There merest of nods, a shared moment of sadness between two men who faced it daily but never quite got used to it.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Hugo and DCI Upton returned to the church as the crime-scene team went to work filming and collecting evidence. It was the same pair as the night before, and they’d apologized for being late but also looked at Hugo and Upton quizzically, as if wondering about the American grim reaper who’d twice pulled them away from their usual crop of robberies and burglaries.
They got no explanations, because they didn’t need them to do their job and because there were none — not good ones, anyway.
Hugo and Upton sank onto rough wooden benches in the porch outside the main door of the church, away from the other officers, silent for a moment as they processed as best they could. Finally Upton spoke, one word.
“Shot.”
“I didn’t see any other trauma,” Hugo said. “Looked like one shot to the heart.”
“Suicide?”
“Maybe.”
“It fits. The love of his life is dead, he’s wracked with guilt at killing young Quincy Drinker, and he’s shot and killed the father for some damn reason. His acting career is over, he’s looking at a long time in prison …” Upton shrugged. “Seems to fit.”
“Yes,” Hugo nodded. “It seems to fit.” And yet it didn’t. If Harper had shot Old Man Drinker it might. But he hadn’t, and in Hugo’s mind it made the rest of the puzzle fall apart.
“We’ll know more soon. They’ll swab his hands for gunshot residue — that’ll tell us something.”
“Not much,” Hugo said. “Assuming your guys do it within about four hours of his death and they find something, it’ll tell us he was in the presence of a gun that was discharged. Which we kinda know already.”
“I’ve not had much experience with that particular science,” Upton said sheepishly. “Shot plenty of weapons, but we don’t get to enjoy the delights of GSR much in Hertfordshire. Thank God.”
“Like all police work,” Hugo said, “it ain’t like on TV. As you know, I’m sure. We see it a lot at home, too much, where someone is shot and ends up with lead in their chest and gunshot residue on their skin. Had a case where a guy fired an AK-47 from the back seat of a minivan and killed two people. His buddies in front of the van also tested positive for GSR, setting up a nice defense for the shooter.”
“Great,” Upton said. “We’ll see if we can trace the gun — that might get us somewhere. Where the hell would a Hollywood star get a gun in the middle of the English countryside?”
Hugo thought about that. “Well, given he’s a movie star, he’d probably just have to ask. Who’s going to say no? But he’d need to find someone who has a gun first.”
“Those movie weapons,” Upton said. “Are they real? If they are and just fire blanks, it seems like getting a few bullets might be easier than the gun itself.”
“No idea,” said Hugo. “Though I’m sure we can find out.”
“Any problem with this getting out to the media?” Upton asked. “Even if these young coppers haven’t figured out who he is, they will pretty soon, and it only takes one of them to talk.”
Hugo shook his head, but in disappointment not disagreement. He’d been involved in his share of high-profile cases in the past, profiling and catching several serial killers, and helping unravel a plot to assassinate the Russian ambassador in Washington. But nothing like this. Politics and violence commanded headlines, he knew, but not like celebrities. And this story would have it alclass="underline" sex, tragedy, love, and murder. Some of which he could have prevented. Should have prevented.
He rose. “I need to call Ambassador Cooper, let him know what’s happened.”
“Sounds like a fun call,” Upton said.
“If you like being posted to Bangladesh, sure,” Hugo smiled grimly. “Me, I’m getting used to the rain.”
“Don’t worry, they have rain there, too. Want me to talk to him?”
“I got it.” He pulled out his phone but stopped when he saw two people striding toward them. Constable Agarwal was almost trotting to keep up with the figure ahead of him, making a beeline for Hugo and Upton.
“I told him she wasn’t invited,” Upton said, standing and moving into the path. “Agarwal, I told you—”
“It’s OK,” Hugo said. “No harm done.”
Merlyn reached them, out of breath and seething. “What the hell’s going on? If it wasn’t for me, you’d be chasing your fucking tails still.” She noticed the activity at the far end of the graveyard. “What’s that about?”
Hugo took her by the elbow and steered her into the porch, pulling her down to sit next to him. He told her slowly and gently, taking her hand when her face paled, waiting quietly for a moment, holding her hands as she sobbed. After a moment, he stood and moved over to where Upton and Agarwal were deep in discussion.
“Pendrith taking a leak in the trees or something?” Hugo asked.
Upton turned and looked at him, no trace of a smile on his face. “He wasn’t at the pub.”
“What?”
“He wasn’t there, sir,” Agarwal confirmed. “The landlord hadn’t seen him, nor had the young lady. No one’s seen him since last night.”
“You checked his room?”
“Yes, sir. Cleaned up and cleaned out, nothing there at all. He even made the bed before he left.”
The landlord told Hugo and DCI Upton the same thing he’d told the constable, adding for Hugo’s benefit the observation that just because a guest had walked off into the sunset, or sunrise, as the case may be, and just because the cops were all worried, didn’t mean those rooms didn’t need to be paid for.
Hugo dug out his wallet and handed the man cash, then dialed Pendrith’s phone for the third time in ten minutes. When it went to voicemail, Hugo climbed the stairs with Upton and stood at the entrance to Pendrith’s small room. The landlord assured them that the rooms hadn’t been touched, what with his wife being sick, which was the first good news Hugo had heard in hours. The bed had been made, as Agarwal had said, and a cursory search also confirmed what was obvious from the outset: no indication of where Pendrith had gone or why he’d left.
“No signs of a struggle,” Upton said. “That’s something.”
“I guess.” Hugo stood at the end of the bed and ran his hand over the blanket. He looked down at it. “Did you go to boarding school, Clive?”
“Boarding school? No, why?”
“How about the military?”
“Nope. Local grammar school, local university, local police. My life in a nutshell. Why?”
“Look at the bed, the way it’s made.”
“Like a maid did it,” Upton shrugged. “A nicely made bed, your point being that he wasn’t in a hurry?”
“My point being that perhaps he didn’t make it.”
“Explain.”
“The FBI is famous for its training and application of the behavioral sciences, right?”
“Profiling, you mean. Yes, that’s right.”
“But you Brits are pretty good at it, too. I came over here a few years ago and took a course with a guy from Scotland Yard. Anyway, profiling courses and training are naturally full of examples, real-life examples, that show a little about the unsub.”
“Unsub?”
“Unknown subject, sorry,” Hugo smiled. “Anyway, one example this Scotland Yard guy gave us really stuck in my head. There had been a few murders in a town called Colchester, women raped and strangled in their beds. The locals didn’t have any idea who did it or why, so these guys from Scotland Yard came and looked at pictures of the crime scenes. This detective saw what the local police had seen, that the unsub killed these women and then left them in their beds but remade them, tucked them in almost. But what this Yard detective saw was the way the beds were made. The corners had been tucked a certain way, I think he called them hospital corners.”