The Affair

by Gill Paul

  ‘Morgan.’ Scott was surprised. ‘Don’t you want me to make a statement? You haven’t written down anything I’ve said.’

  ‘We’re confident we have the culprit in prison. There is evidence against her the public haven’t been told about. If Helen occasionally took eroina, it is not relevant to our case.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s relevant,’ Scott insisted. ‘The night I saw her she was upset because of drugs, not because of a boyfriend. Helen spoke about Diana a lot and always said she was her best friend.’

  ‘That’s why the argument became so bitter when they fell out.’ The officer was still on his feet and he seemed impatient. ‘Now if that’s all, Mr Morgan, I have a lot to do.’

  Scott stood up reluctantly. ‘One last thing: can you tell me anything about the threatening letter sent to Elizabeth Taylor? Was it in English or Italian?’

  ‘Italian. Goodbye, Mr Morgan.’

  Scott walked out of the station, pondering that. The letter could have been from a religious maniac, adopting the Vatican’s view that Elizabeth Taylor was a promiscuous tart. That was one theory. But he wondered whether she could have done anything to antagonise the Cosa Nostra in the city. It was a possibility.

  Back at the office, he rang the Cleopatra press team to ask for a statement, but they played it down, saying that Elizabeth wasn’t remotely worried. She had been receiving crank letters since she first put her arms round Lassie at the age of twelve and in her view this was just another of the same. The heightened police presence would be maintained for the rest of her stay in Rome, though. The Italian police couldn’t ignore the world’s biggest star being threatened on their watch.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  During her first night in prison, Diana lay gripped by anxiety. At ten o’clock a church bell rang then the lights were switched off, leaving her in fuzzy blackness with just a pale rectangle of moonlight by which to get her bearings. She dozed off briefly then woke feeling disorientated and had to feel her way along the wall to reach the covered bucket to urinate. There were distant clangings, a vague murmuring and at one stage she heard movements in the air overhead, as if she was sharing her cell with bats or some very large moths. Every noise caused a fresh wave of panic.

  At seven a.m., the church bell rang again and the lights were abruptly switched on. Diana calmed herself by picking up one of the books from the package that Hilary had arranged to be delivered the previous evening. Tarn and Griffith’s Hellenistic Civilisation was a classic that she always used to enjoy rereading. The words were jumping around and she had no concentration, but the simple act of holding a book and turning the pages were familiar sensations that comforted her.

  The door opened and a new guard appeared, holding a tray with a cup of milky coffee and some bread, as well as a letter. She discovered she was ravenous, and took a big gulp of coffee and a mouthful of bread before tearing open the envelope. The handwriting looked like Hilary’s, and a quick glance at the signature confirmed it.

  My dear Diana, I simply can’t believe what has happened! We are all in a state of shock. No one believes a word of the case the police have concocted against you. It’s utterly ludicrous and we’ve told them so, as have Helen’s parents, who said to send you their warmest regards. Keep strong and know that we are doing all we can. Signor Esposito is one of the top lawyers in Rome and I’m sure he’ll get you out before long.

  Today we start shooting the mausoleum scenes and Joe is not happy with the baskets the asps will be kept in. He was cursing the fact that you are not here to advise, so if you have any thoughts on baskets (or asps) and it will distract you from your plight, do send word.

  Keep a stiff upper lip. We are all behind you and can’t wait until this hideous experience is over and you are back with us at Cinecittà again.

  All my love, Hilary

  Hilary didn’t mention how Diana should send word, but she decided to make some notes for them about the basket of asps, simply to occupy her thoughts. Few historians believed that Cleopatra had been killed by a snakebite, a story first recorded well after her death and not mentioned by contemporaries like Plutarch and Strabo. For a queen who liked to be in control of every detail, it seemed unlikely that she would rely on a wild animal smuggled in to her in a basket of figs. Asps were notoriously sluggish and it could have refused to bite her. Even if it did, she faced a slow, painful death. Much more likely she would have taken one of the many poisons known to the Egyptians, poisons with which she was well familiar, having used them many times on her enemies.

  Alternatively, Diana had a theory that she could have been killed by Octavian himself, who then arranged it to look like suicide. A captive Cleopatra was a political problem he could do without, yet to have ordered her execution openly would have alienated her people. She was the mother of Caesar’s son, and Egyptians believed her to be the incarnation of the goddess Isis. He wouldn’t have wanted to risk being accused of killing a goddess, so to poison her and frame it as suicide made perfect sense.

  She wrote all this, knowing she was wasting her time. Joe and Walter were undoubtedly set on the dramatic ending popularised by Shakespeare, whereby Cleopatra hoists the body of her dying lover into her mausoleum, then dispatches herself by holding an asp to her breast. She sketched a picture of the type of lidded basket in which the asp might have been smuggled, a basket normally used for carrying fruit. There were many images of such baskets in wall paintings.

