"Quintin, Jardine - Fallen Gods" - читать интересную книгу автора (Quintin Jardine)

a long, shabby blue coat, even on a day that was already fulfilling its
promise of warmth, but, like the other four, she had come prepared for
her task, in that she wore a pair of black, ankle-length rubber boots
over her thick brown stockings.

She looked apprehensive; Martin moved towards her, almost
automatically. "I was just suggesting to the people, sir," said Sharp,
as he approached, 'that they might like our officers to go in to their
houses first, to do what we can to make sure that the stairways are
safe, before they venture in."

"That seems sensible to me," the deputy chief constable agreed. He
looked round the group. "Is everyone happy with that?"

The male halves of the couples nodded, but the old lady pursed her lips
and knitted her brow. "Ah'll go in ma ain hoose, son," she said.

"It might not be safe, Mrs. ..."

"Miss!" she snapped, cutting the inspector off short. "Miss Bonney,
Wilma Bonney. Ah've been through this before, and the last time your
lot cleared up for me wi' their big feet they broke half my china.
That'll no happen again. Ah'll be fine goin' in there. At my age,
Ah've learned to watch my step."

Martin was on the point of suggesting that it might have been the flood
that had broken her china, when he thought better of it. "In that
case, Miss Bonney," he suggested, 'maybe you'll let me come in with you
... just in case some of your furniture's been moved about by the
water, and has to be shifted."

She stared at him, as if she was weighing up his sincerity or his
trustworthiness. Whatever test she was applying, he passed. "Och, all
right," she muttered. "You'll be careful where you put your feet,
though."

"I promise." He smiled at Sharp behind her back as he followed Wilma
Bonney's brisk walk across the street. He kept close to her, for the
mud on the roadway was still damp in places, and he was afraid that she
might slip, but she was as surefooted as he was in his clumsy
footwear.

"Number twelve," she announced, leading him towards a blue doorway, on
the far side of a broad flagstone landing, just a single step up from
the pavement. Martin looked down and realised that it formed a bridge
across a narrow basement yard, on to which three barred windows looked.
The glass in each was broken.

Miss Bonney delved deep into her purse and produced a Yale key, which
she used to open the door. Martin saw that the frame around the keeper