Deciding to play Amy at her own game was one thing, actually carrying it out quite another.
It was a few days later that Patsy saw Alec Hall crossing the market. He looked harassed and distracted, constantly running his hand through his hair which brought her suspicions to the fore once more. He was about to stride back into his shop when he spotted Patsy and came over. Ignoring all pleasantries he came straight to the point.
‘You’re very close the Bertalone family, do you know the full story of what’s going on over there?’
‘Er...’ Patsy was dumbfounded. Had he noticed her loitering the other day, when they were arguing? There was an abruptness about his manner and a wild look in his grey eyes. How much did he know? How much dare she tell him? Would Carmina consider the pregnancy to be private information? ‘I’m not sure that I’m the right person to ask,’ she hedged.
‘You are if you’re in possession of all the facts, which I clearly am not. Is it true that Carmina is about to marry Luc Fabriani, and if so why? I understood he was courting the other sister, Gina. I’m surprised he’s turned against her, even if she is in jail. But then I’m surprised Gina was arrested in the first place. She never seemed the sort to take up thieving.’
‘I agree,’ Patsy cried, relieved that even the injured shopkeeper should take this lenient attitude. He had been the one most affected, after all. ‘Apparently the proof was irrefutable, or so the police say, since they found the transistor radio stolen from your shop, along with other items, hidden away in her wardrobe. The case comes up for trial soon.’
Alec frowned, and after a thoughtful moment nodded. ‘Yes, so they told me. I never thought they’d actually send her down for it though. And why would Luc so swiftly drop her? Carmina and I ...’ He stopped, gave a small smile and a shrug. ‘I thought it was all over between her and Luc.’
Patsy’s mind was whirling. What was he trying to say? Was that almost an admission that they had indeed once been intimate? She’d never been afraid to take risks in her life, and these last words of Alec’s decided her. No matter what Clara and Amy said, she really couldn’t leave Gina to stagnate in that dreadful place without doing something to help.
Besides, she knew how it felt to be confronted by secrets about your past that you couldn’t uncover. Was it fair to this unborn child to allow it to face life on the strength of a lie? And if she was forced to choose between Luc and Carmina over which of them was telling the truth, it was no contest.
Patsy glanced around at the rush and helter-skelter of the market, and drew Alec behind a large display of handbags, in case anyone should be watching, Carmina in particular.
‘I expect it’s because of the baby,’ she quietly remarked.
‘Baby?’
‘You did know that Carmina was pregnant? If you didn’t, then for goodness’ sake don’t let on that
I
was the one who told you.’
Alec’s expression now looked more shocked than irritated. ‘I won’t let on,’ he murmured. ‘You’re saying that Carmina is pregnant? By whom?’
Patsy looked him straight in the eye. Carmina would kill her for this, if she knew. This was interference of the highest order. ‘She’s certainly pregnant by someone. She says Luc, but he denies it. Yet who else could it be?’
Alec drew in a long shaky breath and let it out quite slowly. Then he spun on his heel and walked back into his shop, closing the door with a sharp click and turning the sign to closed.
Oh dear, now what had she done?
Chapter Forty-One
Patsy was a regular visitor to the prison. She took her friend treats: a few chocolates from Pringle’s Chocolate Cabin, an orange and apple from Barry’s stall, or a home-made cake she’d baked herself. These items were all taken from her at the gate, and she wondered sometimes if Gina ever got them.
‘I haven’t hidden a file in it,’ she joked on one occasion, only to receive a sour look from the woman concerned. She never risked it again.
‘Does Carmina never visit you?’ she once asked Gina, but Gina only turned her head away and refused to answer. Patsy took the hint and quickly changed the subject. Relations between the two sisters had never been so bad.
Only once had the coming wedding been mentioned. Gina had quietly asked if it really was going ahead and Patsy had told her that she believed it would be some time soon.
‘What about your own wedding?’
Patsy had laughed, joking about how she’d won that little disagreement with Marc. ‘I doubt it will even be an autumn wedding, as I originally planned. None of us are in the mood for celebrating,’ she said, feeling that it was wrong to even discuss such happy things while Gina was incarcerated in prison. ‘We may well postpone it till the spring, till you’re able to be there as chief bridesmaid. In fact, I insist upon it.’
Gina smiled but her eyes remained bleak.
Patsy constantly asked her how she was being treated, how the food was, and what her cell-mate was like, although her answers were never very satisfactory. She thought her friend looked dreadful, her face ash-pale, beautiful brown hair all lank and greasy. And her lovely cinnamon eyes bore dark purple bruises beneath, seeming to stare into some abyss no one else could quite imagine.
‘It will all be over soon,’ Patsy would assure her. ‘You must be strong. Remember that we’re all praying for you. Marc is organising a lawyer, the best defence money can buy. He says you’re not to worry about the cost as they expect you to be granted legal aid. This mix-up will soon get sorted out, I know it will, love. It won’t be long now before the trial comes up, then you’ll be out of here. You just have to stay strong, OK?’
Gina would say little by way of response, merely give a tremulous smile. She seemed to have withdrawn into herself, to some secret place in her head. The most conversation she volunteered was to ask after Momma and Papa, and her beloved brothers and sisters. Then she would walk back through the door into the terrible hell-hole beyond, and Patsy would leave the prison feeling hopelessly inadequate and useless.
Today, Patsy was thinking about Carmina’s strangely unfeeling reaction to her sister’s incarceration. But then she’d been behaving oddly right from the time Gina was arrested, if not before. So full of herself, so indifferent to her sister’s plight. And to spring her pregnancy on her parents on Gina’s first day in prison seemed too cruel for words.
Patsy went over Alec’s reaction too in her mind. She’d swear he knew something, that there’d been something between them.
