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enthusiastic,’ she said though Becky thought she heard a quiet sigh. ‘It shows I made the right choice. And, yes, maybe it would be good to know who was sent from this end.’
    â€˜But I quite understand if you say no. I would need some money to travel there and back and maybe one night in a B&B. I think the Heritage Centre is free but I couldn’t do the trip in a day.’
    â€˜No, of course, you must stay over. And in a proper hotel. I don’t know – would £500 be enough?’
    Becky laughed. ‘Far too much. Halve that and hopefully I’ll have change to give you.’
    â€˜I’ll get some money out. Come round tomorrow. Anything else you need?’
    â€˜Names,’ said Becky. ‘I don’t know how many people were sent out there but I thought there might be some particular surnames you’d want me to look out for.’
    â€˜Let me think about that.’
    Two days later, Becky was sitting on a train, watching through the window as it limped out of Paddington before gaining speed and charging through green fields like a wild animal released into its natural element. She should be happy. It was a summer’s day, she had a job in Barbados to look forward to, working for a woman she liked, and right now she was on a mission – a paid mission no less. But every time Becky told herself she deserved a break, and this was it, she was aware of something mocking her from the shadows.
    Maybe she was picking up on her mother’s discontent that she was going to Barbados, although, unusually, her mum had not said anything discouraging about it. She wasn’t worried about the trip herself. She was sure she and Clara would get on. The older lady certainly trusted her – when Becky had turned up to collect the funds for her trip, Clara had just handed over her purse with a careless ‘take what you need’ and seemed bemused when Becky insisted on counting out £250 in front of her.
    No, her doubts were more to do with the project itself, following her employer’s apparent ambivalence when she had proposed researching in Somerset. Maybe Clara was just stressed about moving house? Or maybe Matthew was putting pressure on her as he was not sure about the book and did not want Becky to go to Barbados?
    Becky tried to banish her forebodings by studying a chapter on the fate of the Monmouth rebels. James II had appointed Judge Jeffreys to dispense swift justice and it sounded like he had savoured the barbaric sentences he handed out, pronouncing death sentences with relish and taking pleasure in outlining the appalling fates that awaited the convicted.
    By the time the train terminated at Taunton Becky’s dark mood had intensified. Clara had told her to ‘take taxis whenever she could’ but Becky’s natural distrust of extravagance, combined with a determination to counter Matthew’s impression of her as a gold-digging opportunist, made her ignore the cabs waiting hopefully outside the station. She caught a bus and walked the remaining fifteen minutes to the Heritage Centre, where she checked in and stowed her rucksack in a locker.
    â€˜What are you interested in?’ asked the woman on reception.
    â€˜Monmouth rebels,’ said Becky. ‘In particular the names of anyone transported to Barbados.’
    She was directed to the Search Room and, within there, a series of volumes, which included lists of the men transported, their occupations and their new ‘masters’, who were presumably plantation owners or overseers. She discovered rebels had been sent to Jamaica, St Kitts and Nevis as well as Barbados but all were sentenced to four years’ indentured labour. Becky concentrated on the men shipped to Barbados. Surnames that were still familiar today (Parker, Dodds, Foot) were listed along with names rendered more exotic with the passage of time, such as the wonderfully titled Randolph Randerwick. Clara had only