by Gill Paul
‘He go to Roma,’ the guard said. ‘I call taxi for you?’ He mimed a telephone.
Trevor considered his options. He was reluctant to leave with nothing to show for the trip. Perhaps he could find someone to translate while he asked the night guard more questions, since he seemed to be the last person to admit to seeing Helen alive.
‘Could I stay here tonight?’ he asked, then mimed sleeping and pointed to the pensione. ‘Maybe I could stay in Diana’s room?’
‘OK,’ the guard said. ‘Room number eleven.’
Trevor rose from the chair, wincing and clutching his back, then shook the guard’s hand. ‘Thank you, sir. Thank you for your help.’
The guard nodded and watched him walk slowly up the road.
There was no bell on the outside of the lodging house but the door was ajar so Trevor walked into a hallway. A radio was playing a song he recognised called ‘Volare’. Dean Martin had sung it, he was pretty sure, but this sounded like an Italian version. He couldn’t imagine where he’d absorbed this information, but occasionally he was called upon to supervise parties at the students’ union so it might have been there.
‘Hello?’ he called. No one appeared so he shouted louder. ‘Hello?’
A teenage girl emerged from an adjoining room but it soon became evident that she spoke no English at all. He saw some keys hanging on the wall behind a chair, so he pointed at them and held up his ten fingers and then his thumb to indicate number eleven. Without questioning, the girl handed him the key for number eleven, then gestured down a dim hallway.
He reached the door that had a number eleven on it, although he hesitated for a moment because the second figure had come loose and hung sideways, like the stem of a seven. When he put the key in the lock, it turned and the door opened. He switched on the light and looked in and straight away he could see the room was grim. The bed hadn’t been made up, so there was just a grey blanket over a bare mattress. There was a rotten smell he soon tracked down to some rubbish in a wastepaper basket. Everything was musty.
He went to pull back the curtains and was surprised to see they covered just a window. Where was the patio looking down towards the sea? For a few moments he stood, puzzled, then it dawned on him that this must be the wrong room. He went back to examine the number eleven on the door with its loose figure. The next room along was numbered twelve, though, so this must be eleven. How strange!
He had started to pull the door closed when he heard a rustling sound and realised a piece of paper was stuck underneath it. He retrieved the paper and saw that it was a sheet torn from a diary that had been folded in half so it was maybe three inches long by two across. It was an English diary, with the days ‘Monday 4th, Tuesday 5th’. He opened the paper and what he saw made goosebumps stand out on his skin. The page was covered with scrawled handwriting, much of it virtually illegible, but at the top it said ‘Dear Diana’ and at the bottom it read ‘Love, Helen’ with three X’s. Why hadn’t the police found this? It must have been there since the night Helen died.
He sat down on the bed to decipher the note:
Where are you? I need you so much. I’ve made such a mess of everything and there’s no one else I can turn to. I pray you are still here. They said you would be. I don’t have a room and I don’t even have enough money to get back to town. I want to go home, Diana. I’ve got mixed up with some really bad people and I can’t cope any more, but I don’t have enough money for a plane ticket. I went out looking for my friend Scott in Via Veneto tonight to ask if I could borrow it from him but he wasn’t there. Then I asked Ernesto but he refused to lend me a penny and none of the American girls have any cash. So that’s when I thought of you. I know we argued but you’re so nice, I’m sure you’ll help. I suppose I’ll sneak onto the set and find some shelter until you come and find me. Please hurry. You’re my only hope.
Helen had scribbled this the night she died. Someone must have told her that Diana was in room eleven.
He walked back out to the reception area and, using sign language, communicated to the teenage girl that it was the wrong room. She disappeared and returned with an older woman, the padrona, who fortunately spoke English. Trevor explained who he was and showed her the note he had found.
‘Madre mia,’ the padrona exclaimed. ‘I didn’t see her.’ She asked the teenager, who claimed she hadn’t seen her either. ‘She must have crept in while we were upstairs. We didn’t hear a thing, not so much as a raised voice. There was no argument. I told the police your wife is innocent.’
