In the Nick of Time by Ian Rankin Page B

and dying with it.”
    â€œIf he’d confessed at the time, he’d have served his sentence and been rid of it.”
    â€œI thought it best not to bring that up with him.”
    He heard her sigh. “I’ll find you someone in Brighton,” she eventually said. “A burden shared and all that.”
    He thanked her and ended the call, then slipped the first of Quadrophenia ’s two discs out of its sleeve and placed it on the deck. He’d never been a Mod, couldn’t recall ever seeing a Mod, but at one time he’d known this record well. He poured himself a malt and turned up the volume.

    FOR THE FIRST TIME IN several months, after an unusually high spate of murders in the city of Brighton this spring, Roy Grace finally had some time to concentrate on cold case reviews, which was part of his remit in the recent merger of the Sussex and Surrey Major Crime branches. He had just settled at a desk in the cold case office when DS Norman Potting entered without knocking, as usual, his bad comb-over looking thinner than ever and reeking, as normal, of pipe tobacco smoke. He was holding an open notepad.
    â€œHad an interesting call earlier this morning from a DI in Scotland, Chief, name of Siobhan Clarke. Pity is, she had an English accent. I’ve always fancied a bit of Scottish tottie.”
    Grace raised his eyes. “And?”
    â€œOne of her colleagues went to see a bloke in hospital in Edinburgh—apparently terminally ill, wanted to make a deathbed confession about killing a Rocker in Brighton in the summer of sixty-four.”
    â€œNineteen sixty-four? That far back, and he’s dying—why couldn’t he keep his trap shut?”
    â€œMaybe 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?”
    â€œHa!”
    Potting was fifty-five but with his shapeless frame and flaccid face could have passed for someone a good decade older.
    â€œI’ve had dealings with Edinburgh. Don’t know anyone called Clarke, though.”
    Potting looked down at his notebook. “Colleague’s name is Rebus.”
    â€œNow that name I do know. He worked the Wolfman killings in London. Thought he’d be retired by now.”
    â€œThat was definitely the name she gave.”
    â€œSo what else did she say?”
    â€œThe 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?”
    â€œStabbed him with a kitchen knife—says he took it with him for protection.”
    â€œA real little soldier,” Grace said sarcastically. “Have you checked back to see if there’s any truth in it?”
    â€œI 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.”
    â€œI’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.”
    â€œGood man.” Roy Grace thought for a moment.