The Button Man: A Hugo Marston Novel

by Pryor, Mark

  “This isn’t helping me much, Merlyn. Why would he come here?”

  “Same reason everyone comes here. For privacy and yet to share with others, to feel accepted, and to have some fun.”

  “Fun? Jesus, Merlyn, his wife just died, how the hell could he—”

  “No, Hugo, calm down. I didn’t mean it that way. Before she died, that’s why he came. Why they came.”

  “Then tell me, was he here today?”

  She sat back, moving her body away from his in what Hugo recognized as a subconscious effort to hide something.

  “Whatever you’re not telling me, Merlyn, that’s fine. But I need to know if he was here today, I need to know that.”

  “No,” she said. “I haven’t seen him.”

  Hugo didn’t believe her, or at least wasn’t convinced. She was hiding something and he needed to find out what it was. “You know, you never asked me how Ginny died.”

  “Didn’t have the chance. If I had, would you have told me?”

  “Probably not, but I will now. She was found hanging in a graveyard in central London. I found her.”

  Merlyn’s mouth dropped open. “Hanging? A graveyard? Oh, Jesus, I didn’t know.” Her head sank into her hands and then she sat up and hugged herself. “That’s . . . unbelievable.”

  “Yes, it is.” Hugo filled her in on the details, then added: “If she was murdered, which is possible, whoever killed her might be looking for Harper.”

  She held his eye for a moment, then stood. “Come with me.”

  It was behind the stone barn, a neatly manicured cemetery enclosed by an intentionally ramshackle wall, carefully constructed to replicate the kind of churchyard found in any English village. Or Hollywood ghost story. Overhead, the night sky played along, its watchful stars peeping down at them through spectral wisps of black cloud, and a cold breeze crept up behind them to brush Hugo’s cheek.

  Merlyn pushed open the wooden gate that, of course, creaked, and they walked along a gravel path between randomly placed headstones and concrete crosses. Ahead, right in the center, was a mausoleum.

  “I assume there aren’t actually people under all these stones,” Hugo said.

  “No, of course not. See that,” she pointed to the mausoleum, “it leads down to a special chamber.”

  “And all this is for?”

  “Play acting,” she said. “Not just sex, I know what you’re thinking. People hear the word fantasy and just assume it’s about sex, and it’s not. Not always. Sometimes it’s just being someone else, being someone you can’t be in your regular life.”

  “And being someone else is good?”

  “We’re all hiding things, Hugo. For the longest time, gay people had to hide it, but they’re not the only ones. People are into spanking, bondage, infantilism.” She shrugged. “You name it, people are into it. And even though everything’s consensual, the vanilla world doesn’t understand and, usually, doesn’t want to. Here people can truly be themselves, that other self the world doesn’t approve of. And experiment, learn more about themselves.”

  “Push boundaries, try new things,” Hugo said, nodding.

  Merlyn stopped and looked up at him, a twinkle in her eye. “So you do understand. A little, anyway.”

  “I’m trying,” Hugo said. But before he could ask another question, his phone buzzed in his pocket. He ignored it for a second but then pictured Pendrith sitting in a dark lay-by. He fished it out and looked at the screen. He’d missed a call from his wife, Christine.

  “You get lots of missed messages out here,” Merlyn said. “Reception’s not great in the countryside, right here anyway. And they block cell coverage in the house. A privacy thing.”

  Hugo nodded and decided to call Chris back later. He smiled at the thought. Sorry darling, I’m busy talking to a pretty, young girl about adult role playing in a fake cemetery. He tucked the phone back in his pocket and looked at Merlyn. “I think you were going to tell me about Dayton Harper.”

  “Yeah, OK. He and Ginny, they are . . . were experimenting. Their thing was autoerotic asphyxiation. Did you know that in Victorian London they used to have what were called Hanged Men’s Clubs? Basically, prostitutes would provide strangling services in a safe environment. Safe as it gets, anyway.”

  “Apparently there’s a great deal I don’t know,” Hugo said, frowning.

  She touched his arm. “That’s OK. But look around, what do you see?”