Trevor’s first instinct was to ask them to call the police. They should see this note. But then he realised that it only proved Helen had been looking for Diana; it didn’t prove she hadn’t found her. Where could Helen have gone after slipping that note under the door? She must have crossed the field at the back of the boarding house and sneaked onto the set without being seen by the night guard. She’d be looking for somewhere to shelter. He cast his mind round the set, with all the two-dimensional structures, and suddenly it came to him: the only place where she’d be under cover was on the converted fishing boat.
Holding the note, he hurried back down the road to the night guard. He showed him the piece of paper and explained what he thought might have happened, and he kept repeating, ‘The boat. Can we look?’ and pointing out towards the jetty.
He wasn’t sure how much the guard understood, but he picked up a torch and shone a light to illuminate the way as he accompanied Trevor to the barge. It was tethered to the end of the jetty but bobbing in the water and there was a gap of about a foot to leap across to get on board. As Trevor landed on deck, he jarred his back and he yelped in pain. The guard crossed nimbly behind him.
The little turreted area in the centre of the deck turned out to be the wheelroom; there was no space where Helen could have slept. In the ship’s hold, mechanisms to operate the oars had been installed. It may have been converted to a warship but it still stunk of the fish that had been flung there over the years. The guard shone the torch into every nook and cranny but there was no sign that Helen had been there. Trevor had hoped to find her handbag, perhaps, or her shoes – she had been barefoot when found, Diana said – but there was nothing.
He went out on deck again and walked towards the prow. The boat was swaying with the movements of the waves and he had to clutch the rail around the edge for balance. How had Helen managed, especially if she’d been high on drugs at the time?
‘Where was her body found?’ he asked, and the guard pointed to an area a couple of hundred yards across the bay.
Trevor walked right up to the prow and stood looking out at the spot. It was too dark to see which way the current was flowing. He clutched the rail and under his fist he felt an uneven edge. One section didn’t fit snugly against the next. When he pushed against it, it gave way and he realised it was broken. He called the guard across.
‘Look!’
‘È rotto. Lei sarebbe potuta cadere là,’ the guard said. He wiggled the loose section and it came away entirely in his hand.
They both stared down into the black water ten feet below.
‘I call the police,’ the guard said, and Trevor agreed. His heart was thumping with excitement. Helen could have fallen against the broken rail and tumbled into the water. If so, that meant Diana was in the clear. But what if the police claimed Diana pushed her?
They rang the state police first of all, but no one answered. By this time it was ten at night. ‘Is closed,’ the guard said. Then he rang the carabinieri and spoke to them, explaining the circumstances. Trevor heard Diana’s and Helen’s names being repeated several times, and the tone was insistent, but when the guard hung up he said apologetically, ‘They come tomorrow morning.’
Trevor was disappointed but he supposed they wouldn’t have been able to see anything at night. He’d have to be patient. He shook hands with the guard, agreed to come back first thing in the morning, then hurried down to the trattoria for a meal before they closed the kitc
hen. If only he could telephone Diana to tell her. It was excruciating not to be able to share this new information, but inmates couldn’t receive incoming calls.
After eating, he went back to the pensione, and the padrona showed him to the room Diana had occupied, the one with the patio terrace.
‘Your wife was a nice lady. I hope they will release her soon.’ She noticed that Trevor was clutching his back as he stood. ‘But look at you. You have a pain in the back. Let me bring you some aspirina.’
Trevor gratefully accepted the pills and a glass of water and swallowed them before easing himself down onto the bed and arranging a pillow to support the side that was especially fragile.
The room was dark and airless and he lay sweating, his mind working overtime. Surely Diana must be released after his discoveries? Her affair was over and her work on the film was almost done. Would that mean she would come back to him? Would they fly home together? He knew things could never be the same but surely they could move on. Perhaps this trauma would even strengthen their bond.
