The Affair (37 page)

‘But you were happy to go out with him yourself.’

‘I didn’t know he was married at the time. He lied to me. I broke up with him as soon as I found out.’ As she spoke, she realised they hadn’t picked that up before. No wonder the officer appeared to think badly of her.

‘It seems to me that you fell out because you both wanted the same man and you were fighting over him. Is that not the truth?’

It would have been laughable, if it hadn’t been so sad. She spoke slowly, trying to clear the matter up once and for all. ‘Helen didn’t know I’d been seeing Ernesto. We kept it secret at work. I finished the relationship when I found out he was married. He then tried to seduce Helen. Our row occurred because she wanted to go out with him and I told her not to, because he had a wife. Does that answer your questions?’

‘No, I have many more,’ he said, looking down at his notes. A younger policeman was jotting everything down studiously.

‘Tell me, Signora Bailey, how did you get that scratch on your cheek?’

Diana’s hand flew to the place where there was still a jagged pink line, about two inches long. She told him about the branch that scratched her face as she walked up from the beach. Why would he ask about that?

‘Tell me again why you think Helen might have announced to her friends at Cinecittà that she was coming to Torre Astura to find you. Is it not possible that she came to continue the fight with you over this man?’

‘No.’ Diana shook her head emphatically. ‘She wasn’t that kind of person. I don’t know why she came but I think she might have been scared of someone, or that she was very upset and wanted a friend to comfort her.’

‘But you say she didn’t find you. You didn’t see each other at all once she got there. Is that true?’

‘Yes, it’s true. I didn’t see her until the following morning when the soldier pulled her out of the water. I’ve got no idea what happened, but if she was scared of someone, maybe he followed her down there and they got into a fight, which ended with her being drowned. That’s all I can think of.’ In her mind, she saw an image of Helen thrashing around in the water while Luigi held her head under. She would have fought with all her strength to get free, but she was tiny and he was a strong man. She wouldn’t have stood a chance.

‘This is what you want me to type up and put in your statement. Are you sure?’ the officer asked, peering closely at her.

She racked her brains, trying to think of any detail that she’d missed. ‘The last time I saw her alive was when she was in the café with Luigi the night before. Has he told you anything about her state of mind at that meeting?’

He looked at her coldly. ‘The man you identified was nowhere near Cinecittà at that time. He has an alibi. We’ve checked and it’s true, so you were mistaken.’

She gasped. ‘He can’t have an alibi! I saw him with my own eyes. Did you know that he’s a drug dealer? He’s a bad person. I’m scared of him. I hoped you would still have him in custody.’

‘What makes you think that he’s a drug dealer? Do
you
take drugs, Signora Bailey?’ His tone was very stern now.

‘No, never! Ernesto told me. He said Helen was taking drugs and she bought them from Luigi. You should investigate that. I’m sure he was involved in Helen’s death. It was the way he looked at me on Saturday that convinced me …’

The officer stood up. ‘We’ll type your statement and I’ll bring it back and ask you to sign it in due course.’

Diana looked at her watch. It was almost half past ten so it looked as if she was going to miss the script meeting entirely. Why were the police being so slow to pick up the most obvious suspect? If Luigi were innocent, he wouldn’t have given them a false alibi. That was the action of a guilty man.
Oh Christ, poor Helen
. It was unbearable to imagine her trying to run away from him, thinking she’d be safe with Diana, and then being caught before finding her. She must have been petrified. She wondered what Luigi was chasing her for and assumed Helen owed him money.

It took over an hour for the statement to be typed, during which time she was left on her own in the room without so much as a glass of water. Surely in Britain the police were supposed to give you a cup of tea or something? At last the door opened and her statement was brought in and put in front of her. It was in Italian so she read it carefully, unsure about the nuances of some of the vocabulary choices, but it set out the bare facts as she had told them and she wanted to be allowed to leave, so she signed it.

She stood and picked up her handbag, ready to go, but the officer came back into the room, checked the signature on her statement, then said something that was so bewildering she had to ask him to repeat it.

‘Signora Diana Bailey, we are arresting you on suspicion of killing Helen Sharpe some time during the night of 10th to 11th May. You will be held in custody until the evidence can be presented to a judge, at which point you may be represented by a lawyer if you wish.’

She sat down hard and gripped the edge of the table. ‘
No!
’ she cried. ‘You’ve got it all wrong. I couldn’t have killed Helen. She was my
friend
. I couldn’t kill anyone. It’s ridiculous.’ She reached out to grab the statement, wondering if she had accidentally signed something incriminating, but the officer whisked it away.

‘These officers will take you into custody.’ Two men approached and one caught hold of her wrist.

‘Please listen to me. This is all a huge mistake. Perhaps we should have had a translator present. I don’t know how you could misunderstand me so badly.’ Surely there must be something she could say to make him see? But he turned and walked out of the door without another word. The man holding her wrist pulled her to her feet, at which point the other man produced a set of handcuffs.

‘No,’ she shouted. ‘Call the British Consul, please. This is all wrong.’

Her hands were yanked behind her back and the cuffs clicked shut. As they led her out of the back of the police station to a waiting car, she kept pleading with them. ‘Please call the British Embassy. Call Hilary Armitage at Cinecittà. Please tell
someone
I’m here.’

But they gave no sign that they would do anything of the sort. As far as she could tell, she was entirely on her own.

Diana was ushered into the back of a police car and a policeman got in the front to drive. He looked young, and she sensed he was of junior rank and unlikely to be able to help her but still she bombarded him with questions.

‘Where are you taking me?’

