Burty went to the bars separating the two cells, being careful not to jam his face in these ones. ‘You finally say something to me and it’s not something I want to hear.’

She looked at him briefly, ‘You could listen to everyone all your life and never hear what you want. I am trying to think of a way out of this mess that you have put me in, and I would ask that you keep that blubbering mouth o’ yours shut.’

‘Mess that I put you in? I tried to get you out of this mess! I came along and heard your plight and decided to stay and help, I could have let them have you straight away and not even given you a fair trial.’

She kept eye contact with him this time, eyes so dark that they looked purple in the low light. ‘If you hadn’t of tried to help me I would have gotten myself out of this and would be long gone, mister, I dint need no help from you, mister lawyer, mister fancy I-can-help-everyone-for-a-price lawyer.’

Burty threw his hands in the air and stepped away from the bars, ‘Yeah you’d be long gone because you’d be dead, you’re associated with murder, remember. If anything I have helped you because they wanted to burn you before, now they’re just wanting to tie a noose around your neck and let you drop ten feet, or whatever it is nowadays. And the only price I got from you was my life.’

‘Forgive me if I don’t shed no tears,’ she said.

‘What even is your name?’ Burty said, his head resting on the bars again.

‘What does it matter to you? So you can think of all your clients when you pass into the afterlife?’

‘First of all, I don’t believe in the afterlife, second of all, I’d like to know who I’m going to the gallows with,’ he said solemnly.

‘My name is Anstice, Anstice Halpin,’ she said, this time softening her voice.

Burty gave her a quizzical look.

‘My parents emigrated here from Ireland, hence why I have such a strong liking for whiskey even if Ortley has very weak whiskey. I came here a few years back after my parents passed away and Ortley has never really accepted me since the first day.’

‘I understand what you mean,’ Burty said. He lent against the bars and slipped into a sitting position, his knees against his chest. ‘Not about the whiskey, I prefer the English gin myself, but about not being accepted, though not quite on an entire towns worth. My parents said that lawyers were the workers of the devil; so I said I would be signing a contract with the devil. They haven’t spoken to me since, doubt they’ll even hear or care of my death. Probably say I was going to hell with all the other lawyers.’

There was silence for some time. The wooden walls were thick and little sound was able to get in or out. But the clack-clack of boots on wood was clear to both of them. Burty pulled his gaze away from his shoes long enough to watch the door open and the Sheriff come in. He was arrogant, though Burty thought the arrogance was misplaced. He walked with a strut that suggested if you were on the wrong side of the law then he would personally lock you up after beating you so bad you’d have to mash all your food to eat it. Really, it was just his buddy behind him that did all the dirty work, the Sheriff just turned the key.

Right now though he stood there with his arms crossed and his tatty hat sitting aslant on a head of thick muddy brown hair.

Burty could barely look at him, ‘I take it you’re not here to let us free, Sheriff Brady? Come on, let us have one win.’

He burst out laughing, full bellied and harsh enough to make Burty wince. ‘O’course not, you think you ever gettin’ out o’ here, mister fancy-pants lawyer?’

‘I resigned myself to that fact a while ago,’ Burty said.

‘Quit yous whining, mister lawyer, you only been in this here jail cell for a week, that nothing compared to some of the other crim-ni-nals we had in ‘dere.’ The Sheriff guffawed. ‘Eh, Martin, get Jimmy in ‘ere and get dose two crim-ni-nals out.’

Martin went out the door and the Sheriff approached the cell that Anstice Halpin was sitting Indian-style in, one leg flat across the other. Her eyes were closed, the head slightly tipped forward. Burty noticed her lips were shiny with drool.

‘Eh, it’ll all be over enough, miss, and you’ll be able to cause no more trouble in these here good parts of Ortley. You shoulda never shown up here in the first place.’

The Sheriff backed off and waited for his henchmen to arrive; in the time that Burty had been acting as Anstice’s lawyer she had only ever once replied to the Sheriff’s antagonising comments.

‘Well, I do love me a gallows day.’