He imagined them at their Primrose Hill flat, sitting in the kitchen with a cup of tea, but the vision still felt far away, more pipe dream than reality. He was too old, too impotent. It wasn’t fair of him to hold her back. He truly loved her … and perhaps in the end that meant he would have to let her go.
Chapter Sixty-Six
When Diana came into the visiting room the following day, she was surprised to find Signor Esposito sitting there.
‘Where’s my husband?’ she demanded immediately, panicked that something had happened to Trevor.
‘He’s still down in Torre Astura,’ the lawyer reported, ‘but he telephoned and asked me to let you know that they appear to have discovered what happened to your friend Helen.’
Diana’s heart skipped a beat. She sat down hard on the wooden chair.
‘It seems she came to find you in the pensione but knocked on the door of the wrong room. She left you a note then went to shelter on a boat on the film set, where she fell overboard, striking her head. This morning the police found one of her earrings caught in the rigging, and her handbag was underneath the boat, tangled in the anchor chain.’
‘Oh no!’ Diana began to cry. How stupid and tragic that her death should have been accidental. Had she perhaps been on drugs? Though Diana supposed it made no difference. Either way she was gone. And then she remembered the change of rooms: if only the maid had cleaned number eleven on time, Diana would have been there and Helen would have found her.
‘The note says she wanted to go home to England and was planning to ask you for her aeroplane fare.’
Diana cried even harder, and the lawyer pulled an immaculate handkerchief from his pocket and passed it to her. He seemed unconcerned by the emotion, as if this was an everyday occurrence in his line of work.
‘Of course, the prosecution could still argue that you were responsible for pushing your friend off the boat, but your husband spoke to the night guard at Torre Astura, who assures him it is impossible that two women could have been fighting nearby without him hearing. This afternoon the police are bringing their witness – a local woman – to question her story. Trevor is waiting to hear what she has to say, then he’ll telephone me. Once we know the facts, I’ll put them in front of a judge and ask him to release you.’
Diana wiped her eyes and blew her nose loudly, struggling for control. ‘Do you think it’s likely he will?’
Signor Esposito shrugged. ‘It depends on the witness. If she is credible, we still have a problem. But things are looking a lot better for you than they were yesterday. Your husband has done a remarkable job.’
Diana looked down at her lap. ‘He’s a remarkable man,’ she said quietly.
Back in her cell afterwards, she decided not to tell Donatella the news. Relations between them had cooled. That morning Diana had wanted to telephone Hilary but when she opened her purse she found that all her gettoni were missing. She’d been robbed. Donatella must have taken them, unless one of the other women had slipped into her cell while she was bathing. There was no point complaining, but the theft left her totally isolated. She needed someone to visit and bring her more gettoni before she could make any contact with the outside world.
Her heart was fluttering but she sat on her bed and forced herself to work, looking up tiny details in her books and writing more and more notes. No one would ever read them, but she needed a way of filling her time. She couldn’t bear to think about Helen, alone and desperate – so close to finding her, but just not close enough.
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Trevor spent the morning waiting in the gatehouse for the police to bring their witness. He was concerned that the night guard hadn’t slept for almost twenty-four hours, so he treated both him and the day guard to an early lunch from the trattoria, which was carried up the road on trays so that they didn’t have to leave their post.
Shortly after two o’clock, a police car drew up and some Anzio policemen got out, along with a middle-aged Italian woman. She had a long, thin face, and was wearing a widow’s black dress, with grey hair pinned up in a bun. When she sensed them watching, she turned and glared.
Trevor and the guards watched as the police asked the woman to identify the precise spot where she had seen the girls fighting. Immediately she became flustered as she looked up and down the road trying to think of a convincing location. The day guard gave Trevor a running commentary on what was being said.
‘Were you in a car?’ the police officer asked, and she said yes, she was. ‘What time?’ Just after midnight.
