Beacon Hill

by Colin Campbell

  “Because you attacked them with a table.”

  Grant jerked a thumb at the sky. “The chopper got all that?”

  Clark nodded. “From the café to the bank and all points between.”

  Grant put his hands in his pockets.

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. D’you think I could have a look at the coverage?”

  They walked back to the Community Boating Inc. parking lot. The WCVB news van was parked in the corner next a boat up on stocks being repainted. The van was more colorful than the boat; bright blue with a big number five in red denoting the channel five news arm of WCVB. The Boston Channel for local news. It had all that written across the side too. Grant feigned shading his eyes from the glare.

  “Whoa. Does it come in black?”

  Clark smiled. “Why? D’you want one?”

  Grant looked at the van, which was almost a miniature truck. It had a sliding door along one side and double doors at the back. A heavy-duty step plate for loading equipment, and a ladder to a platform on the roof for a camera tripod when shooting over a crowd. If they needed extra light, there was an extendable lamp that could come out of the roof like the ones the police had for major incidents. There were slots on all sides for taking pictures if you couldn’t get out. Grant nodded his approval.

  “It’d come in handy for surveillance. Not very inconspicuous though.”

  “Neither are you.”

  “Even without the orange windcheater?”

  “Even without that.”

  “I always reckoned fewer people would shoot at me if they could see I wasn’t a threat.”

  Clark directed Grant to the sliding door.

  “Your leather jacket today. That was a threat then?”

  Grant let Clark open the door.

  “Could have been the table. And the primal scream.”

  Clark stopped before climbing in.

  “Primal scream?”

  Grant nodded skyward.

  “You didn’t catch it? You need to get microphones on the chopper.”

  “We tried that. Can’t hear shit over the rotors.”

  “Yeah. Had that problem in LA.”

  They both got in the van and Clark shut the door. The interior housed a fully functioning TV studio with half a dozen color monitors, three hard drive recorders, and a DVD burner. A technician sat in a swivel chair that allowed him to swing between various keyboards, buttons, and dials. The TVs were monitoring a handful of news channels so that WCVB didn’t get caught out on breaking news.

  Grant took it all in but didn’t understand any of it. “Come a long way since VHS and Betamax, haven’t you?”

  Clark put a hand on the operator’s shoulder. “Replay the helicopter feed.”

  Grant stood beside Clark. She smelled nice without being overpowering. He could feel the warmth of her and couldn’t help throwing a sideways glance at her athletic figure. The expensive suit showed all the right curves without being in your face. Grant thought about what Terri Avellone had suggested earlier, about settling down together. Was he really prepared to pass up the chance of other female company? What if Kimberley Clark invited him out to dinner? Not likely, but what if? He decided Terri was enough woman for any man. Moving in with her would be a pleasure. Decision made. Now all he had to do was tell Terri.

  The center monitor broke into a sea of static, then settled down. It showed an overhead view of Charles Street. The armored car was bottom right engulfed in smoke. The camera zoomed in on the security guard opening the rear door. It juddered. Static flashed across the screen, then the camera whip-panned up the street, the cameraman having spotted something else he wanted to film.

  Grant looked shorter on the screen. A combination of the high angle and the extreme telephoto lens. He was coming past the front of the café carrying the table like a shield. He broke into a jog as he crossed the road, keeping low behind the stalled cars. Panicked bystanders were rushing in the opposite direction.

  Grant appeared to pause.

  He set his shoulders and flexed his knees.

  Then he charged into the smoke with the shield raised and slammed the first robber against the van. He spun on his heels, bringing the table round a fraction too late. The muzzle flash showed through the mist. Grant staggered. The helicopter drifted right, and the pair on the ground circled the screen without actually moving. Like a dance viewed from above. A woman came into view behind the robber. Something small and furry scampered beneath the gunman’s feet.

  Grant pushed up from the knees and hit the robber with the table lifting him in the air. Feet scrabbled for purchase. The dog tripped him up. Then everything was a tangle of arms and legs and a big round table. The gun went off again. Grant disarmed him. The damage wasn’t visible until the helicopter downdraft began to clear the air. Blood showed bright red against the shimmering mist.

  “Oops.”

  Grant could see why there was a public outcry. The robber had shot himself in the leg. Grant had been shot beneath the shoulder. But the dog had been steamrollered flat as a pancake with blood and guts spread all across the sidewalk.

  “Tell me that didn’t go out live.”

  Clark turned to look at him. “That’s it with live news. We did pixelate the gruesome bits in bulletins.”

  Grant made a rewind motion with one hand. “Can you go back to the café part?”

  The operator hit reverse and the action played backwards. When it reached the bit where Grant set off with the table, he hit play again. Grant leaned forward.

  “Slow it down.”

  The operator did. Grant was coming past the front door.

  “Stop.”

  The picture froze. The equipment was better than the multiplex CCTV kit back in Yorkshire. There was no static. Just a perfect still image: Grant with the table, customers standing in the doorway. One in particular.

  “Can you zoom in on him?”

