by Pryor, Mark
“And your solution?”
“Well,” Pendrith said, talking into his beer, “they won’t let us shoot them, so I say we cut them loose.”
“What do you mean? Just let them out?”
“Yes. Why not? Send them home to their families, let them pay for their food and housing. State will probably be stuck with their medical care anyway, but we could probably close down a few prisons if we let all the old people go.”
“I can see why you’re having trouble getting support for this,” Hugo said.
“Well I bloody can’t.” Pendrith fumed in silence as the publican arrived with a tray laden with food and drink.
“Your beers, gents, but I can’t remember who ordered what so sort yourselves out.” He deposited two pint glasses, two bowls of stew, and a basket of French bread on the table. When their host had gone, Pendrith started up again.
“What is that, pale ale? Frightful stuff, watered down dishwater.”
“Each to his own.”
“Anyway, where was I? Ah yes, what’s the harm in letting elderly convicts out? What’s the downside?”
“For one thing,” Hugo said, “assuming these people are no longer dangerous and assuming they’ve been in prison a few decades, what makes you think they will know how to survive on the outside?”
“Survive?” Pendrith looked at him, wide-eyed. “I don’t give a hoot whether they survive or not! This isn’t some molly-coddling idea to let poor old Joe the Strangler spend his last years on a beach in Clacton-on-Sea. This is a way to save a boatload of money for the government. The only people it could possibly impact negatively are those released and, frankly, I don’t see why we should worry too much about them.”
“I saw the news this morning,” Hugo nodded. “Do you know who Sean Bywater is?”
“Name’s familiar,” Pendrith said. “What of him?”
“A murderer, famous in my line of work, just killed himself after being released. The report basically said he had nothing to live for on the outside.”
“Yes? Good riddance, if you ask me.”
“Maybe. I’m sure many would agree, but do you even think these people will have families to take them in after decades in prison?”
“Look,” said Pendrith, leaning forward. “My point is merely that the spineless weasels in power right now are so afraid of looking soft on crime, they can’t see this for what it is. It’s tough on crime, for Chrissakes. It takes a bunch of decrepit no-goods, makes them fend for themselves, and saves the government a bundle in the process. And yet all they see, because all the reporters will say, is that we’re letting a bunch of murderers into the community.”
Pendrith shook his head and stabbed his stew with a spoon, stirring it and releasing a plume of steam. They ate in silence for a few minutes, Hugo quickly concluding that the two-day-old stew was, as the publican had suggested, still very edible. He wasn’t so sure about the bread, whose brittle crust and chewy interior suggested a vintage very similar to that of the meat. But he ate hungrily and found the room-temperature beer to be a fine accompaniment.
“Speaking of murder,” Hugo said. “How would I get ahold of information about an old case? Information that only the police have.”
“How old?”
“Late 1800s.”
“Ripper stuff? Most of that is in a museum, I think.”
“No, actually it’s not Ripper. Not officially, anyway. A little after, in 1905.”
“I think I can help you.” Pendrith pulled a pen from his jacket pocket and wrote a name and a number on a paper napkin. “Chap’s an archivist, worked at Somerset House and Scotland Yard. Loves all that true-crime stuff. Mention my name and he’ll get you what you need, though it may cost you a bottle of claret.”
Hugo thanked him and tucked the napkin into his pocket.
As they were wiping their bowls with the last of the bread, a movement at the bar caught Hugo’s eye. The man who’d been sitting by himself was walking toward them, a smile on his face and a full pint of beer in each hand.
“Gentlemen,” the man said. “Do you mind if I join you for a minute or two? I come bearing gifts.” He set the beers down on the crowded table, pints of bitter for both men. He offered his hand to them. “My name is Harry Walton. I’m a freelance reporter. Been putting together a piece about the little accident that two of your countrymen had up this way. I saw your big car outside, heard your accent, and I know Lord Stopford-Pendrith from television. So I’m putting two and two together and wondering why you are in Hertfordshire but not particularly close to the scene of the accident.”
“You have a lot of assumptions in there, Mr. Walton.”
“Assumptions and research.”
Hugo sat back. “By research I assume you mean following us. Am I right in thinking you drive a red Mini?”
“Very impressive,” Walton said.
“Red Mini?” Pendrith looked back and forth between the two men. “What the bloody hell does that have to do with anything?” He leaned toward Hugo. “And how did you know he has one?”
“He was following us in London,” Hugo said. “Got a ticket for an illegal U-turn, if I remember right. Then I saw him again on the A1 earlier but didn’t make the connection.”
“Following us?” Pendrith puffed. “What the devil . . . ?”
“Let’s just say we were headed in the same direction.” Walton smiled innocently. “Anyway, I don’t know if you know my name, but lately I’ve been doing more celebrity stuff. It’s crap, most of it, but pays well and isn’t too taxing for freelancers like me. And while you’d think we have to hunt around and nibble away at the privacy of our wonderful celebrities, most of them are media whores and love attention.”
“I’m sure they do,” said Hugo. “I also assume there is something specific we can do for you?”
