“Two large bags full of jars of some kind.”

“Have you any idea what she did with them?”

“I’ve every idea,” the woman said and gave me time to imagine several. “As soon as she reached the roof she came to the edge and emptied the bags over. That’s how I can tell you what was in them. And then she said something I couldn’t hear, and the jars had hardly smashed when she threw herself after them.” The woman held my gaze well after adding “I told you I could have harmed her reputation.”

Rather than interpret this as a threat I said “I understand.”

“Didn’t you ever tell anyone?” Roy said.

“I phoned the services at once, of course.” The woman was addressing me as though Roy hadn’t spoken. “I told them I’d heard glass break,” she said, “and I’d seen your aunt had fallen.”

“I shouldn’t think it would have helped if you’d said more.”

I was trying to placate Roy – I didn’t need anybody else’s emotions troubling me while I came to terms with the information about my aunt – but he said “Did you see her face when she did it?”

“No, because she turned around at the last moment. She was looking back.”

I had the awful thought that my aunt had changed her mind too late. “What at?” Roy said.

“Nothing I could see. I’ve said once that I’m certain she was by herself.”

“Maybe she thought she’d heard someone and lost her balance.”

“You may think that if you wish.” To me the woman said “I tried to forget what I’d seen as soon as I was able. Till now I practically had.”

“Thank you for doing what you could,” I said and forestalled any comment Roy might have made. “Let’s have that look.”

As he followed me to the tower block the woman uttered another displeased grunt, which might have referred to us. Fragments of bottles glittered dully in the shadow of the block. They could hardly have belonged to the jars my aunt had thrown off the roof, but they reminded me that I had no idea why she’d behaved that way. I tilted my head back to stare up the tower, and saw a greyish object resting on the parapet. In a moment it toppled over the edge – no, took flight, revealing that it was a pigeon. No doubt a nearby movement meant another bird had hopped or flown out of sight on the roof. “Are we going up?” Roy said.

“What do you think that’s likely to achieve?”

“We won’t know till we see, will we? I’ll go if you want to hang about down here.”

The notion of leaving him alone on the roof made me feel I wasn’t taking care of him. “We’ll both go,” I said at once.