Unlucky For Some by Jill McGown Page A

club at the interval?”
    “I wouldn’t know.”
    “Can I ask why you were playing bingo in Malworth?” She smiled. “That’s the sort of thing that happens in dreams,” she added. “Seeing well-known TV personalities in odd places.”
    He smiled back, and the slightly frosty atmosphere thawed a little. “I’m doing research into people’s gambling habits. Bingo’s making a comeback.”
    “Why Malworth?” Judy asked.
    “Why not?” He smiled. “The program covers Monte Carlo and Las Vegas, and obviously everyone will expect the British episode to be London. But I didn’t want to do the obvious. London clubs and casinos look exactly like the ones in Monte Carlo and Las Vegas. I wanted something contrasting, something different. Something a little more down-to-earth, that the British viewers could relate to, and that might entertain non-British viewers. We are a nation of gamblers—we don’t spend as much as some other countries, but three out of four adults in Britain gamble on something, did you know that?”
    “But why Malworth?” Judy persisted. For all she knew, the man had had a score to settle with Wilma Fenton.
    “Chance. It isn’t just Malworth—it’s the whole of Bartonshire. I met Michael Waterman at Ascot, and he suggested I come here and sample gambling with the personal touch.”
    Judy abandoned that line of questioning. He was probably telling the truth anyway. She moved on to her next note. “I know why Wilma Fenton left at the interval,” she said. “Why did you?”
    “Because I’ve already played the national bingo game, so I didn’t need to do that again. What I hadn’t done before was win, and I wanted to get down my feelings about that before they’d gone.”
    “Did anyone else leave the bingo club at the interval?”
    Judy had trained herself years ago to repeat questions while sounding as though she had never asked them before. It irritated people, got under their skin. Unnerved them, as it was unnerving Baker now. His face had lost its urbane been-there-done-that look, and he was failing to meet her eye.
    “I can’t say I noticed.”
    He was an attractive man, Judy supposed, but the attractiveness was all a little too false for her. Real people doing real jobs just didn’t get their hair done like that. Their teeth weren’t that perfect. And real people doing real jobs weren’t deeply suntanned in February. Though if he had been to Las Vegas, that might excuse the tan.
    “This research is for a television series?”
    “And a book. The notes are for the book, really.”
    “Was anyone else in the car park?”
    “Do I need an alibi?” He smiled again. “Sorry—I know you have to suspect me. DI Finch had a rather unsubtle look inside my car last night.”
    She smiled back. “I’m just trying to find possible witnesses.”
    “I didn’t see anyone else in the car park. But perhaps someone going to or from the nightclub saw something.”
    “It’s unlikely,” Judy said. “The nightclub customers either park in the same car park as you did or come by taxi—they don’t use the alleyway coming to the club. They use it leaving, when most of the taxi customers walk to the taxi rank rather than wait at the club for taxis that might not turn up.”
    Baker shook his head. “So the alleyway’s deserted most of the evening? That practically invites muggers to do their worst.”
    Judy nodded her agreement. Maybe Murchison Place and its alleyways would get cameras now—too late, as usual. “You left the car intending to go back to the bingo club. What time would this be?”
    “A few minutes to nine, I believe. About two minutes before I rang the police—and you’ll have a record of when that was. When I got to the alley, I could see two people—a man and a woman—having some sort of argument, then I saw her fall to the ground. He dropped to his knees beside her. At first I thought he was trying to loosen her clothing or something.”
    “So he was bending over