The Button Man: A Hugo Marston Novel

by Pryor, Mark

  “I liked that touch. Most people think it’s was black cloth they used over the face, but it wasn’t. Now, it’s true the judge put a piece of black cloth on his own head when he passed sentence, but for the executions it was a white, silk bag. Were you there for the autopsy? She died immediately, right?”

  Hugo felt a knot of sickness in his stomach, the same one he’d felt every time a serial killer expressed pride in his handiwork. Yes, Ferro had died straight away, just like she was supposed to, but he wasn’t about to give Walton the pleasure of knowing that.

  “So Stanton is next?” Hugo said.

  Walton patted his bag. “She is. And no doubt you think you can stop me, but remember how close to a death sentence you are. Any time I pull the trigger, it’s justified.”

  “In your crazy world, Harry. But what do you think will happen afterward? They know it’s you, so sooner rather than later you’re going to end up in a prison cell.”

  “Watching TV and getting food, clothing, and medical care.” Walton laughed. “And thanks to Pendrith, they’ll let me out in a few years.”

  “Not you, Harry. I have a feeling you’ll be inside until they carry you out in a wooden box.”

  “Which is how it should be!” Walton shouted. He banged his fist against the front seat and then flopped back. “You idiots have no fucking idea. By the time I’m done, people will see how it should be. You just see if they don’t.”

  “You’re doing society a favor, is that it?”

  “You better believe it. Just like my dad, only I don’t expect anyone to be grateful. We do the dirty work and get nothing for it, except in my case maybe a prison cell.”

  “Society’s button man, is that it?”

  “Oh yes, society’s button man.” Walton grinned mirthlessly. “I like that. And you just wait and see, wait and see what happens.”

  “Wait, you said ‘maybe a prison cell.’” Something clicked in Hugo’s mind but at first he couldn’t find the words, the realization of Walton’s insane scheme finally dawning. “It’s your death, isn’t it? You want to bring back hanging, and you want them to start with you.” Behind him, Walton kept quiet. “That’s it, isn’t it? You really think that people are going to be so outraged by you killing Harper and Ferro that they’ll call for hanging to be brought back? That’s really what you think is going to happen.”

  Looking out the side window, Harry Walton just smiled.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  June Stanton’s home was small and painted white, a two-story detached house with no grass in the front, just a concrete square for parking cars—a space that was empty when Harry Walton steered the police car into it. Walton didn’t like this part of London, the part that had no sights worth seeing and no countryside to temper the endless lines of houses, the wide roads lined with them, going on for miles. These drab boulevards used to be the suburbs of London, but now the houses were lived in by students, two to a room, or large families of Pakistanis, or other blue-collar workers who couldn’t afford to live close to the city center and couldn’t afford the prices in the new suburbs, where the houses were larger and the spaces between them greener.

  The only saving grace for this particular stretch of anonymity was a patch of ragged grass taken up by a pond, right across the road from Stanton’s house. A circle of gray water surrounded by as many trash cans as trees, a pond that Walton would put to good use in just a few minutes.

  Parked in front of the house, Harry Walton sat quietly in the car for a moment before climbing slowly out and casting an eye over the neighbors’ houses. Once satisfied, he went to Stanton’s front door and knocked, then knocked again when he got no answer. He waited a full minute before walking along the front of the house to peer through the front windows, but the white net curtains obscured his view and made it impossible to see much of anything. But the lights were off, he could see that.

  With no one home, his plan was to wait, so he went back to the police car and started it up, executing a quick one-eighty so the car faced the road and its rear bumper hung over the flower bed by the front window. He wanted enough room for a second car to park in the space and a good view of whoever came. He switched the engine off and relaxed, a peace and a calm settling about him as he watched the road.

  It took just ten minutes. A white Renault nosed into the driveway, pausing when its driver saw the police car, then easing forward again to get its tail out of the main road. It stopped ten feet from the police car, Walton watching it all the way, pleased the driver was alone.