  “I see this case going in the wrong direction, getting more and more complicated. You’re saying that it’s a possibility that Ginny Ferro died accidentally in that graveyard? What do you call it, breath play?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought that was something just men engaged in. That’s what you always read about . . .”

  “Hugo, for heaven’s sake. Why would just men be into it? It’s not just sexist, it makes no sense.”

  “Fine, OK. But you’re saying this might be playtime gone wrong?”

  “No idea,” Merlyn said. “I really don’t. And it doesn’t seem very likely she’d be playing there and then, I just thought you should see this.” She sighed and looked around. “I like this place. It’s peaceful. And safe.”

  “I can see that,” said Hugo. “So how did you, and they, get hooked into all this?”

  “Well, I saw Ginny and Dayton at the Ritz, obviously, and then again at the Cork. They recognized me, we got talking, and one thing led to another.”

  “Dayton asked you to join them,” Hugo concluded.

  “Dayton?” Merlyn laughed. “No, no. I would say he’s the more vanilla of the two.”

  “Vanilla?”

  “Yeah,” said Merlyn. “You know. Like you.”

  “Thanks. So what’s your . . .” he searched for the right term, “interest?”

  “Mine?” She arched an eyebrow. “That’s none of your business.”

  It was Hugo’s turn to laugh. “Fair enough.” He checked his watch. “OK, time for me to get out of here, I have a missing movie star to find.” He started to walk back the direction they’d come, but Merlyn wasn’t following. He stopped. “Everything OK?”

  “I want to come with you.”

  “Sorry. Stay the night here, drive back to London, whatever you want, and I’ll call you when I find him. I promise. But you can’t come.”

  “I can’t drive home, either.”

  “You have a car, don’t you?”

  “No, actually I don’t.” She looked at the ground, then back up at Hugo. “Not anymore.”

  Hugo stared at her as the pieces fell into place. “Oh, no, Merlyn, you didn’t.”

  “I’m sorry, Hugo.”

  “Jesus, Merlyn . . .” He shook his head. “The truth, please.”

  “He was in the room. That’s why I brought you out here. Anyway, we didn’t really get a chance to talk. He saw you follow me in, he was watching through the window. I’m sorry, I didn’t know what all this was about and I trusted him. I wanted to help him. I really thought that’s what I was doing, helping him.”

  “You gave him the keys to your car.”

  “Yes. He came by taxi.”

  Speeding taxi, Hugo thought. Dammit. “Do you know where he’s going?” Hugo asked.

  She nodded. “The farm where that man was killed. He wants to apologize in person. He really does feel bad, you know.”

  “No doubt. Do you know where it is?”

  “Yes, I helped him find it on a map. It’s easy enough,” she said, “although he seems horrible with directions, so he’ll probably get lost on the way. Anyway, maybe it’ll give us time to catch him?” she said, hopefully.

  “Maybe.” Hugo pictured an angry father, a farmer carrying a rifle and a grudge, faced by the man who’d killed his only son. “Then let’s hope he gets lost,” Hugo said. “Just a little.”

  Reluctantly, he let Merlyn come along. She’d pointed out, validly, that if Harper saw Hugo or Pendrith he’d disappear again, whereas if he saw her first, well, maybe she c
ould talk to him, make him see sense.

  They took the same route to the front gate that Hugo had taken before, across the lawn and through the pagoda. Not because they needed to—Merlyn knew the short, fat man who ran the place—but just because Hugo didn’t want any more holdups. According to Merlyn, the farm where the accident happened was just outside Bishop’s Stortford, which wasn’t that far as the crow flew, but Harper had a head start and they weren’t crows.

  Worse, Merlyn had no idea what Harper’s plans were after his apology, assuming he survived it.

  At the gate, Hugo called Pendrith, leaving a message that they were on the way. Then he punched the code into the pad and, when the gate swung open, they started down the road. Merlyn walked close to him, closer than she needed to, and after a minute Hugo thought maybe she wanted to talk.

