In the Nick of Time (2 page)

“Good man.” Roy Grace thought for a moment. “My dad was a frontline PC during that era. He used to tell me about it—how on some bank holidays back then Brighton became a war zone.”

“Perhaps you could ask him if he remembers anything about this incident?”

“Good idea. But we'd need to find a medium first.”

It took a moment for this to register. Potting stood, frowning for a moment, then said, “I'm sorry, guv. I didn't realize.”

“No reason why you should.”

·  ·  ·

Two days later, Norman Potting came back into the cold case office, clutching an armful of manila folders, which he dumped on Roy Grace's desk, then opened the top one. It was the pathologist's report on Johnny Earl Greene.

“It's not right, guv,” the old sweat said. “Take a look at the cause of death.”

Grace studied the document carefully. The list of the man's injuries did not make good reading:

Multiple skull fractures resulting in subdural and extradural hemorrhage together with direct brain tissue injury from fragments of skull displaced into the brain.

Rib fractures causing flail chest, and laceration by broken ribs of the liver, spleen, and lungs.

Extensive fractures of the maxilla and mandible with hemorrhage causing direct upper airway obstruction and fatal inhalation of blood, combined with stamping injury to the trachea causing cervical vertebral dislocation.

Stamping injuries to the ribs, again lacerating the major thoracic and abdominal organs.

Multiple defensive injury fractures to the small bones of the hands and wrist indicative of fetal position adopted by the victim. Traumatic testicular and scrotal rupture.

Grace looked up at the detective sergeant with a frown. “There's nothing here about any stab wounds. This James King, in Edinburgh, is certain he stabbed his victim?”

“I spoke to John Rebus twenty minutes ago. No question, according to him, King stabbed him in the chest with the kitchen knife. Left it in the body when he fled the scene.”

“A knife's unlikely to have been overlooked, even back in the day,” Grace said wryly.

“Agreed.”

“Which would indicate Johnny Greene was not the victim, or am I missing something?”

“No, guv.” Potting grinned and opened another folder. “I got this from the hospital. We're lucky. One more year and the records would have been destroyed. Saturday, May nineteen, nineteen sixty-four, they treated a stab assault casualty. Sabatier bread knife still in his chest. Name of Ollie Starr. He was an art student and member of an Essex biker gang. The blade damaged his spinal cord and he was transferred to the Spinal Injuries Unit at Stoke Mandeville Hospital up in Bucks.”

“Do the records say what happened to him?”

“No, but I have the name of the officer who attended the scene and accompanied him to the county hospital. PC Jim Hopper.”

Grace did some quick mental arithmetic. It was now 2013. Forty-nine years ago. Many police officers started in their teens. “This PC Hopper, he might still be around, Norman. He'd be in his sixties or perhaps seventies. If you contact Sandra Leader who runs the Retired Brighton and Hove Police Officers Association, or David Rowland, who runs the local branch of NARPO, they might know his whereabouts.” NARPO was the National Association of Retired Police Officers.

“I already have. And, guv, I think you are going to be very interested
in this. PC Hopper retired as an inspector, but is still with us. What's more, he's kept in touch with Ollie Starr. The man lives right here in Brighton, apparently, and is mightily pissed off that his assailant has never been brought to justice.”

“Did he give you an address?”

“He's getting it. He also invited us to a reunion.”

Grace narrowed his eyes. “Reunion?”

“The retired officers of Brighton and Hove. It's this Saturday at the Sportsman Pub at Withdean Stadium.”

“From what I've heard tell of Rebus, he wouldn't say no to a drink.”

Potting perked up. “Reckon DI Clarke might be tempted, too?”

“She might.” Grace studied his calendar. It was Wednesday. The rest of his week, including the weekend, was clear. He'd promised to spend time with his beloved Cleo and their baby, Noah. If this could be cleared up on Saturday, he'd have all day Sunday. Then again, how would Rebus and Clarke feel about working a weekend? “Give me their number in Edinburgh,” he said.

·  ·  ·

At ten thirty
AM
Saturday morning, after collecting John Rebus and Siobhan Clarke from an early Gatwick flight, Grace and Potting drove them into Brighton, with just the one detour so they could sightsee the beach and pavilion.

