She found she couldn’t rest and rose from her bed again, despite the cold, and ignoring the pain in her foot, padded quietly to the window that looked out on to the side street. Gaslight glistened on the paving stones. It had stopped raining. A watchman was starting his rounds at the top end of the street, his cloak billowing about him as he relit his lantern and turned the corner on to the main road. Harriet wriggled further under the curtain and peered up at the whitely glowing moon. She rested her head against the cold pane and wondered how long she could tolerate the draught that cut through her nightgown and chilled her flesh.

A rustle from behind. Alice was sitting up in bed.

‘Lally? What are you doing now?’

Lally had been Alice’s first word, even before mama or papa. Harriet had been quietly thrilled by this. Remembering, she smiled.

‘Nothing. I’m coming back to bed.’

‘What’s that sound?’

‘It’s just that noisy old wind. We’ll go out tomorrow once the sun is back out.’

‘Will it be sunny tomorrow then?’

‘Oh yes. I’m sure it will be.’

Harriet slid back under the blankets and wrapped her arms around the little girl. ‘Are you cold?’

‘A bit.’

‘Shush, then. Let’s warm each other up. Back to sleep now.’

Chapter 10

A sudden breeze lifted his fringe as Silas opened the door that led back into the clanging warmth of the factory floor.

He slipped inside, surprised to find he was forced to push against the door to close it behind him, wondering at the strength of the wind that was howling like a banshee once more.

The door rattled against his back and the clamorous roar outside rose in volume. He looked about him, suddenly fearful but with no idea why. Fred was on the other side of the room, his back to Silas, fiddling with the controls of the boiler. The youth Silas had been helping stoke the furnace was standing above Fred on a gantry, manipulating a pulley to send a bucket of molten steel from one end of the room to the other. It swung from side to side. Another worker was hammering steel, close by Silas, but there was something fundamentally wrong with the scene before his eyes. Silas realised he couldn’t hear the strike of metal on metal.

He let go of the latch.

The roar intensified and gooseflesh broke out on his arms despite the heat in the room. There was a hammer in his skull, pounding, and he pressed his hands to his ears. Now the tableau before him was of men frozen like statues in the act of whatever they had been doing. Fred had turned to face him with a mildly puzzled look on his face.

The bricks of the wall at the far end of the room exploded inward.

Fred Sharrow hurtled towards Silas, spread-eagled across the boiler, screaming without sound. Silas felt the strength leave his body and the world turned pitch black. The building was coming down on him and he cursed himself for not escaping back into the safety of the back lane. He felt himself lifted, twisted like a knot, and he took a breath but drew water into his lungs and choked. He was underwater, being pummelled by invisible fists. Fingers closed on his head and he thought his scalp would be ripped off. He pressed his lips tight, he must not scream. He had no air left in his lungs. He flailed his arms but there was no up or down, no way to escape and panic filled his mind. He would die.