The Button Man: A Hugo Marston Novel

by Pryor, Mark

  Beneath him the smooth road had turned to something bumpier, and Hugo had trouble holding himself still to search for the latch, the car rocking and jerking, but at least it was moving slowly.

  Then it stopped again. Hugo held his breath, wondering whether he was about to see Walton’s face, his gun. Instead he heard a light tap, as if someone had laid hands on the trunk above him and the car started moving once more, an inch at a time, gradually picking up speed until it suddenly slowed, as if it had run into something soft, rolling Hugo onto his right side as the nose of the car tipped downward.

  In an instant, the gurgle of rushing water told him exactly where he was and what was happening.

  Pressed into the back seat by the angle, Hugo had more room. He knew he had a minute, maybe less, to find the latch and get out. He had no idea how deep the water was, but just three feet would be enough to seep in and drown him.

  The latch. In a new car it should glow in the dark, and from where he lay with his back to the rear seats of the car, he should be able to see it. He calmed himself, tried to ignore the sounds of the water pressing in on the car, his eyes scanning the blackness in front of his face. Why couldn’t he see it?

  There. A spec of something luminous, but not big enough to be the latch. He started to shuffle toward it but his hands brushed against something small and hard in the way. He worked his fingers around the object, testing its shape and feel. A roll of tape. Walton had wrapped tape around the release latch so he wouldn’t see it. The spec that glowed was his escape.

  He wriggled his way toward it, hope growing within him. He closed his hands around it and then shut his eyes and mouth tight as he tugged. The trunk popped an inch and water gushed over him. Hugo held his breath and positioned himself to push the lid up, bracing his back against the floor. His pinioned hands pressed upward, and immediately water filled his nostrils, threatening to suffocate him, yet the lid barely moved. He pushed harder, panic starting to fill his chest as he wondered whether he’d made the wrong decision, whether Walton had somehow tied down the trunk . . .

  And then the lid was up, and he felt hands on the front of his coat, tugging him up, not strong enough to lift him but strong enough to help. He blinked, but the water stung his eyes and he couldn’t see who it was. Gasping, Hugo rolled himself from the trunk into the pond, the stranger still pulling at him, and together they fought their way to the bank where they collapsed in parallel heaps, panting and sodden.

  His face pressed to the wet grass, Hugo turned his head to see his rescuer, and when he recognized her, his breath caught in his throat. She looked at him, too, her face set, wet strands of hair streaking across her cheeks.

  “June Stanton,” he panted. “He didn’t . . . find you?”

  She rolled onto her back and let an arm fall over her eyes. “He found my sister. Whoever that was, he killed her instead of me.”

  Hugo closed his eyes tightly. Another death he’d failed to stop, and Walton was still on the loose. “You saw him? Where? When?”

  “I walked into the house . . . I saw what he did and ran. He came after me but he’s old, he didn’t run far. I hid between two cars and watched him get into this one, drive it to the pond. I thought he was just trying to hide it.”

  “How did you know I was in there?” Hugo sat up, soaking wet with the cold beginning to feed on his skin.

  “Just before he pushed it into the pond he made the sign of the cross. I could tell it was a cop car and I thought maybe the policeman he’d taken it from was inside.”

  “Close enough,” Hugo said. “And thanks.”

  They cut down the body of Anna Stanton and laid her on the hallway floor before calling the police. There was no crime scene to preserve, not really, just the dignity of an innocent woman to restore. June sat on the floor with her sister’s head in her lap, rocking gently back and forth as they waited to hear sirens. She didn’t speak and her eyes stayed dry, but Hugo knew her heart was forever broken and that she blamed herself for this. They’d shared everything growing up, a home, food, their very genes, but the one thing that June had been responsible for, all alone, had killed her twin sister.

