Unlucky For Some (41 page)

“Oh, who cares?” said Ben. “Stephen’s out now. There’s plenty of time to explain later.”

Stephen had no idea what stuff his mother was talking about. His mother was crying, Ben was laughing, and he didn’t really know which to do. “How’s Jack?” he asked his mother.

“He’s conscious, and being allowed visitors now. I’m going to see him tonight—do you want to come?”

Ben, behind her, shook his head, grinning, winking. Stephen didn’t know what that was all about, but he took the advice. “Er—no, tell him I’ll see him tomorrow. Is he going to be all right?”

“Yes, they think it’ll take a little while, but he’ll be fine.”

As the three of them made to get into the car, another drew up behind it, and Michael Waterman got out. Stephen felt Ben tense up as he came over to them.

“Don’t worry,” said Mr. Waterman. “I know I’m probably not welcome at the coming-out party. I . . . er . . . I just wanted to tell you—both of you—that . . . well, that you don’t need to go away and live somewhere else, not unless that’s what you really want to do. I know what I’ve done, and I don’t expect your forgiveness. But that’s all over now, I promise you that. And there’s always a home for you at the Grange.”

Ben nodded briefly, and got into the car, closing the door. Stephen managed something approaching a smile. “I’ll . . . I’ll talk to him,” he said.

“Thanks.” Waterman got back into his own car and drove off.

Stephen looked at his mother. “What’s happened to change his mind?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “But you’ll have your work cut out for you to change Ben's, I can tell you that.”

Maybe. But Stephen knew how Ben really felt about his father, and he hoped he might succeed.

Keith said nothing in response to the charges, as advised by his solicitor. It was over. The biggest gamble he had ever taken was over.

It had been crazy, carrying on after Baker killed that man in Stansfield. He had realized then that he was up against someone who would genuinely stop at nothing, and still he had tried. He already had the go-ahead for his brief absences from work, so arranging the blackmail drops had been easy. And all he had seen when he heard about the Stansfield murder had been the chance to put the price up. How long would he have gone on letting the body count pile up? That was what Finch had asked him, and he had made no comment.

He didn’t know. Finch said he was as bad as Baker, because he was letting innocent people die because of what he was doing, but Keith didn’t see it that way. He wasn’t making Baker murder them. Baker was trying to frame him, and he was trying to get as much money as he could out of Baker. It was a gamble. And he had lost.

But then Jerry had told him that he was a born loser.

Jack smiled for the first time since . . . he couldn’t really remember when. Certainly for the first time since Stephen had told him about Baker and Grace. He didn’t know how they’d got on to Baker, but it seemed that he had been arrested despite the fact that Jack had seen nothing useful, and still hadn’t been able to tell the police his story. It had something to do with his leg, he supposed, but he couldn’t begin to imagine what.

And now Grace was here with him, saying that she didn’t know how she could have let herself be taken in by Baker.

“I believed him, too,” he said.

“Not for long.”

“Well, he thought the whole human race was beneath him, so I couldn’t really accept that his feelings toward you were genuine. That was when I worked out what he was up to.”

She was holding his hand, clasping it tightly, and tears weren’t that far away. Maybe she was still a little in love with Baker.

“I can’t believe how stupid I’ve been,” she said.

“No, you weren’t stupid. You were lonely, and he was a bit of a step up from us village yokels.”

“Don’t,” she said. “It’s you I’ve been stupid about.”

“Me?”

“I didn’t know how you felt about me.” She smiled. “Everyone else did, apparently. But I didn’t.”

“Then I was the stupid one, not you. I never knew how to tell you.”

“I think saving my life was as good a way as any.”

The nurse came in. “Mr. Shaw should have some rest now,” she said. “Doctor’s orders.”

Grace let go of his hand, and stood up. “I’ll be back to see you tomorrow,” she said, then bent down and kissed him.

She
kissed
him. The smile was still there, long after she had gone.

Lloyd switched off the television, finished his nightcap, then went round doing what he called putting the cat out—checking doors and windows and gas taps, to make sure the house was safe for the night. He didn’t know why he called it that—if he had a cat he certainly wouldn’t put it out. And that reminded him that he’d never talked to Judy about getting a kitten.

He had capitulated, of course, in the matter of the loft conversion, and he was glad that he had, because it was much more pleasant being a proper family. He couldn’t imagine Gina tucked away up at the top of the house like some madwoman in the attic any more than Judy could. Of course they sometimes got on one another’s nerves—that’s what families were for. He felt much less self-conscious now about his late-night video-watching activities, since discovering that Gina didn’t think he was mad. She just thought he should get more sleep, and she was probably right, he thought, as he went into the bedroom and undressed in the dark. He was very sleepy.

He slipped into bed beside Judy, only to jump into alert wakefulness when she who slept through thunderstorms and earth tremors spoke to him.

“Yardley told me something when I saw him tonight,” she said.

