Beacon Hill

by Colin Campbell

  Wind swirled around the skeleton framework, all that remained of the walls and windows, and whipped loose papers and stationary into a swirling frenzy. Two pencils fired across the office so fast they stuck in the back of the swivel chair like arrows in a cowboy movie. Grant remembered his father pointing out the wooden boards the cavalry used to wear under their shirts to take the arrow hits. Couple of inches off target and John Wayne wouldn’t have survived long enough to make True Grit.

  Grant wasn’t showing true grit right now. His right leg hurt and one side of his face felt like it had been blowtorched. He couldn’t be sure but he thought maybe the hair had been more than singed this time. It felt like the exploding flare had succeeded where Ken Dackermann’s burning cellar had failed and scalped Grant like an Indian.

  The wind was still strong but at least the rain had stopped. The storm was moving north and petering out, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. The destruction in the office was manmade though. Grant peered from behind the cabinet but couldn’t see the storage tanks. The fact that he was still alive told him all he needed to know. The fuel and shit hadn’t gone up. The Resurrection Man had saved the day again.

  The cabinet was pulled to one side and three assault rifles were stuck in his face. Grant looked at his hands. They were smoke-stained and bloody. He could only imagine what his face must look like. If he’d still been in the army, he reckoned he’d have stuck a rifle in his face as well. There was movement behind the rifles. The rest of the squad covered the perimeter. As far as the office was concerned that meant the corridor, the skeleton walls, and the door from the treatment plant.

  The cops took a backseat and let the marines secure the scene. All the cops except one.

  Sam Kincaid knelt beside Grant and waved the guns away.

  “Hold on. He’s one of ours.”

  The three marines stepped back and joined their colleagues. Another figure was pushed forward from the corridor. A marine spoke to Kincaid.

  “We found this one on the beach.”

  Daniel Hunt was wet and bedraggled and bleeding from the leg. The orange life preserver was stained with oil and smoke. At least the cold water had slowed the bleeding, but he was a long way from being okay.

  Grant saw him and managed a croaking response. “He’s one of ours too.”

  Kincaid nodded.

  “Mr. Hunt. Glad you could join us.”

  Hunt was too cold and shivering to speak. Kincaid concentrated on Grant.

  “Okay, this is going to hurt.”

  Kincaid waved for assistance and strong arms lifted the filing cabinet all the way off. The pain in Grant’s leg was sharp and hard when he tried to straighten it. When he looked down, he saw that his foot was facing the wrong way. Being squashed under heavy metal did wonders for your anatomy. Grant put a brave face on it.

  “Now I know what the dog felt like.”

  Kincaid shook his head. “The dog didn’t survive.”

  Grant looked up at the detective. “But I got resurrected. Is that what you’re gonna say?”

  Kincaid smiled. “Not me. That’s for your press buddies.”

  Grant looked up at the sky. The only good thing about the storm was that there was no WCVB helicopter filming Grant’s latest predicament. He turned onto his back and pushed up on his elbows. Ignored the pain in his leg.

  “They’re not my buddies.”

  Kincaid beckoned a Marine Corp medic and watched him unfold a collapsible stretcher. The detective nodded at Grant. “Let’s get you downstairs, out of this wind. Ambulance is on its way.”

  Grant was manoeuvred onto the stretcher. Kincaid stood up and looked around the smouldering remains of the office. “Where’s Dillman?”

  Grant considered for a moment before answering.

  “Everywhere.”

  Then another thought struck him. “Where’s the Queen?”

  Kincaid shook his head as the stretcher was lifted. “She didn’t make it.”

  The words echoed around Grant’s head. The enormity of the implications simply wouldn’t register. The only thing he could think of was Okay, looks like the Resurrection Man didn’t save the day after all.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  Hurricane Whatever-Name-They-Were-Calling-It, some obscure woman’s name Grant had never heard of, left a trail of destruction along the Eastern seaboard unrivalled in recent memory. From making landfall just south of New York, all the way through to the Rumney Marsh Reservation north of Boston where it finally petered out, the scarred landscape looked like a war zone. Roofs were torn off. Buildings were demolished. Cars and boats and airplanes were tossed aside like toys in a sandbox. Power lines were down. Cell phone towers had been twisted into metal origami. Coastal areas and low-lying flatlands were flooded for days, sending transport systems back to the dark ages.

