The Affair (40 page)

Around five o’clock the door of her cell opened and another guard appeared, a man. ‘
Un visitatore
,’ he told her. ‘
Venga con me
.’

Excellent
, she thought.
I hope it’s Hilary. Or perhaps the British Consul.

She followed him down the stairs to the meeting room, clutching her notes, but when she looked through the doorway her knees almost gave way beneath her. There, standing by the table with a battered brown suitcase by his feet, was an exhausted-looking Trevor. The relief was overwhelming. She ran straight into his arms and hugged him tightly, tears leaking out of her eyes. When she looked up, his eyes were shining.

‘Walter Wanger called me yesterday afternoon,’ he told her. ‘He was very apologetic. Didn’t say much; just that you had been arrested for murder and it appeared to be a case of mistaken identity. It sounded like a ridiculous made-up story but I got the first flight I could this morning just in case.’

‘I rang your secretary earlier. She doesn’t even know you’ve left the country.’

‘I’ll telephone later and tell them to find someone to stand in for me because I’m not leaving Italy again until I’m able to take you with me. What kind of a country is this? It’s outrageous that you should be treated this way.’ His expression was a mixture of anger and bewilderment. He wasn’t the kind of person things like this happened to. Neither was she.

They sat and linked hands across the table. ‘Wasn’t the dead girl that friend of yours, the one I met?’

Diana took a deep breath. She had hoped this moment would never come, but now she had no choice but to tell him everything, including the fact that she’d had an affair.

‘Yes, it was Helen,’ she began. ‘I’m so sorry, Trevor. I’ve let you down.’

Both of them cried as she described the way she had been taken in by Ernesto and the consequences of her affair. Trevor didn’t let go of her hand throughout, but the tears slid unchecked down his cheeks. The news didn’t seem to come as a surprise and she wondered if he had suspected something of the sort at Easter when he asked her not to decide about the future of their marriage until filming was over. Perhaps he had been able to sense a change in her that went deeper than a few new outfits.

Next she described to him what had happened to Helen, and the desperate attempt to save her life on the jetty.

‘Why didn’t you telephone me?’ he asked.

‘I wish I had, but it would have meant telling you about Ernesto.’ She finished her story, describing Luigi, the witness who claimed to have seen her fighting with Helen and the suave lawyer who was representing her.

The guard was standing outside the door to give them privacy, but now she popped her head in to say ‘
Solo dieci più minuti
’ – ten minutes more.

They turned to practicalities. Diana wrote down Hilary’s number and gave Trevor the notes to pass on, then she opened her handbag to give him the lawyer’s phone number and the keys to her room in the Pensione Splendid, where he could stay the night. With any luck, she would be joining him the following day.

‘I’ll find out from Signor Esposito where the hearing is, and what time, and I’ll make sure I’m there,’ Trevor told her. ‘I’ll keep a taxi waiting outside for us to leave together.’

‘Oh, that would be bliss. We can go for lunch somewhere lovely to celebrate.’

The guard stood in the doorway clearing her throat. ‘
Signora, è ora
.’

She stood up and Trevor’s voice cracked as he spoke: ‘I can’t bear to leave you here, Diana. I wish I could take your place.’

‘It’s OK,’ she told him firmly. ‘It’s not too bad. I’ll manage.’

After he’d left, back in her cell, she felt more worried for him than she did for herself. He belonged in academia and had no resources for dealing with a world peopled by movie stars and drug-dealing criminals. He didn’t even speak Italian. But it was wonderful to know that he was there in Rome and still on her side after all she had told him. It was extraordinary, in fact.

On Thursday morning, Diana was driven across town in a prison van, which drew up outside a limestone baroque building with a sculpture of a chariot and four horses on top, and a statue of Justice over the door. It was an austere building that seemed to have the weight of history in its stones. She was led through the entrance hall into a high-ceilinged chamber. Her heart was pounding hard and she focused on simply putting one foot in front of the other. Signor Esposito was already there, and he waved her over to sit beside him. A judge came into the room, an elderly man who wore thick, heavy spectacles. He nodded at both lawyers and proceedings began.

First the prosecuting lawyer presented his evidence, and Diana listened hard. She reeled when he said that Ernesto Balboni would be testifying that he’d had a sexual relationship with both her and Helen. It was a horrifying thought, but she simply didn’t believe it. Helen would have told her; she could never keep a secret. She wrote a note to Signor Esposito: ‘I don’t believe it. He’s lying.’

After that, the prosecutor read the evidence about their argument in the bar, Helen being distressed the next day and telling everyone she had to find Diana, and then there was a statement from the security guard at the Torre Astura film set who said he had directed Helen to Diana’s room and that she was alone. That was odd. What had happened to her between the gatehouse and the
pensione
, where the
padrona
said she hadn’t seen her? The prosecutor said a local resident claimed to have seen the two girls fighting by the roadside, pulling hair and screaming, at around midnight. Unfortunately, she couldn’t be asked to pick Diana out of a line-up because her photograph had appeared in the Italian press that morning.

Diana was aghast. ‘Where did they get my photo?’ she scribbled in a note and Signor Esposito raised his hands in a shrug.

