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doing. “What did you find out?”
    â€œRigby Villas exists, and Lester Thomas lives at number sixty-eight. But Lester isn’t our boy. He’s a Jamaican thug in his fifties, known to the police. I think our young burglar probably knows him too—he was awfully quick with the name, and it matches the address. My guess is he hoped we’d go calling and Lester would beat us up. But he’s not Lester.”
    â€œWho is the boy, then?” Roland asked.
    â€œWe don’t know.”
    Genuinely puzzled, Roland asked, “So you let him escape?”
    â€œSeemed the easiest way,” Carradine said. “The kid had a set of professional lockpicks—”
    â€œAre you serious?” Roland interrupted. “Where would a teenager get hold of professional lockpicks?”
    Carradine smiled slightly. “The Internet, I’d think. You can buy the basics for a few dollars.”
    â€œCan you really? Good God.”
    â€œAnyway,” Carradine said, “I found them when I searched him, but pretended I hadn’t—he’d sewn them into the lining of his jacket, so the only way you could get to them was through a hole in an inside pocket. When I felt the set, I had the idea that it might save some time and effort if I let him use them. I put Burke on duty outside the door with instructions to take a leak if the kid managed to get the door open. Sure enough, the kid did—amazingly quickly, as well. Burke heard the door click, took himself off and warned everybody else to keep clear. When he got back, the kid was gone.” He grinned. “There was only one way he could go—we locked the other doors and left an elevator operational, so he had to end up in the parking lot.”
    â€œWhat about gate security?”
    â€œTempleton had orders to look the other way.”
    Frowning, Roland said, “You’ve let him walk out, and now he could be anywhere?”
    Carradine’s smile broadened. “Not anywhere. I bugged his jacket when I searched him. If you come around the desk, I can show you on the laptop exactly where he is right now.”

12
Danny, London
    D anny ran the last few hundred yards. Old man Kozak—kids all called him Kojak—came out of his front door and waved, but Danny ignored him. By the time the bewildered look settled back on Kojak’s face, Danny had his key in the lock, the door open, and was shouting, “Nan? You in there, Nan?”
    Danny and his grandmother lived in a terrace house, two up, two down, that belonged to the local council and was set aside for pensioners. There were a few younger souls living there, family members like Danny, but there was always a wrinkly in the house somewhere.
    â€œNan? It’s Danny.” His panic grew. Nan wasn’t answering, but she was a bit hard of hearing, specially with the TV on, and she might be in the kitchen, or even out the back. And she might be lying dead, his panic whispered, but he pushed the thought aside.
    There was nobody in the kitchen, nobody in theliving room. He took the stairs two at a time and ran into his Nan’s room, which was full of junk, mainly plastic flowerpots, but empty of his Nan. He looked into the bathroom, which needed a bit of cleaning, but no Nan lying on the floor.
    Danny ran down the stairs, ran through the kitchen, ran out the back door. “Nan!” he called, just stopping short of screaming it. He looked around the little yard. His grandmother wasn’t here, wasn’t anywhere. Somebody on his voice mail said she’d been taken bad, and now she was gone. He thought of the hospital. (Which one?) For just a moment he thought of Fanning’s Funeral Parlor and hated himself for it.
    â€œDanny? That you, Danny?”
    Aggie from next door was rattling the latch, shuffling into the yard in her slippers and cardigan. She looked pale and worried, but relieved to see him. “Oh, Danny, thank God you’ve come.