David ed. - Face Off (2014) Anthology

“Maybe he reckons he’ll avoid hell this way.”

Grace shook his head. He’d never really got this religious thing about confession and forgiveness. “Just your era, wasn’t it, Norman?”

“Ha!”

Potting was fifty-five but with his shapeless frame and flaccid face could have passed for someone a good decade older.

“I’ve had dealings with Edinburgh. Don’t know anyone called Clarke, though.”

Potting looked down at his notebook. “Colleague’s name is Rebus.”

“Now that name I do know. He worked the Wolfman killings in London. Thought he’d be retired by now.”

“That was definitely the name she gave.”

“So what else did she say?”

“The deathbed confession belongs to one James Ronald King. He was a Mod back then. The bloke he killed is Johnny Greene.”

A phone rang at one of the three unoccupied desks in the office. Grace ignored it. The walls all around were stickered in photographs of victims of murders that had never been solved, crime scene photographs, and yellowing newspaper cuttings. “How did he kill him?”

“Stabbed him with a kitchen knife—says he took it with him for protection.”

“A real little soldier,” Grace said sarcastically. “Have you checked back to see if there’s any truth in it?”

“I have, Chief!” Potting said proudly. “It’s one of the things DI Clarke asked me to find out. A Johnny Earl Greene died during the Mods versus Rocker clashes on May 19, 1964. It was one of the worst weekends of violence of that whole era.”

Grace turned to a fresh page in his policy book and made some notes. “First thing is to get the postmortem records on Greene and a mugshot and send them up to Scotland so Mr. King can make a positive ID of his victim—if he wasn’t too wasted at the time to remember.”

“I’ve already requested them from the coroner’s office, Chief,” Potting responded. “I’ve also put a request in to the Royal Sussex County Hospital for their records at the time. He might have been brought in there if he wasn’t dead at the scene.”

“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.