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The boy had gone.

He paused, catching his breath, stooping to brush snow off his trousers.

Gone. He had lost Billy already. The street was one of the nicer areas, so it seemed unlikely one of these houses belonged to the boy. And the street was fairly straight, arcing right at the far end, but that was a long way off, no way the boy could have run that far so quickly—

A blur of motion a couple of doors up, and Billy Toad broke from the cover of the gateway where he had been hiding, bolting across the street and into an alley between two houses. Jacob hollered ‘Stop!’ as he charged in pursuit, slipped on an ice patch and came down hard, then scrambled back to his feet, aware he’d cut one of his palms through the glove. He pulled it off, looked at the kind of scrape his mother might have once had to disinfect after a playground scuffle, and narrowed his eyes.

The boy couldn’t get away. He was too close.

Shouting Billy’s name, he raced across the street and into the alley. He caught a glimpse of the boy at the far end, but by the time he had emerged onto another suburban street, the boy had vanished again.

Defeated, Jacob bent to his knees as he gasped for breath, then looked up in dismay to see a police car, lights flashing, turn into the street. It gave a brief blare of its siren, then pulled up alongside him.

The passenger window was wound down.

‘Oh, hello there, Jacob,’ P.C. Mark Bobbins said. ‘I had a report of someone chasing a kid. Did you see anything?’

Jacob took a deep breath. ‘It was me,’ he said.

‘Oh well, I suppose you’d better get into the car.’

‘I need to talk to his mother,’ Jacob said, still struggling to breathe. ‘My aunt wants to offer her a job.’

‘This wouldn’t be Clarice Toad, by any chance?’

Jacob grimaced. ‘That’s right.’

‘Well jump in, and we’ll drive over there together.’

Jacob opened the door and climbed into the passenger seat. Further up the street, a group of kids were watching, pointing at the police car. He recognised a couple of them from the children’s home.

‘That looks nasty,’ Mark said, nodding at Jacob’s palm. ‘I’ve got some Germolene in the glovebox here if you want some.’