  A woman stepped out and Walton recognized her at once, the face that was once beautiful, worn with age and hard living, eyes suspicious of the police car. Her hair was different—she’d dyed it black already—and a long, olive overcoat hung across her shoulders. She stopped short of the police car and Walton knew what she must be thinking, that somehow her release was a mistake, that her brief taste of freedom was over. Damn right.

  When she got within six feet of the police car, Walton slid out to meet her.

  “Who are you?” she asked. “Police?”

  Walton smirked. “Not quite. Think of this as real justice.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I just told you,” said Walton. He pulled his hand out of his pocket and pointed the gun at her stomach. “Get inside the house, now.”

  Stanton put a hand to her mouth, her eyes wide. “Oh God, no, you don’t understand, please, I’m—”

  “Quiet!” It was the first time Walton had needed to raise his voice and it irked him. People should follow instructions when a gun is pointed at them. The American had known to do that at least. Funny thing, it seemed like the more people knew about guns, the more familiar they were with them, the more scared they were. Or maybe it was the other way around. Stanton was a killer, but she was too stupid to be afraid of a gun. What sense did that make?

  As soon as they were indoors, Walton felt a warm rush of relief. Imposing justice on the unwilling was never easy, and in several instances he’d gotten lucky with the circumstances, a thick enough tree branch, a nice stone wall. And again here, the staircase overlooking the hall with iron balusters half an inch thick.

  “Go up the stairs,” he said.

  “Please, just tell me what you want.”

  Walton raised the gun. “Up the stairs.” He watched as she started up, paused on the second step, then kept going. He wondered if her legs might give way, they were shaking so much. He waited until she was three-quarters of the way up. “That’s far enough. Sit down, on your hands.”

  When she complied, he started up the stairs himself, slipping his bag off his shoulder as he climbed, eyes and gun trained on Stanton. Halfway up he stopped and kicked one of the iron balusters with his toe. Solid enough, for sure. He knelt and emptied the bag with his left hand as he watched Stanton, not because he wanted to see the horror on her face, but because he didn’t want her to escape. He felt the white silk of the face mask under his fingers and almost smiled. His old mind wasn’t as sharp as it used to be, but the occasional good idea came to him. He threw the hood to Stanton and she stared, wide-eyed, as it landed on her right knee.

  “No, wait, you’re making a mistake. I told you before, I’m not—”

  “Quiet,” he hissed. Irritated, he reached into the bag and pulled out a ball gag. A stupid sex toy but one, the description had assured him, that would keep a person submissive and silent. He’d hoped not to use it, but Stanton had neighbors and, clearly, no desire to go quietly. In seconds, the red ball had filled her mouth, the strap tight across the back of her head. He waved the gun at the silk hood. “Put it over your head,” he said. “Do it.”

  Her eyes widened further, filled with fear, and without looking away from Walton she reached for the hood, her fingers recoiling at the touch of it.

  “I said put it on, unless you want me to shoot you.” He half rose and aimed the gun at her, watching as her trembling fingers reached again to touch the slippery material. Her nostril
s flared as she breathed hard and fast, her eyes closing as the bag slid over her forehead, then down over her nose and mouth. Walton smiled to see the cloth puffing in and out, little breaths of fear that were long overdue.

  He went to work with the rope, threading one end into the eyelet that he’d already secured to the other end, pulling it through to form a noose. With practiced fingers he hitched the free end to the baluster, pulling back on it with all his weight to make sure it wouldn’t give. It didn’t. All was ready.

  Stanton flinched when he reached the step she was on, pulled away when he forced her to stand, and sobbed when she felt the hard steel of the gun pressing into her stomach. Walton knew he had more time to take care of Stanton than he did Ferro, not much but enough, and he felt a stirring down below, a rush of warmth and a sudden shortness of breath that he’d not felt in several years. He stood beside her for a moment, his eyes running down her body, lingering on her breasts that heaved and shook as she sobbed, noticing the flatness of her stomach that he’d felt under the gun. He wanted to touch her, to have her.

