‘I’m sorry about the window. But I needed your attention.’

‘Sweetheart, what is he talking about?’

Page’s chest was heaving, and he was staring up at Vincent as if his face were the light at the end of the tunnel.

Vincent said, ‘I saved two people this morning.’ Maybe that was a bit grandiose, and he shouldn’t really include himself in the count, but he wanted to be persuasive. He said, ‘And I can add you to the total, if you just tell me what’s going on. Sleep on it if you like, but I don’t think there’s much time.’

‘You’re good, Terry, just run the clock down. Cops’ll sort this boy out.’

Vincent still had Page’s attention. He said, ‘My advice, Terry: Tell them you didn’t see me.’

Vincent looked at the woman in the doorway. She had the pistol in one hand now, hanging by her leg. He said, ‘I’m sorry for the intrusion. You must’ve had a hell of a fright.’

She just stared at him and swallowed, as if she’d had suspicions for a while, and now here he was, vindicating all that worry.

He slung the shotgun on his shoulder by the strap. ‘Give me a call, Terry. I’m at the Beverly Hilton. And do me a favour: Tell the police one of the neighbours threw a rock at your window.’

Page said weakly, ‘But where’s the rock?’

Vincent turned and crunched across broken glass and went past the pool onto the lawn. He took the phone from his pocket and called Beauden.

‘Where the fu—’

‘I’m going out the back. Meet me on the next street. Two minutes.’

The rear fence was wooden, head-high, easy to climb. Vincent jacked himself up and jumped down with a brittle crack into someone’s shrubs. Through a short back yard, and the fine mist of a sprinkler that said tsk-tsk-tsk as he passed. Down a side yard now, and security lights came on as he moved toward the street, one-two-three along the length of the house, and he felt like a man coming out on stage. He waited at the corner of a garage, and a moment later Beauden’s red Caddy swooped to the kerb, headlights off. Vincent jumped in, and Beauden had them rolling before the door closed. He saw blue and red lights flash past the end of the street.

‘Man, you were in there forever—thought you were playing cards or something.’

Vincent was just pleased to be out of there, into the dark. The intense thrill and now relief of having done something and got away with it. Or maybe that was calling it too soon …

Beauden got them down to Mount Olympus Drive before he asked what happened. Vincent ran through it for him.