I saw the researcher glance across from his perusal of the eighteenth-century shelf. Clearly his studies would benefit from such a tool too. I wondered what he was studying.

'That's fantastic!' I replied, feigning an enthusiasm to match Kevin Donnelly's, though the historian in me was genuinely rather impressed by this facility.

'I'll show you,' Kevin said, sliding behind his desk and bringing the computer out of hibernation. He turned the monitor so I might look at it too. The cursor flew to several icons, opening new windows, until a search page was in front of us.

'Surname?' he asked.

'Cooper,' I told him, feeling flushed with embarrassment that I'd dreamed the name. What if it didn't exist at all? For that matter, what if it did?

He typed the name. 'First name?'

'Elizabeth.'

His fingers tapped the keyboard again. 'Any other information?' he enquired.

'No. Sorry,' I said.

'Should be enough,' he assured me, hitting the enter key.

It took the computer seconds to flash up a new screen:

Elizabeth Cooper. Sentenced 27th February 1808. Stealing in a dwelling house: Theft of four rings, three necklaces, one silver mirror, and some fancy linen. Sentence: Death. Height: 5'4". Build: Slender. Hair: Dark Blond. Eyes: Hazel. Complexion: Fair. Distinguishing marks: None.

I looked at the information on the screen and I shivered involuntarily. Elizabeth Cooper did exist and somehow her name had made its way into my dream. How the hell was that possible? One word stood out to me in particular among the bright letters. Death. It seemed to be in bigger writing than all the other words. For a woman who had lived, and, I assume, died, in 1808, to be catalogued like this on a cold computer seemed suddenly obscene. Her name should have been inscribed in a faded manuscript that smelled of the must of the centuries. Still, it was fascinating.

'Is that all the information?' I asked. There was no date of execution, no more information about this woman's crime or who she was.

'That's it, I'm afraid. Records back then weren't always kept properly. Plus a lot have been lost or become so damaged that we can't read them,' he told me, unnecessarily. I knew the perils of original historical manuscripts and records. So many had been damaged by damp or fire, you sometimes got the impression that historical Britain was constantly either sodden or aflame.

'Well, thank you,' I said, unsure what to do next.

'Want me to print it for you?' Kevin asked.

'That'd be great, thanks,' I replied.

He clicked a few more times on the mouse, and I heard the printer whirr into life. And then stop. 'Sorry, out of ink. I'll go and get some, back in a tick,' he said.

'Okay.' I smiled as he walked past me and out of the door, presumably to some office storeroom.

I looked up at the ceiling and down at the floor. The room seemed suddenly too small for just me and the researcher. I could hear his breathing, the squeak of his shoe leather as he moved from one side of the bookcase to the other. I wished for a radio or a pneumatic drill, just some noise to block out the silence and the little noises of a stranger.

I glanced across at him. At the same moment, as though he felt my gaze fall upon him, he turned his head and looked at me. He smiled awkwardly. I returned the gesture, then looked back at the thin carpet.

'So, you work here?' he asked. There was an accent. Maybe a hint of Yorkshire? Certainly more northerly than here.

'What gives you that idea?' I returned, with more sarcasm than I had intended. I mellowed it with a slight laugh and a gesture at my costume.

'Thought you might just dress like that every day,' he replied, turning to face me properly now. Oh fuck, turn around again; I'm not doing conversation today.

'Nope,' I said shortly.

'It must be interesting,' he persisted. I wished he would shut up.

'Yes, it is,' I replied. No matter how many hours I spent sitting— or even sleeping—on my gallows steps, or sheltering in the murky shadows from the rain, just waiting for a passing tourist, I still defended my job as one of the most interesting possible to anyone who asked. That was why I was still working here, obviously.

'I'm researching, myself,' he went on.

'Oh really?' I answered. I had to admit I was a little interested in just what he was researching. 'What topic?'

'Changes in prison conditions in the eighteenth century. Though I've only just started, so don't ask too many questions.'

I wasn't going to ask any questions actually. T studied history at university,' I told him, not wanting him to think his academic credentials outweighed mine. 'I'm interested in people's stories. I studied the Chartists for my dissertation, but there was too much politics and not enough personality for me.' Sodding hell, why the beginnings of an academic conversation?

'Good place to work then,' he replied. 'I'm Owen,' he said. An introduction was a bad sign; it meant he planned our acquaintance to continue. I hadn't talked about history in a while though, it might be interesting.

'I'm Jen,' I told him.

'When do you finish work?' he asked.

'Why?' I retorted. Of course I knew why, I just wasn't sure I could be bothered.

