Hugo knocked on the door, and after ten seconds of silence the visitors swapped glances. Hugo looked past them and saw no cars, no signs that the house was occupied. Just the chimney smoke.
“Wait here,” Hugo said, “I’ll check around the back.”
Merlyn started to say something, then changed her mind. She waited with Pendrith as Hugo moved off to his right, peering into each window that he passed. So far, all had been dark. He reached the front right corner of the house and looked into the night, able to make out a lawn stretching away into the darkness as it reached around to the back of the house. He stood there for a moment, then made his way back to the front door and, without saying anything, turned the handle.
“You sure that’s a good idea?” Pendrith said.
“Nope,” Hugo said. “But I don’t have any others.”
The door opened silently, and Hugo stepped into the house. Pendrith followed him, and Merlyn stood in the doorway, eyes wide and worried.
“Police!” Hugo called. “Anyone home?”
Pendrith looked at him sideways. “‘Police’?” he whispered.
Hugo turned and flashed a quick smile. “You’d rather I announced us as burglars?”
They moved into the hallway. To the right, a staircase curved up to a landing and then on to the second floor. On their left, a door stood open and Hugo stepped through it into an untidy study. In front of him sat a large wooden desk, littered with pens and glass paperweights. Sagging cardboard boxes lined the wall on the left, and opposite them, stacks of yellowing papers spilled across a leather couch that had also seen better days.
He joined the other two and led them past the staircase into a large room that took up the back half of the house and, in daylight, looked out over the back garden. The left half of the high-ceilinged space was used as a dining room and was dominated by an oversized table covered in a cloth that had once been white, a dozen chairs tucked tidily under its skirt. Former generations of the Drinker family gazed at each other across the table, grim and formal in their gilt frames. On the right side was the sitting room, populated by cloth couches and a scattering of armchairs, an even mixture of cracked leather and faded floral prints. Here, the pasty-faced relatives made way for various bucolic scenes, a few in heavy oil and a handful of smaller and more cheerful watercolors. One of the large windows had been converted into French doors, and he guessed that a patio lay just outside.
The room smelled musty, dusty even, and Hugo saw that the walk-in fireplace glowed orange. He listened but heard no one, no sounds at all. And yet he felt sure they weren’t the only ones here. He started to his left, to head through the dining room toward where he thought the kitchen would be, when a sudden thump from upstairs stopped them. A weak cry filtered through the ceiling and they heard another thump, then silence.
Hugo pushed past Pendrith and Merlyn, heading back toward the stairs. He grabbed the banister and started up, taking them two at a time and drawing his gun as he ran. He paused at the top and looked both ways. He saw no one but the sound came again, from his left, so he went that way, slower now, more careful. He heard Pendrith behind him and hoped the Englishman had had the sense to make Merlyn wait at the bottom of the stairs.
The hallway was wide and dim, and on each side there were two closed doors leading to bedrooms or bathrooms, Hugo assumed. From one of them, on his left, light was leaking out from under the door. He looked down the hallway, but the others seemed to be dark. He stood to one side of the door and motioned for Pendrith to stop where he was, ten feet away. Hugo rapped on the door with the butt of his gun.
“Anyone in there?” he called. “Police here.”
From inside the room they heard another cry, and Hugo recognized the sound of a man in pain. He reached down and tried the handle, and it turned in his hand. Still to one side, he pushed the door open and light spilled out into the hall. Hugo moved into the doorway, gun raised, and found himself in a large bedroom.
Directly opposite him, propped up with his back against a wooden dresser, sat a man clutching his stomach. Blood coated the man’s left hand, and his right held an object that Hugo couldn’t immediately recognize. His legs stuck straight out toward the door, and his eyes rolled slowly up as Hugo moved closer. They had the glazed look Hugo had seen a handful of times before when he was with the FBI, a look that spoke of a man in deep physical shock, a whisper away from death.
Hugo turned when he heard Pendrith speak behind him. “I’ll call for an ambulance.”
“Good,” said Hugo. “Tell them to hurry.” He turned to the wounded man. “Are you Brian Drinker?”
The man seemed to nod, but Hugo wasn’t sure. Red bubbles appeared on his lower lip and the man groaned, then managed a whisper. “Yes.”
“Brian, who did this?” Hugo said. “Can you tell me what happened?”
Drinker grimaced and his eyes slid down and to the right, to the object in his hand. Hugo looked and saw an open cell phone, the buttons slick with blood. “I tried … couldn’t …”
“It’s OK,” Hugo said, his voice low and calm. “Help is on the way. I just need you to tell me what happened, can you do that?”
“He came here,” Drinker gasped. “I wasn’t going to let him in.”
“Who?” Hugo urged.
“But he said … he apologized.” Drinker suddenly gripped Hugo’s wrist with his bloody left hand. “He said he was sorry.”
“Harper? Are you saying Dayton Harper did this?”
Drinker groaned and looked away, then his hand fell from Hugo’s wrist. He coughed once and then looked up.
“It wasn’t meant to happen this way,” Drinker said. “That’s what he told me.” He turned to Hugo, his eyes wide and brimming with tears, his voice rasping. “I don’t understand. Why did he shoot me? I didn’t do anything.”
Drinker closed his eyes and his breath rattled in his throat. Hugo looked at the wound in the farmer’s stomach but didn’t touch it. The bleeding looked to have stopped and Hugo didn’t want to restart it by adding pressure. He looked up at Pendrith, who shook his head and spoke quietly.
“We’re in the country, an ambulance will take twenty minutes to get out here. Same for the police, probably.”
“I don’t mind waiting for an ambulance, but we don’t have time to explain this to the police,” Hugo said. “And Harper can’t be too far away.”
“You go,” Pendrith said. “I’ll wait with him. I can call some people I used to work with, make sure the police keep this wrapped up — for now, anyway.”
Hugo stood and looked over Pendrith’s shoulder to see Merlyn standing in the hallway. She was pale and her big eyes looked like those of a deer face-to-face with its hunter.
“What’s happening?” she said.
“Buggered if I know,” said Pendrith, as the two men moved into the hall. “Hugo, why would Harper shoot this man?”
“I wish I knew,” said Hugo. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“He’s gone stark-raving mad,” said Pendrith. “Off his rocker.”
Hugo nodded. “That’s about all I can come up with, too. All the more reason for me to find him.”
“Damn right,” said Pendrith. “And the sooner the better.”
They looked back into the room as Brian Drinker moaned and opened his eyes. He was trying to speak, but Pendrith stepped into the doorway ahead of Hugo. The Englishman looked back at and nodded toward Merlyn, who had a hand over her mouth. “Go,” Pendrith said to Hugo. “And you better take her with you.”