The Button Man: A Hugo Marston Novel

by Pryor, Mark

  “It’s not a working number, sir, and never was from what I can see. The prefix is for . . . Hertfordshire. And in Hertfordshire, I’m showing a Braxton Hall, in the village of Weston. That what you’re looking for?”

  “No idea,” Hugo said. He turned to Pendrith. “Weston village, in Hertfordshire, ever heard of it?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, I know it quite well,” Pendrith said. “They have a couple of first-class pheasant shoots up there; I go two or three times a year. More if I can. What’s the specific address?”

  “Braxton Hall. No street number, or even street name apparently. Just a postal code.”

  “Don’t know it,” Pendrith frowned.

  Hugo thanked Sylestine and closed his phone. “Great, a vague address and no information about the people who live there.”

  “Call the number,” Pendrith suggested.

  “And say what? That a movie star is on the run in London and we found your card in his suitcase, can you please tell us what is going on?”

  “You have a better suggestion?”

  “Maybe.” Hugo thought for a moment. “Hertfordshire. Isn’t that where he was filming a movie?”

  “Yes,” said Pendrith. “But I can’t imagine it was in Weston. Or anywhere around there.”

  Hugo sat in one of the armchairs and flipped open his cell phone again. “Well, we’re at a dead end so I need to let my boss know what’s going on.”

  “The ambassador?”

  “Yes.”

  “Be happy to make the call for you, old chap, I’m guessing he won’t be too happy, and I’d be glad to soften the blow.”

  Hugo shook his head and dialed the ambassador’s secretary. He’d screwed up by letting Harper run off, and he was perfectly willing to tell his boss that. As long as Ambassador Cooper let him fix the problem, that was all Hugo wanted. As the phone rang, Pendrith started for the door.

  “I’m going to talk to the lady of the house, see if she can be a little more helpful.” He eyed the phone in Hugo’s hand. “Give the old boy my regards. And good luck.”

  They set off almost immediately, heading north along Holloway Road and making for the A1, which would take them due north out of London and into Hertfordshire. Pendrith assured Hugo that with light traffic, they would be there in an hour, maybe less. They made good time out of central London, spearheading the first wave of rush hour, leading the charge of Jags, Porsches, and Mercs of those who didn’t need permission to leave work early and did so every day to make it to their country homes in the counties surrounding the capital. Not for them the cramped or overpriced London flats, not for them swallowing the fumes of the buses and the flaccid sedans of the middle classes.

  As they cleared the last stop-and-go traffic in northern London and hit the A1 proper, Hugo drifted into the left lane to let a speeding taxi go by. That’s fine, he thought, let the fast cars exercise their muscles and sweep the road ahead for hungry cops. He tucked the Cadillac four car lengths behind a Range Rover that’d had its right blinker on for two miles already, set the cruise control at seventy miles per hour, and watched his mirrors out of habit rather than necessity. Once he thought he saw a car he recognized, but not being able to place it, he put it down to healthy paranoia.

  One thing Hugo did like about England was the suddenness with which its cities seemed to end. One minute you would be neck deep in traffic, crawling past kebab shops and pet stores, and the next minute the road would start to flex and bend, sweeping you through the greenest of countryside. It was as if these ancient English towns and cities had dug themselves into the land over the centuries, too afraid or respectful of the countryside to spread their grimy fingers into the fields and woods.

  And so, twenty minutes after turning the Cadillac’s key in the heart of London, Hugo and Pendrith found themselves flying through the countryside, the concrete and glass of the boroughs replaced by freshly plowed fields of brown knitted together by the winding strands of green hedgerow that divided up the landscape around them.

  As they passed Welwyn Garden City, Hugo gave Pendrith instructions on how to program the car’s GPS, and soon they were on automatic pilot. Hugo signaled to exit on the northern end of Stevenage, but Pendrith tutted at the GPS and told Hugo to take the Letchworth exit.

  “I shoot pheasants up this way, remember? Know the route better than that bloody instrument.”