“Been here before?” Potting asked Clarke, turning his head to study her more closely.

“No,” she said, eyes on the scenery.

“Gets busy on the weekend,” Grace explained. “Day-trippers from London.”

“Just like nineteen sixty-four,” Rebus commented.

“Just like,” Grace echoed, meeting the older man's eyes in the rearview mirror.

“You work cold cases?” Rebus asked him.

“On top of my other duties,” Grace confirmed.

“I did that, too, until Siobhan here rescued me.” The way he said it made it sound as if he disliked being beholden.

“Much crime in your neck of the woods?” Potting was asking Clarke.

“Enough to keep us busy.”

“Stuff we get here—”

But Grace broke in, cutting Potting off. “It's not a competition.”

But of course it was, and always would be, and when Grace next met Rebus's gaze in the mirror, the two men shared a thin smile of acknowledgment.

In a conference room at Sussex House CID HQ, coffee was made before they sat to watch a video compiled by Amy Hannah of media relations. She had put together a selection of clips from Saturday, May 19, 1964, accompanied by a soundtrack from the era: The Dave Clark Five, Kinks, Rolling Stones, Beatles, and others.

“Nice touch,” Rebus commented as “The Kids Are Alright” played.

With the blinds down they watched the massed ranks of Mods, between the Palace and West Piers, many of them on scooters, wearing slim ties, tab-collared shirts, sharp suits, and fur-collared parka jackets, wielding knives, and the Rockers, in studded leather jackets, some of them swinging heavy chains and other implements. The Rockers looked little different to modern-day Hells Angels, apart from the pompadour hairstyles.

Battle raged, battalions of Brighton police officers in white
helmets on foot and on horseback, flailing their batons while being belted with stones and bottles.

Siobhan Clarke sucked air in through her mouth. “I had no idea,” she said.

“Oh, it was bad,” Grace told her. “My mum said my dad used to come home regularly with a black eye, bloodied nose, or fat lip.”

“Tribal,” Potting added. “Just two tribes at war.”

“Nearest we'd have up north,” Rebus commented, “would be the pitched battles at Celtic-Rangers games.”

“But this was different,” Grace said. “And I'll tell you my theory if you like.”

“Go ahead.”

Grace leaned forward in his seat. “They were the first generation ever in our country that didn't have to go and fight a war. They had to get their aggression out on something, including each other.”

“You still see it on a Saturday night,” Rebus added with a slow nod. “Young men sizing each other up, fueled, and wanting some attention.”

“Stick around a few hours,” Potting said, making show of checking his watch.

When the video was over, Rebus told the room that he needed a smoke.

“I'll join you,” Grace said.

“Me, too,” added Potting, pulling his pipe from his pocket.

Siobhan Clarke shook her head. “You lads run along.” Then she aimed the remote at the DVD player, ready to watch the clips all over again.

·  ·  ·

After fish and chips at the Palm Court on Brighton Pier, they headed to Withdean Stadium and entered the pub, where the reunion was in full swing.

“Retired?” Rebus snorted. “Most of them are younger than me.” He looked around at the hundred or so faces.

“Full pension after thirty years,” Grace commented.

“It's the same in Scotland,” Clarke explained. “But John isn't having it.”

“Why not?” Grace sounded genuinely curious.

Clarke was watching Rebus head to the bar, Potting hot on his heels. “It's gone beyond being a job to him,” she offered. “If you can understand that.”

Grace thought for a moment, then nodded. “Completely.”

By the time they got to the bar, Potting was explaining to Rebus that Harveys was the best local pint.

“Just so long as it's not the sherry,” Rebus joked.

Once they had their drinks, Potting led them over to the retired inspector Jim Hopper, who had attended the badly injured Ollie Starr on that Saturday afternoon in 1964. Hopper was a giant of a man, with a shaven head rising from apparently neckless shoulders, giving him the appearance of an American football player. But his eyes were sympathetic, his demeanor gentle. Potting handed him a drink. He took a sip before speaking.

“I told Ollie you might be coming to speak to him. He seemed hellish relieved. Ever since that assault, his life's turned to a bucket of turds.”

“You've kept in touch with him?” Rebus nudged.