‘To Mantellate, the women’s section of Regina Coeli prison.’

‘But I’m not guilty. What should I do?’

‘A judge will decide if you are not guilty.’

‘When will I see a judge?’

‘Soon,’ he said. ‘Within forty-eight hours.’

That was two whole days – and two nights as well. She couldn’t possibly spend two days in jail. This was ridiculous. She had to speak to Hilary and get a lawyer.

‘I need to make a telephone call. Where can I use a telephone?’

‘At Regina Coeli.’ He was a man of few words and after a while she gave up.

Regina Coeli was by the riverside in Trastevere, overlooked by the Janiculum hill, and the yellow-painted Mantellate was a former monastery down a side street. Her driver helped her out of the car and into a reception area.

‘Can I make a phone call please?’ she asked a prison guard, but was told ‘Later, later.’

The contents of her handbag were searched and she was patted down to check she didn’t have anything in her pockets, then the handcuffs were removed and she was led by a guard down a narrow corridor and up a flight of steps. Their footsteps echoed, and she could hear far-off clangings of metal. It was a place of stone and metal.

‘Here you are,’ the guard said, opening the door of a tiny cell and gesturing for her to enter.

‘No, I must make a phone call,’ Diana said in her firmest voice. ‘I am expected at work.’

‘You can call later,’ the guard told her.

There was no negotiation, no sympathy. He wanted to get on with his job. She stepped into the cell and immediately the door was slammed shut and locked behind her. Panic gripped her.
Oh God, what would become of her?

The cell was cool, with thick walls, and one high window through which she could see blue cloudless sky. For the first hour, Diana sat trembling on the edge of the narrow bed. She wanted to clear her head so that she could think, and decide what to do – but in fact there was nothing she
could
do, not for the moment. She felt sick with anxiety and at one point crouched over the covered bucket in the corner thinking she was going to bring up her stomach contents. She retched but with no result apart from hurting her throat. Once she stopped feeling so nauseous, perhaps she could run through events from start to finish and find the missing piece of evidence, the one thing that would persuade them they had made a terrible mistake.

Her mood swung between wild optimism – as soon as Hilary heard what had happened she would call a Twentieth Century Fox lawyer who would have her out in no time – and abject pessimism. What if everyone believed she was guilty? What if Helen’s parents thought she had done it? She might be found guilty and she wasn’t sure whether they still had capital punishment in Italy. Were criminals executed by hanging or by firing squad?

Ruth Ellis had been hanged in Britain just seven years previously after shooting her lover, David Blakely. It had caused a huge scandal, with all kinds of public figures speaking out against it, but she had a feeling that Italians might be keen on ‘an eye for an eye’ justice. They’d only just emerged from the dark ages of Fascism, and had been on the other side from Britain in the war. Maybe they still harboured anti-British sentiment.

Stop! I can’t go on thinking like this or I’ll go mad! Focus, Diana, focus.

Nothing in her life experience to date had prepared her for this ten-foot by ten-foot cell, with its narrow bed and covered bucket. She walked to the door and held her ear against it, trying to listen to the sounds outside. There were clanking noises and she thought she could occasionally hear human voices but there was no reply when she shouted, ‘Hello! Is anybody there?’

She thought of newspaper stories she had read about people imprisoned abroad, and felt sure they were allowed a visit from the British Consul. Presumably they should inform the next of kin as well – in her case Trevor. But she had no idea what rights she had in Italy. Oh, if only she could talk to Trevor. He could call the Foreign Office and get them involved. He was such a clever man, he’d be sure to think of something to get her out of there.

As the afternoon wore on, she became very thirsty. There was no water in the cell, no refreshment of any kind, not even a tap at which she could wash her hands. Her mind leapt from subject to subject. Couldn’t the
padrona
at the lodging house in Torre Astura confirm that she had been tucked up in bed all night? No, because her patio led straight out towards the seashore. Anyone who knew Helen would testify that she was a gentle soul who would never have engaged in a physical fight, and surely they would say the same about her? And then she couldn’t think any more because her throat was parched and all she could picture was a long, cool drink of lemonade.

She watched the hands moving round on her watch and calculated how long it would take the Embassy to send someone. If they heard the news at, say, noon, it should have been possible to get someone there by two – but according to her watch it was already after four. Then she remembered that Italians don’t work during the heat of the afternoon in summer, so maybe someone would come around five.

Just after five, there was a rattle of keys and she stood up expectantly, but it was a female guard holding a tray of food. She glanced at it: a plate of stew, a small salad and an unidentifiable pink dessert.

‘
Acqua, per favore
.’ She held her throat to indicate her thirst and the guard nodded. She put the tray of food on her bed and left the cell door unlocked while she went to fetch a jug of water and a glass. For a split second, Diana considered making a run for it but she knew that was crazy thinking. The guard returned, gave her the water and began to shut the door again.

‘
Chiami l’Ambasciata Americana, per favore
,’ Diana begged – ‘Call the British Embassy.’

‘
Domani, domani
,’ the guard replied, and Diana’s spirits plummeted. That meant ‘tomorrow’. How could she be expected to stay overnight in this place?

Helen, where are you? If only you could come back and tell them the truth …

The door closed and she sat down and poured a glass of water. Bile rose in her throat at the smell of the food and she knew she wouldn’t be able to touch a morsel. Even the water made her retch, although it was fresh and cool.

At five-thirty, the guard returned and Diana assumed she’d come to collect the tray so she lifted it to hand over but she said, ‘
No, hai un visitatore.’

Oh thank God!
Someone had come to get her out.