Unlucky For Some
Page 37
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?”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
* * *
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.
ALSO BY JILL MCGOWN
Record of Sin
An Evil Hour
The Stalking Horse
Murder Movie
THE LLOYD AND HILL MYSTERIES
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
v3.0