The Gigantic Shadow by Julian Symons

Cash said. He’s pushing it too hard, Hunter thought, that was a silly thing to say. But there was no change in her baby face. ‘The whole thing might be a bit of a mystery if you hadn’t just happened to be at your window at the time.’
    Hunter walked across to her window and looked out. It was certainly possible to see what was going on opposite. A man climbing out would have been visible, not only from these flats but from the street. Voicing his thought he said, ‘Funny that nobody in the street saw him.’
    ‘People don’t look up when they’re in the street. Not unless it starts raining, and then they look up to make sure it really is rain and not birds doing their business. People call that luck, but I never could see it.’ Her laugh tinkled, tinny as an aluminium bell.
    ‘But you were looking up.’
    ‘Why, it’s not just eye level here, but I didn’t have to look up much. I was at the window, you see, because it had come over a bit dark and I wondered if it was going to rain.’ Her laugh tinkled again. ‘Let’s not talk about all that, shall we, till we’ve talked about money. What would the Banner pay me for this story?’
    ‘You’d get a lot of publicity,’ Charlie said. ‘Good for a model. Who do you model for, by the way?’
    ‘I’m a freelance. I don’t know whether this is the sort of publicity that does a girl any good. Come on now, Mr Rogers, how much?’
    Charlie took out a toothpick, put it in his mouth. ‘Fifty is what they told me, but they might spring a hundred.’
    ‘For an exclusive story like that.’ Hunter thought he heard mockery in her voice. ‘Why, Mr Rogers, I’m disappointed.’
    ‘Look,’ Charlie said. ‘If the story’s good enough, the money will be all right. We’re just here to make preliminary inquiries.’
    ‘But I told the police the story. I was getting ready to go out with my boyfriend and I crossed over to the window to see if it was raining and there was this man opposite who’d just pushed his window open and was getting out on to the ledge. I just stood there with my mouth open all ready to scream, but I was simply petrified and the scream just wouldn’t come. And then he jumped. And I screamed.’
    A faint, subdued buzzing could be heard. She crossed with small steps to the French doll, and lifted it to disclose a telephone of the same green as her nails. She lifted the receiver in a tiny fist.
    ‘Hallo. Why, hallo, darling. No, I can’t quite manage that, I’m all in a dither here with two men just now. Oh, I didn’t mean that at all. Why, they’re reporters.’ She went on talking. A pencil in her fingers made patterns on the engagement pad in front of her. From a yard away Hunter read upside down a name written on the pad. The letters said y-d-d-a-P. She looked up, turned one page of the pad and began another pattern.
    ‘What’s that you say? Why, what a suspicious mind you’ve got, honeypie. In half an hour then.’ She put down the receiver, replaced the doll and said, ‘That was my boyfriend then, I expect you guessed. He says I should ring the Banner to see if you really come from it. He says that’s just a story you’ve been telling me, you’re probably just trying to make me say something that will get me into trouble. I do hope that isn’t right.’
    ‘We’re not from the police, if that’s what he means,’ Charlie said. ‘Nothing to do with them.’
    ‘You see. I told him he had a suspicious mind. But I don’t think I’d better say any more, do you? I don’t want to get into any trouble. After all, a girl’s got her living to earn.’
    ‘Just one question, Miss Broderick,’ Hunter said. ‘If you don’t mind answering it. How long have you been here?’
    ‘Why should I mind?’ She looked down at her green nails. ‘I’ve been here nearly three weeks.’
    When they were outside Charlie said, ‘Three weeks. She’d been there three weeks. It could have been a plant.’
    ‘She had the name Paddy written