‘He doesn’t mention her at all.’

The animal-skin valise squatted on the bed like a toad, mouth gaping.

Silas skirted around it and opened the window. Over the roof tops, the November sky was a pale canvas painted over with widening columns of smoke from the stacks of the steelworks. A cold breeze tattered the smoke and carried the scent of sulphur and soot, hops from the brewery, and manure from the stables which his room overlooked.

He would miss the sharp stench of the town, the smog that on still days snaked through the back lanes, making them appear insubstantial. Silas turned from the window to gaze at the candlewick bedspread. He had not slept long in this room provided by the Gunsons. He could not call it his. He remembered the thrill of being led into the attic space in the Hilda Armitage’s house, the prospect of renting a room, an adult now, not a runaway. He had not even spent a single night there and it was gone now, along with all the occupants except for Louisa, who had saved his dog. He’d stayed long enough in the King’s Arms to believe he was establishing roots, only to be ripped up and thrown into another maelstrom. He’d had enough. His mother would be happy to see him, his father would set him to work. His reason for leaving home no longer existed. Peter was dead. The thought made a curious numbness invade his body. Would Silas be expected to marry his brother’s widow? To bring up their child as his own? He pictured Reverend James sitting at the kitchen table, warming to another theme, which this time would be the pairing of Silas with a dead man’s wife, all the wonders of the steel age forgotten.

Mr Gunson was waiting downstairs for him. If he left it any longer he would miss the Wicker Station train.

The valise was lined inside with canvas and had strong leather handles, an expensive bag. He hadn’t wanted to take it, but Mrs Gunson had insisted, telling him, ‘You can return it when you return yourself.’

‘I won’t be coming back,’ Silas had replied.

‘Then keep it,’ Mrs Gunson had said kindly, and Silas’s guts had twisted in doubt.

It was time to feed the blasted toad.

First, his work boots and his shoes stowed in the bottom. None of the clothes he had arrived in had survived the flood, some left in the satchel in Mrs Armitage’s kitchen, the rest ripped from his body as he had rode the wave. He’d followed Fred Sharrow to the forge wearing a smock, his trousers tucked in at the knee. Country-boy clothes. Now he wore short boots inside more finely cut trousers and was cultivating a patchy beard. Bum fluff, Louisa affectionately called the hairs sprouting from his chin. If he’d had a full beard, if he was closer to her age, perhaps Harriet might have taken him more seriously.

He wrapped the relics he’d purchased from the girl on the pavement in the wake of the flood – the teacup and saucer, the porcelain cat – in the new waistcoat he’d worn in a futile effort to impress Walter Simpson. He wondered whether he’d ever have the opportunity to wear it again.