‘I just thought maybe you'd like a drink. Maybe we could talk about the history of this place. It'd be good for my research.' He shrugged and smiled. My body language was beginning to put him off the idea. I didn't really want to be rude though, and he seemed like a pleasant enough sort of a man really.

‘I finish at four thirty, hopefully,' I revealed at last. 'If you want, we can meet in the pub across the road. It's pretty obvious.'

'Okay, you're on,' he said, and he smiled wider. Now the date was made, I was regretting it instantly.

I stood awkwardly for a moment. Now what? Thankfully it was at that point that Kevin bustled back in, jumper blaring, ink cartridge in his hand.

'Here we go,' he said briskly. 'Oh, and I remembered where I'd heard that name before,' he added.

My attention was immediately turned on him. 'Oh?' I asked.

'Yes, Elizabeth Cooper. It seemed familiar, but I see a lot of names,' he explained.

'Yes?' I said eagerly. Get on with it.

'Yep. Then I remembered. When we re-did the crime boards last year. She's on there.'

I suppose I should have been pleased with the logical explanation for how this name had got into my head. There was no mystery; the name wasn't part of my dream at all. The crime boards were the large boards around the museum that allowed the visitors to compare the number they received on their tickets with one on the board. This number allocated them a crime. Actually it did more than that; it ascribed the details of a real crime, the name of a real historical prisoner, to each of them. I was never much interested in the crime boards, but I had certainly read them, wondering if the cases described were actually real. It seemed they were.

'I never noticed,' I replied, trying to hide my disappointment. I had no idea why I should feel disappointed with the news. It should have been a relief.

'Yes, I think we chose her because it seemed so harsh, the death penalty for theft. But you know what the Bloody Code was like.'

I did, and understood that at the beginning of the nineteenth century the number of crimes for which a person could be executed had risen to levels that were hard to believe. 'Yep,' I replied. Kevin passed me my printout. Suddenly it didn't seem quite so interesting. 'Thanks,' I said. 'Well, back to work.' I left the library without another glance at the tall figure of Owen. I'd go to the pub across the road when I finished. If he was there, then we would see. If he wasn't, I wouldn't be devastated.

1808

Through the thick stench, the air smelled of morning. Her eyes were dry. Gilly was lying in front of her, turned away from her, on her side. Elizabeth gazed at her angular shoulders. Jane stirred and mumbled something sleepily behind her. Elizabeth blinked uncertainly. When had she fallen asleep? A memory of Gilly lying down beside her, arm wrapped around her, warming and protecting. A sharp stab of pain in her cheek. Different memories. Sudden sickness made her sit up, sweating. It was just at the moment the door opened and Mrs. Beckinsale entered.

'Come on, wake up now!' she called. Her eyes fell on Elizabeth, and registered her concern.

'Mornin', Elizabeth,' she said. 'Find you well this mornin' do I?' Elizabeth understood the woman's anxiety that she should be well. Mrs. Beckinsale did not want to confront the truth of her position, of her colleagues, of the brutality of her life. It was easier if Elizabeth was well again.

'Thank you, Mrs. Beckinsale, I'm well,' she replied blandly, and saw the relief her reply engendered.

Maisie Burrows would not make eye contact with her as they sat for breakfast. Mary Smith sighed and coughed more than usual, but the cause of it was not definite. Rapidly cooling gruel, thin and insubstantial today, grey in her bowl. She stared at it and reached for her cup of brackish water. Body pulsing with pain, especially her leg and cheek. And elsewhere, as she sat on the wooden chair.

Jane Larkin kept gazing at her and shaking her head, swearing under her breath. Even Gilly, with her kind eyes, seemed to struggle for words. Mrs. Beckinsale did not look at her either. Alone among them. She had not realized how much she needed their empathy already. And yet they were all changed by what had happened to her, the very air of the room seemed changed. Breeze blowing through the open bars, cooling her skin, ruffling Gilly's hair as it passed. However alone she felt, she was one with them at the same moment. Her life, however short its remainder, was also their life.

Mrs. Beckinsale opened a door in the end of the outer chamber that day, allowing them access to a small yard. The walls were high, though on the tips of her toes, Maisie demonstrated that it was possible to see over it and to the rooftops of the town beyond. Elizabeth was not inclined to look. Halfway up the cliff and with a sheer drop to the slums of Narrow Marsh below, it was unlikely any woman would risk an escape over the wall.

Fresh air filled her lungs, bringing the smell of the town. It was unchanged; the smoke of industrial production, the acrid squalor of the slum below, an edge of horse manure, but all the time a hint of the countryside beyond. She closed her eyes, forgetting the red bricks surrounding her and suddenly she was back in the town, on an errand for Cook. She was useful, she was safe, she was cared for.

