The Affair (34 page)

But she knew she hadn’t. Helen was dead. The policeman was right; she should lie down somewhere until the world stopped feeling so very far away.

Diana lay on her bed staring up at the cracks in the ceiling. Out in the corridor she could hear other lodgers using the bathroom, one after another. The sound of water gushing through the antiquated plumbing was like a waterfall pounding onto a tin roof. How could Helen be dead? How was it possible? She was too young for death. She couldn’t even begin to guess what had happened.

The house fell silent as the workmen headed off to their jobs on the set. She remembered she had meant to talk to the chief carpenter but couldn’t for the life of her think what she had meant to say.

Her left eye started twitching and wouldn’t stop and that made her realise that she hadn’t cried properly yet. Tears trickled out unbidden but that was all. When would the crying start? There would be crying, that was certain, but she couldn’t cry yet because she had to decide what to do. She should telephone people to tell them – but who?

Hilary. Suddenly she yearned to speak to sensible, practical Hilary. The security guard must have a telephone. Maybe he would let her use it if she went over there.

She sat up. The shivering had stopped but she was still in her damp clothing and it was making the bed damp beneath her. She’d brought another dress with her but it had a bright summery pattern of tiny sprigs of orange blossom on a pale green background and didn’t seem appropriate. She hesitated for a long time, wondering if there was anywhere to buy a black outfit nearby, before realising that it didn’t matter in the slightest what she wore. Helen was gone and nothing could bring her back.

It was a different security guard and he gave her an odd look, but immediately agreed that she could come in and use the telephone. Her hands were shaking hard so he dialled the number for her then passed over the receiver.

Candy answered the phone.

‘Can I speak to Hilary?’ Diana asked, her voice cracking.

There was a pause and a murmur of voices, then Hilary’s voice came on the line. ‘Is that you, Diana?’

Diana opened her mouth to speak but no words came out. Instead the tears came and she couldn’t stop them. ‘It’s Helen …’ she gasped between sobs.

‘I know. The police rang us. God, it’s simply awful. Walter wants me to ring her parents because he thinks it’s a woman’s job but I haven’t a clue what to say. Oh Diana, you poor thing, do try to stop crying.’

Diana’s chest hurt with the force of her sobs and she struggled to speak. The security guard passed her a handkerchief and she blew her nose hard. ‘I t-tried for ages to save her but it was t-too late. She was g-gone.’

There was a tutting sound down the line. ‘You shouldn’t be there on your own. I’m sending a taxi to bring you back to Rome. If I hire a local firm they should be with you in the next half hour.’ Hilary sounded calm and in control. ‘Come straight to Cinecittà,’ she said. ‘You need to be among friends.’

‘B-but the police told me to stay here.’

‘That’s ridiculous. I’ll get our lawyers to speak to them. Go back to the
pensione
, pack your things and wait for the taxi. You’ll be here in a couple of hours and we’ll talk properly then.’

‘OK,’ Diana agreed. It was good to have a plan. She handed the phone back to the guard and offered to return his handkerchief as well, but he motioned that she should keep it.

The taxi arrived promptly and Diana calmed down a little on the drive back to Rome. She wondered what everyone on the set would make of it. Hilary hadn’t known Helen personally; neither had Candy. They didn’t know how deflated she had been recently and they certainly didn’t know about her flirtation with Ernesto, so they were unlikely to be able to shed any light on what had happened. But perhaps they would be able to explain why Helen had been there at all. Had she been sent on some errand – perhaps to check the makeup stocks at Torre Astura? It seemed unlikely. Anyone could have done that.

Hilary was waiting in the office when Diana arrived. She sent Candy out to pay the taxi driver before pulling Diana towards her for a warm hug.

‘What a hideous experience! She was a good friend of yours, wasn’t she?’ She patted Diana’s shoulder. ‘Sit down and tell me all about it while I make some tea.’

‘There’s hardly anything to tell,’ Diana shook her head, holding back the tears. ‘I woke this morning to hear a soldier shouting for help and when I ran down to the set, he’d pulled Helen out of the water and she was dead. I tried to revive her but … but it was useless.’ She sat at her desk and gazed blankly at the familiar filing tray and telephone.

Hilary plugged in the kettle. ‘Didn’t she find you last night? She told the girls in the makeup department she was going to look for you. Said she had to speak to you urgently.’

‘Really?’ Diana felt a plummeting sensation in her stomach. She buried her face in her hands and groaned. ‘We’d argued. She must have wanted to make things up.’ Hilary looked at her quizzically. ‘We fell out the night before last, about Ernesto. Immediately after our affair ended, he seduced Helen and she was keen on him, even when I told her about his wife. I yelled at her, and I shouldn’t have. I feel simply awful about it now.’

Hilary sat down to wait for the kettle. ‘So you didn’t see her? That’s odd. The policeman who rang gave us the impression you were with her when she died. They must have got it wrong.’

‘No, they’re confused. I didn’t know anything about it till this morning. I suppose she was alone.’

Hilary pursed her lips. ‘Do you think she committed suicide?’

The thought hadn’t occurred to Diana, and she was shocked that Hilary could consider it. A young woman would have to be utterly hopeless to take such a drastic step. She ran through possible reasons for suicide but couldn’t come up with any. Even if Helen had been pregnant, there were things that could be done. She’d heard that it was relatively simple in London to find a midwife who would terminate an unwanted pregnancy, though, admittedly, in the Pope’s hometown it was likely to be much harder. But if Helen were pregnant, whose could it be? Surely not Ernesto’s?