  It was a testament to the resilience of the American people just how quickly they got things up and running again. The clean-up started almost immediately. Getting the power back on was a priority. Clearing the roads came next. Cell phone coverage was the last thing on the list, mainly because people could always use their landlines to make important telephone calls. The internet was back up on day one. Bloggers and social media talked about the storm and the cost and the human tragedy ad infinitum. The only thing they didn’t talk about was the incident at Deer Island. Because according to official sources, that never happened. The plane crash at Logan International was a tragic accident. The casualty list was confidential. But Kincaid’s words kept replaying in Grant’s head and he doubted he would ever get rid of them.

  “She didn’t make it? You could have been more specific. Fuckhead.”

  The private ward overlooking Lederman Park erupted in laughter. Mass Gen didn’t encourage laughter, it disturbed the other patients, but this hospital room was special. Three beds. Three very important people. One very big secret.

  Grant paraphrased again. “She didn’t fuckin’ make it?”

  Kincaid looked sheepish. “Sorry. It was in the heat of the moment.”

  Grant twisted upright against the stack of pillows. “The moment when we did what we didn’t officially do.”

  “Yeah. That moment. Bad choice of words. Sorry.”

  It had been two days since Hunt, Cornejo, and Grant had been installed in the privately funded room. Paid for by Daniel Hunt Enterprises. The three beds were in a line against the back wall, all facing the windows. The view across the Charles River Basin was spectacular. The plaster casts and bandages and rigs and pulleys were even more impressive. It reminded Grant of that scene in The Dirty Dozen where the survivors were saying that killing generals could become a habit. Charles Bronson, he thought. Two days of Grant believing he’d killed Her Majesty the Queen. Two days before Kincaid realized his mistake and explained.

  “I meant she didn’t make it on the flight. They took the warning seriously and sent an envoy instead.”

  Grant wanted clarification. “The storm warning?”

  Kincaid shook his head. “The IRA bomber on the loose warning. Looks like the Queen does pull out after all. When it’s the right thing to do.”

  Grant downplayed his involvement. “Just as well. This storm? Dogs would have been airsick. She never goes anywhere without her corgis.”

  Cornejo couldn’t twist in his bed. He had one arm in a cast and one leg plastered all the way to the thigh. The arm hung from a pulley system. The leg was counterbalanced at a forty-five-degree angle. He turned his head instead.

  “Strangest dogs in the world.”

  Hunt was the least injured. The leg was bandaged but he was otherwise free to move around. He shook his head.

  “No. That wrinkle-skinned thing without any fur. That’s strange.”

  Grant chuckled under his breath. “We had a lad back in Yorkshire. Farm hand. Called him Mint Sauce. Used to fuck new-born lambs. He’d have liked that dog. Stop him getting wool in his foreskin.”

 
Dirty Dozen laughter broke out again, with a couple of groans. Kincaid brought the meeting to order.

  “Bottom line. Deer Island? Never happened. There’ll be no official report. There’ll be no commendations. There’ll be no media circus.”

  Grant nodded. “Thank God for that.”

  Cornejo agreed. “Damn right.”

  Hunt kept quiet. This was new territory for him. His world dealt with balance sheets and expenditure and profits. The altruistic approach was a departure. Kincaid seemed to pick up on the vibe.

  “Mr. Hunt. Same goes for you. But I’ve been told that compensation will be generous. On the business front.”

  Grant caught Hunt’s eye and for a moment they looked at each other with renewed appreciation. Grant didn’t nod; he simply lowered his eyelids in a slow blink, then smiled.