  Two minutes after leaving the highway, Hugo turned left up Lannock Hill, the kind of narrow, steep, and hedge-lined road that explained England’s smaller cars. The Cadillac roared with irritation, and Hugo clenched the wheel, hoping no other vehicle would crest the hill and start down toward him. Other than the lumbering tractors and once-a-day buses that populated these roads, Hugo figured he’d be bigger and heavier than anything else he’d meet.

  They made it to the top unmolested, and Hugo eased off the power to direct the car through several bends. Then the road straightened and the hedges backed off, giving them a view of green pastures to the left and right.

  “Weston is just a couple of miles ahead,” Pendrith said. “Interesting place, too.”

  “That so?” asked Hugo.

  “It’s got one of those wonderful legends, from hundreds of years ago. Chap named Jack O’Legs lived in the fourteenth century; they say he was a giant.”

  “A giant.”

  “Indeed. He used to rob wealthy travelers and local merchants alike back on that road we just took, that hill. Then he’d give money or food to the poor, after taking his share.”

  “The original Robin Hood?”

  “Right,” said Pendrith. “Except things turned out a little badly for our man Jack. He was captured by a co-op of bakers who were fed up with him stealing their food. If I remember the story right, they blinded him with hot pokers and were about to kill him when he asked to be allowed to shoot one last arrow from his mighty bow and then be buried wherever it landed. He fired his arrow and it traveled several miles in the air until it hit the roof of Weston Church and bounced into the graveyard.”

  “How convenient.”

  “Quiet, man. If you don’t believe me, you can see it for yourself.”

  “Meaning?” Hugo shot him a quizzical look.

  “Meaning his grave is still there.”

  “Are you serious? He actually has a grave at the church? After six hundred years?”

  “This is England, old boy. We build things to last, including churches and burial plots. You Yanks might learn a thing or two from us.”

  “So how big is this grave, if old Jack was a giant?”

  “Well, there are two stones marking the head and foot, and I was told they are fourteen feet apart.”

  Hugo smiled. “I like that story. No one has ever dug him up to check?”

  “Good Lord no!” Hugo heard real outrage in the man’s voice. “That would be sacrilege.”

  “After six hundred years, I don’t think he’d mind.”

  “It’s a churchyard, for heaven’s sake.” Pendrith leaned forward and looked at the GPS screen. “Looks like the place we’re headed for is just the other side of Weston.”

  They slowed as the road narrowed, houses appearing out of nowhere on either side, white and red-brick row houses that looked as though they’d settled into the earth. Heeding the voice on the GPS, Hugo turned left past a tiny store that doubled as the post office, then paused at a four-way stop. The car growled as he pressed the accelerator and they drove up behind a tractor rumbling along the main street. To their left he saw a wide triangle that was the village green, immaculately kept and with a pond in its center. Three weeping-willow trees leaned over the hollow, dangling their branches into the water as if trawling for fish, or testing the temperature. To their right was a high brick wall that ran for several hundred yards.

  “What’s behind there?” Hugo asked.

  “Not what, but who,” Pendrith replied. “That’s Dunsmore Hall. The family owns the hall, as well as Dunsmore Manor, Weston Lodge, and the vicarage.�
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  “Like their privacy?”

  “Don’t we all? Very nice people, as it happens. They’ve been in the village since the days of old Jack O’Legs himself. Probably the ones who helped bury him,” Pendrith smiled. “Super people now, though, very active in the community.”

  “And very active,” Hugo guessed, “in the pheasant shooting business?”

  Pendrith harrumphed. “Around here it’s a tradition, not a business. And they happen to be excellent hosts.”

  A minute later the land to their right rose and the houses on both sides gave way to hedgerows and thickening woods.

  “That was it?” asked Hugo.

  “That was Weston,” Pendrith agreed. “If we’d gone straight instead of past the post office, we’d have seen more. The cricket field, a couple of pubs. Up that road is the church.”

