I turned from the door and looked about the room for something to help me either make more of a sound, or maybe force the door. I wondered, could I ram it with the industrial vacuum cleaner?

Then the light went out. The darkness into which the room fell was complete, with not a hint of light. My heart began to pound. For a long moment, I was so disoriented I was afraid to move at all. I held my hand up in front of my face, tried to see it out of the corner of my eye with my night vision. Nothing. I might as well have become invisible. 'For fuck's sake!' I said it out loud this time, and my voice almost startled me as it sliced through the darkness. What was it with the lights in this building lately? Very slowly, I turned, estimating 180 degrees, so that I was facing the door again. I put my hands out, and felt it to my side, finding I'd turned farther than I thought I had. My total lack of vision was beginning to make me feel dizzy. A surge of panic seemed to make my other senses keener.

Suddenly there was a pain in my face as though I had struck it against something. I cried out and held my hand to the place. Fear set in, and I went back to hammering on the door, for what good it would do. In truth, the hammering was better than the oppressive silence. Only it wasn't silence now, I could hear that sobbing again. My skin felt cold with terror, but I was sweating. Then there was a pain in my body, a cramp in my lower abdomen. 'Oh, come on,' I shouted, to make a sound of my own and convince myself I wasn't going mad. I banged my fist against the wood of the door again.

The door opened. The gloomy light that flooded in from the corridor outside was like bright sunshine. 'What're you doing in there?' said Mark's friendly voice.

'Oh, thank God,' I panted, leaving the room and going to lean on the wall on the opposite side of the corridor.

‘I was coming to find you and I heard a strange thudding. I thought you were a ghost!' he told me.

I smiled at him faintly. 'It wasn't funny,' I said, beginning to recover myself. In the familiar corridor, looking at his friendly face, his curly dark hair, his tatty, grey turnkey's tunic, the way he wore it with modern trousers and boots, I began to feel stupid. Still, I wished he'd close the door to the room and we could go elsewhere.

'What happened?' he asked, looking at my pale face.

‘I was putting the cleaning stuff away,' I told him, 'then the bloody door stuck, I couldn't open it. Then, just to add insult to injury, the light went off. It is seriously dark in there with no light.' I was still breathing hard. I didn't tell Mark about the sudden pain I had felt, or what I had heard. Outside, with him, I began to wonder if I had imagined them after all.

He leaned into the room and flicked the light switch. 'Bulb's gone,' he said needlessly. 'I'll report it to Bill.'

'Get him to look at the door too, see why it's sticking,' I suggested.

'I will,' he assured me, 'though it must be a problem from the inside, because it was easy as ever to open from the outside. Strange that.'

Too damn strange for me. I didn't want to think about it. There were too many damn strange things happening lately. 'Well, thanks for letting me out,' I said, forcing a smile.

'Couldn't leave you in there, could I? Were you scared?' His smile was teasing. I often professed that this building and its history didn't frighten me.

'Not really,' I lied. T was just worried I'd be in there all bloody day.'

'The dangers of venturing to clean the place,' Mark said, rolling his eyes. Clearly I looked as though I'd recovered myself enough that all concern he might have felt for me had evaporated. 'Anyway, I was coming to tell you about four people have just come in, expect they're in court now.' The tour of the museum began with a mock trial in the grandeur of the Victorian courtroom, before the descent from the dock into the corridors of the gaol below.

'Oh thanks. I was wondering if anyone was coming today,' I replied, actually quite glad that I would have company in the yard before long. I didn't quite feel like being alone just yet. 'I'll wait with you,' I told him.

We went together to the turnkey's lodge with its eerie green glow. The stage lighting made it one of the least frightening places in the whole gaol. When we saw the first glimpse of a visitor approaching the gate along the corridor, I whispered to Mark that I'd see him later. I followed the visitor's route to the women's prison and laundry, where Chloe was waiting, in her brown and white Victorian prison uniform. I helped her hang some authentically dripping laundry on the washing lines, and told her, as she grated pink carbolic soap for the sensory delights of the visitors, how I'd been shut in the storeroom. She laughed at me and I tried to join in with her mirth. When we heard the cell door slam in the corridor above, the certain sign that it would only be moments before Chloe had work to do, I retreated to my yard through the dark passageway, more a tunnel than a corridor, that the visitors would take.

