Free Jamaica Plain (9780738736396) by Colin Campbell

windcheater off to cover him but couldn’t flex his shoulders enough. Instead he scrabbled the bricks aside, then slid backwards on his ass.
    â€œCome in.”
    Not joking. Deadly serious.
    The door opened six inches, then caught on the chippings. It closed and then was forced open wider. Twelve inches. Two feet. On the third attempt it opened all the way, and Sam Kincaid barged a shoulder into the room.
    â€œChrist almighty.”
    The big detective took in the scene with one glance. He ignored the corpse and went straight into first-aid mode. He crouched beside Grant and began checking him for major cuts and fractures. It was chaos outside. The reception area had been full of milling bodies. Shock had turned them into a panicking mob. Grant could hear O’Rourke yelling orders. Other cops responded by herding the crowd into the street for triage.
    Sirens grew closer. Ambulances racing to the scene. The air horns were deafening, but Grant didn’t think the firefighters would be needed. As far as Sullivan was concerned, the paramedics wouldn’t be needed either. Grant noticed Kincaid glancing around the room, his eyes noting everything and appearing to tick them off one thing at a time. Good police practice. This was a crime scene. As soon as the fire department and paramedics got in here, there’d be no evidence left.
    First priority was always to preserve life or put out the fire. There was no fire, but they’d still have to check and maybe damp the room down. Preserving life would mean treating Grant. Kincaid was making a mental note of what the scene looked like for later use. Grant had already done the same with his initial scan.
    The sirens stopped. The air horns too. The emergency services had arrived. Heavy boots crunched into the room, and the new arrivals began to prioritize. Make sure the building was safe. Treat the patient. Grant was the patient, but he was impatient. Being injured wasn’t an option.
    The ambulance was big and square and roomy. It made the ones he was used to in Bradford seem like pedal cars in comparison. By some miracle Grant was the only injury. Everyone else—the crowd in the reception area and the pedestrians outside—were simply shocked, not injured. The other ambulances had been released after triaging the crowd. Strapped to a backboard, Grant was carried and loaded into the last one.
    Kincaid stood over him so they could talk without Grant trying to crane his neck. He argued with the paramedic that his neck had been okay when he was moving the mutilated torso, so why wasn’t it okay now? It didn’t wash. Procedures were set in stone. In a country where you could sue the microwave manufacturer for not stating you couldn’t dry your poodle in it, litigation-proofing was almost as important as saving lives.
    It was half an hour before Grant could give his first account, the one that would be in any file created about the bombing of the police station. The one that would set the tone for the forthcoming investigation.
    He told Kincaid about the interview and the unexpected confession. He detailed the conversation after the tapes were turned off. He described the slap on the window for distraction and the grenade through the door. Sullivan jerking upright and flipping the table that had saved Grant’s life. The retelling of it brought a sense of calm. Grant began to feel more like his old self. Survivor guilt transferred into giddiness. Gallows humor resurfaced when Kincaid mentioned the hole in the police station wall. Grant smiled. “I suppose the police are looking into it.”
    Kincaid scratched his chin. Grant finished with the traditional follow-up. “If it had blown out the toilets, the police wouldn’t have anything to go on.”
    Kincaid wasn’t going with the flow. “Yeah, well, we don’t have anything to go on yet. So stop fucking about.”
    â€œSorry.”
    â€œLook. You know how this goes.