  Hugo looked ahead and to the right, where Pendrith was pointing. A narrow lane rose away from the road, running parallel with it for fifty yards before cutting right into some trees. The church, and Jack’s famous grave, was out of sight from the road.

  They drove on, and the road narrowed and darkened as stands of oak and birch rose up on both sides. The trees fell away after a mile, but the sense of darkness and closeness remained because the road itself sat low between high banks topped with thick hedges. Every hundred yards or so a lay-by had been cut into the earth to allow cars to pass each other.

  A mile outside Weston, with nothing but muddy brown fields on either side of them, the polite voice from the GPS instructed Hugo to take the next left. He slowed, eyes searching for the entrance to a road. There it was, a lane slicing through the hedgerow to meet them. He glanced at Pendrith, who just shrugged. May as well go in.

  The Cadillac fit through the narrow opening to the lane, but only just. The lane itself was straight as an arrow and may once have been tarmac but was now more gravel than anything.

  “Looks like an old Roman road,” Pendrith said. “They crisscross the countryside out here, all of them straight as can be. My father used to tell me that they were straight so the Britons couldn’t hide around the corners and ambush Roman soldiers. No idea if it’s true or not.”

  Silver birch trees lined the road like sentries, their branches forming a canopy over the car, wrapping them further in darkness. The car rocked and bumped over the potholes, and the tires spat gravel at the grass embankment, but after a hundred yards Hugo saw no end to the lane.

  “There!” Pendrith was pointing ahead and to the right, to a footpath leading away from the road into a spinney. At the entrance to the path, Hugo could make out the dark silhouette of a man. He was standing with one foot on the stump of a long-dead elm, a shotgun held loosely at his waist but aimed directly at them. Hugo stopped the car twenty yards short of the man, who wore a green Barbour jacket and whose face was obscured by a cap pulled low over his eyes.

  “This car bulletproof?” Pendrith asked.

  “His shotgun won’t do much more than scratch the paint, so we should be fine,” Hugo said. “Until you get out, of course.”

  “Me?” asked Pendrith, not moving.

  “Sure.” Hugo reached down and unbuckled Pendrith’s seatbelt. “He’s one of you, judging by the jacket and the gun. Why don’t you go talk to him?”

  “I can think of one good reason,” said Pendrith. “What if he doesn’t like trespassers?”

  “He probably doesn’t. But I can guarantee that he dislikes trespassing Americans more.”

  “Can’t say I blame him,” Pendrith muttered, opening the door. He looked back at Hugo. “Do me a favor, will you old boy?”

  “Sure.”

  “If he shoots me, crush the bastard with your big American car.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  An orange streetlight flickered on as the red Mini pulled into the parking lot of the Rising Moon public house in Weston. A gigantic SUV took up two spaces near the door of the pub, which looked more like a thatched cottage than an inn.

  The man parked his Mini on the opposite side of the lot and switched off the engine, then sat and listened as it ticked quietly into silence. The driver’s door creaked when he finally opened it, and the whole car rocked when he slammed it closed, necessary because of the old hinges and a prang or two over the years that had reshaped the frame. It was an old car, but the man was fond of it, trusted it. Sometimes old was simply better. Old meant reliable—and even when this old car wasn’t reliable, it was fixable.

  It wasn’t much for country driving any more, though, the tired old wheels and almost-bald tires had spun a little too much when he’d started down the muddy country lane. Luckily, he’d had the sense to pull over and proceed on foot. Smart move: that lane was dead straight and they’d have seen him coming, dim light or no. As it was, he’d been able to put himself within sight and sound of Pendrith’s conversation with the man with the gun—the farmer who owned the land, the man assumed.

  The old MP hadn’t gotten far out of the car before the gun swung toward his groin, making even the surreptitious watcher pause and wince. He’d then heard Pendrith call out, introduce himself. The armed man didn’t respond. Then Pendrith told him they were looking for someone, that it was urgent, a matter of national and international interest. That had been enough to get the man to shift his foot off the stump, though the gun never wavered. A question about Braxton Hall got no response but made the man wonder if that’s what lay at the end of the lane. Even when Pendrith told the farmer the name of their quarry, the only response he got was a shake of the head.