I managed to conduct myself as a strict wardress with little difficulty for the entertainment of the small group. They were a family, and clearly interested in what I had to say. Their questions helped me restore my nerves to what they should be. When they finally cleared the yard, it was time for my lunch break.

When I returned to my station alone after lunch, the effects of the storeroom experience were still with me. The shadows that began to loom across the yard made me shiver. The doorway to the pits and dark cells lurked in my peripheral vision and I did not like to look at it. I didn't walk around the yard, uncomfortable with the idea of passing over the graves of murderers. It was a wholly unusual set of feelings for me, but it didn't matter how often I told myself I was being ridiculous, all my senses were on edge, and I felt some sort of threat from everything I looked at.

I suppose that was how I was sure there was someone in the entrance to the Victorian prison. I had perched on the bottom step of the gallows and was willing the day to pass quickly, when something—a sound, maybe a movement—told me I wasn't alone. My heart thudded, as I looked to the end of the yard. For a person to be in the entrance of the Victorian prison without passing me they would have to have been going the wrong way around the tour. I stood up and waited to see who would materialize. It would be someone who worked here, no doubt.

A long minute passed, and there was no one. Still, I was sure there was someone there, that I was being watched. Maybe the fear I had felt in the storeroom still lingered in my blood, and maybe I was being stupid. However, the feeling was genuine. My skin crawled as if I was in danger and my stomach felt tight. I remembered the pain I had experienced in the storeroom, deep in my abdomen. For a moment I was scared it was returning, but, breathing deeply, I knew this to be different. I was merely working myself up. What was happening to me lately?

From nowhere came the thought of Aly; I'd tell her about this tomorrow. Despite myself, I smiled at the prospect and felt the tension in my chest relax slightly. I'd spent far too long on my own staring at these walls, wandering about over the remains of murders; I was starting to go crazy here, hearing sounds that weren't there, feeling mysterious pains. It was really quite pathetic. The thought of Aly reminded me that outside of here there was something to look forward to. There was Aly, and whatever the confusion of emotions that came with thinking about her, I could not deny the excitement that, for a moment, obliterated all other feelings. I imagined her smiling in her relaxed way, the interest in her eyes, as I told her what had happened to me, how the place I worked in was finally getting to me. I knew at once I wouldn't mind confessing my newfound anxieties to her, however bizarre the reasons for them, and that, in telling her, nothing could feel as bad as it did trapped in my head while I was alone here.

To have someone I knew would be a sympathetic listener was an unexpected comfort. Thinking about the potential conversation with Aly reminded me how few hours there were until I would see her again and made me appreciate just how much I was looking forward to meeting her again. Getting spooked by bizarre happenings at work was insignificant compared to that. Feeling braver as a result, I began to walk down the yard towards the Victorian wing.

To enter what we called the Victorian part of the gaol, which had been built in 1833 and so wasn't actually Victorian at all, you had to pass through an archway in the walls of the exercise yard, then walk a few more feet to reach the doorway to the building itself. It was a tall building, of more modern red brick than the rest of the gaol, and it cast a shadow that made this whole end of the yard damp and green with moss.

I reached the archway, my heart still hammering, but maybe inclined to laugh at myself. Aly would laugh at me too, in that deep, throaty laugh of hers. There'd be no one there; if there had been, they'd have showed themselves by now. Or maybe Bill had come down to carry out some small duty and then gone back the way he'd come. There were endless possibilities. This tense feeling as I went through the archway was pointless.

A figure moved to my right. I almost jumped out of my skin, unable to prevent a strangled sound of frightened surprise. Then I recognized him.

'What the hell do you think you are fucking doing?' I demanded, in a raised voice.

Owen looked back at me, apologetic. 'I'm sorry; I didn't mean to scare you,' he said, trying a small smile. I did not smile back. Now I was over my initial shock, questions were circulating in my mind. How long had he been here? What did he want? Why was he creeping around in the shadows? What was I going to say about the other night?

'How long have you been here?' I went for first.

