The Affair (36 page)

‘We did everything we could to boost her confidence but she got it into her head that her sister was the one we were proud of. It wasn’t true, you know.’ Her mother sniffed hard. ‘Do you have children yet, Diana?’

Diana shook her head.

‘Let me tell you, if anything you love the sensitive ones just a little bit more, because they need you more. You can’t help it.’ She took out a handkerchief and blew her nose, then apologised: ‘Excuse me.’

Afterwards, Diana was haunted by the way they seemed dazed by what had happened. They were still in the early stages of grief and shock; they were only starting to come to terms with the fact that this tragedy would overshadow the rest of their lives.

As she walked back towards the production office, she didn’t notice Ernesto sitting outside the bar until she was right alongside and couldn’t ignore him.

‘I heard about Helen,’ he said. ‘How are you?’

‘A bit shaky,’ she replied, stopping by his table. ‘It’s all so strange. I can’t begin to make head or tail of it. I suppose you heard I’d had an argument with her?’

He nodded, and had the good grace to look embarrassed. ‘Did you tell the police about that?’

‘Yes, I expect they will want to talk to you.’

He shrugged. ‘There’s nothing I can tell them. I hardly knew her.’

Is that so?
Diana thought cynically.
You tried to seduce her without any attempt to get to know her?
She let it pass, though. ‘They’re looking for a man she saw the night before she died: a fair-haired American. Can you think who that might be?’

Ernesto considered this, then shook his head.

‘And they are questioning an Italian man called Luigi. I saw her with him in a café near the studio and the police wanted to talk to him, so we went out and found him on the Via Veneto on Saturday night. I identified him …’ Her voice trailed off, as she noticed Ernesto was staring at her in alarm. ‘What is it?’

‘You’re so naïve, Diana. Do you really not know who Luigi is?’

‘No. Helen never introduced us.’

Ernesto blew air through his teeth. ‘He’s a drug dealer. He used to supply Helen. He’s not going to be pleased with you for tying him into this.’

Diana jerked backwards. ‘Drugs! Helen didn’t take drugs. She sometimes drank too much but …’

‘She took drugs, believe me. She was a very good customer of Luigi’s. Did you never notice her mood swings? Sometimes she was the life and soul of the party and other times she could barely move.’ Ernesto looked directly into her eyes. ‘She was very troubled.’

‘But why didn’t she tell me?’

‘I expect she was ashamed. She looked up to you.’

Diana was reeling. She tried to think of reasons to refute Ernesto’s story, but she didn’t know enough about drugs. ‘Why didn’t
you
tell me?’

He looked away. ‘I don’t get involved in things that are none of my business.’

What rot!
she thought.
He sells news about the stars of the film to journalists. Who does he think he’s fooling?

Ernesto stood up and spoke quietly but insistently. ‘I am going to give you some good advice, Diana. Tell the police it was dark in the café and you might have been mistaken in thinking you saw Luigi with Helen. You don’t want to have him as your enemy.’

‘But he might have killed Helen. I can’t tell a lie.’

Ernesto patted her shoulder and she drew back from his touch. ‘You should think about it very carefully. Even if Luigi was responsible, he will never be convicted. His kind of people never are. You’d be putting yourself in danger for no good reason.’

He leaned in to kiss her on the cheek but she twisted away so he shrugged and said, ‘Goodbye, Diana. Take care of yourself.’ He walked off towards the front gate.

Diana was very disturbed by their talk. What a bad friend she had been if Helen couldn’t even confide in her about a drugs problem. She’d been so caught up in her own affair that she had paid no attention to all the warning signs that were staring her in the face. She felt ashamed for letting Helen down, ashamed of her own self-absorption – and a deep contempt for Ernesto, who had seduced a vulnerable young girl. What a complete and utter bastard he had turned out to be!

She knew she wouldn’t take his advice and retract her statement about Luigi. She planned to do everything in her power to help the police find Helen’s killer and have him put behind bars. It was the very least she could do.

On Monday morning, the Italian press printed a grainy photograph of Helen sitting in an outdoor café with some other girls from the
Cleopatra
set, and it was only then Scott realised that she was the person who had been killed at Torre Astura.

‘Jesus Christ!’ he yelled, startling his secretary. ‘I know her.’

She was beaming at the camera, holding up her drink as if toasting someone, and she looked heartbreakingly young and pretty. Tears came to Scott’s eyes. What the hell had happened?

The story alongside the photograph said that the police were treating her death as suspicious and straight away Scott guessed she had been killed because she’d blurted out something about drugs to the wrong person. Maybe Luigi had got wind of it. It had been foolish of him to take her to the Ghianciaminas’ villa. She was young and garrulous and seemed to have no sense of caution. If word got back to Luigi that she was talking about it, he would have had no option but to shut her up.

Scott checked the date on which she had drowned and realised it was the day after he last saw her. She’d been distraught that evening. Maybe she already knew that Luigi was after her. He tried to remember exactly what she had said: she’d complained that she couldn’t afford the vitamin treatments any more, and implied that she was taking drugs again. Scott had assumed that she was upset because she hadn’t managed to get off the heroin as easily as she’d hoped – but perhaps there had been something else going on. Had Luigi been threatening her? Was he even inside her room at the time? Is that why Helen wouldn’t let him come in?

