The Button Man: A Hugo Marston Novel (25 page)

And then he was on the Quai de Montebello, standing beside a café named Panis, waiting for the light to change. Opposite him was the Pont au Double, the pedestrian-only bridge that took foot traffic to the Cathedral of Notre Dame, which he could see from where he stood.

At a break in the traffic he crossed the road and walked west, away from the bridge, soon pausing at a riverfront bookstall. These stalls were Parisian landmarks, each one made up of four metal boxes fixed to the stone wall overlooking the Seine. The boxes were green, and each was about six feet long and full of postcards, key chains, and other trinkets, as well as secondhand books. The seller, the
bouquiniste
, smiled a greeting, and Hugo practiced his French, asking whether they’d had snow and asking him how business had been. After a few minutes browsing, Hugo bought a postcard with Merlyn vaguely in mind, then continued along the sidewalk.

As he walked, he glanced over at the River Seine on his right. The water was high, confirming the bouquiniste’s tale of no snow but plentiful rain, and Hugo stopped for a moment, leaning against the stone balustrade, watching the debris being swept along by the current. The river looked heavy, sluggish, rolling lazily past him, squeezed by its stone banks like charcoal paint being squeezed from a tube onto an artist’s palette.

He straightened and checked his watch, then kept moving when he saw how little time had passed. As he approached the most historic of the bridges, Pont Neuf, he spotted another bouquiniste open for business and slowed. The seller was an older man with a large red nose and a shuffling gait. His head was topped with the traditional beret, and Hugo wondered if that was just for the tourists, like him.

“
Bonjour, monsieur
,” Hugo said. He stopped in front of the second of the metal boxes bolted to the wall.

“
Bonjour
,” said the old man. “
Américain
?”

“
Oui
,” Hugo said, continuing in French, “Is it that obvious?”

The man smiled and nodded downward, toward Hugo’s cowboy boots, then went back to arranging his stall. Hugo looked over the books, surprised to see more than battered copies of the classics and mainstream thrillers. One book in particular caught his eye, partly because it was one of the few in English. It was a hardback, pocket-sized but thick, titled
Hidden Horror: The World’s Most Evil and Least Known Serial Killers
. A subject close to his own heart. He picked up the book and started to flick through it.

He had, of course, heard of most of the men and women mentioned, but he was nonetheless impressed at the research that had gone into the book. Even a brief look told him new things about Texan Joe Ball, who fed his victims to his pet alligators, and about Elizabeth Bathory, who tortured and killed hundreds of girls in various castles in Hungary back in the 1500s.

And then his eye fell onto a picture of New Orleans, a drawing showing the French Quarter as it looked in 1916. He started to read the text and felt a rising excitement as several pieces of information reached out and grabbed, pulling him completely into the tale of the killer from the Big Easy.

He needed to buy this book, to stop himself from reading the whole thing here, but he skipped to the end of the passage to learn one fact: the New Orleans killer had never been identified.

Hugo held the book up. “
Combien
?” How much?

The old man shuffled over. “It’s written on the back,
non
?”

Hugo looked. “Not this one.”

“
Merde
.” The seller took the book. “I don’t know, maybe five euros?”

Hugo thought he’d misheard. The book was in good shape, maybe not even secondhand, so he dug out a ten-euro note and handed it over. “Keep the change.”

“You want something else for your money? Maybe something French,” the old man winked, “you speak it well, I suppose you can read it?”

“With the help of a dictionary,” Hugo said. He offered his hand. “Hugo Marston.”

The old man seem surprised but took Hugo’s hand. “Max.” He winked again. “Just Max.”

“
Enchanté
.”

“You live here, monsieur?”

“No. I’d like to, though. Maybe I can arrange it.”

“If so, you will have to buy some real shoes, I think.”

“Then maybe I won’t,” Hugo smiled. “These are very comfortable and I’ve worn cowboys boots for the last forty years. I’m not sure my feet would appreciate fancy French shoes at this point.”