  “So tell me about the Cork Hotel.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Well, is it like that place, Braxton Hall? You kept talking about discretion, so I figured maybe it’s the same deal there.”

  “No,” she said, “not really. I mean, they are big on discretion, that’s their thing. But it’s not a place like Braxton Hall, not really.”

  “I just wondered,” Hugo said, “what with all the stone archways and iron grills everywhere.”

  “Kinda dungeon-like, huh?” she said. “Maybe that’s why I like it so much.” Her voice dropped. “Guess I’m done working there. Rose was pretty angry.”

  “I noticed,” Hugo said. “Can’t blame her—we did bust in there and surprise her. Maybe I can help smooth things out with her when we get back.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Merlyn said, her voice thick with sarcasm. “She just loves you.”

  Hugo smiled, and a quick glance told him that Merlyn was smiling, too. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed Pendrith again, but still there was no answer. They walked on in silence, and five minutes later they reached the lay-by. They stopped in unison beside the high bank, and Hugo looked into the dark, at first wondering if the black shadows around him were playing tricks.

  Neither his car nor Pendrith were there.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  It took Harry Walton less than a minute to run out of patience and bang on Pendrith’s bedroom door at the pub. A growing sense of alarm made him stare at the closed bathroom door as he waited for a response. Not getting one, he marched over and called out.

  “Pendrith? Marston?” He waited at the door but again got no reply. “Who’s in there?”

  He guessed what they’d done and barged into Marston’s room without bothering to knock. He went straight to the window and looked out in time to see the Cadillac backing out of its space. He clenched his jaw in anger. Partly at himself, but mostly at them. They’d had a deal. They had a damned deal. Typical of an American and a politician to back out of a fucking deal, those pricks.

  But he knew where they were going. There was only one place they could be headed and he’d damn well see them there.

  Unless they’d taken his keys.

  He stalked to his room, ready to scream with rage, but found his keys where he’d left them, in the top drawer of the dresser. He grabbed them and patted his pocket to make sure he had his wallet. Everything else he’d need was already in his car, so he ran down the stairs and through the bar, ignoring the startled look of the publican.

  The Cadillac was gone by the time he got into the parking lot, and he almost expected to hear the angry hoots of local traffic as they were forced off the narrow lane by the monstrous American machine.

  Walton unlocked his car and then paused, wondering exactly how he was going to fix this. Part of him—most of him right now—wanted to call his news editor and break the story, slather it all over the front pages. He’d be in time for the early editions and by midmorning there would be a mob of pitchfork-wielding farmers scouring the fields and woods for the movie star. And, depending on how he wrote the story, chasing the arrogant American and his lapdog, Pendrith. Walton smiled, imagining the three of them on the back of a hay cart, arms pinned to their sides with rope snatched from someone’s barn, a horse whinnying as it was led under a sturdy oak limb. At the Weston Church, for example. He knew of an old oak that would do just fine. Justice the old-fashioned way, as it should be, some thought.

  But he had higher goals in mind. At least, higher from his perspective. A story printed tomorrow would be nothing more than wrapping for fish and chips by the weekend, because the reality was that Dayton Harper and Hugo Marston would slink back to their embassy and be whisked off to America, safe and sound. There’d be no justice.

  So he’d wait and get his story. He’d give that conniving pair one more chance to live up to their bargain, and it galled him because he knew he didn’t have much choice. Did they know that? Did they know that this was his big opportunity? Journalists were being let go all around him, and he was past switching careers if his services were no longer required. No, he’d seen that before.

  He sat in his Mini, one hand on the steering wheel, the other clutching his keys, his breath coming and going in little puffs before his eyes, gentle clouds of warmth on a cold night. He sat there and thought about his father, a man who’d been feared and respected, at the top of his profession. Too proud or stubborn or some damn thing to realize what was coming. He’d not just lost his job, but the whole damn profession had gone down the tubes and then, as now, it was happening all around. Technology hadn’t been the culprit then, but Walton wasn’t about to be caught short like his old man. Out of work and sitting in his chair at home, a bottle in one hand and a glass he never bothered using in the other. It only took him six months to do it, and they found him one morning in his underwear, lying by his armchair, the empty bottle under him, his skin yellow and burnished with fist-sized bruises that made young Harry, who six months previously had wanted to be just like his dad, think the old man had been beaten to death in the night.