  Hugo wanted to leave her there and go after Walton immediately, but she just shook her head and looked around the house. For June, her sister came first, and Hugo owed her this, these few moments to say good-bye to her twin unmolested by cops and crime-scene specialists. But Walton was on foot now, an elderly man with no way to travel far or fast, and Hugo couldn’t wait any longer.

  “June. Which way did he go? After pushing the car into the pond, which way did he go?”

  She looked at him, her face blank, eyes taking him in as if for the first time. “Hendon Central. Toward Hendon Central.”

  “The center of town?”

  “No. The tube station. He went down Wykeham Road to the station.”

  “Which line is that on?”

  “The Northern.”

  “Any others?”

  “Any other what?”

  “Is it on any other rail lines? I need to be sure which way he’s going.”

  “No, the Northern Line is the only one that comes out this far. He must be going into London. Either that or north to Edgware. But there’s nothing there, why would he do that?”

  “He wouldn’t.” He laid a hand on her back. “I have to go, try and catch him. I don’t know if he has more names on his list, but if he does, I have to stop him.”

  “Wait, you’re soaking. Let the police find him.”

  “Oh, I will,” said Hugo. In truth, he didn’t want to be here when the police arrived, didn’t want to explain a submerged and stolen police car from another county. “But he keeps getting away from me, and that makes me mad.”

  She nodded toward the stairs. “Anna has a boyfriend about your size. He keeps clothes up there, you should take some.”

  He’d almost forgotten about being wet, but he didn’t want to endure the stares of fellow tube passengers and, quite possibly, the attentions of a curious cop. “Thanks, I will.” He took the stairs two at a time and found Anna’s room, reappearing in three minutes wearing borrowed jeans, a shirt, and a wool sweater. His boots stayed; they’d been through worse and would be dry in an hour. He fished his wallet from his sodden coat and turned to June Stanton. “Do you have a cell phone I can take with me?”

  She looked at the coat stand by the door. “Take Anna’s, it’s probably in her jacket.”

  Hugo frisked the jacket with practiced hands and pulled out a flip phone. “Thanks,” he said. The sound of sirens drifted through the open door with the cold November air. “I’m sorry, but I have to go.”

  “It should have been me,” she said from the floor, stroking Anna’s hair. “This, so many dead, just because of me.”

  “Not true, June.” Hugo paused in the doorway. “This one was all him.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  He dialed Upton as he ran, slowing to a walk when the detective chief inspector answered, his tone brisk.

  “Upton here, who is this?”

  “Clive, it’s Hugo.”

  “Hugo, Jesus, are you—”

  “I’m fine.” Hugo stood to one side as two elderly women with their miniature pooches, sporting matching doggie sweaters, waddled past him. Once they’d passed, without a word of thanks, he started up again at a brisk walk. “Listen and do what you can, as fast as you can. He’s killed again and right now is on, or headed to, the Northern Line at Hendon Central. He has to be going into London. You have to stop the trains, have them searched.”

  “Hugo, it’s not that simple.”

  “Make it simple, Clive. I don’t know where he’s going, but he just hanged an innocent woman.”

  “He did what?”

  “Stanton’s sister. He killed her by mistake, executed her. The point is—”

  “Hugo, stop. I’m off the case. They think I gave you my car and . . . how did you get my car by the way?”

  “I took it, Clive, you didn’t give
it to me. What do you mean you’re off the case?”

  “The chief constable. She didn’t like the way things were going.”

  “Clive, come on, we don’t have time for this bullshit. Walton just killed someone and is less than a mile from me. And once he’s in London, God knows what he’ll do.”

  “I’ll try Hugo, but I don’t have the power to stop trains. And right now, I’m not in good with anyone who does. But I’ll try.”

  “OK. Save this number and call me if you have any luck or hear anything. Should I talk to your boss?”

  “No, no, I appreciate the offer but that wouldn’t help, believe me. What are you going to do?”

  “What choice do I have?” Hugo spotted the entrance to the metro station and made a beeline for it. “I’m heading back into London and on the way I’ll try and figure out what he’s up to. I’ll call you later.”

