Hugo slid the card into the reader and watched as the little light changed from red to green with a soft click. He pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The room was smaller than he’d expected, sparingly furnished in the style of the hotel. The bed was a four-poster in dark wood with a silk canopy. It sat on a heavy cream carpet that covered the whole floor. The walls were unadorned, an off-white stone that was almost yellow, and thick beams crossed the ceiling. A pair of wrought-iron sconces were bolted to the beams, adding to the gothic look, though Hugo noted that they held energy-efficient bulbs. A stone archway with an engraved keystone capped an iron-studded wooden door that, Hugo assumed, led to the bathroom.
He took in as much as he could before walking into the room, noting that the bed was made and the room was tidy, but definitely occupied. A pair of shoes sat neatly under the main window opposite him, and from where he stood he could see that the open closet to his left was filled with clothes, mostly black. Men’s and women’s, as far as he could tell without touching anything.
He moved farther into the room and, in the far corner, he saw a small desk and a laptop computer. He stepped toward it as Pendrith spoke behind him.
“I’ll check the bathroom, make sure there are no bodies in the tub.” Hugo knew the Englishman was joking, but if there were bodies in there, Pendrith was welcome to find them.
Hugo slid the lever on the front edge of the laptop, but it wouldn’t open. He applied a little more force and managed to get it open but frowned when he saw the keypad. It had been beaten with a blunt instrument, and when Hugo looked down to his left he saw the murder weapon, a retro-style phone, black, heavy, and very broken. An empty can of Coke lay on the desk beside the computer and, by brushing his fingers over the brutalized keypad, Hugo could tell it had been emptied over the laptop. Beaten and drowned, he thought. Hugo tipped the computer back and saw that the hard drive was still in place. That was the thing about computers. If you didn’t know anything about them, how they worked or what information they stored, they’d get you every time. If Harper had been trying to destroy evidence of a crime, or some other secret, he’d managed only a temporary destruction. Hugo was pretty sure a forensic computer scientist would laugh at broken keys and a sticky motherboard.
On the other hand, Hugo was no computer scientist and had hoped to find something that would locate Harper now, so even a temporary hurdle like this was a victory for the man on the lam.
“Got something?” Pendrith asked, looking over his shoulder.
“Busted computer,” Hugo said. “Fixable but no use to us right now.”
“He didn’t take the hard drive out?”
“Apparently doesn’t know much about computers.”
“Even so, the Coke seems to have done the trick. What a bugger.”
“Anything in the bathroom?”
“Nothing that tells me where our runaway is headed.”
They separated and started searching the bedroom, Hugo stooping to look under the bed, where he spotted a suitcase. He reached under and pulled it out, then heaved it onto the bed and flipped up the lid.
The case was light and now Hugo saw why. It was empty except for half a dozen silk scarves, all black. Besides those, the suitcase contained just one large, clear plastic bag and a roll of Saran Wrap.
“What do you make of this?” Hugo said to Pendrith, who had emptied out the closet and stood there frowning at a pile of clothes on the floor.
“What do you have there, old boy?” He walked over and stood by the bed, looking into the case. “A magician’s kit?”
“I don’t see any doves or a white rabbit, do you?” Hugo said dryly.
“No,” Pendrith guffawed. “But our man Harper is pretty good at the old disappearing trick.”
Hugo nodded, committed the items in the case to memory, and closed the lid. As he did, a small rectangle of paper fluttered out of the lining and landed on the bedspread.
“What’s that, a business card?” asked Pendrith.
“Looks like it.” Hugo picked up the card by the edges and inspected both sides. All it contained was, on one side, the words Braxton and Weston, and a phone number. The type was heavy and the card itself flimsy. A cheap business card with little information, but it was all they had. Hugo pulled out his cell phone and dialed the main number to the security offices at the embassy. The phone was answered by one of the duty officers, Jeremy Sylestine. Hugo asked him to run the names and phone number and see what came up.
“It’s not a working number, sir, and never was from what I can see. The prefix is for … Hertfordshire. And in Hertfordshire, I’m showing a Braxton Hall, in the village of Weston. That what you’re looking for?”
“No idea,” Hugo said. He turned to Pendrith. “Weston village, in Hertfordshire, ever heard of it?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I know it quite well,” Pendrith said. “They have a couple of first-class pheasant shoots up there; I go two or three times a year. More if I can. What’s the specific address?”
“Braxton Hall. No street number, or even street name apparently. Just a postal code.”
“Don’t know it,” Pendrith frowned.
Hugo thanked Sylestine and closed his phone. “Great, a vague address and no information about the people who live there.”
“Call the number,” Pendrith suggested.
“And say what? That a movie star is on the run in London and we found your card in his suitcase, can you please tell us what is going on?”
“You have a better suggestion?”
“Maybe.” Hugo thought for a moment. “Hertfordshire. Isn’t that where he was filming a movie?”
“Yes,” said Pendrith. “But I can’t imagine it was in Weston. Or anywhere around there.”
Hugo sat in one of the armchairs and flipped open his cell phone again. “Well, we’re at a dead end so I need to let my boss know what’s going on.”
“The ambassador?”
“Yes.”
“Be happy to make the call for you, old chap, I’m guessing he won’t be too happy, and I’d be glad to soften the blow.”
Hugo shook his head and dialed the ambassador’s secretary. He’d screwed up by letting Harper run off, and he was perfectly willing to tell his boss that. As long as Ambassador Cooper let him fix the problem, that was all Hugo wanted. As the phone rang, Pendrith started for the door.
“I’m going to talk to the lady of the house, see if she can be a little more helpful.” He eyed the phone in Hugo’s hand. “Give the old boy my regards. And good luck.”
They set off almost immediately, heading north along Holloway Road and making for the A1, which would take them due north out of London and into Hertfordshire. Pendrith assured Hugo that with light traffic, they would be there in an hour, maybe less. They made good time out of central London, spearheading the first wave of rush hour, leading the charge of Jags, Porsches, and Mercs of those who didn’t need permission to leave work early and did so every day to make it to their country homes in the counties surrounding the capital. Not for them the cramped or overpriced London flats, not for them swallowing the fumes of the buses and the flaccid sedans of the middle classes.
As they cleared the last stop-and-go traffic in northern London and hit the A1 proper, Hugo drifted into the left lane to let a speeding taxi go by. That’s fine, he thought, let the fast cars exercise their muscles and sweep the road ahead for hungry cops. He tucked the Cadillac four car lengths behind a Range Rover that’d had its right blinker on for two miles already, set the cruise control at seventy miles per hour, and watched his mirrors out of habit rather than necessity. Once he thought he saw a car he recognized, but not being able to place it, he put it down to healthy paranoia.