  She finished her note and glanced at her watch to find, to her horror, that it was still only nine-twenty in the morning. How on earth would she manage to fill the day?

  A female guard came to escort her to the bathroom and Diana asked if she could arrange for her letter to be delivered. The guard suggested that if Diana had a visitor later, perhaps they could help. She seemed nice, this morning guard, and Diana kept her chatting for a while after she had finished her ablutions. She asked how long she had been in the prison service (two years) then told her about her job on the film, and her efforts to make everything historically accurate while they wanted drama and ostentation.

  ‘Have you met La Taylor?’ the guard asked, using the name given to her in the Italian press.

  ‘Yes, she’s a nice woman,’ Diana replied. ‘When I first met her, it was hard to stop staring because she is far more beautiful than anyone I’ve ever seen. But when I got to know her better I realised she’s only human: she drinks, she smokes, she swears a lot and she is actually very witty. She’s spoiled because of the lifestyle she leads but still friendly and considerate of those around her.’

  ‘She’s OK. I think my daughter is more beautiful,’ the guard told her, and when she pulled out a photograph to show a sweet-faced Italian girl, Diana agreed that she was gorgeous.

  The guard had to get on with her duties, but every time she came back to Diana’s cell with food or a cup of coffee, she had more questions about the stars on the set and would linger for ten minutes or so. It passed the time.

  Diana wondered if Elizabeth Taylor had heard of her arrest. Would she believe in Diana’s innocence and, if so, were there any strings she could pull? She must have many friends in high places.

  And then her thoughts returned to the case against her, puzzling through every minor detail to try and make sense of it all. Who on earth was this witness who claimed to have seen Helen fighting with another woman? Why would Helen be fighting, unless she had been attacked and was fighting for her life? And why hadn’t the witness intervened to help her? Perhaps it had been Luigi she was struggling with and not another woman at all. Diana hoped that after the identification parade when the woman failed to identify her, someone would question her story more closely. Perhaps Signor Esposito would have a chance to do so.

  She also hoped someone would interview Ernesto, who would confirm that she and Helen were hardly ‘love rivals’. Why would she be fighting Helen for him when it was she who had ended the relationship? She guessed he would be reluctant to testify because it didn’t show him
in a very flattering light, but this was an emergency. Every time she thought of a new point, she wrote it down and soon the list was running to many pages.

  And all the while she thought constantly about Helen, wondering what had really happened that night. She hoped the blow to the head had been quick and that her friend hadn’t known any fear or pain. It was unbearable to imagine her being so near yet not able to reach the boarding house. Diana could only think that Luigi must have intercepted her.

  A bell rang and a guard brought lunch. It seemed that every stage of the day was punctuated by the ringing of the old monastery bell. Diana asked if she might make a phone call. Trevor was always in his office at that time, usually munching a fish-paste sandwich. She was led upstairs to a little office, where she told the operator the telephone number and sat waiting to be connected. There were interminable clicks, buzzes and screeches down the line before the phone began to ring in City University, London, almost a thousand miles away.

  ‘Dr Bailey’s office,’ came the voice of his secretary.

  ‘It’s Diana, calling from Rome. Could you put me through to Trevor, please?’

  There was a hesitation or a delay on the line, she wasn’t sure which. ‘He’s not here, Diana. I don’t know where he is. He’s got a tutorial at three so I expect he’ll turn up later. Shall I give him a message?’

  Her spirits sank. She was only allowed one phone call a day and this was it. How awful to miss him. ‘Could you please ask him to call Cinecittà and speak to Hilary Armitage? Tell him it’s urgent.’

  She had to spell Cinecittà and give a note of the phone number, which Trevor would no doubt have left at home on the pad by the telephone in the hall.

  ‘Are you having fun out there?’ the secretary asked. ‘It’s horrid weather here.’

  Diana ignored the question. ‘Please don’t forget to tell him. Thank you so much.’

  At least he would know soon. He would think of something to do.

  Back in her cell, she reread the letter from Hilary and wished she had used her phone call for the day to ring her instead. Would Signor Esposito tell her that Diana was allowed a visitor? Might she come by later? If she did, Diana could give her the notes about the basket and the asps. She felt a strong desire not to be sidelined from the film and decided to pass her time making notes on all the scenes still to be shot: Antony’s suicide and Cleopatra’s death in the mausoleum, the sea battle of Actium and the arrival of Cleopatra’s boat at Tarsus. It was one way of keeping busy – that, and talking to her friendly guard.

  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.

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  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 t
wo 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.