Gently with the Ladies (Inspector George Gently 13)

said!’
    ‘Of course it is, you stupid goose,’ Sybil Bannister flung at her. ‘That’s exactly what it is. Your silly tongue drove her to it.’
    ‘No, Madame, no, no!’
    ‘Oh yes. But for you she would have got away with it.’
    ‘Madame, no. I know nothing of that. I tell them only she is there.’
    ‘And that’s enough, you poor idiot. She’s going to jump, and you’re responsible.’
    ‘Oh, no, no!’
    ‘Go on the veranda. You may as well see her hit the pavement.’
    Albertine gave a whimpering cry. Gently caught her round the shoulders.
    ‘And you, Mrs Bannister,’ he said. ‘Won’t you be coming on the veranda?’
    ‘Oh no. I’m squeamish, Superintendent.’
    ‘I wouldn’t have thought it likely. With your experience.’
    Her eyes slitted. ‘With my what?’
    ‘Wouldn’t you have identified your husband’s body?’
    Her breath came hissingly and she stared hate at him. But she made no reply.
    ‘All right, Albertine,’ Gently said. ‘You’re not responsible for anything. Miss Merryn didn’t know what you’d told us. That isn’t the reason why she’s out there.’
    ‘Monsieur, oh please do something for her!’
    ‘We’ll do everything we can.’
    ‘Let me help!’
    ‘You stay here. Let nobody else into the flat.’
    He went through and on to the veranda. From there Brenda Merryn’s position was very plain. She was standing with closed eyes and with hands pressed to the cement facing on an ornamental tiled cornice set at the level of the veranda. Except for a narrow window some yards distant a blank wall stretched all around her. There was nothing to grasp. The first sway would send her plunging seventy feet.
    She stood quite still, her head drawn back. She might have been basking in the watery sun. Her make-up was smeared around the mouth and had a soiled, stale greyness. Her face had no expression and no tension so that she could have been asleep. One of the diamond-pattern stockings had a ladder. On her forehead was a mist of sweat.
    Below, after a recession of angled projections, green dormer-caps and the porch cornice, lay the neat squared pavement which fronted the entrance to the block. It was bare. The staring crowd had left a wide semicircle at that point. Nearest to it was the T.V. van and its big upward-pointing eye. And outwards stretched the slate roofscapes on either side of the quiet street to the embankment and the Thames and the trafficked span of the Albert Bridge.
    ‘What for the love of Christ can one say,’ Reynolds whispered without turning his head. ‘That hag inside is probably right. When Merryn sees us, she’ll jump.’
    ‘What about your rope trick.’
    ‘It’s not on. See how she’s pressed against the wall.’
    ‘We should have a man on that window.’
    ‘Two more cars have come. I’ll phone down.’
    He slipped away on tiptoe, though in fact there was a steady murmur of sound from below, and one could hear, from the direction of Millbank, the approaching clamour of a fire-engine. More heads were staring up from the dormers and cameras were held out and clicked. An attic window opened in the nearest building and a telephoto lens was trained through it. Gently looked at Brenda Merryn. Nothing seemed to disturb her. She remained in her trance of stillness, her hands spread on the rough facing.
    ‘Miss Merryn,’ he said.
    ‘Go away, George.’
    Her immediate response was uncanny. It was as though she’d known very well he was close to her and had been anticipating he would speak. Yet her eyes were closed.
    ‘Miss Merryn,’ he said. ‘Where have you been since you left me last night?’
    ‘Around and about,’ she said. ‘Mostly around. But about too. Around and about.’
    ‘Why didn’t you go home?’
    ‘Don’t ask silly questions. They sound so pathetic from where I’m standing. I’d nobody to go home to, so I didn’t go home. It’s the way it gets you. Silly answer.’
    ‘Did you just drive about London?’
    ‘Yes, London and other places. Like Paris and New York. Or it might have been Rochester.’
    ‘What were you doing there?’
    ‘Say I was looking for a sailor. Go away George. And tell them if they put their bloody ladder up, I’ll do it.’
    Reynolds came tiptoeing back.
    ‘Is she talking to you?’ he whispered.
    ‘Send a message down to that fire-engine. She says she’ll jump if they use the ladder.’
    Reynolds swore under his breath. ‘They have to make that stupid din,’ he said. ‘If they’d