Scott was determined to get to the truth. First, he decided to ring the vitamin doctor to find out whether she had gone for the vitamin shot that night, the one he gave her the money for.

‘Helen Sharpe? I haven’t seen her in almost a week.’

‘Did you realise that she is dead?’ Scott asked. ‘She drowned last Thursday night. It’s all over the morning newspapers.’

There was a sharp intake of breath. ‘I had no idea. I’m sorry to hear that.’

‘I saw her the night before she died and she told me she’d had to start taking drugs again because she couldn’t afford any more of your treatments. But that made me curious, because I thought you said she would only need one or two injections before she would be cured.’

‘Yes, that’s how it should have been,’ the doctor told him. ‘But Miss Sharpe was a very anxious young lady who didn’t believe herself capable of beating the addiction on her own. If I’d known she was struggling I would have offered her free treatments.’

As they spoke, Scott was scribbling down the doctor’s responses in shorthand. ‘What else is in those shots? Why did she need to keep coming back for more?’

‘I don’t need to tell you …’

‘Shall I suggest to the police that they come and test your formula to see if it could have contributed to Helen’s death?’

There was a long pause. ‘I always include some amphetamines to give patients a boost. You’ll find that’s normal practice. Otherwise it’s mostly vitamins B and C.’

‘Oh Christ!’ Scott was furious with himself. Looking back, all the signs were there but it had never occurred to him. Lots of doctors gave amphetamine shots – it was said that the
Cleopatra
director Joe Mankiewicz had one every morning – but it was the last thing Helen needed in her fragile condition. She’d gone from one highly addictive drug to another. ‘You’d better tell the police about that.’

The doctor cleared his throat. ‘I don’t see why I should. It’s not as if she died of an overdose, is it? I thought you said she drowned?’ He sounded defensive.

‘The police are treating her death as suspicious.’

‘That has nothing to do with me. I’m bound by the Hippocratic Oath not to discuss my patients, so I’m afraid I’m going to have to terminate this call.’

‘Surely the Hippocratic Oath—’ Scott had been going to say that he thought it no longer applied when a patient died, but the doctor had hung up.

Scott was furious with himself. Why had he taken her to someone he couldn’t personally vouch for? He should have made more enquiries first. That evening, as he nursed a Peroni in the piano bar where he’d often seen Helen and her friends, Scott felt very emotional. He gazed at their usual table and tried to imagine her sitting there. She’d been troubled, for sure, but she was a lovely girl, entirely without guile. If only he hadn’t left her that last evening. He should have insisted she told him what she was upset about.

He knew he should go to the police and tell them about Helen’s drug habit, in case they hadn’t figured it out already. He’d say he was a friend who met her in a nightclub and was trying to help her to break her addiction. He should also tell them about seeing her the night before she died.

Scott wondered what theories they were pursuing. Maybe they already had someone in custody.
Oh crap!
Suddenly it occurred to him that he could find himself being called to testify in court against Luigi or one of his cronies. That wasn’t a position he wanted to find himself in. Apart from anything else, it would make it very difficult to continue writing his story. Perhaps Alessandro Ghianciamina would remember him as the guy who chatted up his sister. It was far too dangerous.

All in all, he decided he would wait a few days and see if the papers reported any more before he raised his head above the parapet. One way or another, there was a lot at stake.

On Tuesday morning, the 15th of May, two policemen appeared at Diana’s
pensione
just before nine as she sat with a cup of coffee waiting for the studio car to arrive. She’d grown to like Italian espresso, with its rich aroma, quite unlike the insipid Lyons coffee grounds that Trevor preferred back home. It certainly jolted you into the day, making you feel wide awake.

‘Signora Bailey? We need to ask you more questions. Please would you accompany us to the station?’

Diana was surprised. ‘I was there for hours on Saturday. Do I really have to come again today? Can’t you ask me your questions here?’

‘I’m afraid not. You must come with us.’

She sighed loudly. ‘Will someone give me a lift to Cinecittà when you finish? I have a meeting to attend.’

‘We’ll arrange something.’

Diana asked them to wait until the studio car arrived and she told the driver to get word to Hilary that she would be late, then she climbed into the police car and was driven back out to the Questura Polizia di Stato. At least she’d had breakfast this time.

She was led into the same airless room with one window set high in the wall, and the senior officer, the one who had questioned her on Saturday, walked in.

‘Thank you for coming,’ he began. ‘I have a number of matters to clear up so if you don’t mind we will go through them one by one.’ Diana nodded her agreement. ‘First of all, I am puzzled about the fight you had with Helen on the 9th of May. Several witnesses have described it to me and they say that Helen was crying and you were shouting at her. Is that a fair description?’

Who had he spoken to? Diana tried to remember who had been in the bar that day but could recall only blurred faces: one of the camera crew, and an assistant director whose name she didn’t know. ‘I only raised my voice once, towards the end. At the beginning we were chatting normally, then I got angry with her so I raised my voice and she began to cry. Rather than continue the argument, I went off to calm down. That’s all that happened.’

‘You were angry with her because she wanted to have an affair with a man you had just finished an affair with. Why would you object if you were no longer with him?’

God, this was complicated. ‘Because he was married. It wasn’t fair on his wife and children.’