Her suspicions returned with a new force, and she fully intended to pursue the truth and get to the bottom of the matter. There must be something she was missing, some evidence which hadn’t yet come to light which could free Gina. She would begin this very day by asking a few leading questions. The trial was just days away, so time was of the essence.
But as she neared the all-too-familiar Victorian entrance of Strangeways Prison Patsy could hear the sound of klaxons going off. By the time she joined the long queue forming outside the office, a straggled line of weary men and women patiently waiting to see their loved ones, it was obvious something was amiss.
Instead of the queue being ushered inside, people who’d already been admitted were being rudely ejected, prisoners apparently being sent back to their cells despite it being well past the hour for visiting. And somewhere in the background frantic sounds could be heard. A car drew up and a man carrying a black bag jumped out to be hustled through the door. An ambulance came next, tearing into the prison yard, its own klaxon taking over from the silence left in the wake of the other.
‘What on earth’s going on?’ Patsy asked of no one in particular.
‘One of the prisoners has tried to hang herself, apparently,’ said the woman in front. ‘I’d bleedin’ do the same an’ all, if I were ever locked up in that hell-hole.’
An ice-cold hand gripped her heart as some terrible instinct told Patsy that this person was Gina.
The Indian summer was well and truly over and trade on Champion Street Market was busy, everyone rushing to buy winter scarves or woollen hats. The ice cream parlour was closed, not as a consequence of the time of year, but because Father Dimmock was saying special prayers for the Bertalone family.
Gina had spent several days in hospital but was now back in prison under strict supervision. At least she was alive, her family cried, lighting more candles in thanks for her survival.
Patsy had attended the eight o’clock mass with them at St Mary’s in Brazennose Street. Luc too had been present, much to Carmina’s delight.
Even she seemed subdued by the horror of her sister’s attempted suicide. Yet she was looking as beautiful and voluptuous as ever. Pregnancy seemed to suit her. Her blue dress was straining somewhat over the bloom of her burgeoning figure, glossy ebony hair tied back with a matching chiffon scarf.
It fleetingly crossed Patsy’s mind that the scarf looked oddly familiar, and she wondered if she’d seen Carmina wearing it before somewhere.
On their return to Champion Street, Carlotta retired to her bed, where she’d been ever since she’d learned the terrible news. Gina’s parents had been allowed to visit their daughter only once since her attempted suicide, although Carlotta had wept to see her darling child lying sick in a hospital bed, unable to speak properly and one hand shackled to the bed post. It was all too troubling and shaming.
Now, as the younger children gathered about their mother, Patsy made her excuses and left.
Gina was back in her prison cell with Alice, but never left alone for a moment. If Alice was absent then Wilcox, or Allenby, the reed-thin woman officer with the down-turned eyes who’d dealt with Gina on her first day, kept watch at the door. She hated their constant presence but understood why it was necessary.
When she’d recovered consciousness to find herself still alive and in hospital, she’d been filled with anger that she was still alive, hated everyone and longed for the comfort of that enveloping darkness. She’d lost Luc, was about to be consigned to prison for years, her reputation was tarnished, what could she possibly have to live for? But now, as a good Catholic, she saw that she’d committed a mortal sin and was filled with shame. Every morning she went to mass and prayed for forgiveness.
Gina had reconciled herself to misery and despair. No matter what the trial might bring, no matter if she was compelled to live her life without Luc because of his betrayal with her sister, then so be it. She must deal with it.
Despite the fact she was never left alone there was still far too much time for her to reflect on what had happened to her and why. Ample time for Gina to work it all out fairly accurately.
She realised that the only person, beside herself, who knew about the loose brick in the old Victorian fireplace, was Carmina. And her sister had far more opportunity to steal from Patsy’s stall, and from Hall’s Music Shop than herself.
It was only in recent months, after all, that she’d begun to get about more, most of her time spent helping Momma in the house until she’d started working for Dena. Gina had rarely visited the hat stall, and couldn’t remember the last time she’d even browsed through the records at Hall’s Music, let alone bought one. And it went without saying that it would never cross her mind to actually steal one.
So who had, and why would Constable Nuttall even consider searching her bedroom unless someone had tipped him off to do so? Despite her inner struggle against facing the truth, it was now perfectly clear to Gina that she’d been manipulated by Carmina.
Late one night she confessed these suspicions to her cell-mate, for want of anyone else to confide in. Alice had told her the correct term was ‘framed’.
Whatever the word, the fact that Carmina could do such a thing filled her more with grief than fear. How could a loving sister behave with such cruelty? All those years when Carmina had supported her through her illness. Had that been a lie too?
‘You’ll have to shop her,’ Alice said. ‘You’ll have to tell the beak when you go to trial.’
When Gina had finally translated and understood this sentence, she was horrified. ‘I could never do such a thing. How could I tell on my own sister? She would then be the one locked up.’
‘And a good thing too. Doesn’t she deserve to be, if what you say is true? It sounds like she had the opportunity, and I assume she also had the motivation.’
‘Oh, I’m afraid she did indeed have the motivation, of course she did.’ Carmina’s reasons were all too clear, had been from the start only Gina had failed to take proper notice. ‘She wanted Luc, my boy friend, and was determined to get him at any price. And it looks as if she’s won. Carmina will marry Luc now.’
‘And you’ll get two years if you don’t speak up, maybe more,’ Alice calmly warned her.
This prediction proved to be entirely accurate. When Gina’s case came up for trial a day or two later, two years was exactly what she got, and there seemed little hope of an appeal.
Puzzled though she might be by her husband’s increasingly odd behaviour, not for a moment did Amy ever suspect him of chasing girls. Perhaps she knew him better than he knew himself, but, in her view, Chris simply wasn’t the type. He loved her far too much to be interested in anyone else. And didn’t she feel exactly the same way about him?