  But he wasn’t here for that. He was here to do what should have been done decades ago. He took a deep breath and put a hand on her shoulder, turning her away from him, holding her as she gasped and staggered, losing her balance for a fleeting second, righting her so she wouldn’t fall. Yet. He put the gun between her shoulder blades.

  “Put your hands behind your back.” He was surprised to hear a thickness in his voice, annoyed at himself for noticing her as a woman, for thinking that she’d been without that kind of companionship for even longer than he had. Her body and his power were aphrodisiacs, yes, but ones he needed to ignore.

  Stanton complied, arms quivering, fingers flicking at each other as if for comfort, and he silently bent and placed the gun on the stair, swapping it for a zip tie that he’d already made into a loop, a miniature plastic noose. He gripped her wrists and held them together, slipping the loop over her hands and letting his fingers linger on her skin, letting them brush against the tightness of her jeans, provoking that rush again. She shuddered and he remembered why he was there, why she was there, and that flash of excitement angered him this time. He tugged the zip tie downward, hard, the plastic cutting into her skin as she moaned in pain.

  That’s OK, it won’t hurt for long.

  Her moans turned into whimpers and she began to mumble into the gag, indecipherable words caught by the cloth that now showed three patches of damp from her breath and her tears, gray blurs marring the perfection of the white silk, making Walton glad he didn’t have to reuse it. But he didn’t like the way she sounded, he worried she might be about to hyperventilate or, worse, collapse.

  He couldn’t have her unconscious before the sentence was carried out.

  He took hold of her arms just below her shoulders, half pulling and half steering her down four steps to where the noose waited. He positioned her carefully, with her back to the banister, her feet tight together on one step.

  She shuddered as the noose slid over her head and fell onto her shoulders, and a low whine escaped the hood as he knelt in front of her. A prayer ran across his lips and he put his arms around her body.

  When he held her tighter, she gave another whine, starting low in her throat and rising in pitch, one final exhortation for mercy that ended when Harry Walton, son of Britain’s last executioner, scooped up the trembling figure of his victim and rolled her over the banister. He watched her fall the five feet three inches of her body length, and the extra two feet recommended by the Home Office’s Official Table of Drops, 1913 edition.

  Walton stood quietly for a moment, as if to let her spirit depart in peace. He took a deep breath and repacked his bag. As he moved down the stairs, he heard a thumping sound from below. He looked down and to his left, noticing movement in the rope. His blood froze when he heard a moaning sound. He moved quickly to the ground floor, swearing at the realization that something had gone wrong. The weight estimation? he wondered. My drop calculations?

  He rounded the end of the staircase and saw Stanton kicking for a floor she was never going to reach, her feet scrabbling at the only possible purchase, the smooth wall behind her. Walton calmed himself, then put his arms around the bucking woman’s legs and hugged them tightly. His mind blocked out the choking noises coming from the silk bag, and he closed his eyes as he took her weight, straining to lift her up six inches, then six more. When he’d lifted her as high as he could, he fell to his knees, using his weight and hers to complete the job. Her last, muffled scream ended with the soft click of her spinal cord as it snapped, and they stayed like that for a moment in the silence of her house, locked together, one sinner dead and another on his knees.

  Walton did not believe in God, not much, not anymore, but the Bible that Stanton had kicked onto the floor, and the side table it lay under, needed righting. It was, as much as anything, an aesthetic correction. Maybe even an evidentiary one. When the police arrived they should see one thing, focus on one thing, not be distracted by a mess and wonder if there’d been a struggle. Because there hadn’t been one. In fact, now that he thought about it, she’d not even realized what was happing until the end. But then again, the end, done that way, wasn’t just for her.

  He picked up the table first, squared it away against the wall, then put the Bible on it. As his fingers stroked its cardboard cover, he wondered if he ought to turn to a specific page, find a passage or a verse with meaning. Highlight or underline it, even. But this wasn’t about biblical vengeance either, and hadn’t he just told himself he didn’t want to leave behind distractions, irrelevancies?

