Kat jumped first. As she stepped back and then ran at the gap, David was impressed by her courage. She leaped at the very last moment, her skirts raised and her trailing foot pushing down hard against the edge of the guttering. She hit the other roof with a crash, one leg hanging over into the void. David crouched beside her, powerless to do anything but encourage her to her feet. She’d hurt herself, but she didn’t complain, she just looked back and called to Eddie.

“Come on, it’s not far. Eddie, jump!”

Eddie stepped back. He adjusted his glasses and glanced at the top of the broken iron ladder he’d climbed when he first came to the theater. It was clear he’d rather not jump at all, but go down that way. David followed his gaze downward, and was dismayed to see that someone was actually coming up the ladder from the street. Could it be one of Grinn’s men? They’d scared off a few, but how many more would the gang boss have brought with him? Grinn himself was getting closer, but Eddie was still just standing there.

“Eddie!” Kat and David were both shouting now.

Eddie threw a last wistful look at the ladder and then took off his glasses. He stuffed them in his inside pocket, along with his rolled-up notebook. Grinn was just a few paces away when he began his run up.

Eddie jumped.

He hit the edge of the neighboring roof with a hard clatter, the edges of the tiles digging into his stomach. His lungs emptied themselves in a single ouf of escaping air, and he clutched at the tiles in desperation. One of them came away, and Eddie fell back. Kat grabbed his coat and heaved. Somewhere far below the tile hit the ground and shattered.

Grinn reached the edge of the roof, panting furiously and just a couple of feet away from where Eddie was struggling. He looked at the knife in his hand, clearly considering whether or not to throw it. David couldn’t imagine what crazy calculations must have been going on in the man’s head by then, but there was nothing he could do but watch in horror as Grinn came to a decision, raised the knife past the right side of his head, and flung it straight at Eddie.

The knife struck Eddie, and he cried out. Kat heaved one last time and dragged him onto the roof, with the knife still sticking out near his collar.

“Kat, take it out!” David shouted. “Oh, God, take it out!”

Kat grabbed the handle and pulled the blade clear, her eyes wide at the sight of it in her hand and of Eddie’s blood running onto her fingers.

“It’s done!” cried Grinn, dancing up and down on the very edge of the roof. “Ha ha — done! Mr. Adam, it’s been seen to.”

“Adam is gone for good,” Petra said. She was standing behind Grinn. The gangster turned around.

“Go on, girlie, push me off,” he sneered. “That’s what you’d like, isn’t it? But you can’t. It’s like you’re not even here. Bleedin’ spooks! Go on, clear off, and don’t forget the Utherwise boy’s ghost on your way. Ha ha!”

“Not dead yet,” said Eddie, sitting up and wincing back at Grinn. “Thick coat.”

David could have cheered. Eddie had obviously been hurt, but not as badly as Grinn had thought. The gangster yelled in rage and got ready to jump across.

“Stop!” Petra called out, swooping around in front of him. “You’ll never make it. You are risking your life for nothing. Adam is finished. You can let the boy go, Charlie Grinn. Whatever Adam promised you has disappeared with him. It’s over.”

Petra’s voice was hard and she was staring into Grinn’s eyes with great intensity, bringing all the power of her will to bear. Grinn even hesitated, but not for long.

“Mr. Adam’s vanished before,” he said, “but he always comes back. And I’ll have something for him when he does, even if I have to strangle the life out of that scrawny weasel with my bare hands.”

He moved back to take a run at the gap. But before he started, a voice called up from the iron ladder.

“Wait, boss, I’ll get ’im.”

“Who’s that?” Grinn said. “Tater? Is that you?”

Grinn swept right through Petra and strode back to the edge to look down into the gloom, eager to see one of his men.

“Got a shooter?”

“Yeah, I’ll get ’im,” called the voice. “Give me a hand up, boss!”

The shape of an arm appeared at the top of the ladder. Grinn reached down, his teeth gleaming in the dark. David’s heart sank. On the roof, with Eddie injured, there was nowhere to hide from a man with a gun.

Then Grinn gave a shout.

David saw the gangster struggle in the dark. Then he staggered, toppled over the edge and vanished from view. For a second there was a cry, before the night was filled with a dull bone-breaking thud from the cobbles of the side street below.

“Ha!” said a voice, and a boy climbed to the top of the ladder. “He had that coming and no mistake.”