He pulled the wagon out on to Franklin Avenue. Behind him, Roy Gurning drove on his left three-quarter flank in his Pinto wagon, and Nat Petersen drove on his right three-quarter flank in a Cutlass. Between them, the three cars formed a spearhead which took up the width of the whole road.

‘I just hope we know what the hell we’re doing,’ said Ed. He was sweating all over, and he couldn’t stop.

‘All right,’ growled Shearson, ‘Let’s go.’

Ed waved to Roy and Nat, and then slammed his foot down on the gas. With a throaty bellow, the Chevy surged forward, right into the running crowds, with the Pinto and the Cutlass hugging close behind.

Ed felt the wagon’s bumper hit two – three – four people. Their bodies made firm thumping noises, like huge insects hitting the windshield in summer. Someone screamed, and two men tried to run along beside him and claw the driver’s door open, but he was driving too fast, and Roy was coming up so close behind them that they had to dodge out of the way.

Then, it was hell. They reached the intersection of Highland and Franklin and they were in the thick of it Sticks and stones drummed against the sides of the wagon, and there were screeches of agony and fright as he forced the hood of the four-wheel-drive vehicle right into the surging mob of people around the supermarket.

He heard Peter Kaiser shoot the pump-gun four or five times. He heard windows at the back of the wagon breaking. There was a chaotic howling ocean of distorted people around him, and yet he was still driving the wagon forward – slower now, because of the dense press of bodies – but still relentlessly forward over crushed arms and legs and bursting skulls. The banging of clubs and sticks against the vehicle’s bodywork was utterly deafening, and he knew that his face was pulled into a ridiculous expression of fear and concentration, but there was nothing he could do about it.

The last few feet were the worst. As the wagon pushed its bumpers right up to the supermarket’s doors, ten or twelve looters were caught in front of it, and shoved bodily through the wire-reinforced glass, like ribbons of raw meat through a grater. Then, with a last burst of low-gear power, Ed brought down the whole row of doors, and collided with the liquor counter.

They had miscalculated, badly. The mob was wild and unstoppable and far more numerous than they had realised. Peter fired three more shots and his pump-gun was empty, Roy Gurning’s Pinto had been swallowed up by the crowd, and Ed glimpsed its offside wheels as it was turned over, with Roy still inside it. Nat Petersen’s car had disappeared altogether, Shearson screamed, ‘It won’t work! It won’t work! Just back, up and get the hell out of here!’