They crossed the living area. Shearson remarked loudly, ‘I wish you’d tell me what devious political purpose this kidnap is supposed to serve.’ And almost instantly, every light in the living area was switched on, and both Muldoon brothers stepped out from passages at the side, with automatics raised in both hands.

Later, Ed remembered what happened in such detail that he couldn’t believe it had all been over so quickly. He had thrown himself forward, right on to Shearson’s back, and toppled the senator to the floor. As he did so, he had twisted himself around and seized Shearson’s neck in the crook of his arm, wrenching it back, so that Shearson’s head protected his chest. Della had dived behind one of the sofas.

Calvin Muldoon had dodged down beside a chair, squinted along the sights of his Colt .45, and fired twice. One shot had shattered a white porcelain lampshade base into a blast of snowy shrapnel. The second had echoed its way down one of the passages.

There had been a second’s silence, and then Calvin’s brother had fired a wild shot that broke a window on the other side of the room. There had been another second’s silence. Neither dared to shoot again in case he hit the senator. There had been a sharp smell of gunsmoke in the air.

‘Muldoon!’ Ed had called out. ‘Muldoon – there’s nothing at all you can do.’

‘You just try to move and I’ll get you,’ Calvin Muldoon replied. ‘Either that, or I’ll get the woman.’

Ed had thought about that, in one of those vivid, jumbled, instant flashes of processed information. Then, without hesitation, he had lifted the pump-gun and fired.

The shot had blown the stuffing out of the cushions in the chair which Calvin Muldoon had been using for cover. The room had suddenly been filled with smoke, and echoes, and hundreds of floating duck feathers. Calvin Muldoon had been hit in the neck, and he had suddenly appeared with his hand held around his throat, kneeling bolt upright, his face as horrified as one of Shearson’s Kwakiutl masks. Thick red blood had been jetting out from between his fingers across the floor, spurt after spurt after spurt. His brother had shouted, ‘Calvin! Calvin, my God! Calvin!’

Next, they were out of the door, out into the night, and running. Della was way ahead, crossing the wide front drive to the travelled stand where the cars were parked. Ed trailed fifty or sixty feet behind, trying to drag Shearson along by the sleeve of his nightshirt.

‘I can’t run! I can’t run!’ wheezed Shearson.

‘I don’t give a damn!’ Ed shouted at him. ‘Run, or I’ll blow you to big fat pieces!’