“I have, yes. To tell the truth, I've always felt partways responsible. If we'd had more men on the ground that day, or we'd spotted him being chased.” Hopper winced at the memory. “I was with
him in the ambulance. He thought he was dying, poured out his whole story to me, as if I was the last friend he'd ever have.”

“Do you think he'd be able to identify the assailant after all this time?” Clarke asked quietly.

“No doubt about it. Couldn't happen now, of course, with CCTV and DNA. Nobody'd get away with it.”

“It was half a century back,” Rebus reminded Hopper. “You sure his memory's up to it?”

A grim smile broke across the retired officer's face. “You need to see for yourselves.”

“See what?”

“Visit him and you'll find out.”

“Is he married?” Clarke asked.

Hopper shook his head. “Far as he's concerned, his life ended that day. Stabbed in the chest, then the cowards just walked away.”

There was silence for a moment. They were in a bubble, far from the chatter and gossip around them.

“Give us his address,” Rebus ordered, breaking the spell.

·  ·  ·

Roy Grace had been in some shitholes in his time, and Ollie Starr's ground-floor flat, on the other side of the wall from the Brighton and Hove refuse tip, was down there with the worst of them. It was dank, with dark mold blotches on one wall of the tiny hall. As they strode through into the sitting room, there were empty beer bottles littering the place, an ashtray overflowing with butts, soiled clothing strewn haphazardly on the floor, and an ancient, fuzzy television screen displaying a football match.

But none of the detectives looked at the football. All of them stared, with puzzled faces, at the pencil sketches that papered almost every inch of the otherwise bare walls. From each of them
an expressionless man stared out. He was the same man in every drawing, Grace realized, but he was aged progressively, from late teens to mid-sixties. At every stage he was portrayed with different hairstyles, with and without beard or moustache. They reminded Roy Grace of police Identi-Kit drawings.

“Bloody hell,” Rebus muttered, stepping farther into the room. “It's James King.” He turned to Ollie Starr. “Where did these—?”

“My memory,” Starr said, flatly.

“You've not seen him?”

“Not since the day he stuck a knife in me.”

“The likeness is amazing.”

“Meaning you've got the bastard.” The muscles in Starr's face seemed to relax a fraction. “Never forgot his face,” he continued. “And I was a student at Hornsey School of Art. Promising future, they said, maybe doing adverts and stuff. Instead of which, I've just been drawing him, year after year, hoping one day I'd see him.”

Siobhan Clarke cleared her throat. “We think the man who attacked you is critically ill in hospital.”

“Good.”

“That answers my first question.”

Starr's eyes narrowed. “What's that, then?”

“Whether you'd want to go ahead with a prosecution after all this time.” She paused. “Against a man with not long to live.”

“I want to see him,” Starr growled. “I
need
to see him, face-to-face, the closer the better. He has to be shown what he did. Ruined my life, and the only thing that kept me going was the dream.”

“What dream?” Grace asked.

“The dream of you lot coming here, delivering the news.” Starr blinked back a tear. We all have our dreams, eh?” His voice cracked a little. “But a man's reach should exceed his grasp / Or what's a heaven for?”

Grace was moved that the man had read Browning. He lived in a tip, yet clutched at beauty. How different might his life have been if . . . ?

If.

He caught John Rebus's eye, and then Siobhan Clarke's, and knew they were thinking the same thing—while Potting tried to examine Clarke's legs without her noticing.

“We'd need to bring you to Edinburgh quickly,” Rebus was saying. “Could you fly up Monday?”

“Train might be less hassle,” Starr said. “Give me time to decide whether to spit in his face first or go straight for a punch.”

·  ·  ·

Hospitals always made Roy Grace feel uncomfortable. Too many memories of visiting his dying father and, later, his dying mother. Late on Monday afternoon he followed Rebus and Clarke along the corridor of the Royal Infirmary. It looked new, no smells of boiled cabbage or disinfectant. Transport had been awaiting the group at Waverley Station, Clarke making sure the visitors glimpsed the famous castle before they headed to the outskirts of the city. As Rebus pushed open the doors to the ward, Grace glanced back in the direction of Potting and Starr. Neither man showed any emotion.