They talked about books for a couple of minutes, then the weather, until Hugo looked at his watch and said he had to go. They shook hands again, and Hugo started back the way he’d come, the Seine rolling along on his left, carrying a pair of tourist boats toward the Isle de la Cité ahead of him. He patted the book in his pocket, his mind wanting to toy with the possibilities that had leapt at him from its pages, whispers of a connection, just possibly, to the first murder that had captured his interest in England, a murder that was now a hundred years old.

But first, the Pendrith mystery.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

H
ugo waited at the café for thirty minutes. A sense of unease settled in long before that, almost as soon as he’d sat down and ordered coffee, a feeling that quickly grew into frustration and then annoyance.

He checked his watch every two minutes, resisting the urge to do it more often, his eyes locked on the front of Pendrith’s building, breaking away only to scour the sidewalk. The obvious conclusion was that he’d been duped. Easily too, although at the time he’d not had much option other than to go along with Pendrith’s arrangement. But duped nonetheless.

When it became clear that Pendrith wasn’t showing, there was only one thing for Hugo to do. He paid his tab at the café for the second time and crossed the busy Rue Monge to Pendrith’s apartment building. Two stone steps led up to the double front doors, and twelve buttons to the right of the doors connected the outside world with those inside. He noted that Pendrith’s name was not listed and all the names were French. He started pressing buttons, and whoever lived behind the eighth one let him in without any questions.

A black-and-white-tiled entrance held mail slots for the residents, and another set of doors lay ahead of him. He pushed through and went straight up the stairs to the second floor. It was on the right at the top of the stairs, looking out over Rue Monge.

He paused by the door and listened, but heard nothing. He looked at the bottom of the door but saw no light, no moving shadows. Nothing. He stood to one side of the door, wishing he had his gun, and rapped his knuckles against the wood. When he got no response he knocked a second time, louder, and then a third. After a full minute of silence, he reached down and tried the handle.

It was unlocked, and his stomach tightened. Had Pendrith taken off and left his apartment open?
Unlikely
, Hugo thought.
Very unlikely
.

He pushed the door open, staying to the side, not eager to make himself a target. He waited for a moment, then ducked inside, eyes sweeping the room.

He saw Pendrith immediately, sitting opposite the front door in a large leather chair, feet propped on an ottoman as if waiting to receive guests. A single bullet hole dribbled blood over his right cheek and ear. Hugo moved closer and saw that the skin around the hole itself had been burned by a close-range shot. A gun lay on the floor beside the chair.

Hugo reached for his phone, then hesitated. He wasn’t even sure who to call any more. He looked around and saw papers on a desk at one end of the sitting room. He’d call the local police, but he needed to look around first. He left his phone in his pocket and walked quickly through the apartment, making sure he was alone.

When he came back into the main room, he flicked on the lights. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and used it to methodically open drawers, check every surface, and scan every piece of paper. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for—perhaps a link to the mayhem being wrought across the Channel, maybe just some indication that Pendrith’s demise wasn’t as it appeared.

The only thing out of the ordinary was Pendrith’s desk. The top was covered with news articles and other papers, and Hugo sat down to study them, careful to keep his hands in his lap.

The majority featured the release of convicted criminals in England, mostly murderers, but a few rapists, who had been released and committed further crimes, the headlines screaming bloody murder. Two of the stories had been written by Harry Walton and, from their tone and judging by his choice of interviewees, Walton did not approve of the release of the prisoners, an I-told-you-so flavor to his writing.

Hugo saw, too, a recidivism study addressing all types of criminals, from burglars and drug dealers all the way up the ladder of crime to murderers. Beside it on the desk sat a draft of the bill Pendrith was championing, a bill that advocated for the release of England’s aging convicts.

Hugo sat back and thought. So much of this didn’t make sense. His eyes roamed over the desktop again, the sense that he was missing something nagging at him. He got up and went over to Pendrith. Gently, without moving him or touching anywhere that would hold a fingerprint, Hugo searched the dead man’s pockets. The navy jacket contained a wallet in one pocket and passport in the other. Where was his phone? Hugo held his breath as he shifted the body enough to be able to be sure his pants pockets were empty, suddenly aware of the undignified whiff of urine that rose from Pendrith’s body, an expulsion as natural and inevitable as his last breath.