  “Did I ever tell you about the firm of solicitors back home? Hunt, Lunt, Bunt, and Cun…”

  The laughter returned. Even Kincaid joined in. For Grant, the laughter disguised something deeper. A lot had happened since he’d covered Kincaid’s night shift in Jamaica Plain. Grant wouldn’t be going home to Terri Avellone. No amount of laughter could hide that.

  The bustle of hospital activity sounded in the main ward. The thud of helicopter blades came across the Charles River as a medivac approached Mass Gen’s heliport. A telephone began to ring at the nurses’ station. After a few minutes, a flustered nurse came in and whispered to Kincaid. He nodded and stood upright.

  The nurse went out. The call was transferred to the phone in the private ward. Kincaid answered, comically deferential. He took the phone to Grant and covered the mouthpiece.

  “It’s the Queen for you.”

  Everybody looked at the Yorkshire cop. Grant felt his inner calm evaporate. He took the handset but held the mouthpiece against his chest.

  “You don’t think she heard about the dog, do you?”

  Back to TOC

  Ex-army, retired cop and former scenes of crime officer. COLIN CAMPBELL served with the West Yorkshire police for 30 years. He is the author of the UK crime novels Blue Knight White Cross and Northern Ex, and the US thrillers featuring rogue Yorkshire Cop Jim Grant.

  CampbellFiction.com

  Back to TOC

  BOOKS BY COLIN CAMPBELL

  The Jim Grant Thrillers

  Jamaica Plain

  Montecito Heights

  Adobe Flats

  Snake Pass

  Beacon Hill

  Shelter Cove

  Catawba Point (*)

  A Vince McNulty Thriller

  Northern Ex

  The UK Crime Series

  Blue Knight White Cross

  Ballad of the One Legged Man

  Through the Ruins of Midnight

  Children

  Gargoyles—Skylights and Roofscapes

  Horror

  Darkwater Towers

  (*) Coming in 2020

  Back to TOC

  Here is a preview from 40 Nickels, the second Carnegie Fitch Mystery Fiasco by R. Daniel Lester, published by Shotgun Honey, an imprint of Down & Out Books.

  Click here for a complete catalog of titles available from Down & Out Books and its divisions and imprints.

  Before: Toronto, Ontario, 1956

  1

  The punch knocked the wind out of me good, a fist right in the breadbasket. I coughed. I wheezed. I sucked air that wasn’t there. Then I coughed some more. It was half real and half comedy bit, a little show for the barflies to give me time to recover. Plan my next move. Running away very fast was probably my best option, considering the big oaf didn’t seem bothered at all by the barstool I’d cracked over his back. But he was well into a full-on drunk with no signs of stopping until he crossed the finish line so that may have had something to do with it.

  Booze logic. The body forgets to feel pain.

  I didn’t have the luxury because I was practically sober. Spent my last dime on a glass of beer at the Wheat Sheaf Tavern, corner of King and Bathurst, one I was planning to nurse for a good long while. That is, until the large fella something degrading about my hat. And then I said something about his mother and voices were raised and that’s when I hit him with the barstool. Best to end a fight before it begins being a personal credo. But it only seemed to rile him up more. I blamed the barstool—lousy, cheap manufacturing. Broke like kindling surrendering in front of a fire.

  He towered over me. “So, you got somethin’ you wanna say or do you want a knuckle sandwich for lunch?” When I didn’t respond right away, his work boot nudged me in the ribs.

  “Okay,” I said, “I shouldn’t have compared your mother to a bottom feeding sucker fish. I don’t even know the woman, I’m sure she’s lovely.”

  “Hmm. Apology accepted. Now, you wanna get up or lie on the floor some more?”

  I mulled it over. “I suppose I could give upright a shot.”

  He reached out a giant bear paw and helped pull me up. I stood, straightening up slowly to look him in the eye. No such luck. My gaze ended at his chin, even though I was no slouch in the height department. They built ‘em big where this one came from. And that was the problem with starting a fight when the other guy was sitting down—perspective.