'I was just coming through to talk to you,' he said. He was lying. I didn't know it from his face, but I was certain he'd been there longer. I'd sensed it. Besides, if he'd been walking through, he wouldn't have been behind the wall to my right when I came looking.

'Have you been watching me?' I said, shuddering to even think he might have been.

'No,' he replied evenly. 'I wanted to come and talk to you.' I would talk to him. Just not yet, there were more questions before I would even feel comfortable standing near him.

'Why did you come this way? Why not wait upstairs for me?' I demanded, my manner not softening.

'I wanted to catch you where no one was listening,' he said, and I ignored the sinister connotations of his words. He was creepy, yes, but not that creepy. I was overreacting. I took a deep breath.

'But how did you get in?' I asked, wondering if he really had paid the admission fee. 'And how did you know the way?'

'I was upstairs, wondering just that, when that family came out. I asked them if they'd seen you, and they said yes. So I went through the door they came out of, and followed the signs backwards until I got here.' He shrugged as though it was perfectly acceptable.

'It would have been better if you'd waited upstairs,' was all I said. It wasn't in me to be cruel. 'What did you want to talk about?'

'What do you think?' he replied with some bitterness. I suppose that was fair.

'Well, I can guess,' I said. 'Look, I'm sorry, but it just wasn't going to work, was it?'

'I thought it was working better than you, obviously.' He looked hurt.

'I know. And to be honest, you came on a bit heavy for a first date.' I had to be brutal; this was no time for tact. I wanted him to get the message this time.

'Heavy?' he asked. He seemed to have no understanding of the concept.

'Yeah, heavy,' I confirmed. 'You know what I mean.'

'Not really. Look, Jen, I like you. Is that a crime?'

'Yes! Or no, but it is when you seem so sure so soon...' I felt like a hypocrite. I'd probably spent less time in Aly's company. But then, I was still floundering in some confusion about my feelings. I certainly wasn't inflicting unwelcome declarations of them on her.

'But what if I am sure?' he protested.

'You can't be!' I exclaimed, exasperated. His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed.

'I've seen you before, Jen,' he said.

What the hell was that supposed to mean? If he wanted to put me at my ease, that was not the thing to say. Unconsciously, I took a step back from him. 'What do you mean?' I asked, not sure I wanted to know.

'I've been to the museum once before. I took the tour. About a fortnight ago. You told me you were going to hang me.'

I was speechless. He hadn't looked remotely familiar to me. But then I must see hundreds of people every week, why should I remember one of them in particular? What I was more concerned with now was why the fuck he hadn't mentioned this before.

'Why didn't you tell me?' I demanded.

'I suppose I was shy about it,' he replied.

'About what?' I asked.

'Well, when I saw you here, in your yard, in your costume, I mean, I really liked you. I thought you were really sexy.'

It would have been hard to be more disturbed by his words than I was then. 'You liked my character you mean?' I enquired, trying to understand him and not wanting to at the same time.

'No. Well, yes, but it was you really. I could see how interested you were in history. Not many people are that interested. And I liked the way you looked.' His eyes flickered down over my costume even as he said it. I shifted uncomfortably on my feet.

'You should have told me,' I said. Too fucking right. If he'd mentioned this before, there'd have been no chance I'd have gone for a drink with him.

‘I didn't want you to leap to the wrong conclusions about me.' He shrugged.

'Well, now I'm leaping to different ones,' I said. This was just too much. 'Will you just leave please? I'm sorry I walked out on you, it was rude of me. I just didn't know what else to do. I'm flattered that you like me, and maybe we can be friends. But right now, I want you to leave.' I said it with some vehemence, almost taking myself by surprise.

'Maybe we could try again? I could show you I'm different to how you think?' he suggested, looking hopeful. 'We have so much in common.'

'We may do. But I'm not interested,' I said. Could I be more frank about it? Still he stood there looking at me. Time to strike the final blow. I'd not considered it before, but as he gazed at me, I realized it had to be done. 'And anyway, I've met someone else I am interested in.'

His face turned red. I wondered if he was going to shout. He looked more angry than wounded, and instantly I wished I could retract my last statement.

‘I see,' he said quietly. His eyes seemed to look right through me. 'Who is he?'