Hugo searched his front and back pockets but they were all empty. He straightened and began to search the room again, knowing it was easier to find something when you knew what you were looking for. And yet, after ten minutes he still hadn’t found it. He went back to Pendrith and stood looking at him, then knelt in front of the body and slid his hands down the sides of the seat cushion. As he worked his fingers toward the back of the seat, his left hand touched something cold, something wedged as deep as it could go. Pendrith’s phone.

He tugged it out, suddenly aware that his prints were all over it. Too late to prevent that, he’d wipe it down later. Hugo hadn’t moved over to this type of phone, one with a touchscreen. He still used a flip phone, didn’t text, and had never even held one like this. He touched the screen and found himself looking at Pendrith’s e-mail account and was about to open a message when his own phone buzzed in his pocket, vibrating against his leg. He fished it out and looked at the caller ID. Merlyn.

“Hey,” Hugo said. “How are you?”

“Still pissed off. Where are you?”

“Paris.”

“I know that, you arse. Where exactly, and doing what?”

Hugo looked down at Pendrith. Merlyn had been through a lot more than she deserved, and yet she didn’t deserve to be lied to. “You sitting down?”

“Yes. And drinking. What’s up?”

“I found Pendrith.”

“What did that pompous arse have to say for himself?”

“Merlyn, hold up. Look, I’m sorry to tell you this, but Pendrith is dead.”

A silence, then her voice came back, subdued now. “Oh, Hugo, no. Not him, too.”

“I’m sorry, yes.”

“How? Who did it?”

Hugo surveyed the scene. “It looks like suicide. One shot to the head, gun on the floor beside him. But . . .”

“But what?”

“Something’s not right. He has papers lined up on his desk, neatly, like he wanted someone to see them. To find them when they found him.”

“So?”

“So why not just leave a note?”

“There wasn’t one?”

“No. And to be honest, if Pendrith was going to kill himself, I’d expect to see a note, a finished cigar, and an empty glass of something.” Hugo looked at his left hand. “And I found his phone shoved down the side of his seat, which seems odd.”

“Could it have fallen there if he shot himself?”

“I suppose,” Hugo said doubtfully. And then it hit him. “The front door was unlocked. Shit, Merlyn, the front door was unlocked.”

“Maybe he did that to make it easier for someone to find him, so they wouldn’t have to break down the door.”

“Nice idea, but I don’t think so,” Hugo said. He was scrolling through Pendrith’s call log and seeing nothing in the two hours since they’d met at the café. “Because if he’s dead, why would he care about a busted lock? And if he wanted to make sure that someone found him, he’d call the cops right before pulling the trigger. No, remember when we were staying at that pub? Every time he went in or out of his room, he locked the door—it was instinct for him. I don’t think there’s any way he’d leave his apartment unlocked, especially if he was leaving out important papers and planning to shoot himself. It might be consistent with some people, but not Pendrith.”

“What are you saying, Hugo?”

“That someone else killed him. Someone else followed him and shot him here.”

“Someone he knew?”

“Probably. I’m not sure Pendrith would have let a stranger into his apartment, given what’s been going on. He told me he was planning to disappear, so I doubt he’d even answer the door.”

“Wait, when did he tell you that?”

“I saw him. Today, barely an hour ago.”

“Oh my God, Hugo, that’s insane.” She was quiet for a minute. “Wait, so that means either he knew the person or someone put a gun to the back of his head at the doorway.”

“The former. I think he knew whoever it was.”
Walton
. “Remember the phone?”

“What about it?” Merlyn asked.

“If someone had surprised him at his door, someone he didn’t know, I don’t see him pulling out his phone to stuff it down the side of the chair.”

“But who even knew he was in Paris?” she asked. “Who the hell would want to hurt him?”

There was only one person, the only domino in this game that hadn’t fallen or been knocked over. “I’m not sure yet,” he told Merlyn, not having enough of an explanation to warrant giving her Walton’s name. To be certain, he’d need to find out who died in the red Mini.