I was. Like the Pierrepoints, keep it in the family. My father taught me everything I’d need to know, where to put the noose, the kind of rope, and the most important thing of all, the calculations for the drop.”

  “Which is why Ginny Ferro died immediately. You went to all that trouble, following her, getting the right-length rope, even the mask over her face.” Hugo looked up to see Walton’s grin in the mirror.