"Right, right," said Charlie, getting to his feet, still wearing his very earnest expression. "I'm going to get them to get moving on this right now."

Was watching him leave, marvelling at how such a creature could have risen through the ranks of the British diplomatic service. I suddenly had a brainwave.

"Charlie?" I said.

"Yar," he said, looking down to check that his flies weren't undone.

"What does your father do?"

"Dad?" Charlie's face brightened. "Oh, he works in the Foreign Office. Bloody old fart."

"Is he a politician?"

"No, civil servant actually. Used to be Douglas Hurd's right-hand man."

Checking swiftly that the guards weren't looking, I leaned forward.

"How's your career going here?"

"Bit bloody static, to be perfectly honest," he said cheerily. "Black bloody hole of Calcutta, unless you get down to the islands of course. Oh sorry."

"Wouldn't it be really good for you if you pulled off a diplomatic coup?" I began temptingly. "Why don't you just give your dad a little call ..."

Monday 25 August

7st 2 (attention-seeking thinness), no. of - oh fuck it, brain has dissolved. Good for slimming, surely.

Noon. Bad, low day. Must have been mad to think I could influence anything. Am bitten to death by mosquitoes and fleas. Am nauseous and feeble with constant diarrhoea which is difficult in view of potty situation. In a way is quite good, though, as light-headedness makes everything unreal: much better than reality. Wish could sleep. So hot. Maybe have got malaria.

2 p.m. Bloody Jed. I mean how could anyone be so ... ? But mustn't hold on to resentments or will harm self. Detach. I do not wish him ill, I do not wish him well. I detach.

2.01 p.m. Bloody fucking dog pig black-livered bastard from hell. I hope his face gets put on a porcupine.

6 p.m. Result! Result! An hour ago the guard came in and hustled me out of the cell. Fantastic to get out and away from the stink. Was taken to a small interview room with a wood-effect Formica table, a grey metal filing cabinet and a copy of a Japanese gay porn magazine, which the guard hurriedly removed as a short, distinguished middle-aged Thai man entered and introduced himself as Dudwani.

He turned out to be Drug Squad and a pretty hard nut. Good old, Charlie.

I started on the details of the story, the flights Jed had arrived on and probably left on, the bag, the description of Jed.

"So surely you can trace him from this?" I concluded. "There must be his fingerprints on the bag."

"Oh, we know where he is," he said dismissively, "And he has no fingerprints." leuw. No fingerprints. Like having no nipples or something.

"So why haven't you captured him?" "He is in Dubai," he said dispassionately. Suddenly I felt really quite annoyed.

"Oh, he's in Dubai, is he?" I said. "And you know all about him. And you know he did it. And you know I didn't do it and he made it look as though I did and I didn't. But you go home to your lovely satй sticks and wife and family in the evening and I'm stuck here for the rest of my childbearing years for something I didn't do just because you can't be bothered to get someone to confess to something I didn't do."

He looked at me in consternation.

"Why don't you get him to confess?" I said.

"He is in Dubai."

"Well, get somebody else to confess, then."

"Miss Jones, in Thailand, we... "

"Someone must have seen him break into the hut or broke in for him. Someone must have sewn the drugs into the lining. It was done with a sewing machine. Go investigate it like you're supposed to do."

"We are doing everything we can," he said coldly. "Our government takes any breach of the drug codes very seriously."

"And my government takes the protection of its citizens very seriously," I said, thinking for a moment of Tony Blair and imagining him striding in and coshing the Thai official on the head.

The Thai man cleared his throat to speak. "We ..."

"And I am a journalist," I interrupted him. "On one of Great Britain's top television current affairs programmes," I said, trying to fight back a vision of Richard Finch going 'I'm thinking Harriet Harman, I'm thinking black underwear, I'm thinking. . .'

"They are planning a vigorous campaign on my behalf." Mental cut to Richard Finch: 'Oh, Bridget droopy bikini hasn't come back from her holiday, has she? Snogging on the beach, forgot to get the plane.'

"I have connections in the highest ranks of government and I think, given the current climate" - I paused to give him a meaningful stare, I mean the current climate's always something, isn't it? - "it would look very bad indeed in our media if I were imprisoned in these frankly appalling conditions for a crime I plainly and by your own admission did not commit, while the police force here are failing to enforce their own laws with their own people and properly investigate the crime."

Gathering my sarong around me with tremendous dignity, I sat back and gave him a cool stare.

The official shuffled in his seat, looked at his papers. Then he looked up, pen poised.

"Miss Jones, can we go back to the moment at which you realized your hut had been broken into?"

Hah!

Wednesday 27 August

8st, cigarettes 2 (but at hideous price), fantasies involving Mark Darcy/Colin Firth/Prince William bursting in saying: 'In the name of God and England, release myfuture wife!': constant.

Worrying two days with nothing. No word, no visits, just constant requests to perform Madonna songs. Repeated reading of "If" only means of keeping nerve. Then this morning Charlie appeared - in a new mood! Extremely earnest, top level and overconfident, with another kit containing cream cheese sandwiches that - given earlier flight of fantasy about in-jail impregnation - found self not really wanting to eat.

"Yar. Things are starting to move," said Charlie with the heavy air of a government agent burdened with explosive M15 secrets. "Bloody good actually. We've had movements from the Foreign Office."

Trying not to think about tiny top-level turds in boxes, I said, "Did you speak to your dad?"

"Yar, yar," he said. "They know all about it."

"Has it been in the papers?" I said excitedly.

"No, no. Hush-hush. Don't want to rock the boat. Anyway. There's some mail for you. Your friends got it to Dad. Bloody attractive actually, Dad says."

I opened the big brown Foreign Office envelope, hands shaking. First was a letter from Jude and Shaz, rather carefully written almost in code, as if they thought spies might read it.

'Bridge, Don't worry, we love you. We're gonna get you out of there. Jed tracked down. Mark Darcy helping(!)'

Heart leaped. Was best news possible (apart, obviously, from ten-year jail sentence being lifted).

'Remember Inner Poise and diet Potential of jail. 192 soon. Repeat do not worry, Girls on top.

All our love, Jude and Shaz'

Looked at letter, blinking with emotion, then tore eagerly at the other envelope. Maybe from Mark?

Was written on reverse of long concertina of views of Lake Windermere and said:

'Visiting Granny in St Anne's and touring the Lakes. Weather a bit mixed but super factory shops. Daddy has bought a sheepskin gilet! Could you call Una and check that she's put the timer on?

Love, Mum'