The Affair (47 page)

At nine that evening, a guard came to the cell door and asked Diana not to change for bed because the supervisor was coming for a word.

‘Have you been complaining about anything?’ Donatella asked sharply. Guilt was written all over her face, and Diana guessed she thought it was about the theft of the
gettoni
.

‘No, I haven’t. Perhaps it’s about my request for us to get extra food. Trevor has paid the money.’

They waited in silence, sitting on their beds, until the supervisor appeared in the doorway. ‘Signora Bailey? Pack your things. You’re going home tomorrow morning.’

There was no preamble and Diana couldn’t absorb the words at first.

‘Lucky bitch!’ Donatella commented. ‘Can I come too?’

‘They’ve dropped the charges against you,’ the supervisor explained to Diana. ‘You’ll be released at eight in the morning.’

‘Are you sure?’ Diana asked. She didn’t want to get her hopes up for nothing. But the supervisor insisted it was true, then turned and left and they were locked in for the night. She stared after her, feeling stunned at the news.

‘Your fancy lawyer must have found a loophole in the law,’ Donatella speculated. ‘I don’t suppose you could ask him to look into my case now?’

But you’re guilty
, Diana thought. ‘I’ll ask him,’ she said out loud.

‘You should sue the police for wrongful imprisonment. You deserve compensation for all the hardship you’ve had to endure, and the damage to your good name. Get the bastards to grovel.’

‘I don’t want any money. I’ll just be happy to be free.’

The witness’s story must have fallen apart. She wondered who it was? It didn’t matter now, but she’d like to know. She tried to decide what she would do when she was released, but beyond seeing Trevor and hearing what had happened, she couldn’t think. She would only have spent eight days in jail but it seemed like weeks. She’d already got used to the routine of meals being brought on trays, lights being switched off at the appointed time, and baths being taken when the guards took you to the bathroom. The only thing she hadn’t got used to was the boredom. Even with her books to read, each hour was interminable.

There was no chance of sleep that night. She listened to Donatella’s mumbling and wondered what everyone at Cinecittà would say about her ordeal. Would she be allowed to complete her work on the film? Would Ernesto still be there? Had Helen’s funeral been held yet and, if not, would she be able to go? And beyond that, she wondered what would happen to her and Trevor. There were no answers, only endless questions.

Breakfast was brought to them at seven and, as they ate, Donatella kept giving Diana odd, slightly aggressive looks.

‘You’ve got money, haven’t you? I mean, you’ve got a house back home and all that?’

‘We rent a flat in London. We’re not rich,’ Diana replied, wondering where this was heading.

‘Oh.’ There was a pause while they both ate. Still Donatella kept glancing across. ‘It’s just I’ve written a letter for my children and I wondered if you could see it gets there? You’d have to give it to my sister, because her husband would destroy it if he saw it first.’

‘Have you put the address on it?’ Diana asked. ‘Of course I’ll make sure it gets there.’ She glanced at it but didn’t recognise the area.

‘Could you give them some money as well?’ She gave Diana a defiant look. ‘After all, I’ve looked after you in here. You could have been in all kinds of bother without me.’

‘Yes, I’ll give them some money. I’ll give it to your sister and ask her to spend it on them.’

‘Tell her to get them new clothes, will you?’

‘I will.’

Donatella nodded but didn’t say thanks, and she just grunted her goodbyes when a warden came to collect Diana at seven-thirty.
She’s jealous, poor thing
.
She’d give anything to be leaving this morning.

Diana was led down to reception. She hadn’t had a chance to wash or brush her teeth. She must look a fright, and God knows what she smelled like. There were various forms to sign then she sat on a bench watching as the minute hand jerked round on a clock face. She wasn’t to be released a second before eight o’clock: rules were rules. She wondered if Trevor knew she was being released. Would he be there to meet her? Or would she have to catch a bus back to Pensione Splendid? She had no idea what to expect.

At eight o’clock, there was no ceremony, no shaking of hands, no formal apology. A guard simply stood up, opened a large wooden door and gestured for Diana to walk through. Bright white sunshine blinded her after the gloom of the prison interior. The air smelled fresh and she could feel a breeze on her skin.

‘Diana!’ Trevor’s voice said, and his arms were round her, which was just as well because her knees felt wobbly. ‘I came by bus but I’ve got a taxi driver waiting to take us back. I thought that was better.’ He was gabbling. ‘Can I carry your bag?’

She handed it to him, so overcome with emotion she couldn’t speak. ‘Let’s go,’ he said. ‘No point hanging around.’

They held hands in the taxi and he explained to her what had happened and why she had been freed. She started to cry when he told her the wording of the note from Helen. If only the
padrona
hadn’t put her in a different room. That one simple thing had made all the difference between life and death.

She was alarmed to hear about Luigi threatening Ernesto and forcing the witness to testify against her. What if he was still looking for her?

‘I think we should fly home, darling,’ Trevor said. ‘We can’t take the risk of him coming after you. If we pack quickly, I expect we could even catch a flight to London this afternoon.’

She considered it for a brief moment, but knew instinctively it felt wrong. ‘No, I don’t want to leave Rome like that.’

‘What
do
you want to do?’

‘Truthfully? All I can think of right now is having a bath. And perhaps an espresso with a
cornetto
.’

Trevor squeezed her hand. ‘You have that bath. I’ll bring you an espresso and buy you as many
cornetti
as you can eat. If I could afford it, I’d buy you a
cornetti
factory. I’m so glad to see you, darling.’

He leant over and buried his face in her shoulder and she could tell from slight shaking movements that he was sobbing, but he didn’t make a sound.

