There were three cars parked by a windbreak of red pines – Ed’s own Caprice Classic station wagon, in which he had driven up to Lake Vista with Della; a Chevy Suburban wagon which the Muldoons used to drive around the grounds; and Shearson’s rented Lincoln Continental. The chauffeur, a quiet and serious man with a permanent frown, had been put up in the guest cottage close to the main gates.

‘Keys!’ said Della, as Shearson and Ed caught up with her. ‘Did you remember your car keys?’

‘I didn’t even know I was going to have to drive tonight,’ said Ed.

Shearson gasped, ‘No more running. Please. I beg you. No more running.’

Della opened the Suburban’s left-hand door, and felt around for keys. ‘No damned keys,’ she said. ‘Why couldn’t they be careless for once?’

Ed, one-handed, the pump-gun still waving at Shearson Jones, opened up the Lincoln. It smelled of leather and car-freshener. ‘No keys here, either.’

Della looked back towards the house. Peter Kaiser appeared briefly in the open front doorway, and then disappeared again. All around them the night was windy and strewn with stars. They could hear Muldoon shouting, and Peter calling, ‘Don’t do that, you’ll choke him, for Christ’s sake!’

Della bit her lip. ‘They’ll be after us in a minute. You wait until Peter Kaiser finds those papers are missing. Listen – get in the car.’

‘What’s the point? We can’t get it started.’

‘Just get in the car. It’s downhill all the way to the guest house. If you can give it enough of a push to start with, we can coast to the gates, and then get hold of the keys from the chauffeur.’

Muldoon appeared in the doorway of the house now, and unexpectedly fired a shot. Ed saw the flash of the .45’s muzzle, and heard the bullet drone away into the pines.

Shearson said, ‘You’d better make up your tiny minds, because they’re quite liable to shoot us all.’

Ed tugged open the back door of the Lincoln. ‘Get in,’ he ordered Shearson. Shearson beamed smugly, and wedged himself inside with a great show of puffing and blowing.

‘I hope you realise this is all futile,’ he said, as Ed slammed the door on him.

Della opened the passenger door. ‘Give me the gun,’ she told Ed. ‘I’ll try to give you some cover while you get us started.’

Ed looked at her for one questioning second, and then tossed the pump-gun across the roof of the car. Della caught it in one hand, without effort, as if she’d been trained in gun-handling all her life. Even Ed couldn’t have caught it like that.