Unlucky For Some Read Online Free PDF

of the biggest drug-dealing rings in the city.
    Gary fancied he heard a hint of pride in the sergeant’s voice as he used the word “city,” for Barton had only recently achieved city status, and the status of its police had thus been enhanced.
    The guys on the raids would get all the fun, all the action, Gary thought disconsolately. His job consisted of pointing a camera and noting descriptions and times for someone else to write down. He said as much to the sergeant.
    “We’re going to take these bastards right out,” said Kelly. “We’ll have video and photographs and a log detailing every deal that goes down. And when we move in we’ll have them, their equipment, the drugs and the money. No smart-ass lawyer’s going to get any of them off.” He smiled. “And with any luck, their whole operation in this city will fall apart.”
    “Fair enough, sarge,” said one of the others. “But we still haven’t got the big boys. So we take out eight middlemen—so what? They’ll recruit another eight.”
    “I know.” Kelly sat back. “But they’ve got to find people they can trust. And premises. And new equipment, and bring in another shipment of stuff before schedule. It’s all risky, and it means the National Crime Squad or Customs and Excise have all the more chance to catch them at it. And meanwhile, their Barton lieutenants are banged up, and they can’t be sure one of them won’t talk. This is major, major disruption.”
    “I think we’re about to get some action,” murmured the man at the window.
    Gary focused the camera on the door of the flat opposite.
             
    Judy and Lloyd were playing the bath game with Charlotte, which involved everything that floated being in the bath with their daughter, and then being solemnly handed back to them when they asked for them. Then it all had to start again. It had begun as an educational game so that Charlotte knew which was a duck and which was a frog, but she had known that for some time now; they just couldn’t make her move on to a new game. When this activity began to pall, Judy left Lloyd to it and went back down to the living room, where her mother was reading the paper.
    “Is your program finished?” she asked, looking at her watch. “I had no idea it was that late. Charlotte should have been in bed two hours ago.” She flopped down on the sofa, and yawned. “She’s just like Lloyd. She’d stay up all night if we let her.”
    Her mother smiled. “Lloyd will be pleased to hear that,” she said. “He keeps saying that she’s a clone of you.”
    “I know,” said Judy, yawning again as she spoke. “I don’t think she’s like me at all. And if you’d seen her this afternoon—that was Lloyd to a tee. Suddenly flying into a rage about goodness knows what, and blaming me.”
    “You’re the one who looks as if she should have been in bed two hours ago.”
    Judy nodded. She always found the weekends much more exhausting than the working week, no matter how busy she had been. Charlotte at two was great fun, just as Lloyd had promised she would be—learning new words every day, becoming her own person—but her energy was boundless, and her curiosity about the world meant that she had to be watched every minute.
    “We’ve got to get a garden gate,” she said. “It’ll be spring soon.”
    She would have been looking forward to that had it not been for the loft conversion, currently scheduled for April. It should have been done last April, and it kept being put off for one reason or another. But the contractor would be coming any day now to talk to her mother about what exactly she wanted done, and give them his estimate.
    “Have you thought yet what you want?” she asked. “In the loft?”
    Her mother put down the paper. “Well,” she began, “I was going to talk to you about that. Do you think it’s really necessary?”
    It would save them a lot of time, trouble and expense if they abandoned the idea, thought Judy, and