‘Where were you travelling from?’ the officer asked, and she mentioned a village some miles down the road.
‘Where did you see the women?’ She glanced around, obviously realising it had to be somewhere out of sight of the night guard’s gatehouse. She gestured in the direction of the trattoria, which was just out of view round the bend. ‘Down there.’
The night guard interjected: ‘But I saw Helen walk up to the pensione, that way, just after midnight. I would have seen her if she walked past me again.’
The woman turned first one way and then the other, tutting and sighing heavily as if to communicate that they were causing her an immense amount of trouble. ‘It was very dark,’ she said at last. ‘I can’t tell you the exact spot.’
‘But if it was dark, how can you be sure it was those women? Did you see their faces closely enough to swear in court it was them?’
‘I saw their hair. One was blonde and the other brown-haired. They weren’t Italian. I could tell that. They looked English.’
The police officer was stern. ‘So you didn’t see their faces. You just saw two foreign-looking women as you passed in a car. You don’t even know where you saw them.’
She was defensive now. ‘Don’t blame me. I simply told you what I saw.’
‘You volunteered this testimony, making it sound convincing, but now you are changing your evidence. There will be repercussions, you can be sure of that.’
The officer turned to Trevor and the guards. ‘I think we’ve heard enough.’
Trevor wondered why the woman had contacted the police when she was so unsure of the details. He guessed she might be one of those self-important busybodies who believe all foreigners are immoral, especially if they work on film sets. Some people just liked to stick their noses into other people’s business. And there was a strange kind of kudos that comes from being a witness to murder; perhaps that was another motive.
He called Signor Esposito but was told that he was out at lunch, so he left a message with his secretary.
The day guard called him a taxi to take him to Anzio station and Trevor shook hands with both men, thanking them warmly for all their assistance. The night guard would get only four hours’ sleep before he had to go back on duty again but he seemed a good man, who was simply pleased that the truth had emerged.
On the train back to Rome, all Trevor could think of was the moment when he would se
e his wife again and hold her in his arms. He hoped it would be in a few hours’ time. Perhaps they could go somewhere special for dinner that night. His stomach was tight with nerves at the thought that something could still go wrong.
As soon as he arrived at Termini station, he called Signor Esposito from a telephone kiosk to be told that a judge would consider the new evidence at a special hearing at seven that evening. It seemed inevitable that he would order Diana’s release but the lawyer warned that it might be too late to complete all the paperwork that day. He’d contacted the prison authorities to warn them to be on standby.
‘Can I come to the hearing?’ Trevor asked, wondering if his husbandly loyalty could somehow influence proceedings.
‘No. Diana won’t even be there. It’s just me, a judge and the prosecutor. I’ll come by Pensione Splendid to tell you the result as soon as we’re done, so make sure you’re there from seven-thirty onwards. I won’t send word to your wife yet, just in case it goes wrong, but I think there is reason for optimism.’
It was only five o’clock in the afternoon. Trevor had two and a half hours to fill. He wasn’t usually a superstitious man but he decided he didn’t want to call Hilary and tell her about the new hearing in case he somehow jinxed the outcome. The judge might still decide the case had to go to trial. Instead he decided to get something to eat and he caught a bus over to the back streets behind Piazza Navona, where he and Diana had found a decent little restaurant when he was there at Easter.
He ate some veal and sat on a shady terrace nursing a coffee and watching the passers-by. Suddenly a Vespa drew up alongside him and he saw that the driver was the journalist, Scott Morgan.
‘Howdy, pardner, mind if I join you?’ Scott asked. ‘I’ve just been to see Mr Balboni.’
Trevor pulled out a chair for him and summoned a waiter. ‘What can I get you?’
They ordered beers and Scott told his news. ‘I don’t know if it will be of any comfort to find out that Ernesto is a gutless coward who’s been hiding away at home, scared of a drug dealer. Christ, he’s a nasty piece of work.’
