Lucky Numbers.

Every Saturday morning, Sam Norton would leave his flat, near Pinner Green, and go to the superstore just around the corner; well round the corner and up the road; a very busy road, even though it wasn't a main thoroughfare; but it had traffic lights, a little island and a kind of slip road to the store. On the left hand side there was another little street which led to a block of council flats, a halfway house for ne'er-do-wells and some kind of shelter.

The Jewish delicatessen, on the other side of the street, was a mystery to Sam as it always seemed to be closed. Sam ventured in there one day, as he loved all kinds of Jewish food, but found their bill of fare offered little more than pre-packed produce from big chain suppliers.

Sam's mission, on Saturday mornings, was to buy a lottery ticket. He would use the same numbers every week which were, 1, 7, 14, 21, 28 and 29. He knew that if he ever won the jackpot he would have to share it with many others as they must be popular numbers; but there again, other people might be like him and know that they were popular numbers and not choose them and there again, he was sure his double bluff would mean he might be the only winner after all.

Sam knew the numbers by heart but, every Saturday, he would give the clerk at the lotto desk a MyLuckyNumbers card with a bar code, which would automatically print the numbers on the lottery ticket.

That was the way he liked to do it as he thought it would bring him luck; he knew too that if he changed his numbers one week they would come up the following week. 

His wife would know the numbers in any case as number 1 was his birthday, number 7 his wife's, 14, 21 and 28 were the birthdays of their three children and they were married on the 29^th.

One Friday evening, when coming back on the Tube train from Baker Street, he noticed that The Evening Standard had not been delivered to the supermarket by the station so after a beer, and looking at the latest news on the television, he went out to the superstore around the corner to pick up a copy of the newspaper.

As he walked away from his building, the light rain hit him in the face; it didn't seem to be coming down heavily so he carried on walking for a while but then had second thoughts so he called his wife and asked her to throw down his hat.

This she did and when he caught it she suggested that he might buy the lottery ticket to save going the next day.

'No' he said 'I don't want you throwing down the card; it'll blow away.'

'You know the numbers' she said 'just fill them in.'

From the brief description above, you will know that that wasn't Sam; he would only buy his lottery ticket with the little card he used every week; he even kept a copy of how many times he had done the lottery, how much each ticket cost annually and kept it in his little drawer; he never thought to multiply the number of weeks in the year with how much each ticket cost.

So with his hat on, his ratting hat, as he called it, he wandered up to the traffic lights on Pinner Green, went around the corner and, as soon as he was passed the road restrictions of the traffic lights, he saw a man lurking around a parked car. 

He looked a bit suspicious, although Sam couldn't figure out why, but why was he messing with the lock? Also the man reacted when he saw Sam.

As Sam walked passed, matey boy walked behind him and as he walked, Sam slowed down to let the geezer overtake him. But he wouldn't pull away. He kept looking at Sam. When they were about to pass the fish'n'chip shop Sam suddenly walked in. The place was empty and the woman, who owned it, came out from the back to serve Sam.

'I just thought I'd come in and say hello' he said 'I've been away!'

'How nice' the woman said 'how are you?'

'I'm fine' said Sam 'I'll see you soon.' and he left.

He could see on the slip road, about one hundred yards ahead, the man, standing looking at the people passing.

Sam didn't look at him as he passed. He was going to pick up The Standard and go straight back home but decided to walk around the store first to give the man a chance to disappear.

On the way back there was nobody on the street; nobody at all. The man had gone and Sam walked back to Pinner Green.

It must have been about 10.00 pm when the police knocked Sam's apartment door. His wife had fallen asleep in front of the television and the knocking gave her a start.

She didn't know the time and as she went to the front door she called 'Where's your key?'

But it was the police she saw as she opened it.

The woman from the fish'n'chip shop had identified Sam when the police came in to her 'chippy' – identified his body by his clothes, more than anything else, especially his 'ratting hat.'

She told the police which apartment Sam lived in but she never knew his name.

The police weren't sure as Sam had no I.D. and it took a lot of organising and diplomacy to ascertain that Sam lived with the woman who had answered the door and in fact she was his wife.

There were no witnesses to the murder and it took a lot of red tape and extensive permissions before Sam's body was even released.

The television company called her one day, in conjunction with the police, to see if she would take part in a reconstruction programme called Crimewatch; she didn't want to have anything to do with it as she thought it would upset her.

So they filmed the programme without her but she was right about being upset especially when she saw the actor who was to act as Sam; he even wore Sam's ratting hat.

As she watched she saw the reconstruction and it showed CCTV of Sam going to the Lottery Counter to buy his ticket.

As far as she knew Sam didn't buy a ticket. There was nothing on him at all, the murderer had taken his wallet and even The Evening Standard.

She couldn't remember the lottery ticket for the week Sam died and, in fact, she hadn't even looked at the lottery since. She was with their eldest son and he wondered where the ticket was – maybe it was a winner.

There is a web page with all the results and their son looked on line to see if there had been a winner with Sam's number and sure enough he found the numbers 1, 7, 14, 21, 28 and 29 four weeks after his father had died and Sam had been right all along – there were seventeen winners.

The rest was easy – Sam's DNA was on one of the people who had claimed the prize; he lived in Wembley - or he did before they locked him up.