Walton leaned back as the publican arrived with a tray and began loading it with their empty beer glasses and stew bowls. When the rotund man had gone, Walton cleared his throat. “As you can see I’m no spring chicken, though I could chase you all over Christendom if I wanted. Lately, though, I’ve been finding that the direct approach works best, saves everyone time and effort.” He grinned. “After all, if you tell me to get lost I can still follow you all over Christendom, right?”
“The hell you can,” said Pendrith.
“Anyway, that’s not something I want to do,” Walton said. “I’m here thanks to some well-placed sources who told me that a pair of very famous American guests were being let out of jail and put in the care and custody of the US Embassy.”
“And I don’t suppose you’d care to reveal the identity of those well-placed sources?” Hugo asked.
“Funny thing,” Walton said. “Lord Pendrith here was the one who helped strengthen our press-shield laws so I don’t have to. Nice irony, don’t you think?”
“Very nice,” said Hugo. “You were about to tell us what you wanted.”
“Same thing you do, I expect,” said Walton. “I want to find and have a chat with our friend Harper. Maybe a little interview before you whisk him away into the bosom of the American embassy.”
“And what would you be seeking in return?” asked Hugo.
“I won’t say anything about you having lost him. Seems like that would set off a bit of a frenzy, don’t you think?”
“No can do, old boy,” said Pendrith. “Assuming you got your info from a couple of London reporters I know, then I shall further assume you’d appreciate that I already made that deal with them. So you can follow us all you like, write what you like, and pretty much go to hell.”
Walton sat back and stroked his chin, his head cocked as he stared at Pendrith. “Here’s the way I see it. By telling me about your little escapade in central London, they broke their promise to keep mum. Which means you owe them nothing. And, of course, they won’t know you have a deal with me because I wouldn’t be stupid enough to tell them.” He turned to face Hugo. “I will also assume that finding your lost charg
e is priority number one and that double-crossing a couple of London hacks wouldn’t be of great concern to the American ambassador. Am I right?”
“You are quite right about that, Mr. Walton.” Hugo leaned toward him, a thin smile on his face. “I can also assure you that the ambassador wouldn’t object in the slightest to a small red car being accidentally crushed by a large American one in the parking lot of a quiet English pub. He would be mildly upset if someone was in that small red car, but he’d get over it when he found out it was a journalist.”
“Mr. Marston, are you threatening me?”
“Yes,” Hugo said. “Very much so. I don’t like blackmail, Mr. Walton. Not one little bit, and in my experience the blackmailer almost always ends up getting squished, either by his supposed victim or by the law. Sometimes both.”
“Well then.” Walton rubbed his hands together and sat back. “If you will excuse me, I have a story to write. I’m not completely up to speed on the whole Internet thing, but my guess is that if you are here, you think Dayton Harper is. And that means anyone who reads my story will think so, too, putting about two thousand people into this village by daybreak. How will you get on, Mr. Marston, with two thousand people following your every move?”
As Walton stood, Hugo fought the urge to grab him by the neck and throttle him. He and Pendrith sat and watched as Walton stopped to pay his tab at the bar, then walked slowly out of the pub without looking back.
“Should dash out and slash the bugger’s tires,” said Pendrith. “And possibly his bloody throat.”
“Tempting,” said Hugo, “but would make for bad press.”
“Talking of which, I’m not sure he’s wrong.”
“About what?”
“About us being better off having him around than a thousand screaming Harper fans coming up from London and another thousand locals baying for his blood. All in this little village.”
“The shit is blackmailing us, Pendrith. I don’t take kindly to that.”
“I know, I know, and neither do I.” He stood. “Look, you don’t have to worry about constituents, but you damn well do need to worry about Harper. If that little twerp Walton makes this public right now, it’s not going to end well for either of us.”
“Where are you going?”
“To recruit that bastard to help us.”
“I don’t want his help.” Hugo drained his whisky glass and stood, reaching for his wallet. He threw three ten-pound notes onto the table, and both men moved quickly after Walton, shrugging on their coats and nodding to the publican on their way past the bar. “Be right back,” Hugo told the man.
A gust of wind tipped Hugo’s hat as they pushed open the door and started across the parking lot. He hurriedly buttoned his coat against the cold and briefly wondered if he’d ever get used to the combination of perpetual damp and slicing winds that seemed to take turns battering his body and souring his mood. He could see Walton putting his key into the door of the Mini, and he looked over at his own vehicle. He could squash the little rat with barely a dent to the Cadillac, and the world would have lost nothing more than an old, red Mini and one aging, blood-sucking journalist.
CHAPTER NINE
The pub had three guest rooms, all on the third floor and all variations on the same theme: small. Each had a bare wooden floor that creaked underfoot and a single bed tucked under a sloped ceiling that threatened to give its guest a firm kiss atop his head if he tried to sit up in bed. There was no television and no telephone anywhere upstairs, as far as they could tell. And the only other furniture in Hugo’s room was a battered wardrobe that wouldn’t open and that leaned against a slightly sturdier oak dresser like an aging couple waiting for a bus that wouldn’t come, the tired and frail old man using his short, plump wife for support. Narrow but clean windows gave views over the parking lot or the beer garden out back. When checking out the rooms, Hugo had let Pendrith choose first and, for his kindness, the American had wound up with a view of the parking lot.
