The Switch by Anthony Horowitz Page A

then began to run. He reached another garden wall and threw himself over it. Then another. He had forgotten all about Finn, didn’t care if he had been caught or not. Tad couldn’t stop. A window opened in one of the houses and somebody shouted. He came to a garden fence, kicked out at it with his foot and broke through.
    He found himself in a narrow alleyway. Down one end he could see flashing lights and hear voices. The other end was dark and silent. That was the direction he chose.
    Tad never knew how he got away without being arrested. But the alleyway led to a main road and suddenly he was in the clear with no policemen in sight and the chaos of Nightingale Square far behind him. He ran for an hour and only stopped when he could run no more.
    He had escaped from Finn. He had escaped from the Snarbys. But now he was on his own and wanted for murder. He had little money, nowhere to go. Tad found an entrance to an office and slipped inside, burying himself in the shadows. He was still there six hours later when the first of the traffic hit the streets and the city of London woke to another day.

HOME
    Bacon sandwich and a cup of tea, please.”
    Tad had found his way to a run-down café in a Soho back-street. He was the only customer. He paid for his breakfast using the last of his money and chose a table in the farthest corner. He had bought a late edition of the morning paper and now he opened it, thumbing through the pages.
    He found the murder of Lord Roven in a single column on page four. There was a photograph of the house in Nightingale Square and a headline that read BRUTAL MURDER IN LONDON’S MAYFAIR . The report concluded that the police had chased two intruders, a man and a boy, but both had escaped. So Finn hadn’t been arrested either! Tad didn’t know whether to be pleased or sorry. If Finn was free, he couldn’t lead the police to Tad. On the other hand, he would almost certainly be looking for Tad himself. After the disaster of the failed break-in, Tad didn’t like to think what would happen if he were found.
    Tad bit into his sandwich and actually found himself enjoying it. He should have been terrified or in despair, but the truth was that he was neither. He felt confident . . . even calm. As he sat in the café with his elbows on the table and his long hair falling over his eyes, Tad wondered if he was changing in some way that he couldn’t understand.
    A couple more people came into the café and ordered coffees. Neither of them even glanced in his direction. Cupping his hands around his tea, feeling the warmth, Tad tried to work out his options.
    He was a thirteen-year-old, on his own in London, wanted by the police. He knew that he had been seen at Lord Roven’s house and it surely wouldn’t be hard to track him down. And what then? The fact was that it had been Tad who had broken into the house and let Finn in. He was as responsible for the old man’s death as if he had held the sword himself. If the police caught him, he would go to prison. It was as simple as that.
    He had to get out of London. He knew that. But with no money in his pocket, it wasn’t going to be easy.
    Briefly, he considered going back to the carnival. Whatever he thought of them, Eric and Doll Snarby would look after him. And they’d take him with them when they moved to the carnival at Great Yarmouth. But if he went back to the Snarbys, he would be going back to Finn. Tad remembered the look on Finn’s face as he stabbed forward with the sword. He shivered and took a sip of tea. He couldn’t go back to Finn. There had to be another way.
    And that was when the idea came to him.
    Go home.
    Not to the Snarbys but to his real parents and his own home. Sir Hubert Spencer had a house in Knightsbridge—only an hour’s walk from where he was sitting now. It was his only chance. He had considered it before, when he was at the carnival at Crouch End. But things had been different then. He had been too frightened to think