  The operator did some fancy finger work and isolated the man coming out of the door. The picture became grainy. Some more fancy work and the picture cleaned up. Grant concentrated on the face. He’d seen it before under similar circumstances. News footage from a long time ago. Back in England. Just after a bomb had left thirteen dead and twenty-five injured.

  The IRA mainland bombing at Birmingham.

  The IRA bomber Mike Dillman.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Grant asked Kimberley Clark to drop him at Park Street station. She smelled a story, but Grant didn’t explain who the man in the doorway was. He said it was too early to say. Using the WCVB van’s telephone, he made a quick call to Kincaid. By the time Grant caught the T, Kincaid was waiting for him at Green Street in Jamaica Plain. So that Captain Hoyt couldn’t moan about Grant taking his detective away from District E13.

  “What trouble you got me in now?”

  Grant got in the Crown Vic and shut the door.

  “If I’m right? Big trouble.”

  “Oh shit. We’d better get a drink then.”

  Kincaid pulled away from the T and headed towards Center Street, the shopping and restaurant hub of Jamaica Plain. Five minutes later they were in Flanagan’s Bar. The widows and orphans jar was still on the bar. That seemed fitting, considering the conversation they were about to have.

  “Mike Dillman? Never heard of him.”

  They were sitting in a booth at the back of the bar near the restrooms. Daylight still clung to the remains of the evening, but the lights were on in Flanagan’s. Kincaid was drinking a local beer. Grant had a bottled Tetley’s.

  “You would if he’d been active here.”

  Kincaid wiped froth from his lip.

  “Obviously. But he wasn’t.”

  Grant waved at the front window.

  “See the street out there? Shops. Restaurants. Pedestrians. Imagine that times ten. Pedestrian precinct downtown maybe. Middle of the day. Families. Shoppers. Children. Dillman planted four bombs in
the metal waste bins, then watched from a café when he set them off. They were collecting body parts from the shop windows for three days.”

  Kincaid had no reply for that. He simply nodded and took another drink.

  Grant did the same to let the description sink in. The cold beer and the passage of time helped diminish the atrocity, but he could never forgive it. He took another drink for good measure.

  “A long time ago. Times have changed.”

  Kincaid didn’t look convinced. Cops never were. His furrowed brow matched Grant’s. For cops there was only right or wrong. Killing innocent bystanders would always be wrong, no matter how much the political climate changed. Kincaid had an idea where this was going. Grant leaned back against the wall.

  “Back then, Dillman was caught on CCTV in the café doorway.” The Tetley’s was still half full, but Grant ignored it. “I was only young. Before I joined the army. But I remember seeing him on the news. Didn’t look much older than me and he’d just killed a dozen people.”

  Grant toyed with his glass on the table but didn’t drink.

  “Changed a lot of people’s lives. Forever.”

  Kincaid locked eyes with Grant. “Killers usually do.”

  Grant stopped toying with the glass. He felt Kincaid’s eyes staring right through him. All the way inside of him. And wondered at the choice of words. How much could Kincaid see? Because Grant had killed people. In the army and in the police. No doubt he’d changed people’s lives too. He justified his actions every day and could live with what he’d done. But Birmingham? Lives were changed forever. Dillman went to prison. Grant joined the army.

  “A long time ago. Times have changed.”

  Grant’s repetition was almost to himself. His voice was low and hard. He glanced down at his beer and when he’d collected himself, he looked back at Kincaid.

  “He’d been in prison for years when politicians signed the peace accord. Brought an end to the conflict. Rolled out the bunting. Peace in our time. All that stuff. At a price.”

  Kincaid guessed what the price was. “They let him go?”

  Grant nodded. “Let all of them go.” He let out a snort of a laugh. “They’d killed and maimed hundreds—thousands. And now they were free. Called them political crimes. But people were still dead. Relatives still grieved.”

  Grant looked at his glass. It suddenly felt half empty instead of half full, his usual outlook on life. He flicked the top of the glass and it made a musical ping.

  “The irony is. D’you know what he did next? Became a politician and now he travels the world extolling the virtues of peace. Met the Queen. Shook hands with the prime minister. Been on television.”

  Kincaid shifted in his seat.

  “Made a lot of people angry, I bet.”

  Grant tried to keep pissed off out of his voice.

  “Pissed off a lot of people. Security forces weren’t happy. Relatives of the victims were incensed.”

  Kincaid rested his elbows on the table. This was coming around to what they were really here to talk about. He began teasing the answers out of Grant.

  “Threats were made?”

  Grant sat upright, his beer forgotten.

  “Over the years. Quite a few.”

  “Any followed through?”

  “Couple of attempts. One near miss. Funny thing is, him being on the receiving end just strengthened his position.”

  Kincaid was piecing things together. “But people still wanted to shoot him.”

  Grant tapped the table for emphasis. “Still want to shoot him.”

  “And you think somebody’s come over to take the shot.”

  Grant shrugged.

  “Come over or here already. You said it. This is Boston. Half the people here have Irish accents. I’ll bet there are plenty related to victims back in the day.”

  “Irish, not English?”

  “Dillman was an equal opportunity killer. If they were the wrong sort of Irish, he’d kill them too. All in the name of the cause.”

