On Wednesday morning, some Italian newspapers ran stories saying that Diana Bailey, a twenty-six-year-old researcher on the Cleopatra movie, had been arrested in connection with the death of the makeup artist who’d been found in the water at Torre Astura. Under the lurid headline ‘Gelosia!’ one said that Diana was a married woman who had left her husband at home in England to embark on a torrid affair with an Italian man. When her younger, prettier colleague lured him away, she couldn’t contain her rage and attacked her rival, leaving her covered in cuts and bruises, before drowning her. The article went on to lambast the immoral atmosphere on the Cinecittà set, where everyone was sleeping with someone else’s husband or wife. It reported that Sybil Burton had left for England and already Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton had been seen together again, pawing each other like animals. No wonder other people on the film followed their example.
Scott read each of the stories in turn, trying to square the facts with what he knew of Helen’s life, but they didn’t add up. Drugs or no drugs, she was too gentle. She wouldn’t steal another woman’s boyfriend and engage in a cat-fight over him. Scott had never seen her with a boyfriend. The coverage had a hysterical tone that he instinctively distrusted. Helen had always described Diana in glowing terms. When he spoke to Gianni later, his photographer agreed.
‘I think I have a picture of Diana at home,’ he said. ‘I’ll bring it for you and you’ll see she doesn’t look the type. Still, sometimes the quiet ones have the most secrets.’
He zipped home and met Scott later at a café on the Via Veneto where they pored over his shots of a mousy-haired woman going into the Grand Hotel on the occasion of the Spartacus party the previous October. She looked startled by the flashbulbs and uncomfortable in a tight-fitting, above-the-knee frock and backcombed hair. Somehow they didn’t suit her. She appeared trussed up and unnatural.
‘I hadn’t seen her before and I took the photos in case she was important,’ Gianni explained, ‘but when I showed them to my contact on the set he said she was just the new researcher.’
‘It’s handy you kept them. I’ll send one to my editor tonight. Why don’t you sell the others? You might as well make some money from them.’
Gianni beamed. ‘I wasn’t sure if you would let me sell them to other papers.’
‘Sure you can. Take them to Jacopozzi at Associated Press and get the best price you can. They should be worth a bit if you release them before anyone else has one.’
‘Will do, boss.’ Gianni stood up eagerly.
‘Hang on! Are you expecting Liz and Dick to come out tonight? What’s the word on the street?’
‘She won’t come today, I don’t think. She got a letter threatening to kill her and her children, so they’ve trebled the security around her villa. I went past earlier and there are armed police patrolling and a police car parked outside.’ He sniffed in annoyance. ‘It’s going to be hard to get shots of her because they have thrown out all the photographers who used to sit in the trees overlooking her garden.’
‘Have you ever done that?’
‘Sure,’ Gianni grinned. ‘Why not?’ He slung his camera diagonally across his shoulders, then straddled his scooter and waved as he drove off.
Scott sat deep in thought as he stirred his espresso. He was convinced that Helen’s death must have had something to do with her drug habit. Maybe it had caused her to behave out of character and get into a fight. Perhaps she was distressed the night before she died because Diana had confronted her. But what was she doing in Torre Astura, presumably not far from the Anzio villa she had told him about? Poor Helen. He just hoped that if the Ghianciaminas had killed her, it had been quick and she hadn’t suffered.
He decided the time had come to go to the police and tell them what he knew. He jumped onto his Vespa and drove out to the police station to the east of the city. At reception, he said he had information about the death of the makeup girl from Cleopatra, and asked if he might speak to someone involved in the case. He was led into an interview room, where he had to wait about half an hour before an officer came in.
Scott explained that Helen had been a drug addict and that he had been trying to help her quit the habit.
‘You were a boyfriend of hers?’ the officer asked.
‘No, just a friend.’
Scott told him about the vitamin doctor and wrote down his name and address on a piece of paper torn from his journalist’s notepad. The officer took it without looking at it.
‘I saw her the night before she died and she was very upset because the treatment wasn’t working. I think she might have started using heroin again.’
‘Where did you see her?’ He had the officer’s interest now.
‘I went to her apartment at about seven in the evening.’
‘Ah,’ the officer exclaimed, pleased with this information. ‘So you were the American man seen there. Our witness said she was crying, yes?’
‘She was very upset,’ Scott agreed.
‘And you talked to her. Did you go in?’
‘No. We talked for a while on the doorstep and I asked her to come out for dinner with me but she didn’t want company so I ended up leaving her. I wish I hadn’t now.’
‘Did she tell you about her new boyfriend?’
‘No. I never saw her with a boyfriend and she never mentioned one.’ Only guys she liked who didn’t call her, he remembered.
‘Uh-huh. Well, thank you for your help, Mr …’ He rose to his feet.
‘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.