Ed said nothing, but walked briskly across the driveway to the brick steps which led up to the guest cottage. He skirted around the shadowy wooden verandah, his feet echoing on the boards, until he came to a window with floral drapes pulled across it. He listened, and he thought he could hear the chaffeur snoring inside. He banged loudly on the window with the flat of his hand.

The bedside light went on straight away, with almost comical speed. A voice said, ‘Who’s that? What’s happening?’

‘Everything’s okay,’ said Ed. ‘I just need the keys to the car. Someone locked it by mistake, and Senator Jones has left some important documents in it.’

A long silence. Then the chauffeur said, ‘Do you know what time it is? It’s three o’clock in the morning.’

‘Sure it’s three o’clock in the morning. But the President’s called on Senator Jones for some urgent information, and we have to have those keys. Come on, pal, just pass them out, and then you can go back to sleep.’

Ed heard a cot creaking, and a loud sniff. ‘I’m not supposed to hand them over to anybody, you know.’

‘Senator Jones isn’t just anybody, and neither is the President. So will you give me the keys?’

Up at the house, Ed heard the whistling roar of the Chevy Surburban’s engine starting up. He stepped back from the cottage window, and peered up the hill. He could make out the wagon’s lights as Peter and Muldoon circled around the front of the house in pursuit.

‘Will you hurry up, please?’ Ed called out. ‘Senator Jones is real impatient.’

‘Hold on a minute,’ said the chauffeur, from behind the floral drapes. ‘I’m trying to remember if I left the keys in my uniform pants or my Levis. I did some work on the car earlier on, you know. The brakes were squealing like hogs. Do you know what it was? Dust, that’s what it was. This perishing Kansas dust, in the linings.’

Ed stepped back again. The lights of the Muldoons’ wagon were already halfway down the hill, flickering their way through the pines. He could hear the whine of the four-wheel drive, and the crunching of the tyres on the gravel.

He thundered on the chauffeur’s bedroom window with his clenched fist. ‘Are you going to give me those fucking keys or do I have to tear down the wall and get them myself?’

The drapes abruptly parted. Then the sash window came rattling up. The chauffeur was standing there in pink striped pyjamas, solemn and frightened, with his hair sticking up from sleeping. He was holding out the keys like a small boy who’s been caught stealing candies.