‘I wish to say more.’

Gunson paused. The government inspector had raised his voice and seemed to be aiming his words at Gunson’s back.

He waited, gripping the door handle, staring beyond the room at the floorboards he would tread on. Spectral bodies, young and old, stretched before him as dead and still as the lacquered planks of wood. He rubbed his hand over his mouth and looked over his shoulder at the witness box, but the inspector was not regarding him. Instead, the man was staring intently at the editor from the Sheffield Independent, who was hunched over his notebook in the corner of the room. This was the man he addressed.

‘The velocity of the flood between the dam head and Owlerton, a fall of four hundred and fifty feet in total, shows the water travelled at a rate of twenty-six and a half feet per second, or eighteen miles per hour.’ The inspector surveyed the room, his gaze sweeping over Gunson and on. ‘This is a velocity I can form no conception of. The public ought to have this information given them, that after the dam broke a Derby horse could not have carried the warning down the valley fast enough.’

Gunson did not wait to hear more.

Outside at last, he stopped and rested his hand on the solid stone arch of the new drinking water fountain latterly built into the wall of the building. He twisted the spigot to splash a few drops into the marble basin and watched the water drain away. He could acknowledge there was a small consolation to be had from hearing the information relayed for the benefit of the townspeople, that once the dam was breached there had been nothing anybody could have done to save the victims in the valley.

Back in his office, Gunson could not settle, although there was plenty of work on his desk. A door slammed somewhere in the building and he heard the chairman’s raised voice.

‘That damned coroner! He’s acquired experts from France and Germany purporting to tell us how to build reservoirs. That man, what’s his name, he lives here in Sheffield, who worked on the dams of Australia of all places. Yes, with sugar please. No, wait. What time is it? Get me a brandy instead. Well, Mr Leather—’ Ah, he was talking to Gunson’s immediate superior ‘—I am greatly interested in the revelation that you as consulting engineer visited the Bradfield workings on only two occasions during the past five years.’

John Towlerton Leather sounded unperturbed. ‘The day to day was always the responsibility of Mr Gunson, in whom I have the utmost confidence. I have made no more than his acquaintance in work, but I do know that his chief pleasure is in that work, which he discharges with extreme conscientiousness. Within our profession, and far beyond the bounds of Sheffield, John Gunson is regarded as a mathematician of great natural abilities. He came from Leeds, I believe.’

His voice faded and Gunson stepped out of his office. They had gone into the boardroom. The corridor was empty. Gunson put his ear to the door.