Excerpt of Unlucky For Some by Jill McGown
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Chapter One
In the cold, gray light of a mid-February afternoon, Michael Waterman watched
Detective Chief Superintendent Raymond Yardley's putt roll gently over the
manicured green heading toward the thirteenth hole, and walked over, hand
outstretched, conceding the putt before the ball had stopped moving. "Too
good," he said, taking out his wallet, and extracting five twenties. "I
believe we said a hundred?"
"We did." Ray grinned, sliding the notes into his back pocket. "Which
means a lot more to me than it does to you."
Michael picked up both balls and put his redundant putter back in the bag,
hoisting it to his shoulder as the two men walked together toward the clubhouse.
He'd lost at the thirteenth hole on the thirteenth of the month—maybe there
was something in the superstition after all.
But Ray's burly figure dwarfed the slight, wiry Michael, and that was much
more likely to be where Michael's problems lay. Admittedly, Michael was
looking closely at fifty and Ray had just turned forty, but they were both fit,
they were both competitive. Age wasn't a factor. Ray could drive the ball
farther, it was as simple as that; he gave himself a better chance of a simple
approach shot to the green. Maybe, Michael thought, he should go to one of these
coaches to help him get more power into his shot.
"I'd have thought you'd know better than to gamble," said Ray. "At
least when you know you don't stand a chance of winning."
"I make my living from people who gamble when they've no chance of winning.
And I would remind you that some of my best customers are coppers."
Ray grinned. "Oh—policemen gamble on anything. I think our unofficial bookies
sometimes take more than you do in a day's trading." He pulled open the
clubhouse door, and stood aside to let Michael go ahead. "The current book is
on who's going to head the major crime unit—the betting's been very
heavy."
"Oh?" Michael frowned. "I thought that had been shelved."
"The serious crime squad's been shelved—it was felt that the specialist
units already in place covered the causes of most serious crime. Drugs, fraud,
terrorism—that sort of thing. The major crime unit will have a different
brief," he said, as they reached the bar. "What'll you have?"
"A whisky, thanks." It was a rare treat; Michael never drank when he was
driving, and he was usually driving. "So what would this major crime unit
do?"
"It would deal with the serious crimes non-criminals commit. The thinking is
that detectives used to dealing with known offenders and hardened criminals
aren't so hot when it comes to honest citizens turned murderers. Crimes like
that need a different approach. It would be a small, hand-picked unit."
"Is there enough of that sort of crime to keep a specialist unit going?"
"I think so, because of the length of time they can take to investigate. But
they'll also reopen cold cases, see what someone with a bit more imagination
than the average copper can do with them."
Michael smiled. "I'm tempted to say that everyone has—"
"I know, I know," said Ray, before Michael could finish. "But some of us
can see past the ends of our noses."
Present company excepted, thought Michael. Ray might have fast-tracked his way
to his current job of heading Malworth CID, but he had no imagination
whatsoever. "So who's the front-runner?" he asked.
"Detective Chief Inspector Hill, assuming she applies for it. I told you we
gambled on anything—she might not come under starter's orders. She's based
at Malworth—she's done a good job there." He smiled. "She's very
attractive, too."
"Well—maybe I can get an introduction."
Excerpted from Unlucky
for Some by Jill McGown Copyright © 2005 by Jill McGown. Excerpted by
permission of Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights
reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without
permission in writing from the publisher.
