Daniel handed Oli the dropped keys and the three boys glanced about, before dashing up ten metres of driveway towards the house.

The front door was tatty, with a crack in the frosted glass. Oli took a minute, working out which of four keys undid the deadlock and the main lock.

‘It’s deadlocked, so there’s probably nobody else home,’ Oli noted, as he stepped into a gloomy house.

It wasn’t very warm and there was a smell of damp in the hallway. The living-room had lots of framed photos, an old TV and an ancient video tape recorder with the clock flashing. Leon checked out the kitchen, which had a feeding bowl and a whiff of cats. Oli started opening jars along the counter top hoping to find money, but he only found stale biscuits, flour and gravy powder.

‘This isn’t worth the risk,’ Daniel noted.

Oli laughed. ‘What risk? If they catch me they’ll put me in a secure care home. But I’m already in a secure care home. They might tighten up my curfew or move me back to secure corridor, but who really gives a shit?’

As Oli said this he opened a cupboard under the sink and found a black enamel money-box on a shelf. It was narrow, and the inside was divided into sections with handwritten labels saying things like gas, telephone, vet and birthday.

‘Ker-ching!’ Oli said, rattling coins as he thumped the box on the dining-table. After popping off the lid, he stripped out eighty pounds in tenners, plus a five and a dozen pound coins. ‘I bet the old bag keeps more upstairs.’

‘We’re splitting this three ways,’ Leon said, as Oli led a charge upstairs.

Daniel still seemed reluctant. ‘She’s just an old lady,’ he said, as he reached the upstairs landing.

‘So what?’ Oli said. ‘What have old people ever done for us?’

There were two rooms and a bathroom upstairs. There was a jewellery box beside the woman’s bed. Oli pocketed a man’s sovereign ring and some diamond earrings, while Leon found another seventy pounds under a bar of soap in a drawer full of bras.

Oli ignored the bathroom, then almost had a heart attack as he walked into the other bedroom. The large room was dominated by a hospital-style bed with an electric hoist above for lifting someone in and out, along with a portable toilet.

The man in the bed was in his forties, with lank, greying hair. He snored lightly, but when he breathed, one side of his body seemed completely paralysed.

‘Stinks like hell!’ Oli whispered, pulling his shirt up over his face. ‘But I think we hit pay dirt!’

Besides various pieces of medical equipment, there was a modern flat screen TV mounted on the wall, a laptop on the bed, an Android tablet alongside and an Xbox One with half a dozen games.