Free Unlucky For Some by Jill McGown

wheel, had taken away his wife and Ben’s mother, and no one had ever come near to replacing her. He had had the odd fling, usually with a married woman. He had never wanted to remarry.
    And now he didn’t know what to do about Ben, and he wanted Josephine’s wise counsel more than he ever had.
             
    Tony Baker lay down on the bed, suddenly very tired now that the adrenaline had stopped pumping. Twice in one night, he had had a heart-stopping moment. First, the bingo win, and then . . .
    For all his expertise in the field of violent crime, he had never before been the first person at the scene of a murder, and he had been within yards of the murderer. At first, he hadn’t realized who the victim was. Or that she was dead. He had caught a glimpse, no more, of the figure who ran off.
    But he had stopped to assist the victim, discovering first that she was dead, secondly that she was Wilma, and then—to his surprise and some shame—that he didn’t really care about that. No—when he found Wilma, he was simply annoyed that it was nothing more interesting than a mugging. That was what he had felt as he had looked at Wilma’s lifeless body, while he could still hear her assailant’s footsteps in the alleyway. Irritation. Not very laudable, he accepted, as he switched out the bedside lamp, but that was how it was.
    By the time the police had arrived, however, he had had time to think, and it looked a little more interesting than it had at first. Tony didn’t point out the unusual aspects to the investigating officer, because he felt reasonably sure that the man would find them for himself, and he didn’t want to be accused of making a habit of doing the police’s job for them.
    Finch looked like a slightly harassed cherub, with his mop of golden curls. Efficient enough, though. And he seemed impervious to the weather, so he must be tougher than he looked. Tony had had his gloved hands deep in the pockets of his leather coat all the time they had been talking; Finch, wearing just a suit, wasn’t even shivering.
    Finch had listened to his story, and had asked him a few questions, not commenting on the answers. It was impossible to tell from his demeanor whether or not he thought he was dealing with more than just a routine mugging. But he had said that his Chief Inspector might want to talk to Tony, so he probably had noticed the oddities.
    In his car, Tony had rung the newspaper for whom he wrote his column, and told them of his new adventure—he was just in time to catch the late editions, and the editor was very pleased that he was, especially since news had been slow that day. It would be given a good deal of prominence, because even if some major celebrity was caught with his trousers down right now, Tony thought, with a satisfied smile, it would be too late to make tomorrow’s edition.
    He felt a shade guilty, but not much. Why shouldn’t he make as much of what had happened as he could? All right, someone had murdered the woman, and it might be a touch insensitive to use her death in the way he had, but if he hadn’t been able to help her he could at least help himself. After all, he had a TV series in the pipeline, and all publicity was good publicity.
    It was only when Stephen came in that Tony realized that he was the last person he had seen with Mrs. Fenton. It had struck him as odd at the time, because if Stephen’s bike was parked round the back of the bingo club, there seemed to be no reason for him to be on foot in Murchison Way.
    When Tony told him what had happened, Stephen had said immediately that he had been with her, said that he had walked her to her door, in what seemed like a completely innocent response to the news. But Tony was having trouble with that. Why had he been running after Wilma, calling her name, desperate to catch up with her, as though his life depended on it? And why had he left at the interval, come to that? Tony had spoken to him earlier in the day, and he