The sounds were different from this height though. Elizabeth opened her eyes again. Down below a man shouted, his words indistinct snatches of sound on the breeze. A cart could be heard delivering ale to the public house at the foot of the cliff. There was a faint hum of machinery from a lace factory nearby. She was above it all, they all were. Horribly distinct from it, removed. Life was at the bottom of the cliff, and they were hidden from it by the red brick, separated by the cruel height. Maybe I'm dead already, she thought, and I'm up in Heaven, only it's all been a vicious lie and Heaven is really Hell.

She tilted her head back, feeling the bruises on her stretched throat, and looked at the sky. The heavy grey clouds had passed away and been replaced by a hazy blue. There was more light in the day room as a result. The sky was so constant. Ever changing, but only between shades of blue and grey and white. It would go on doing so when she was buried in her pauper's grave. For that was what it would be. Three weeks.

The cruelty with which she had been informed of her remaining time flooded back. Yellow teeth, too fat for his buttons, strong hands. Her tongue moved over the hardened blood on her lip and, stomach churning and despite the daylight, she remembered.

The memories made her tremble, from a recollection of the fear and from a sickening rage. She felt his breath near her ear again and tasted blood. She licked at where her teeth had reopened the wound in her lip. Her dress was still torn, but she had tied an apron over it, from Gilly's work basket. It was a servant's and no one would miss it. She would sew her dress later.

Noises from the town seemed to taunt her now. It was crueller to allow her to stand in this raised yard than to keep her locked in a cell. A last breath of the fresh air, and she retreated into the dim inside.

♦

In the afternoon, she removed her dress and, in her petticoat and slip, sat beside Gilly, sewing the tear. Maisie was still tiptoeing at the wall, fascinated by the glimpses she had of the city. Elizabeth thought of the girl being snatched from everything she knew and carried to a land of harsh heat and disease and further imprisonment. She wondered how Maisie would bear it. How would she herself have taken the sentence? Would she have felt she had escaped?

No. There could have been no justice, whatever the sentence. Innocent people were not sentenced. They were released, free to wander wherever they pleased. Her life was to be drained from her, but it had really already been taken, in the moment she was accused and the evidence presented. Innocent had become guilty, a criminal, and she had ceased to exist.

2008

After lunch, I went to look at the crime boards. Number A4-3000, Elizabeth Cooper, 1808. Crime: Theft of jewelry. Sentence: Death. There it was in large black writing. Scant information really, considering it was a real life, a real death I was looking at. There was something of a gimmick about it that made me feel uneasy. At least I knew now where I had got the name from. I thought about Elizabeth Cooper for a moment, imagined what sort of girl she might have been. Suddenly the reality of the history of this place struck me, and I shivered. I made an effort to put Elizabeth Cooper out of my mind.

Owen was in the pub across the road when I got there just after half past four. I wasn't sure if I was glad or otherwise to see him. At least I hadn't been stood up.

I loved this pub, the County Tavern it was called. Its facade was dark stone, almost green with age, which made it stand out in a street of red-brick and rendered Georgian facades. In fact, it had more in common with the grand exterior of the Shire Hall, which it directly faced, than the quiescent industrial buildings. I always sensed an odd relationship between the two buildings as they had stared at each other over the centuries. One grand, imposing, a place of judgment, punishment, death, and fear; the other small, unassuming, quaint almost, a place of indulgence, laughter, and who knew what. The steps where once thieves and murderers were hanged were only the distance of a narrow road from the door of the tavern. To sit in the pub and gaze at the sandstone columns, those notorious steps, the inscription above which telling which King George in particular the building was dedicated to, and to know all the time what was behind it all, I found a rather moving experience. It was one of those times when I valued my job most of all.

Today, however, such reflections were not uppermost in my mind. Owen saw me from the window as I descended the steps and crossed the road. I saw his pointed face white in the window as he smiled. I wanted to turn around and go home. It was a perfectly unreasonable response to have, but that part of me that knew this was all a charade thought it might really be better to give it up as a bad job now and spare myself the awkwardness, the wondering why I couldn't make myself like him. I made my way into the dark interior, which was all oak-paneled walls and grey slate floors, and fixed a smile as I made eye contact with him.

'What can I get you?' was the first thing he said, indicating his own pint of lager.

'I'll get it, you're okay, thanks,' I told him, turning and heading for the bar before he could even take a breath to protest.

I returned moments later with my orange juice. Truth was, I could have done with a drink, but I didn't want to be here long, and I knew the alcohol would be in danger of relaxing me just enough to enjoy Owen's conversation. I was happy at how quickly all thoughts of Paul had receded from my consciousness.

I took the chair opposite him and wondered, sipping my juice, what on earth we were supposed to talk about.

'Busy afternoon?' he enquired, breaking the ice.