  “You pack quite a wallop, fella,” I said, when the spots in front of my eyes stopped dancing jigs and disappeared.

  He nodded, smiled, and placed a tightly wrapped roll of nickels on the counter. “I had a little help.”

  “That’s nifty,” I said.

  “Always served me pretty well. Makes a point.”

  “That it does. Though I’m curious: you roll ‘em yourself or get ‘em from the bank already done?”

  “Oh, I roll ‘em myself. Figure it’s more meaningful that way.”

  “Sure, I can see that. You from around here?”

  “Nah. Passin’ through. Headed north to the Sudbury Basin, to work the mine.” So that explained all the beer. He was getting one last drunk in before tunneling to the Earth’s core to harvest its precious metals.

  “Probably for the best. Otherwise I don’t think there’d be enough barstools to go around. I’m Carnegie Fitch. But most people just call me Fitch.”

  “I’m Wendell.”

  We shook hands like proper gentlemen, despite our deficiencies of character.

  “Not such a pleasure to meet you, Wendell, but I suppose I had it coming. So, what do you mine up there, anyway?”

  “Nickel and copper, mostly.”

  “Wait a minute, you mine for nickel and carry a roll of nickels? Your commitment to character in this human play called ‘Life’ is worthy of admiration and praise. You’re a true artiste. So much that I’d like to offer you a beer for your efforts. Bartender, a drink for my new friend here.” I patted my pockets exaggeratedly. I could do some performance art, too. “But oh yeah, my wallet’s a graveyard until payday.” The bartender stopped pouring.

  Wendell laughed, a loud, hollow sound. “You’re a funny guy, Fitch. How ‘bout I buy you a beer?”

  The bartender finished pouring and placed the beer in front of me, shaking his head in distain. He had no flair for the dramatic, I suppose, no appreciation for the arts. Regardless, it was the fastest beer I ever drank. One big gulp. Wendell was impressed and even offered to spring for another. Every drunk loved a drinking buddy. This time around, I declined. I wanted out of there. I needed air. And, frankly, an escape route. So, I wished him good luck with the mine and said to make friends with a canary. The remark shot over his head even as tall as he was and all I got back for my razor-sharp wit was a blank stare. Fair enough. Brains and brawn didn’t necessarily have to travel on the same ticket.

  When the door to the tavern shut behind me, I didn’t exactly run but I didn’t dilly-dally either. I fast walked down Bathurst to the end of the block, crossed the street, hopped a fence and cut across a deserted lot where only the crabgrass and broken bottles lay, seeking the safety of a
network of alleys and back routes leading to the collection of tar paper shacks and hobo tents I called home sweet home. I climbed out the other side of the lot, stopped and put my back against the nearest wall, peering around the corner of the brick building. Nothing to see. So I seemed to be in the clear: no sign of an irate Wendell looking for the asshole that ripped him off for two bucks worth of nickels. Fat city.

  The nickels still felt warm from the palm of his sucker punch hand. I dropped the roll in my shirt pocket and began to whistle. No bird song, but as I’d recently graduated from forcing air between pursed lips only to get nothing but a “pfft” sound I enjoyed the few notes I was able to produce. I’d gone into the bar to drink away my last dimes and ended up making two bucks, even if it wasn’t completely on the up and up. But neither was slugging a guy in the gut with a roll of nickels.

  My “this day really turned itself around” feeling lasted about thirty seconds. Because that was when I heard it: the whistling. Not like my whistling, no, of course not. That wouldn’t do. Not for him. He could whistle like a cat could meow. And then there he was, casually leaning in the alcove of a warehouse doorway up the alley from me. Hopping down, still whistling, and approaching with a wolf-like gait, a predator’s lope. Only a sniff of prey. Not hunting, not yet. The whistling stopped. He smiled big.

  “Mr. Carnegie Fitch, old buddy, old pal, fate has seen fit to once again intertwine our paths,” he said, opening his arms like we were long lost friends. Only we were neither.

  “Hey, Janssen,” I said.