Jamaica Plain (9780738736396) by Colin Campbell Read Free Book Online Page A

newsworthy.
    Grant’s orange windcheater caught O’Rourke’s eye.
    Surprisingly, the grizzled desk sergeant jerked a thumb towards the side door, then pressed the button under the counter. The door lock buzzed open and the foreigner from across the pond took a step towards acceptance. He went through with a nod of thanks, then climbed the stairs in the clock tower. When he pushed the door marked Detectives open, the activity was no less frenetic but slightly more controlled. Telephones rang. People talked. Detectives took reports from disgruntled members of the public who had been filtered through from downstairs.
    Miller was taking a report from a Hispanic with singed eyebrows.
    Kincaid was talking on the phone.
    This was not a good day to be interviewing a no-mark prisoner held as a courtesy for a foreign force. Grant already felt the futility of this entire visit. It was an exercise in cover-your-ass. Normally they would have simply asked the detaining force, the BPD, to perform a brief interview and fax a copy to Ecclesfield. Then the crime could be written off as undetected and Sullivan released. Cheap and easy. The only reason for this expensive variation was to protect the service by hiding the key figure in the Snake Pass debacle.
    Police Constable Jim Grant.
    Grant didn’t like running and hiding. He preferred to face things head-on. He hadn’t done anything wrong. It had been other people’s mistake for underestimating him. The good guys won. The bad guys lost, big-time. That was a good scenario in Grant’s book. Now this. It felt less like a holiday assignment and more like a slap on the wrist.
    Well, if cover-your-ass was all they wanted, that’s all they were going to get. He wanted this interview over and done with so he could go home and face the music. He wasn’t the one who would come out of it looking bad.
    Kincaid stopped talking and hung up the phone. The orange windcheater caught his attention, and he nodded towards the corridor. Grant got the message. There would be more privacy in the hallway than in the office today. He dropped the empty soda can he’d bought across the road in the bin and went outside. Kincaid burst through the door and kept on walking along the corridor and round the corner.
    Grant felt his hackles rise but controlled his temper.
    He found Kincaid drinking from a paper cup at the water cooler just beyond the stairwell door. The second corridor was longer, with more offices along the left and more windows along the right. The windows overlooked the front of the station. The damaged patrol cars were parked directly below. That put things in perspective, but Grant was still annoyed at being blanked by the senior detective. “What’s up? Somebody burn the barbecue?”
    Kincaid stopped with the cup halfway to his mouth. “Don’t push your luck.”
    Grant indicated the damaged cars through the window. “Anybody hurt?”
    Meaning officers, not citizens. Kincaid understood. It was the first thing any cop asked after the shit hit the fan. Check on your colleagues first. There was no less concern for the victims, but if the cops got injured, they couldn’t prevent it happening to anyone else. Grant’s first sergeant had told him, after graduating from driving school, that driving fast with blue lights and sirens was okay, but you still had to drive safely because you couldn’t help who you were speeding to help if you ploughed your car into a tree. Same principle here. Kincaid’s demeanor softened. “Two. Minor injuries. Band-aid, then back on duty.”
    â€œGood.”
    â€œThe only fucking thing that is.”
    â€œThat’s the job. Shit rolls downhill. Cops live in the valley.”
    â€œIs that some quaint English folk saying? ’Cause if it is, I’m not surprised every fucker left to discover America.”
    â€œThat’d be Columbus. He wasn’t