  “Hugo, wait. We heard from Merlyn. Our colleagues from across the border picked her up at Edinburgh station.”

  “How is she?”

  “She’s pretty pissed off. But otherwise she’s OK. Want me to give her this number?”

  Hugo thought about it for a second, knowing he didn’t need more distractions even though it’d be good to hear from her. “Better not. Just get her home safely, I’ll talk to her then.”

  “OK. Do you have any idea what he’s doing? Walton, I mean.”

  Hugo paused before speaking. “I thought that Stanton was going to be his swan song, but I was wrong about that. It was done in secret, as far as I can tell. And that means he has one more trick up his sleeve.”

  “Another victim. Who?”

  “That’s what I plan to figure out while on the train.”

  “It’s a quick ride in, old chap. Think fast.”

  Hugo bought a ticket into the center of London and then quickly scoured the station for Walton. He’d already seen one train pull away from the platform toward central London, and he was pretty sure Walton was on it. A digital sign told him the next train would leave in seven minutes, so he moved out of the flow of foot traffic. He found a free bench, planning to make a phone call, but sat staring at the grimy floor of the tube station, assembling and reassembling the pieces, taking out ones that didn’t fit and trying pieces of evidence that he’d ignored until now or forgotten about.

  He believed that Walton would, eventually, turn himself in or let himself be caught. It would be a supreme irony, one Walton would love to paint large for his reading public, the perfect way to get his insane message across: Look at all the people I killed . . . And your taxes will now pay for me to live! But he’d fled after killing Stanton. Because he’d killed the wrong sister?

  Hugo pulled out Anna Stanton’s phone and dialed Bart Denum. “It’s Hugo.”

  “Hey, what’s up? You’ve been quiet, everything OK? I was just going to call you.”

  “Why?”

  “Got your number from Upton, he’s in deep doo-doo but still doing what he can.”

  “He’s a good guy. We’ll see if we can pull some strings to help him out when this is over. He really has been a good cop, despite what his boss thinks.”

  “Agreed,” said Denum. “Anyway, the Brits processed Walton’s laptop and found a blog.”

  “Walton? A blog?” Hugo sat up. “Why didn’t we find this before? We shouldn’t need his computer to do that.”

  “We don’t, you’re right. But it just got published. I’m guessing he wrote it some time ago and set it to publish on a particular date. Which was today. Want me to e-mail it to you?”

  Hugo held Stanton’s phone away from his face. A basic model with a small screen and probably no e-mail capacity. “No, I don’t think you can. Right now, I’m between Hampstead and Belsize Park. Can you print a copy and then meet me at King’s Cross, out by the taxis, in about fifteen minutes?”

  “Sure. Which reminds me, Upton’s had no luck stopping trains. He made a few initial inquiries but saw it wouldn’t fly.”

  “I gathered,” said Hugo. His travel had been smooth and uninterrupted, and not a uniform in sight. “Did you ever get a list of the people being released from prison, the little group that included Stanton?”

  “Sure did, you had someone e-mail it to me.”

  “OK, I need you to go over it in more detail, try and figure out if there is someone else on there Walton might go after.”

  “Any parameters?”

  “Well, the first one is that the victim might be in or heading to London. Of course, Walton may just be heading into the city to find a way out. Planes, trains, motorways . . . So don’t get stuck on that. Think like Walton; ask yourself whether he’d see one of the four being released as a particular injustice. You know what I mean, Bart, right?”

  “Sure, I’ll do it right now and call if anything leaps out at me.”

  “No, assign it to someone else, I want you to meet me at King’s Cross. But first, tell me what his blog says.”

  “It’s just one entry.”

  “OK. Read it.”

  Time alters everything, and not always for the better. Why do we assume that societal changes automatically mean progress? Are we so arrogant to think that we can’t, collectively, make mistakes? That we shouldn’t reexamine policy shifts, no matter what?