Scott was disappointed to read in the Italian press that police had traced the letter threatening Elizabeth Taylor to a Canadian man with mental health problems. Why had he written in Italian? That’s what had raised Scott’s hopes that it would turn out to involve an Italian crime family – maybe even the Ghianciaminas – but no such luck. The letter-writer was just another of the many lunatics who sought fame – or at least notoriety – by association with a public figure they had built up in their heads to be a symbol of all that they needed to make their own lives work out.

The day after his night visit to Anzio, he continued his research. First he went to the customs office in Rome to check the register of shipping, but there were dozens of ships whose names began with
RE
and ended with
A
:
Regina Carolina
,
Regina Aurora
… he’d never be able to identify the one he had seen. Next he made enquiries about tracking car number plates, but struck a blank there as well. If he’d had a contact high up in the police force, maybe they would have been able to help, but Scott’s most valuable contact in Rome was Gianni, and he knew without asking that this was way beyond his photographer’s sphere of influence.

Nevertheless, Scott began writing his article. He framed it around H****, a pretty, naïve young girl in Rome, who was sucked into the murky world of drugs. He wrote about a dealer called L****, who deliberately targeted her, bled her dry of money then demanded sexual favours in return for further supplies. He wrote about the young men who drove drugs up from the south in cars with secret hiding places, and left them in a garage to be stripped of their cargo. And he wrote about a crime family called the G*****s, who were untouchable because of their political influence and the bribes they paid to the police force and customs officials, so that no one intervened when motorboats carried unregistered cargo out to huge ships off the coast of Anzio in the middle of the night. What’s more, no one investigated when an American journalist was kicked half to death in the street.

He widened out the article to explain Rome’s current position as a world centre of drug trafficking, with money laundered through the booming construction industry and every bay and outcrop of the long Italian peninsula providing possible locations for smugglers to load international shipments. He used information from Bradley Wyndham’s research about bribes paid to politicians in return for clauses in shipping bills that relaxed regulations. And he finished by writing about H****’s lonely death when, distraught and fleeing from the people who had destroyed her, she slipped, hit her head and drowned.

The first draft of his article was much longer than the
Midwest Daily
normally ran, so he began to hone it, tightening sentences and slashing unnecessary words. He typed it up himself in the evenings, once his secretary had left, and always hid it afterwards in the secret compartment by the shutters.

When he left the office he felt nervous, as if someone might guess what he was up to and seek to put a stop to it. He even considered asking Gianni where he could purchase a gun for self-protection. He’d briefly been a member of a rifle-shooting club at Harvard and, although he’d never fired a handgun, he reckoned he would know what to do. Perhaps he should get one before the article’s publication. He felt excited and nervous all at once.

Most evenings he went to the Via Veneto or Piazza di Spagna to have a beer with Gianni and catch up on news of what the stars were doing and where the best photographs might be taken. He looked forward to these chats. Gianni had fast become his best friend in Rome, but Scott didn’t confide in him about the article. Gianni sensed there was a secret project and assumed it was to do with the death of the makeup girl in Torre Astura, but he didn’t ask questions.

Everywhere they went, Scott kept a wary eye out for Luigi. It seemed unlikely but, if Ernesto had reported their conversation and Luigi asked around, he might realise that Scott was a reporter and, what’s more, that he was investigating him. He was several inches taller than the dealer, and probably much fitter, so he reckoned he could beat him in a straight fistfight but what if he had a knuckleduster, like Alessandro Ghianciamina? Or a knife? Or friends nearby who would pitch in?

Fortunately, there was no sign of Luigi that entire week. He must be lying low somewhere.

One evening, after a couple of beers with Gianni, Scott slipped back to the office to take some papers out of the cubbyhole, planning to read them before going to bed. While he was there, the telephone rang and he picked it up automatically.

‘Scott!’ his editor yelled down the line. ‘Knock me down with a feather. Is it really you? I haven’t heard from you in such a long time I reckoned you had resigned from the job and just forgot to tell me.’

‘Sorry, boss, I’ve been working on something really big. I’ll be ready to send it to you in a few days.’

‘I don’t want something in a few days! I want something for tomorrow’s paper. What’s happening on the
Cleopatra
set? Which stars are in Rome? What’s the latest on Taylor and Burton? You’ve got two hours to knock out a story before I slash your name from the payroll. Understand?’

Scott grimaced. He wasn’t ready to send the drugs piece yet, and he didn’t think readers in the Midwest would be interested in the story of Diana’s imprisonment and release.

Suddenly he remembered something Gianni had mentioned earlier. Seemingly there was a scene in the film in which Cleopatra slaps Mark Antony and he hits her back, knocking her flying to the floor. Elizabeth had refused to use a stand-in for the action, despite the fact that she suffered from a back problem, which could be exacerbated by the fall. Anyway, the shots of the scene were sent out to Hollywood for processing, which was necessary with all the film they shot. At Elizabeth Taylor’s insistence they were using a type of film called Todd-AO, which had been pioneered by her late husband Mike Todd, and it couldn’t be processed in Rome. While in transit, this particular roll of film got damaged, so they were going to have to reshoot the scene and take the risk of injuring Elizabeth’s back one more time.

‘Perhaps Elizabeth and Richard enjoy hitting each other,’ Scott wrote. ‘There’s nothing like a spot of fisticuffs to stoke the flames of passion. Although it seems that in their case there’s already a blazing conflagration.’

He cringed at the cliché. It wasn’t his best piece ever but it would do. He filed the copy and headed home.