  He had, sort of. Beaten by time. Beaten relentlessly from the inside by the contents of a few hundred bottles of cheap whisky.

  But Harry still had a shot to get it right. If only the old man were around to see.

  The red Mini left the parking lot of the pub with a squeal of tires. The anger had returned, and Harry Walton wanted to catch the American tank before it got too far ahead. But a nail, just one little piece of metal, put paid to his chase after half a mile when the car pitched to the right and Walton had to fight with the steering wheel as he brought the car into a lay-by to see what was what.

  He changed the tire quickly, despite the dark, his movements efficient, precise, and fueled by anger and desperation. Old cars, even small ones, had real spares in them, not like those stupid little donut wheels they put in the new cars. No, Walton was down for a few minutes but he wasn’t out. No chance of catching up, but he knew where they were going, so he’d meet them there.

  He wondered for a moment what they’d do if they ran into the man with the gun again. He didn’t understand what they might have in mind should that happen. But that was their problem, and maybe it’d be enough to slow them and let him catch up.

  A flat tire for him, and a man with a gun for them. Sounded fair.

  But when he pulled into the muddy lane, he saw no car and no man. Walton drove slowly, suddenly aware that he’d used up his spare, knowing that the flint stones or debris from a thousand years of traffic along the track could slice into the old rubber tires and leave him stranded.

  That’s when Mr. Shotgun will appear, he thought. That’d be just my luck.

  Ahead of him, trees danced in and out of the shadows caused by his headlights, and the darkness away from the beams seemed complete. The flickering branches, reaching out and then pulling back, made him want to blast through this creepy place, but he fought the urge. Care was essential, he knew. In all things.

  And ghosts weren’t real.

  A flash of light right in front of him made Walton stamp on the brake, and the little car skidded just a little be
fore stopping. Someone, a car, was pointed directly at him, someone who had only just turned his headlights on.

  That damned Mr. Shotgun, Walton just knew it. Probably sitting on the verge in a clapped-out old Land Rover just waiting for someone to shoot.

  Then the lights angled away for a moment and Walton realized that the vehicle had driven off the track to let him pass. Or lure him closer.

  He put the car in gear and started forward, inching toward the lights, unsure how much passing room there was, if there was any at all. But then they were nose to nose, like lovers, brushing past with care, his car rocking over the potholes even at this speed. It wasn’t a Land Rover at all, and when his window drew level with that of the other driver he felt obliged to look over, compelled to see and, for politeness’s sake, to acknowledge the other man.

  But Harry Walton didn’t wave, and nor did the other driver. The face, so familiar yet so stark and pale, those famous eyes burning forward as if the man could will himself down the lane by staring through the windshield. Even the hair seemed familiar, like a bedraggled puppy coming inside on a rainy day.

  Harry Walton’s mouth fell open, just a little, before he put his foot on the brake pedal and stopped beside Mr. Dayton Harper, sometime movie star, sometime fugitive, and whose life story would now become the sole possession of Harry Walton, the freelance reporter who was about to become a very famous journalist indeed.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  For the first time in a very long while, Hugo was at a complete loss. He was standing in the pitch black with an almost-stranger, in a place he didn’t know, with no car.

  He knew the main road that led to the town of Baldock was about a mile away, a slow and not very safe walk on this road by night, but he didn’t know what else to do. If Pendrith had gone in search of food, a bathroom, even a bottle of something, he’d come back this way.

  They started walking, their footfalls the only sound on the mud-spackled road. They had traveled less than a hundred yards when twin headlights cut through the dark, dazzling them. Hugo put out an arm and grabbed Merlyn, pressing their bodies into the bank to avoid being hit. When the vehicle was thirty yards away, the nose dipped and the engine calmed, as if the driver had seen them. Seconds later, Hugo realized it was Pendrith in the Cadillac.