  This desire was new to him, a growing urge that he’d not felt before today to leave more behind than was his original intent. A need born, perhaps, from what was to come next, but most certainly an urge he had to fight if he was to remain on course.

  And “on course” meant a long walk to Hendon tube station, right after dealing with the police car and the man lying in its trunk. Walton smiled sadly. A shame to end the life of someone outside the intended circle, but it wasn’t the first time. He was pretty sure the American had taken lives, too, and justified doing so in much the same way: For justice. To end evil. Whatever. How lucky, though, to find two convenient ponds, just when he needed them.

  He turned suddenly as he heard a key scratch the lock of the front door. Instinctively, his hand dipped into his coat pocket but the gun wasn’t there, it was in the bag at his feet.

  He stood there, stock-still, eyes on the door, his insides burning with fear. Not the fear of being caught but of facing the disintegration of his plans, and with only his old, weak hands to fight back.

  He caught his breath as the door opened and a woman stepped into the hallway. He couldn’t believe his eyes at first, confused at the blonde hair that fell about a face that was once beautiful but that now wore the gray pallor of decades in prison, her eyes hardened from years of watching her back.

  She looked at Walton calmly, appraisingly, then her eyes drifted over his shoulder to where her sister, Anna, hung by her neck, no longer moving. She looked back at him once more, for just a second, and then June Stanton turned and ran.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Hugo awoke in darkness. The air around him was close, stuffy, and the back of his head ached. He was on his left side in some kind of container that smelled of oil, leather, and dirt. His chief sensation was a stinging in his wrists, which felt glued together. When he wiggled his hands, that pain got worse.

  He lay still, not willing to risk exertion until he knew where he was, who might be nearby or even watching. His mind looped back to the last thing he could remember, which was driving Walton to London, coming off the A1, and driving through Hendon.

  A lay-by in Hendon, a quiet place, that was next. Hugo pulling over in Upton’s car and following Walton’s instructions to get out, waiting for a chance to get close to the old man, to take the gun away, and end this.

  Now Hugo remembered the look in
Walton’s eye, how the journalist watched him like a hawk and never came closer than ten feet, the gun always pointed at Hugo as they stood at the back of the car. The zip ties. Walton had fished one from his bag and thrown it to Hugo.

  “Put it on,” Walton had said. “Hands behind your back.”

  “I can’t,” Hugo told him. “If you want me to tighten it, I need to use my teeth. It’s either in front, or you have to do it.”

  Walton paused, the first hint of doubt creeping across his face. “In front then,” Walton decided. “Tight, so I can see.”

  Hugo had done as he was told, relieved that Walton was relying on zip ties and not handcuffs. The former were relatively easy to get out of, the latter all but impossible without a key. They cut like a knife when too tight, so he adjusted his position, now sure he was in the trunk of Upton’s car, until he felt the pressure ease and the blood flow back into his hands. But as that pain subsided, his head throbbed harder, especially when he moved it. Walton must have hit him, maybe with the gun, but when? He’d put the zip tie on to Walton’s satisfaction, then . . .

  The trunk, he’d been facing it with Walton behind him. He’d not even heard the old man move forward, certainly didn’t remember being hit. And Hugo had no idea how long he’d been unconscious. He thought he’d heard voices at one point, but the memory was foggy and maybe not real.

  The car rocked suddenly as one of its doors thumped closed and Hugo’s stomach lurched at the sound of the engine starting. The floor under him began to vibrate and the car moved forward.

  Whatever Walton had wanted to do, he’d done. And Hugo knew that now it might be his turn. He started to feel around for the emergency release tab that he knew was there, somewhere. Every car had them, though it flashed across his mind that a police car, modified in some ways, might not. But he had to look.

  It took several seconds to work his way onto his back, and his methodical search was thrown off for a second when the front of the car bumped up over an object, and seconds later he was knocked onto his side again as the rear tires hit that same solid object. A curb?