The Button Man: A Hugo Marston Novel Read online

  “Sorry to keep you waiting, Bart,” Hugo said to the man. “Got held up, I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.”

  “No problem, sir.”

  “Stay and have a drink with us?”

  “Not tonight, sir.” Bart winked. “Getting a babysitter for Amy and taking a date to the theater.”

  “Get going, then.” Hugo was delighted to hear that his colleague, and friend, was going on a date. Denum had been raising his daughter, Amy, alone since his wife had been killed in the same car crash that took Hugo’s wife, Ellie. Since then, Denum had focused all his attention on his daughter, wrapping her in cotton wool and letting no other woman near him or his precious girl. Hugo smiled. “Glad to hear it. Have fun, and have her call me if she’s upset about you being late.

  “I will. Good night, sir.”

  “Good night.” He turned to the bar as Jen appeared with the drinks.

  “Here you go, luv,” she said. “John’s tab?”

  “That’s the one. Thanks.”

  Cooper sat up as Hugo arrived with the jugs of beer. He nodded toward the door that Bart had just closed behind him. “If I have to have a bodyguard everywhere I go, could you at least find one who’ll sit and have a beer with me?”

  “Sure,” said Hugo, sitting opposite his boss and with his back to the wall. “Course, if I saw him do that I’d have to fire him.”

  “Not if I fired you first.”

  “True. So I need to tell you why I was late.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Cooper held up a silencing hand. “You’ll want to hear about a little task I have for you.”

  “Right, you said on the phone you had something new and interesting for me to do.”

  “Yes.” Cooper stooped to his beer, taking the top inch off it with a practiced slurp. He sat back and wiped his mustache with the back of his hand. “Good stuff. A little high profile, this endeavor, which is why I want you on it. Personally.”

  Hugo raised an eyebrow. “Not sure I like the sound of that.”

  “Me neither, frankly. But I have a boss, too, and she’s paying attention for once.”

  “OK.” Hugo watched Cooper over the rim of his beer glass.

  “That little accident that made the front pages,” Cooper said.

  “Accident?”

  “Yes, the one involving Dayton Harper and his lovely wife.”

  “Ginny Ferro. What does that have to do with us?” The accident Cooper was talking about involved two of Hollywood’s up-and-coming movie stars. Two days previously, while shooting a movie in Hertfordshire, they’d disappeared from the set in Harper’s convertible Jag. The newspaper stories were sparse, but the headlines had screamed to the world that they’d run down a local farmer and sped away, leaving him to bleed to death in a ditch beside a winding country lane. An eyewitness and a damaged hood had led the police to Harper and Ferro, who quickly confessed and, from jail, threw themselves on the mercy of the British public.

  “That’s what I wondered,” Cooper frowned. “Only it seems that our Dayton Harper was born as Dayton Horowitz, the son of a certain Jasper Horowitz.”

  “The guy who owns half of Texas, most of its oil, and almost all of its water rights.”

  “You know him?”

  “Of him. As does everyone who grew up in Texas. And you either love him or hate him.”

  “Which is it for you?”

  Hugo smiled into his pint. “No comment.”

  “Not that it matters. Jasper Horowitz is also a huge supporter of my boss’s boss. Not that the secretary of state or the prez have put any pressure on me directly, of course.”

  “Oh, no, of course not. But if you know what’s good for you, you’ll pitch in and do your bit, right?”

  “Right. Which is where you come in.”

  Hugo sat back and looked at his boss. “Wait. Don’t tell me . . .”

  “I’m afraid so. Harper is getting out of jail tomorrow morning, and I need you to look after him.”

  “For how long?”

  “As long as it takes. Though I don’t know what ‘it’ means in this situation.” Cooper sipped his beer. “As you might know, and if you don’t you’ll soon learn, a large part of your job will be babysitting.”

  “That’s fine, I don’t mind.”

  “I appreciate that. A movie star could be interesting, if a little high maintenance.”