Diana realised she hadn’t yet answered Hilary’s question. ‘No, it doesn’t add up. Why would she come all that way to see me then kill herself before finding me? … Unless she was very drunk. Sometimes she drank more than was good for her.’ Diana felt disloyal saying that when Helen wasn’t around to defend herself, and wished she could take back the words.

‘Did you mention that to the police?’

Diana shook her head. ‘To be honest, I can’t remember what I said to the police. I was so distraught this morning I could barely speak. I’m going to have to talk to them again, no doubt.’

Candy came back into the office. ‘Did you tell Diana about Helen’s mom?’ she asked. Hilary gave her a warning frown.

‘Have you talked to her? Oh God, how did she take it?’

Candy answered. ‘She didn’t believe it at first, and then she screamed so loud I could hear her on the other side of the office. I suppose her folks’ll come out here, don’t you think? I wonder where they’ll have the funeral? The whole cast and crew should go. That’s what I’d want if it was me: lots of flowers and some great music.’

Diana was uncomfortable with the way Candy was treating it, almost as another piece of gossip on the set. She didn’t feel like discussing it with her. Hilary brought over her cup of tea.

‘I think I’ll type up my notes from the trip,’ Diana told them. ‘I need to keep myself busy and I don’t know what else to do.’

‘Are you sure?’ Hilary frowned again. ‘You look very pale and shaky. Have you eaten anything today?’

Diana remembered that she hadn’t eaten since lunchtime the day before.

‘Let me take you to the bar,’ Hilary said firmly in her head-girl voice. ‘We’ll get some food inside you then send you home to bed. Drink your tea first.’

Diana looked at the phone. It would be good to call Trevor. He’d met Helen and would sympathise with the shock she was feeling. But he would ask questions about why Helen had come to Torre Astura, and Diana couldn’t tell him about their argument because then she would have to confess about Ernesto. It was a tangled mess.

She couldn’t think straight for herself, so she obeyed Hilary’s orders, drinking her tea then following her to the bar. It was after three and they were no longer serving sandwiches but they made one up for her with fresh tomatoes. She chewed mechanically without tasting it.

‘Take the weekend off,’ Hilary suggested. ‘Get lots of rest and eat regular meals. Don’t come back to work till Monday morning. We’re only shooting a few fill-in scenes, nothing vital.’

I don’t want to be on my own for two days. What will I do with myself?
Diana was about to protest, then realised that she was really very tired. Perhaps she could just sleep.

After the food, Hilary ushered her into a studio car and sent her back to Pensione Splendid. Diana unlocked the door and went to sit at the window and gaze out across the rooftops, trying to think clearly.

If only she had gone back to resolve the argument with Helen the same afternoon. If only she had gone into the café where she saw her with Luigi. She still couldn’t imagine what had happened but it was becoming clear that if she had made peace with her Helen would be alive today – and that was a hefty burden to bear.

Next morning, Diana was wakened by loud knocking. She pulled on a robe and opened the door to see two policemen standing there, with her
padrona
behind them.

‘Mrs Bailey, you were supposed to stay in Torre Astura. We need to ask you some questions,’ one said in English.

Diana folded her arms protectively across her chest. ‘Yes, of course. If you’ll just let me get dressed.’ She nodded to the
padrona
, who didn’t seem best pleased at this visitation.

‘Meet us downstairs and we’ll drive you to the station. Bring your papers.’

As she dressed, Diana shook herself mentally. She had to give the police all the information she could to help them find out what happened to Helen. It was imperative that they solved the mystery or her family and friends would be left hanging on, wondering. She still didn’t know what she thought herself but the police were better at this kind of thing. If she gave them the information, they’d work it out. She felt a frisson of nerves, but quelled them. She was an intelligent woman with a PhD from Oxford. She could handle this.

She sat in the back of a police car and was driven out in the direction of Cinecittà for about twenty minutes, until they pulled up outside a large building with a sign saying
Questura Polizia di Stato
over the door. They led her straight into a small room with a table and three chairs. The only window was high up in one wall. Her stomach rumbled and she wished she had grabbed some breakfast before she left.

‘Could I have a glass of water, please?’ she asked in Italian.

‘Sit down, Mrs Bailey,’ an officer told her. ‘We are going to go through the entire story from the beginning. Someone will bring your water in due course. Can you answer in Italian or would you like us to find a translator?’

She could tell he didn’t want the bother of finding a translator, so agreed to speak Italian.

They wanted to see her passport, her residence permit and the permit to work that had been obtained for her by Twentieth Century Fox. They asked about her job in England and that of her husband, how she had got the post at Cinecittà and when she first met Helen. Many of the questions seemed inconsequential but Diana answered them with painstaking honesty. A young officer was writing everything down and sometimes she paused to give him time to catch up.

They were stony-faced when she talked about her affair with Ernesto. They had already reacted with disbelief that she would leave her husband to take a job in another country so she couldn’t expect them to understand the terrible mistake she had made getting involved with a married man. They’d written her off as a scarlet woman. At last the glass of water arrived. It was warm and tasted stale but she gulped it down gratefully.