Nobody talked as we drove back to the villa. The only human sound was the crying of the little fellow Hilda was nursing. He seemed to have sensed that something was wrong. He didn’t stop crying till we reached the villa. We got Max on to the couch in the room to the left of the door. It was queer going into that room again. It looked cold and unlived in in that queer half-light. Roberto’s body still lay in a heap on the floor and there were unwashed glasses and ashtrays. By the time we’d got Tucek and Lemlin upstairs to bed, Hilda had found water and was busy cleaning Maxwell up.
‘Let me do that,’ I said. ‘You get upstairs and see to your father.’
She shook her head. ‘My father is all right. He is only drugged.’
‘Better for him if he stay drugged,’ Zina said. ‘Better for us all if we have drugs.’ She stared down at Maxwell. Hilda had cleaned the dirt off his face. The skin was very white and the lower lip horribly bitten through. ‘You want some morfina?’
Hilda glanced up. ‘Morphia?’
‘Si, si. Morphia. I think I know where it is.’
Hilda looked down again at Max and then nodded. ‘I think it might help — later when he becomes conscious again.’
Zina went out. ‘Well, what do we do now?’ Reece asked.
‘Clean up, I guess,’ Hacket said. ‘We’ll feel better when we’ve got rid of some of this ash.’
‘But there must be something we can do. There’s a telephone here, isn’t there?’