  “Better an actor than a politician,” Hugo said with a smile.

  “Oh, you’ll get one of those sooner or later, don’t you worry.”

  “I’ll manage. So the tabloids have people pretty riled up about this accident, huh?”

  “Putting it mildly.” Cooper grimaced. “He’s lucky they don’t have the death penalty here.”

  “Maybe.” A thought struck Hugo. “Doesn’t he have bodyguards of his own? He can certainly afford them.”

  “Probably. But the last set didn’t keep him out of trouble. And even if he does have them, and they manage to stick with him, the last thing we need is half a dozen freelance American bodyguards beating up outraged members of the British public.” Cooper drained his glass and licked his lips. “He’s a US citizen accused of a serious crime and in potential danger of vigilante justice. Movie star or otherwise, he deserves our protection.”

  “Fair enough.” Hugo smiled to show there were no hard feelings. “But I’d be happier sticking close to his wife.”

  Cooper chuckled. “You and the rest of the male world.” He cleared his throat and looked around the pub. “And that’s where this gets a little delicate.”

  “How so?”

  “She’s already been released. This morning. Kind of an administrative cock-up, actually. Her bail was paid and she was supposed to be held until tomorrow, when she and her hubby would go home with us. With you.”

  “So what happened?”

  “We’re not too sure. That’s the delicate part. Apparently some flunky looked at her paperwork, opened her cell door, and handed her a bus pass into London. No doubt she’s hiding in a beauty salon or a coffee shop somewhere. Getting a good haircut, with any luck.”

  “I see,” Hugo nodded. “And you don’t want hubby to know she’s on her own.”

  “Correct. If he finds out, his father finds out . . .”

  “Your boss finds out.”

  Cooper shrugged. “That’s the gist of it. Plus, the more people who know, the more likely the media find out. Talk about vigilante justice.” He shuddered, then picked up his empty glass. “Still, that’s tomorrow’s business.” He looked at this watch and then toward the bar. “Cottage pie should still be available. My treat.”

  Hugo stood and collected their glasses. “I’ll order and get refills.”

  The secret, Al had told them a few months back, was to use lamb, not mutton, and let it soak in red wine for a few hours. Warm red wine, apparently. And lots of garlic in the mashed potatoes that topped the stewy pie. “Thank the bloody Frogs for that tidbit,” he’d laughed. Hugo did thank them, and Al, every time he ate this dish.

  As they tucked in, Hugo said, “We may need to move off the beer and onto something stronger.”

  “Fine with me, but why?”

  “I found a body in a cemetery.” He started his story, skipping over his trip to the alley for the time being and telling Cooper about the graveyard next to it, his walk through the fog-shrouded path, and the body hanging at the end of a rope in the far oaks.

  Cooper listened, his mouth opening wider with each detail. “Jesus. No wonder you were late. And here I was, all concerned with my own problems.”

  “I’ve seen that stuff before, John, it’s OK.”

  “I suppose you have, but still.” He shook his head. “So, who was he?”

  “No idea. I left as soon as they let me, and I didn’t see the crime-scene people find any identification. They left the hood in place, so they wouldn’t disturb any forensic evidence.”

  “A hood, Jesus. You think suicide, or not?”

  “Hard to say
, but I doubt it.” Hugo frowned. “The hood, the location . . . an unusual one if it is.”

  “What were you doing out there?”

  “Well, the cemetery is near Gable Street.” Hugo grinned sheepishly. Cooper knew about his little obsession.

  “Hugo, I admire your investigative spirit. Really. But a hundred historians and amateur crime buffs have gone over every inch of every corpse in London from that period. If she was a Ripper victim, someone would be saying so. Someone other than you.”

  “You forget, I’m not an amateur.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re a stubborn son of a bitch.” He speared a cube of lamb. “What was the one thing all known Ripper victims had in common?”

  “You mean cuts to their abdomen.”

  “Your girl didn’t have any.”

