you and I, with money to spend. Come on: what’s the sense of getting so far and then doing a thing like this?’
She blew a long wisp of smoke at him.
‘I’ve told you… but you don’t seem to understand. I have to live with myself, and I find I can’t do it. I didn’t think it would be like this.’ Her pale lips parted in a cynical smile. ‘I have Alice on my mind: day and night. I see the poor thing in my dreams. I can’t get her out of my mind. So… I’m taking the way out that you’ll have to take before long.’
‘Okay, if you’re that gutless,’ Calvin snarled. ‘Go ahead, but why involve me? That letter of yours… do something about it. Look, I’ll…’
Kit’s jeering laugh cut across his frenzied voice.
‘That’s the trick in this,’ she said. ‘You thought you had it all fixed, but you’re not getting away with it… as I’m not getting away with it. When I go… you’ll follow. You shouldn’t have involved Iris in this. That’s something I’ll never forgive you for. We’ll settle this thing together… I’ll go first, but make no mistake about it, you’ll go second.’
Then for no reason that Calvin could see, her foot slipped and she dropped her bag as she snatched at the nearest steel pole. She missed and fell. Calvin involuntarily shut his eyes, feeling a cold wave of blood surge through him. He heard a loud moan come up from the crowd: a woman screamed. He forced himself to look.
Kit had fallen no more than ten feet. She had caught hold of a scaffolding pole and was now hanging in mid- air.
Calvin was now above her, looking down at her. He watched her swing herself from an impossible position into a safe position with the carelessness of a monkey swinging from tree branch to tree branch. In the moment that had chilled his blood, she was once again settling herself into the precarious safety of yet another apex of yet another triangle of steel.
The crane driver, watching all this with morbid fascination, expertly lowered the bucket so Calvin was again on the same level and facing Kit.
‘Did you think I was going to die?’ she asked. He could see she was completely unshaken. ‘Heights mean nothing to me. When I’m good and ready, I’ll let go, but I’m not ready yet.’
From her expression Calvin knew it was hopeless to try to persuade her into any sense. For a long moment, he tried to force himself to get out of the bucket and climb over the perilous rods to her, but he hadn’t the nerve. He was sure that if he did reach her, she would take him with her in a fatal drop to death.
‘For the last time, Kit,’ he said, ‘cut this out. We’ve everything to gain. Can’t you see… we can get away with it… it’s in the bag!’
‘Give me a cigarette,’ she said. ‘I’ve lost mine. I must have a cigarette.’
With a shaking hand, he took from his pocket his pack of cigarettes and carefully tossed the pack to her. His spine tingled when she let go of the steel rod to catch the flying pack. For a moment, she wobbled uncertainly, then she recovered her balance.
He pleaded: ‘Kit! Come on down. We can work this thing out together…’
She suddenly screamed at him in a voice that reached the crowd below, ‘Get the hell away from me! You can’t talk me into anything. Get away or I’ll jump!’
The sudden change of her expression, the glare in her eyes warned him he could do nothing with her. He waved to the crane driver, pointing down.
The crowd below gave a satisfied, sadistic sigh as Calvin was slowly lowered to the ground. The show was to go on.
2
Four hours later, Kit was still up there and the crowd, still fascinated, remained in the congested street.
During these four long hours a police officer, a doctor and finally a priest had gone up in the crane bucket, one after the other, to try to persuade her to come down. All of them had failed. She had remained there, indifferent to what they said, smoking a cigarette after cigarette and looking down at the sea of up-turned faces without any show of emotional stress.
Calvin sat on the stone edge of the town’s fountain. From this vantage point, he could see Kit clearly. With him was the sheriff and a doctor from the hospital.
‘If she stays up there until it is dark,’ the sheriff said, ‘we plan to rig a net under her. Then some of the boys will go after her. It’ll be tricky. I guess I’ll put a searchlight on her to blind her. She mustn’t see the boys fixing the net.’
‘I don’t think she’ll jump now,’ the doctor said in professional, pompous tones. ‘The longer she stays up there, the less likely she is to take the plunge. I agree about the net, but we’ll have to wait until it’s dark.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Another five hours.’