  Kincaid marshalled his thoughts. “You’re saying there’s plenty still want to kill him.”

  Grant nodded.

  “And it only takes one to be in Boston.”

  Kincaid raised his eyebrows. “Some might say you want to shoot him yourself.”

  Grant smiled but there was no humor in it.

  “Some would be right. Only I wouldn’t have missed.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The following morning saw a change of plan. Grant had been warned to stay away from Beacon Hill, so he did. He went to see Daniel Hunt at his office instead. At One Winthrop Square on Otis Street in the financial district. It wasn’t difficult to find out where Hunt ran his empire. He’d simply used Terri Avellone’s computer skills to Google it, and up popped the address.

  “You after causing trouble downtown again?”

  Terri seemed to have put discussions about their living arrangements on hold, and Grant didn’t mention his decision in that regard.

  “I don’t cause trouble. I’m just around when it happens.”

  Terri put the address into Google Maps, then changed the view from map to satellite. Winthrop Square wasn’t a square; it was a triangle. It looked like there was only one building you could say was actually in the square, facing the flat end of the triangle. Grant pointed at the little yellow man icon, and Terri dragged it onto Otis Street. The Street View opened, and she moved it until they were looking at the front of the building.

  ONE WINTHROP SQUARE

  A white plaque with fancy writing. A four-storey sandstone building with carved pillars, and smoked glass windows. Not the glass and steel skyscraper Grant expected. It did have one thing in common with the rich and the powerful though.

  “Why do big men always want to live at number one?”

  Terri leaned close and kissed Grant’s ear.

  “You don’t live at number one.”

  That brought the living arrangements back to the table. Grant decided they’d have to sit down and talk it through once he got a bit more time. He took her face in both hands and returned the kiss.

  “You free for a coffee later? I know this nice little street café.”

  Terri nodded. Grant smiled. First up, a visit to One Winthrop Square.

  The building looked smaller when he arrived. He reckoned it was due to the wide-angle lenses they used for Google Maps. It looked more exclusive in person though. The sandstone was smooth and hand carved. Ornate faces were chiselled into the pillars six feet up. The smoked glass was thick and clean, and looked like it could stop a bullet. The triangular park was neat and tidy, with a handful of trees and a bronze statue of some big fella with a hunched back. Not Quasimodo, but somebody local Grant had never heard of.

  Eleven o’clock. The sun slanted across the square and turned the leaves into bright yellow diamonds. The grass was perfectly manicured. Green and beige were the colors of choice. There was only one waste bin in the square, and none near the building. Grant filed that away as a potential opening line.

  There was no sign of the car. An empty parking bay had Hunt’s name on it. The man was rich enough to set his own business hours. Grant walked around the block once to get his bearings, then sat in the window of the Café de Boston across from the hunchback statue and waited. He bought a platter from the salad bar to snack on, deciding to eat healthy today, and was once again shocked at the size of the portions. This could keep him going for three days and feed his rabbit as well.

  Hunt arrived just before twelve. High noon. Grant left the rest of his salad and walked through the square towards the car. The tough-looking fella who Grant took to be ex-special forces got out. He didn’t open Hunt’s car door; the businessman wasn’t that pretentious at least. They approached the front door as Grant came out of the tree-lined pathway. The minder saw Grant coming before Hunt and positioned himself between the two of them, shoulders set, knees loose. Good stance. Relax
ed and ready for action.

  Hunt saw Grant and stopped. He looked neither surprised nor annoyed. This was simply another inconvenience in the life of the rich and shameless. The minder moved and stood slightly to one side. Grant stood between a tree and the solid metal waste bin.

  There was a moment’s silence. Nobody spoke. Nobody moved. The sun streaked through the leaves, and passers-by strolled the sidewalk as if nothing was wrong. Hunt threw Grant an almost disinterested look. Grant banged on the top of the bin like a drum.

  “Boom.”

  Hunt’s office was on the second floor overlooking the square. Up one flight of stairs, then along a wood-panelled corridor with large framed photographs of Hunt’s business empire. The photos were designed to impress and intimidate visitors. Grant was impressed. He didn’t understand what half of the photos represented, but if they were supposed to show Hunt’s wealth and power, then they did their job. Wealth didn’t intimidate Grant. Power could be a problem if it was used to exert pressure on the BPD.

  They passed through a secretary’s office at the end of the corridor. Hunt nodded at an efficient-looking woman behind her desk as he opened his door.

  “Two teas please, Gloria.”

  He went into his office. Grant followed.

  “I didn’t take you for a tea drinker.”

  Hunt closed the door. The minder stayed outside.

  “Boston is more refined. We had a rather big tea party once, you know.”

  “You had rather a lot of Indians too.”

  “We still do.”

  “More Irish now though.”

  Hunt went to a pair of leather chairs at the window. He gestured for Grant to sit, then lowered himself into the other chair. He crossed one leg, then straightened the trouser seam. A casual gesture designed to buy him time. Once he was comfortable, he looked at Grant.

  “You’re very persistent, aren’t you?”

  Grant relaxed into his seat.