The door to each room opened into a foyer that was larger than all three rooms put together and furnished with two chintz-covered armchairs and a cloth sofa that smelled faintly of beer—and rather less faintly of mildew. The shared bathroom was also accessed from this seating area, and Walton got the bedroom beside that.
After assuring their host that these rooms would be fine for the night, they took a key to the front door from him. They waited until he descended the stairs past his own living quarters back to the bar, mumbling all the way about having to run a pub and take care of a sick woman at the same time.
Hugo and Pendrith took an armchair each, Walton noticing the smell too late to avoid the sofa. He sat down and wrinkled his nose, and Hugo suppressed a smile.
“I meant to say,” Walton began. “I’m a big fan of things American; I know sometimes English people can be a little snobby.”
“I’ve not noticed,” Hugo said, “but I’m glad you like us.”
“You’ve probably heard it before, but without you people the world of movies would be in a poor state.”
“Some say it is in a poor state because of the Yanks,” Pendrith chimed in.
“Nonsense,” Walton said. “The best movies come from there. My favorites are the old cowboy movies, and their modern version, the gangster movies.”
“We do good work with those,” Hugo said.
“I’ve always been fascinated by those living on the wild side, maybe because I write about them sometimes. But not the bad guys, the ones in the black hats or doling out favors while smoking fat cigars. No, I’m more interested in why the people lower down in the pecking order do what they do. The ones who ride behind the villain and rob the train with him. The man who does the don’s bidding, shaking down businessmen and whacking rivals.”
“The button man,” said Hugo.
“Right,” Walton nodded. “The button man. So, how do you like our little village, Mr. Marston? Off the record, so to speak.”
“I’ve not seen much of it. Why do you ask?”
“No reason. You have your movies, we have our history, and I’m always amused by the stock Americans put in the past, how impressed they are that our cottages and pubs are older than their entire nation.”
“You think they shouldn’t be impressed?”
“Oh, no, quite the opposite. I think England would be a better place if its citizenry looked a little more to the past than the future. Have you heard the tale of Jack O’Legs, for example?”
“As a matter of fact, yes.”
“A wonderful, cautionary tale.” Walton rubbed his chin. “I have always thought, though, that he was actually executed at the church itself. I mean, it makes sense to do the deed where the hole is located, right?”
“Never really thought about it,” said Hugo.
“Right then,” interrupted Pendrith. “I suggest now is a jolly good time to start worrying about the future, specifically of our young friend on the lam. What’s our plan?”
“I’m not entirely sure,” Hugo said. “Do you guys have any bright ideas?” He nodded toward Walton’s shoes. “I assume from the state of those, and the fresh mud splattered all over the underside of your car, that you followed us into the lane?”
Walton smirked. “Regular Sherlock Holmes, aren’t you?”
“Hardly,” said Hugo. “If I were, I’d have known you were following us.” He sat back and looked directly at Walton. “So what do you know about Braxton Hall?”
“Not a damn thing,” the reporter said. “I grew up around here, got my first newspaper job on the Hitchin Gazette, but I’ve never heard of the place.”
Pendrith cleared his throat. “We’re assuming that because of its name, Braxton Hall, it must be old. Maybe not. All these villages have been yuppified over the last ten years, people moving in from the city and commuting every day. People with money. Perfectly possible some banker or lawyer bought a few acres and built himself a mansion.”
“True,” Walton said. “Enough cons
truction going on, dozens of bedroom communities, you could easily build a house in the woods or the middle of a hundred-acre field and no one would pay much attention.”
Pendrith looked around them, as if for something he’d lost, then got up and went into his room, mumbling to himself. The other two watched him go.
“Why’s he in on this?” Walton asked.
“Seems like that’s a question for him.” Hugo eyed the journalist. “So what happens if we find Harper and he doesn’t want to give you an interview? You’ve risked blowing an exclusive for nothing.”
“Some risks are worth taking, Mr. Marston.” Walton shrugged. “If I can break the story of him escaping and get an interview to boot, I’ll be on every news program for a week. I’m too old to be chasing starlets and their drunken husbands, I want them to know who I am, to come find me for a change.”
“You been doing this for a long time?”
“Not this exactly, no. Crime is my main interest, my first beat, you might say. I like to lighten it up with some celebrity stalking now and again.” He grinned. “And you’d be amazed how often the two subjects intersect.”
They looked around as Pendrith came back into the room, locked his bedroom door with a frown on his face. “A pub and not a drop to drink in there. Bloody disgrace.” He sat back in his chair, then turned to Walton. “Be a good fellow, run down and grab a bottle of something strong and three glasses. My tab.”
“You serious?” Walton asked, wide-eyed.
“Lord yes,” Pendrith said. “Didn’t have time to pack a toothbrush, let alone stock up on other essentials. No point drying out too much up here, especially if we’re going to sort out some kind of plan of action. After all, we’re not savages.”
Walton stood, uncertain at first, then started down the steps. Halfway, he turned as if to say something but apparently decided better of it and soon disappeared from view. Pendrith looked at Hugo.