Mad Alice Lane

Chapter Thirteen

Martha

I capitalise on my newfound confidence by spending the next day outside the flat for as long as I want. My first port of call is to the Castle Museum. As I arrive a tour group is just leaving from the reception so I slide into the back. As fascinating as the painstakingly kitted out reproduction Victorian Street is, it's too late in time to bear any resemblance to the world Alice would have known, and it's the old prison cells beneath the museum that hold the most interest.

Incarcerating both men and women, conditions were dreadful, and yet, depending on the true date of Alice's arrest, if it happened at all, would dramatically alter the conditions in which she was kept. If 1823, as some sources seem to suggest, then she would have been in the old prison, the part that I stand in now with its bleak stone walls, damp impregnating the walls, and wardens often impregnating the female inmates.

But if in 1825, a new prison had been built in a Tudor Gothic style. Said to be the strongest building in all of England, it was built entirely from dark grey gritstone lending it a particularly forbidding appearance.

Nothing remains of this newer prison, but I can imagine that it was, in many ways, as grim as the old, and with executions taking place just outside in the courtyard, being brought here before trial must have really felt like the end. There must have been little hope in these walls.

In one corner is a little machine that looks rather like a cash dispenser. Closer inspection reveals it to be an online database, not unlike the one online in which visitors can search for names, specifically those of their family. I suppose there's nothing quite like knowing there's a sheep thief in the family.

After checking once again that Alice Smith comes up blank, I tentatively type in 'Chamberlain', and am rewarded with an entirely clean slate. Richard will be thrilled. 'Blenkinsop' reveals itself to be equally as blameless, although I would have been grateful for any snippet of information there, even a crime.

Lastly, reluctantly almost, although I can't control myself, I type in 'Martha'. A sad tale appears of Martha Chapel who was executed for murdering her illegitimate child by mangling it with her hands immediately after its birth in 1803. She went to the gallows protesting her innocence to the end, claiming, left alone to deliver her child, any harm was inflicted in panic.

Reading, I can feel the blood pumping in my ears, and my chest constricts with anguish; poor woman, poor child. After all those ghost stories too. Perhaps it is too soon for this; I am still too raw myself. Perhaps I might have found myself in a similar situation?

The thought is too hideous to consider and I force myself to brush it aside. Steadying my hands against the machine, hogging it despite a small child pushing at my elbow, I take a deep breath and try to clear my mind. But before I leave, I still have to ask a member of staff about the execution records online.

"I believe all of the records are on there for you to search," says the middle-aged man I've collared. "Were you looking for anyone in particular?"

"Alice Smith," I say. "I looked yesterday but couldn't seem to find anything. And today I can't either. There are plenty of Smiths but no Alice Smiths, and none around the dates I'm searching."

"In that case, I'd say that she wasn't here then."

"But I've read, and been told, several times that she was," I insist.

"I suppose you could speak to our archivist," he says, a little doubtfully.

"Perfect."

"You'll have to make an appointment, mind, and even then, she might not be able to help you."

"That's fine, thank you," I say, and take the business card he proffers.