Unlucky For Some by Jill McGown Page B

her?”
    “Yes. He certainly seemed to be doing something.” He raised his eyebrows slightly. “Arranging the banknotes, perhaps?”
    Judy didn’t respond, and Baker carried on.
    “But when he heard my footsteps, he got up and ran away toward Murchison Place. All I can tell you about him is that he was wearing dark clothing. I went to see if I could help the woman, but . . .”
    “Did you touch anything, Mr. Baker?”
    “No. I felt for a pulse, that was all. Then I used my mobile to phone the police, and—very commendably, I have to say—they arrived within minutes and began sealing off the area.”
    Judy smiled. “I’m glad we meet with your approval,” she said.
    “I was very impressed with the young detective sergeant—Hitchin, is it? He was on top of things as soon as he arrived.”
    Judy moved on to the next item on her list. “I understand that you knew Wilma Fenton—did you know her well?”
    He looked amused. “Hardly,” he said. “But I’ve interviewed a number of people in some depth, and Wilma was one of them. I saw her in her flat, which is how I knew she lived there.”
    “Oh, I see. Was that a television interview?”
    “No. I talk to hundreds of people when I do research. Sometimes I use what they tell me in the books, and at the same time I’m assessing their potential as TV interviewees. Then, when the filming starts, I know exactly what and who we want to see on the screen.”
    Judy felt a little as though she was interviewing Baker on TV; something about his manner, about his way of answering a question, that sounded very different from the hundreds of other interviews she had conducted.
    “Do you often work in your car?”
    “No. I usually go back to the office I’ve rented in Stansfield, and put my impressions on the computer. I can e-mail any photographs I’ve taken to my colleague in London, and she can produce a first draft of the script for that particular segment. But I was anxious to set down my feelings as soon as I could, as I said, so I used the laptop.”
    “Did anyone else leave the bingo club at the interval?”
    Judy had had a call from Michael Waterman that morning telling her that Stephen Halliday had left the bingo club at the interval, and had run after and caught up with Mrs. Fenton, going into the alleyway with her. They already knew he had been in the alley with her, but what they hadn’t known was that he normally worked until half past ten, and had asked if he might leave early just before he made the payouts to Mrs. Fenton and Mr. Baker. They would be talking to young Mr. Halliday. But the part that interested her most was that he lived at the Tulliver Inn. His mother was Tony Baker’s landlady. And Waterman had been with Baker when he saw Halliday.
    “You’ve already asked me that twice.”
    Judy didn’t say anything. She just waited.
    Baker sighed. “Stephen left at the interval,” he said. “Stephen Halliday—he’s a steward at the club.”
    “Why didn’t you tell me that the first time I asked? And why didn’t you tell DI Finch that last night?”
    “I can’t claim to know Stephen all that well, but I’m staying with the Hallidays, and I didn’t want to drag his name into it, because I found her half an hour after Stephen had left the club. I had no reason to think that he had anything to tell you.”
    Judy concluded the interview then, feeling much as Tom had. She didn’t know what to make of Tony Baker. As they left the interview room, she discovered that a Mr. Shaw was there in response to their appeals to anyone who was in the area, and since everyone else was busy, she saw him herself, leaving someone else to show Tony Baker out.
    “I went through that alley not long before it happened,” Shaw said once they were seated. “I heard her behind me, talking.”
    “Did you know who she was talking to?”
    “Young Stephen Halliday. He’s a steward at the bingo club.”
    “Do you know Stephen Halliday well?”
    “Yes—him and