‘I’m sorry to hear it.’

‘Don’t thee worry.’ The miller banged his broad chest as though he was trying to dislodge a cough. ‘A claim’s goin’ in to the bastards that did this. See across yon? The schoolhouse?’

Gunson raised reluctant eyes to examine the bleakly scoured landscape and shook his head.

‘Exactly. It’s gone. Not even the foundations left, nor the rock beneath. Just a hole. That’ll want rebuilding, and the church, and Chapel bridge. Smashed to smithereens.’

‘Did you see it?’

‘The flood? Not hardly. It were pitch black. Heard it though. Like a thousand engines lettin’ off steam all together, tha knows? Me missus thought it were the end of the world.’

Gunson could only nod.

It had been a mistake to come here. He should have ridden straight back to Division Street where he could re-examine over five years’ worth of meticulously prepared specifications and drawings that had guided the construction of the reservoir. He should be searching for the flaw. If there was one. He could not allow himself to believe there was.

‘We will do everything we can,’ he said.

‘Who’s “we”?’ The man didn’t wait for an answer. ‘I can tell thee right now there’s a bairn drowned.’

‘What?’

‘Tha might well look shocked. Joe Dawson’s wee bairn. Joe, the tailor, tha knows? He got his older two boys out the house then went back to get his missus and the bairn. They were in bed on account of her ’aving had the baby only two days since.’

The miller bent to prise a piece of wood from the mud – it looked like half a stable door – and Gunson wanted to put his hand out, to stop him. He was convinced the small white limbs of an infant were about to be revealed. The miller flipped the wood over, grunting with the effort, and Gunson closed his eyes. He stumbled, dizzy, and opened them to see a stone rolling into the mercifully empty indent in the mud. When he looked up, the miller was moving away, picking up branches and tossing them aside.

Gunson followed him.

The miller pointed to the filthy façade of a row of cottages, the windowpanes replaced with jagged black holes that glared balefully, accusingly, at him, at Gunson.

‘Y’see, they were tryin’ to get across the field, but it were no good, the water were closing in on ’em and they ran back for the house.’ The man swung his head slowly from side to side. ‘She dropped the bairn and he were whisked away. Joe managed to get her upstairs, right back where she’d started from. Even then, they were up to their necks until it passed. She’s gone up Bradfield in a sorry state. Joe’s out lookin’. Not found the bairn yet, far as I know. Tiny creature could be miles downriver, prob’ly never be found.’

Another man was approaching, as tall as Gunson, but willowy and wild-haired. A dandelion clock of a man, swaying this way and that through a dazzle of sunlight.