‘It was not a case of your life with Roberto. You did not need to kill Roberto.’ Zina had stopped playing and had come towards us.
Sansevino looked at her. ‘Roberto is a peasant,’ he said contemptuously. ‘What does it matter to you? You use him as an animal. There are plenty more animals.’ He turned to Hacket. ‘Well, now — what is it to be, signore? We can all die here together — or we can come to an arrangement.’
‘How do we know you can get us out?’ Reece asked. ‘If you know how to get away, why haven’t you gone already?’
‘Because I cannot go without you. As for whether I know how we can get away — if I do not, it will not be necessary for you to keep your side of the bargain. Well?’
‘All right,’ Hacket said.
Sansevino looked at Reece and myself. I glanced at Hilda. Then I nodded., Reece said, ‘All right. How do we get out?’
But Sansevino didn’t trust us. He got a sheet of paper and made Reece write out a statement that we were convinced he was really Shirer, that he’d done everything possible to help us to locate Tucek and Lemlin and that Roberto was shot when crazed with fear. It was so much a repetition of what had happened at the Villa d’Este that it seemed unbelievable that we weren’t back again in that hospital ward.
‘Very well.’ Sansevino pocketed the piece of paper. ‘And I have your word, gentlemen?’ We nodded. ‘And yours, Miss Tucek? And you all agree to hold Maxwell and the other two to this promise?’ Again we nodded. ‘Good. Then I think we had better start. There is a plane in the outhouses halfway towards the road.’
‘A plane?’ Hacket echoed in astonishment.
Hilda had jumped up. ‘Oh, what a fool I am! Of course. That is what Max was trying to tell us when he was on the cart. We saw it land whilst we were waiting out there on the road.’ I remembered then Zina saying — What about the aeroplane, Walter? and Sansevino reply — Ercole has gone to Naples in the jeep.