  I have done all I can do to show you what should have happened. Those who died at my hand should have died by the State. You may look at me with spite, even fear, but I did the work for you, just as my father did, as I should have been able to do with him. He was your executioner back then, and I have been today. I don’t expect your thanks. My father never even got a pension.

  If you revile me, so be it. But think about paying for my food, my shelter, my television, my medical care. Instead of a length of rope for my neck costing just a few pounds, you’d be stumping up a couple million.

  It’s not a moral issue, or shouldn’t be. Every day our weak and timid politicians make decisions that consign people to the grave. Those stuck on NHS waiting lists get sicker and die because money is being funneled to defense contractors. Soldiers are sent to fight other people’s wars, and die. We can’t pretend that life is precious, that we value human life so greatly that executing murderers is out of the question. Sick people and soldiers can die, but not serial killers? Explain that to the parents of those who die in Afghanistan, or the little girl who dies waiting for treatment in a Newcastle hospital.

  Don’t mourn for me or those I killed. Mourn for the death of justice in this country.

  When Hugo emerged from King’s Cross station, a wash of cold air greeted him, and his ears were filled by the sound of the rain that pounded the street, drumming off the roofs of the black cabs waiting for business, filling the gutters.

  Hugo spotted the US Embassy vehicle, another black Cadillac Escalade, as it pressed its way under the station’s canopy. Once it was out of the rain, Hugo trotted over and slid into the front passenger seat of the familiar vehicle, and it felt like coming home. Hugo and Bart shook hands, an expression of relief as much as anything.

  “Just for the record,” Bart said, “Your boss approved your request for leave, effective immediately.”

  Hugo closed the door and the beat of the rain disappeared almost entirely, a leather-enforced hush taking over. “My request for . . . ?”

  “Precisely. Some ruffled English feathers, plus we have no official interest in any of this right now.”

  “Except the bastard tried to kill me.”

  “Which is still a matter for the Brits, you know that.”

  Hugo looked at the square head of the former marine, his large hands on the wheel. A reassuring presence in any situation. “Yeah, I know,” said Hugo. “Did you bring the printout of his blog?”

  “Yep, just that one article, as I said. Find any hidden meaning?”

  A taxi honked behind them, unimpressed by the diplomatic plates, only concerned with its place in line.

  “Not yet,” said Hugo. “You drive, and I’ll read it again. Maybe
something will jump out.”

  “Will do. Anywhere in particular?”

  “Nope.” Hugo already had the article in front of him. He read it once more for the overall impression, then started to take it line by line, letting everything he knew about Walton filter through the prism of this missive, like water running through coffee grounds. “I was right about his father,” Hugo murmured.

  Denum looked across. “What do you mean?”

  “He feels very close to him, he wanted to be like him, and when his father was robbed of his career, and ultimately his life, Harry Walton felt like he, too, had been robbed of everything.”

  “I thought serial killers were all about their mothers?”

  Hugo allowed himself a smile. “Technically, I don’t think he’d qualify as a serial killer.” Even though I called him one to his face.

  “Why not?”

  “He has the required number of bodies, but the FBI also mandates a cooling-off period between kills. And there’s usually a sexual element to the crimes, manifested in a way most people wouldn’t see as sexual.”

  “So you don’t think he gets off on what he does?”

  “He gets satisfaction, sure, but not the way Ted Bundy or David Berkowitz did. His is almost a professional satisfaction. And his motives seem political, not sexually perverse.”

  “Maybe time to rethink the FBI definition,” Denum said. “After all, I’m not sure the victims give a crap why he kills them, do they?”

  “Good point. But the question is, what’s he going to do next?”

  “He must know the net is closing.”

  “Definitely.” Hugo stared at the piece of paper in his hand. “He’s readying himself for prison. For him, it’s the soft option. He’s railed for so long about killers getting prison instead of hanging, he really sees it as a decent ending for him. And yet . . .”