Then the lawyer spoke of the soldier’s testimony that, after he pulled Helen from the water, Diana had come running down straight away, almost as if she had been waiting for someone to find the body and wanted to try to establish her innocence with ostentatious attempts to save someone who was clearly already dead. He said that Diana kept repeating ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’

Diana shook her head. She’d been in shock. How could they misinterpret that?

Finally, the policeman who had interviewed her at Torre Astura testified that she had a nasty scratch on her cheek, and that she had left the area despite his specific instructions to the contrary.

It all sounded very damning when put that way, and she watched the judge making notes on a sheet of paper in front of him. From time to time he glanced at her with a stern expression.

Now it was Signor Esposito’s turn and he stood up and began to explain first of all that Diana’s marriage had been troubled and that she had made the grave error of turning for comfort to a man who transpired to be married and a seasoned seducer. Diana was grateful that Trevor was waiting outside and couldn’t hear what was being said. It made her sound desperately naïve, which she supposed she was. Signor Esposito mentioned that she had no family and was lonely in Rome, where she was fulfilling a very responsible role on the Cleopatra film. Perhaps it was unsurprising that she sought comfort elsewhere.

He dwelled at length on Diana’s professional achievements, trying to correct the erroneous picture of her that had been promoted in the Italian media and establish her as a well-brought-up woman of good repute, before setting out her version of the events of the night Helen died. He mentioned that Helen had been struggling with a drugs problem and had become mixed up with some unsavoury characters as a result, although he didn’t mention Luigi by name. The picture he painted was of a fragile, troubled girl who didn’t fit in well amongst the older, more sophisticated crowd on the film set. He said Diana had tried to help her, but they had unfortunately fallen out the day before Helen died. And he made the point that Diana had already finished the relationship with Ernesto Balboni when he seduced Helen; she broke up with him as soon as she found out he was married.

‘We don’t know what happened to the poor girl at Torre Astura that night but my client did not see her. The police must continue their investigations until they find the true culprit and we will do all we can to assist them.’

Diana bit her lip. It sounded convincing if you understood that both she and Helen were gentle types. The idea of them getting into a physical fight was ludicrous. She gazed at the judge, trying to guess what he was thinking but he gave nothing away.

After hearing all the evidence he stood up and left the courtroom to consider his decision.

‘How did it go?’ she asked.

‘We’ll have to wait and see,’ Signor Esposito told her. ‘There were a couple of surprises in their evidence.’

For Diana, the biggest surprise of all was that Ernesto would testify for the prosecution. She was sure he was lying that he had a ‘relationship’ with Helen but why would he do that? He must truly hate her.

Just ten minutes later, the judge came back into the room. His judgement was short and to the point. Given the mass of circumstantial evidence against Signora Bailey, he ruled that her arrest for the murder of Helen Sharpe was validated. And given the seriousness of the crime, the fact that she had already left the area despite the police requesting her not to, and because she was a foreign national who might decide to flee, he was remanding her in custody while the investigation continued.

Diana clasped her face in her hands to stifle a scream. ‘How long will that be?’ she asked as soon as she could compose herself.

‘Murder trials can take over a year in preparation.’ Signor Esposito patted her shoulder. ‘But don’t worry – we’ll get you out long before then.’

A guard came to collect her and she stood up, feeling utterly dazed.

‘Will you explain to Trevor?’ she asked. ‘Tell him not to worry.’

‘Of course.’

As she was led through the hall back out to the police car, she saw Trevor in a waiting area. She called his name and when he looked up, she managed to blow a kiss before she was led through a doorway and down to the car for the short journey back to Regina Coeli.

Scott Morgan went to the Palazzo di Giustizia for the judicial hearing regarding the arrest of Diana Bailey, hoping that he might be permitted to listen to the evidence, but he was told by an official that it was just the judge, the lawyers and the defendant. Still, he decided to hang around and get the news as soon as judgement was declared. He asked a clerk which courtroom it was in and sat near the entrance. A dozen other journalists were hanging around, some of whom he recognised. On the next bench along there was a bookish sort of man who looked anxious and out of place, and Scott guessed he might be a friend of Diana’s. He was dressed like an Englishman, in a shirt and tie, trousers and socks with gladiator sandals.

Sooner than he expected, the courtroom door opened and Diana was led out in handcuffs.

‘Trevor,’ she shouted, and blew a kiss at the waiting man. He half stood and spread his arms wide, obviously expecting her to run to him. When she was led off through a doorway instead, he hurried after her calling, ‘Diana! Wait! Where are you taking her?’

A lawyer emerged and summoned the man, Trevor, and they sat in a huddle, head to head. They weren’t far from Scott but their voices were lowered so he couldn’t hear anything. He seemed distraught and that’s when Scott guessed he must be Diana’s husband.

The lawyer spoke to him quietly for about ten minutes, then got up to leave, whereupon some members of the Italian press surrounded him, clamouring for information. Looking dazed, Trevor wandered towards the main doors of the building.

‘Mr Bailey,’ Scott approached him. ‘Scott Morgan. I was a friend of Helen’s and it’s possible I can help with Diana’s case. Can we talk?’

‘Who are you?’ he frowned.

‘I’m a journalist, but I knew Helen. I’m convinced your wife is innocent, and I might have some information that can help her.’

‘What paper do you work for? You’re not planning to write about this by any chance?’