  “I know. And I know how badly the other victims were mutilated, while Meg Prescott wasn’t.”

  “There you go.”

  “Jack might have been disturbed, run off by a passer-by.”

  “In a dead-end alley?” Cooper shook his head. “And what about the timing?”

  “Almost seventeen years after the others, I know. But serial killers do go dormant, you know, they go to jail or get sick or go somewhere else. Or they control the urge, or maybe even evolve so they don’t get caught, to the degree that their crimes aren’t even discovered. They become masters of their art.”

  “It’s art now, is it?”

  Hugo smiled. “You know what I mean. It’s possible that Meg Prescott was a late victim and that others killed in the years before her simply weren’t found, or all that killing in 1888 had frightened him into inaction for a few years until he couldn’t stop himself. Those are possible, John, you have to admit.”

  “You sound like a lawyer, Hugo. I’ll admit those things are possible, and that you’re the expert. They just don’t seem very plausible.” He sipped his beer. “Look, I get it. It’s an unsolved murder, which bugs the crap out of you. But I don’t get why this is so personal for you. And Hugo, the fact is, you’re on your own. There’s not going to be any new evidence to back up your position, and the existing evidence isn’t enough to prove you right.”

  “Or wrong.” Hugo sat back and rested his hands on his stomach. He’d run the pie off tomorrow, if it wasn’t raining. “I know, you’re right. But let me keep hitting my head against that brick wall until it shakes loose, won’t you?”

  Cooper held his hands up in surrender. “It’s your head.” Cooper looked into his almost-empty glass. “As you said, time for something a little stronger.”

  “Good idea,” Hugo said. “My treat.”

  “Thanks. I’ll have what you’re having.” Cooper’s cell phone buzzed on the table and, with a discreet burp, he picked it up and answered. His eyes swung up to Hugo, who guessed the subject was Dayton Harper. He listened for a full minute before speaking. “I see,” Cooper said. “Thank you for letting me know, Superintendent.” He hung up and looked at Hugo. “You’d better make those doubles.”

  “Oh yes? Something happen with Harper?”

  “Not Harper, his wife.”

  “They found her?” Hugo asked.

  “No,” Cooper said. His eyes rested on Hugo for a moment. “They didn’t find her, Hugo, you did. Two hours ago, hanging in the graveyard.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  They moved Dayton Harper in the night, finding him awake and cowering on his bunk. His only knowledge of prison came from the silver screen, watching and a little acting, and he believed in the tales of crooked guards opening prison doors for blood-thirsty inmates, and had small faith in the reality of the heavy metal and thick glass that kept him in and others out.

  They took him down the long, narrow corridor normally reserved for guards moving between the men’s and women’s sections of the Whitechapel jail. There, in a cell with the door open, he changed into civilian clothes before walking in lockstep with his guards to an elevator that took them down to the basement parking lot. One of the guards held the car door open for him, the other shook his hand, and Dayton Harper climbed into the back seat of the waiting, unmarked police car. Fifteen minutes later he was at the Hammersmith Police Station, taken in through the rear entrance and locked, for his own safety, in a cream-colored cell with a cup of tea and a packet of biscuits. He was not surprised, and was somehow comforted, by the curious eyes that peered in at him every few minutes. Comforted, especially, by the soft brown eyes that bore mascara and lingered a little longer than the others.

  Just before ten in the morning he woke up to the sound of keys in the lock. A red-headed policeman, as large as any linebacker, stepped into the cell and handed him a brown paper bag. “Your things, sir. If you’d sign for them.”

  Harper took the clipboard and pen from the man and signed.

  “Thank you, sir. Now, if you’d please follow me.”

  They left the cells and walked past several uniformed officers who stared, two of them women constables who shifted uneasily from foot to foot, trying not to smile at the movie star. At the back door, the large policeman stopped. They stood there for a moment and then his radio crackled, the word Clear being the only one Harper could understand. The constable unlocked the door and stood aside. “That black one’s your car, sir. No media anywhere, and it stopped raining for you.”

