‘Mr Gunson?’

‘I beg your pardon. Can you repeat the question?’

‘How close was your supervision?’

‘I visited the dam three or four times a week, and sometimes oftener than that. In addition, I generally went on a stormy day, to see the effect of the wind on the water.’

‘And did you go on the day of the flood?’

‘Yes. I’d seen Admiral Fitzroy’s prediction of a gale and that the wind would be blowing down the valley. There had been torrential rain on and off during the course of that week. I recall some remarkable downpours.’

Several heads nodded in acknowledgement and a woman exclaimed that she’d got nothing dry that week, the inside of the house had been festooned with sheets and knickers. There was laughter and Webster banged his gavel to restore order.

‘Mr Gunson,’ said Perronet, ‘would the wind and rain – torrential rain, as you say – have an effect on the embankment?’

‘Not an effect such as this. I have seen the wind and the waves ten times worse at Redmires reservoir.’

‘Then what might have caused the crack that was reported to you?’

Gunson paused. ‘When I first saw the crack, late in the evening, I thought the action of the wind and waves, which had been playing against it all the afternoon, might have loosened the material of which the inner slope at the top of the embankment was made, and this might cause a crack to form. I do not know. It wouldn’t cause the embankment to collapse so…’ He stopped himself from saying ‘spectacularly’.

Perronet nodded. ‘There is a rumour that you had said, during the day, something about the embankment giving way.’

Gunson inhaled sharply. ‘Is there such a rumour?’ It was the first he’d heard. Why had he not been prepared for this question? ‘I would never say such a thing! I never expected the dam to burst.’

Perronet nodded again, satisfied. ‘Thank you, Mr Gunson. You may step down.’

Webster nodded his assent.

Gunson remained in the chamber, standing at the back of the room to listen to the government inspector give some statistical evidence. This man recited in a droning tone the Chief Constable’s latest report detailing the number of persons who lost their lives to the flood. A rustling sigh of dismay swept around the room when the inspector named the official dead as two hundred and thirty-eight in number, although more bodies had been found in the days since the return was made. The ages of those accounted for ranged from two days – Gunson’s stomach dropped, that would be the tailor’s son – to eighty-seven years. In addition to the human loss, fifty horses, thirty-eight cows, eight donkeys and two hundred and fifty-eight pigs.

Gunson was holding his breath as if underwater. Beads of sweat ran down his face and he jerked involuntarily and gestured for the man beside him to move aside so he could open the door that led into the corridor.