'No, it was quiet really,' I responded. Thinking I should really make the effort, I added, 'It usually is on a weekday.' My turn to ask a question, I guess. 'So, did you find what you were looking for?'

'Some of it,' he replied. 'I'm still not exactly sure what I'm looking for. Ideas as much as anything.'

'Are you at uni here?' I asked.

'Yes, for my post-grad. My degree's from Durham.' He was pretty intelligent then; that was a good university.

'Where are you from originally?' was my next question, leaving me feeling like a student again. The set questions in any freshers' week: who are you, where are you from, what are you studying?

'From near Leeds,' he told me, 'so I'm closer to home now.'

'Oh, that's good.' I'd run out of steam on the conversation front. I took advantage of the pause, during which he glanced out of the window, to study him a little more closely. The skin of his cheeks was rough and uneven, I assumed from the impact of teenage acne. There was something unpleasant about the cratered skin that revolted me, however much I chided myself. A fine layer of stubble suggested he needed a shave. His blond hair was thinning into typical male-pattern baldness, leaving him with a rather high forehead. His eyes were a murky green, and intelligent. Still, something about his appearance left me feeling vaguely disturbed. Maybe it was more that I was perfectly aware that many women would find him handsome, while looking at him left me cold.

'It's an impressive place,' he said, gesturing with his head out of the window at the Shire Hall looming across the road.

'Yes, it is,' I agreed. 'So many people don't realize it's here. Tourist information's crap here.' It was a pet hate of mine, the way the important aspects of the town—particularly its fascinating industrial history—were passed over in favor of emphasizing the shopping and drinking facilities. I sipped my orange juice again.

'People just aren't interested in the important things,' he said. That made me feel a little warmer towards him; we'd found something we agreed on at least. 'So, how long have you worked here?' he asked, turning the conversation to me in an instant.

'Over a year now,' I replied. 'The money's rotten, but I like it. There's not many history-based jobs around. I considered teaching, but y' know, there's children involved,' I joked.

'Yeah, you need danger money to teach these days.' He grinned, taking a long drink of his pint. His prominent Adam's apple moved up and down as he swallowed. Turkey-neck; yuck. I forced another smile. Stop judging the poor guy by his appearance; his conversation is decent at least. For fuck's sake.

We managed to chat, mainly about the study of history, our respective dissertations—his had been about the effects of population growth in the eighteenth century—and the opportunities to carry a passion for history through into a career, for about another half an hour. As I drained the last of my juice, he looked at his watch.

'Look, you know what, I've got to go. But it's been nice. Are you free tomorrow night?' He looked hopeful.

'Yes, I am,' I said before I could stop myself. Why the fuck couldn't I lie? Despite myself, I thought I might learn to like him. He came across as genuine enough, interesting. Besides, a night out didn't mean marriage. I'd look on it as proof of how little breaking up with Paul had bothered me.

'Good. You want to meet somewhere?'

'Er, yeah,' I tried to sound keen and casual at the same time. I really wasn't sure which one I genuinely felt. 'Somewhere in town?'

'Good for me. Do you know the Dragon, near the Market Square?'

'I do,' I confirmed. 'Shall we say sevenish?'

'Also good for me.' He fumbled in his pocket for his brown leather wallet and pulled out a small white card, a little dog-eared at the edges. 'Here, it's got my number on,' he told me. I took the card and nearly laughed.

'You have a business card?' I asked, raising my eyebrows.

'I know, it's pretentious,' he laughed at himself and consequently went up in my estimation, 'but it's handy sometimes.'

'If you say so,' I replied with mock-skepticism. He stood up, and for a horrible moment I thought he was going to bend down to kiss me. Clearly I imagined it, or he thought better of it, since he simply smiled again.

'See you tomorrow night then,' he said.

'Yep, about seven in the Dragon,' I confirmed. 'Bye.' Thus dismissed, he left. I watched him walk past the window, then waited long enough to be sure he'd be gone into the city before I left the pub and headed for the bus.

As the bus bumped and rattled its way towards my part of town, I stared straight ahead to avoid the onset of queasiness and contemplated how easily I'd managed to screw up my Thursday night. I wanted to hide away at home, watch some television maybe. Instead I'd got myself ensnared, going on a date I had no real desire to go on at all. Yes, Owen was friendly and intelligent, but I understood he wanted more than friendship from me and knew already he wasn't getting it. Quite why, as a free-thinking adult, I had found it impossible to say no to him I did not understand. It was less an indulgence of his feelings, more an attempt to run away from my own. Somehow though, in all this bloody running away, I only seemed to leave myself more trapped. It had happened with Paul and now it was happening with Owen. I was getting damn tired of trying to escape the whole time.