Prologue
Wind rustled through the old oak trees of London, in the distance a cat meowed which caused a dog to howl which caused a window to slam which triggered a ghostly silence. The sound of the light footsteps of a small, light boy on chipped slate roof tiles echoed around the narrow alleys of Westminster. Moments later a whistle blew, a dog barked and several footsteps thundered down the alleys after him. He skipped over a chimney top, leaping from roof to roof, his heart pounded in his ears almost so that they caused his eardrums to burst. He heard nothing but that and his own breathing. The policemen and police dogs footsteps started to fade into the night. He ran on into the night, but an unexpected loose tile found itself underneath his foot and fell down to the ground below. All of a sudden, only three fingers was what was stopping him from falling down to a spine chilling death at the foot of a police officer. The barks of the police dog returned and shattered the cold silence of the night. A bead of sweat ran down his temple. Two policemen were on the roof now, running down towards him. Three more were on the ground, waiting for him, batons and dogs at the ready. He hauled his hanging hand back onto the guttering that he was holding onto and began to heave himself upwards. The two policemen were only a few meters away from him now. He swung his legs around, not only getting himself back onto the roof safely but also knocking one of the policeman’s legs from underneath him causing him to bang heads with the other one and fall over the edge. The boy kept on running, only looking back once to see one policeman holding onto the edge of the roof with two hands and the other face down on the cobble floor below, the police dog nudging at his ear with his muzzle. The boy closed his eyes for a moment and ran on. This was nothing compared to what this deal consisted of.