  Poor old Pendrith had finally shrugged and turned back to the car, and the watcher had scurried back to his Mini, his heart in his mouth as the wheels slipped a few times before dragging him backward out of the lane. He’d waited in a lay-by for the Escalade to come out, then made a few calls to try and find out about the farmer and his property. He lost the Cadillac for a few minutes but figured they’d be heading for the one pub with rooms to rent, and he’d been right. After all, this was his territory, had been all his life. Which is why he thought it odd he didn’t know about any Braxton Hall.

  The man wondered if it might be time to present himself to the American. He checked his right overcoat pocket for his notebook and pen, his left for his wallet, then started toward the front door of the pub. A bell jingled as he pushed it open, and two men on barstools, locals from their dress, glanced his way, looked him up and down, then went back to their beers. He went to the bar and hoisted his small frame up onto a barstool, sure to leave one between the locals and himself. After all, it wasn’t them he was here for.

  The man ordered a half-pint of bitter from the publican, a stocky man in his sixties with the nose of a drinker and the breath of a smoker. Judging by the placard and licenses behind the bar, his name was Jim Booher. His half-pint arrived quickly and the man sipped at it, trying not to pull a face. He turned to look at the only other occupants of the room.

  He’d know Stopford-Pendrith anywhere. It was his job to know, after all. And the tall guy was, by the process of elimination, the American. The driver of the Cadillac. The parker of the Cadillac.

  The man wanted to go over and talk to them now, but he bided his time. The American and the politician each had a pint of amber liquid and a shot of something darker on the table in front of them. They’ll be friendlier, thought the man, once those drinks sit a little lower in the glass.

  He took another sip of his beer and looked up at the publican.

  “Are you serving food tonight?” the man asked.

  The publican nodded. “Like I told those blokes in the corner. My wife usually does the cooking but she’s ill. All I have is some day-old stew in the fridge—it’s bloody good nosh if you like stew. I’m reheating some for them now.”

  “Well,” said the man. “If it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for me.”

  Hugo looked up as a short, thin man walked into the pub and headed for the bar. He looked to be in his sixties, roughly the same age as Pendrith
but without the MP’s ruddy glow of good health. The man wore wire-rimmed glasses, and, as Hugo watched, he took them off, polished them with a handkerchief, then poked them back onto his nose with a bony finger.

  Not a regular, thought Hugo, judging by the city-style trench coat, the mud on his business shoes, and the way the local boys checked him over and then ignored him. Hugo leaned forward but could see only half of the poorly lit parking lot through the window and couldn’t see the man’s car at all. He told himself to relax and enjoy his evening in the pub with a few good drinks and an entertaining politician. Pendrith had been complaining about his colleagues in Parliament for about twenty minutes, though it was plain to Hugo the old man loved the cut and thrust of being an MP.

  “But try and get them to work on anything that matters, good bloody luck,” Pendrith was saying. “Terrified the damn press will criticize or ridicule them. Bloody oafs get into power and then are too afraid to exercise it.”

  “So what matters, then?” Hugo asked. “When people say that, they usually have something specific in mind.”

  “Absolutely. Piece of legislation I’ve been working on for a while. Probably anathema to you as a Yank, especially as a Texan, where they’re all for the chop.”

  “The chop?”

  “Execution, dear boy.” Pendrith waved a hand. “Used to be all for it, but I think we’ve moved on a bit, as tempting a solution as it may be. Civilization moves us to save lives, not end them, if you ask me. I know you don’t chop people’s heads off, don’t worry. But you do zap them, poke them with a needle, or some damn thing. Well, that’s one way to go about it, but the liberals and do-gooders here put an end to wringing necks back in the sixties. Now we have jails stuffed full of pensioners. Everyone is looking around trying to save money, get the government to spend less, and all the while we’re stacking old people in jail cells and giving them food, medical care, and free nappies, I dare say.”