He smiled, when his heart rate had returned to normal. “Would that be the same thing he told me?” he asked. It had to be. He could imagine that it would cause Judy to lose sleep.

“About this major crime unit?” She sat up, and switched on the bedside lamp. “What did he tell you?”

“That the small executive team idea was by way of being a pilot scheme, since the opportunity had presented itself. What did he tell you?”

“That I should apply for it.”

Lloyd nodded. “So you should.”

“What about you? Don’t you want to apply for it?”

He smiled. “Fat chance I’d have if you were a candidate.”

“He said the panel wouldn’t have him or the ACC on it—I asked him. I don’t want favoritism.”

“Even so.” He shook his head. “Sometimes I wonder about your detective skills. Why do you think they made you Acting Superintendent when Yardley had to stand down?”

She flushed slightly. “Do you think they were trying me on for size?”

“I’m sure they were. And within seventy-two hours, you wrapped up an inquiry that was heading for its thirteenth week.”

She looked appalled. “But I didn’t! You thought of the insulin, and Gary Sims realized that the money had been taken as evidence in the drug raid—what did I do, except cause the firearms unit to terrorize poor Stephen Halliday?”

He kissed her. “What you did was create an atmosphere in which everyone could work to their full potential.”

She pulled a face.

He grinned. “And you worked out exactly what Baker had done and why, which is why we were able at last to exclude any other possible solution, and concentrate on proving it. Apart from that, you were useless.” He smiled again. “You’ll be halfway there, if you get it,” he said.

She frowned. “Halfway where?”

“To Chief Constable.”

She hit him. “I don’t want to be Chief Constable.”

“Once, you would have said you didn’t want to be a superintendent.”

“I know, but this is different. I can pick my own team. And I already have, if everyone wants to do it.” Her brown eyes fixed him with a steady gaze. “The truth,” she said. “If I got the job, would you want to be on the team? Yardley says the Chief is serious about encouraging married couples to work together. Apparently some survey or something has shown that it makes things work more smoothly, not less. So would you want to do it? Or would it bother you? The truth,” she said again.

The truth. The truth was that Lloyd was always happiest working with Judy, and that even though he had only had seventy-two hours to get used to it, he had discovered that he didn’t give a toss which of them outranked the other. The truth was that though he had finally been given command of Stansfield CID, he had discovered that he preferred having a boss to rein in his hastier conclusions rather than subordinates who acted on them, and that boss might as well be Judy as anyone else.

But the truth also was that he was very glad she had wrapped up the Baker business as quickly as she had, because the press hadn’t had time to discover their relationship. If he was to become her second-in-command in the major crime unit, they certainly would, especially if the Chief Constable was seeing himself as a trailblazer, and he wasn’t altogether sure how he would feel about that. How he and Judy saw their respective roles was one thing—how outsiders saw it was quite another. But she had asked only for the truth. Not the whole truth.

“Oh, yes, ma'am,” he said. “I would.”

“Really?”

“Really. So be sure you do apply for it. Now,” he said, his voice serious. “I want to ask you something, and I also want the absolute, unvarnished truth.”

Her eyes, still looking into his, grew apprehensive. “What?” she said.

“Would you like a tabby cat?”

A
BOUT THE
A
UTHOR

A native of Argyll, Scotland,
JILL MCGOWN
has lived in Corby, England, since she was ten. She wrote her first novel,
A Perfect Match,
in 1983. Among those that have followed are
Gone to Her Death, Murder at the Old Vicarage, Murder . . . Now and Then, The Murders of Mrs. Austin and Mrs. Beale, The Other Woman, A Shred of Evidence, Verdict Unsafe, Picture of Innocence, Plots and Errors, Scene of Crime,
and
Death in the Family.

Visit the author’s website at
www.JillMcGown.com
.

A
LSO BY
J
ILL
M
C
G
OWN

Record of Sin

An Evil Hour

The Stalking Horse

Murder Movie

T
HE
L
LOYD AND
H
ILL
M
YSTERIES

A Perfect Match

Murder at the Old Vicarage

Gone to Her Death

The Murders of Mrs. Austin and Mrs. Beale

The Other Woman

Murder . . . Now and Then

A Shred of Evidence

Verdict Unsafe

Picture of Innocence

Plots and Errors

Scene of Crime

Death in the Family

Unlucky for Some
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2004 by Jill McGown

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Originally published in Great Britain by Macmillan, an imprint of Pan Macmillan Ltd., London, in 2004.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McGown, Jill.

Unlucky for some : a novel of suspense / Jill McGown.

p. cm.

1. Lloyd, Inspector (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Hill, Judy (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 3. Police—England—Fiction. 4. Serial murders—Fiction. 5. Policewomen—Fiction. 6. England—Fiction. I. Title.

PR6063.C477U55 2005

823′.914—dc22

2004058565

www.ballantinebooks.com

eISBN: 978-0-345-47657-9

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