  Harper stepped into the wet street and turned to shake the policeman’s hand, but the door clicked shut in his face. He threw a look up at the sky, a solid gray that hung low over the city, and started toward the black SUV that idled by the curb. He smiled when he saw the Cadillac insignia. He went to the rear door, but before he could open it, the front window rolled down.

  “Sit in the front, please,” said the driver. “I’m your nanny, not your chauffeur.”

  Harper had been following orders like a conscripted private for two days and reacted automatically, pulling open the front passenger door and climbing in. The driver, a solidly-built, brown-haired man, looked at him. “How’d the Brits treat you?” the man asked.

  “Fine. Fine, I guess.” The man had the kind of face his wife and costar, Ginny, would go for. Strong jaw, intelligent brown eyes, and a fatherly quality that he, Harper, with his delicate features, would never possess. “Sorry, who are you?”

  The man reached into his coat and pulled out a black wallet. He flipped it open and Harper inspected the bronze badge. “US Embassy security,” he read aloud. “Are you arresting me now?”

  “Nope. Like I said, I’m your au pair.”

  “Why do I need one of those?”

  The man put the car into gear and started to pull away from the curb. “Do you drink?”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “I’ll explain why you need me when we get to the embassy. And, if you drink, you might want to start early today.”

  Harper looked out of the window. No city, he thought, ever looked so drab and depressing as London on a rainy day. Maybe because it had so many of them, day after day, year after year, that the color had just been washed from the buildings and its people. “You didn’t tell me your name.”

  “Oh, right,” said the man, looking over and smiling, though Harper couldn’t tell if it was sincere. “Where are my manners? I’m Hugo Marston.”

  A light drizzle started the wipers of the Cadillac automatically as Hugo turned the car onto Upper Brook Street from Park Lane. He’d taken a roundabout route, partly for security reasons—but mostly because he wasn’t entirely looking forward to sharing his apartment with a pampered movie star charged with vehicular homicide. Or whatever the British equivalent was.

  Policy at the US Embassy in London, as he saw it, forced him to live on campus. He’d been given a three-bedroom apartment in the embassy complex, fully furnished by its previous occupant and partially refurnished by his wife, Christine. The chintz-to-leather ratio now tilted the wrong way, but Hugo hadn’t said anything—challenge enough to get Christine to London in the first place. He hoped, vainly he sus
pected, that an emotional investment in delicate chairs and blown-glass vases would persuade her to use the place as more than a staging point for shopping expeditions. But with her family money and friends in Dallas, where she was now, his hopes weren’t high.

  Inside the compound, Hugo waved his passkey and waited as the grill slid up to allow them into the underground parking lot. Harper, as best Hugo could tell, was in a daze, registering events and sights with some delay. He’d asked a question about Hyde Park several minutes after they’d turned away from Park Lane, which bordered the green space. Now, the actor shook his head and looked over as Hugo pulled into his parking spot. “Is this the US Embassy?” he asked.

  “Yep,” Hugo said.

  “We should go to my hotel,” Harper protested mildly. “My stuff is all there. I have a room booked for the whole shoot.”

  “Not anymore.” Hugo opened his door and climbed out. He bent down and looked at the blank face of the actor. “You’re staying with me now. Your stuff is already here.” He closed the door and waited for Harper to unbuckle himself and get out of the car. “Elevator’s this way, follow me.”

  Harper trailed a few steps behind, clutching his paper bag to his chest. He looked at Hugo as the lift bumped them slowly up to the fourth floor. “Is Ginny here? She already got bail, right?”

  “Yes,” Hugo said. “She already got bail.”

  “She’s here already?”

  “No.” Mercifully the lift stopped and the doors opened into the marbled foyer of Hugo’s apartment. In front of them the enormous living room, bright even on dull days thanks to the ceiling-high, bulletproof windows that overlooked Grosvenor Gardens.