In the Nick of Time (3 page)

“Okay?” Grace checked, receiving two separate nods in reply.

Rebus, however, had come to a sudden stop, Grace almost colliding with him. The bed in the corner was empty, the table next to it bare.

“Shit,” Rebus muttered, eyes scanning the room. Plenty of patients, but no sign of the only one that mattered.

“Can I help?” a nurse asked, her face arranged into a professional smile.

“James King,” Rebus informed her. “Looks like we're too late.”

“Oh dear, yes.”

“How long ago did he die?”

The smile was replaced with something more quizzical. “He's not dead,” she explained. “He went into remission. It happens sometimes, and if I were the religious sort . . .” She shrugged. “Spontaneous and inexplicable, but there you are. Mr. King's back home in the bosom of his family, happy as the proverbial Larry!”

TWENTY MINUTES LATER, REBUS KNOCKED
on the door of the bungalow on Liberton Brae. Ella King answered, then stared stonily at the small entourage outside.

“My husband's changed his mind,” she blurted out. “It was the drugs he was taking. They got him hallucinating.”

“Fine, then,” Rebus said, holding up his hands as if in surrender. “But could we come in a minute?”

She didn't seem at all sure, but Rebus was already barging past her, stalking down the hall toward the living room, Grace and Clarke right behind him. James King was seated in a large armchair, horse-racing on the television. He was dressed in slacks and a polo shirt, a newspaper on his lap and a mug of tea by his side.

“You've heard the news?” he boomed. “They're calling it a miracle, for want of any better explanation. And has Ella explained about the drugs? I must have been rambling, the time I talked to you.”

“Is that a fact, sir? Well, is there any chance you could ramble your way to the front door? There's an old friend of yours waiting to see you.”

King's face creased in confusion, but Rebus was gesturing for him to get up, and get up he did, shuffling toward the front door.

Norman Potting stood on the path outside, hands resting against the handles of Ollie Starr's wheelchair.

“James King,” Rebus said, “meet Oliver Starr.”

“But we've never met. I . . . I don't know him. What's this all about?”

“You know me, all right,” Starr snarled, his whole body writhing as if a current were passing through it. “Your bread knife's still in an evidence locker in Brighton. Did your mum never ask you what happened to it?”

Grace watched King's face. It was as if the man had been slapped.

“What's going on?” his wife asked, voice trembling.

“A man did die that day,” Clarke explained. “But not the man your husband attacked. When he saw it reported, he jumped to conclusions.”

“Is this the man who stabbed you, Mr. Starr?” Grace asked.

“I'd know him anywhere,” Ollie Starr replied, eyes burning into King's.

“You old fool,” Ella King yelped at her husband. “I told you to leave it alone, take it to the grave with you. Why did you have to bring it all up?”

“James Ronald King,” Grace was intoning, “I have a warrant issued for your arrest. I'm arresting you on suspicion of the attempted murder of Oliver Starr. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defense if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Is that clear?”

“I'm in remission,” King gasped. “The rest of my life ahead of me . . .”

“Had a good life so far, have you?” Starr snarled. “Better than
mine, at any rate. All the years I've spent in a bloody wheelchair! No wife, no kids!”

“You can't do this,” Ella King was pleading. “He's a very sick man.” Her hand was gripping her husband's arm.

Rebus shook his head. “He's not ill, Mrs. King. We heard it from his own mouth.”

“But he
is
sick,” Potting interjected. “Takes a sick mind to shove a knife so deep into someone it breaks their spine.”

“So far in the past, though,” Ella King persisted. “Everything's different now.”

“Not so different,” Rebus replied, looking toward Clarke and Grace. “Besides which, I'd say we got here just in the nick of time.”

Roy Grace nodded his agreement.

Different cities, different cultures, different generations, even, but he knew he shared one thing above all else with John Rebus—pleasure in each and every result.

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