‘According to Mr Gunson yesterday,’ this man said, ‘the work was more than humanly perfect.’

A murmur rippled across the room and the old woman next to Harriet shook her head in apparent disgust.

The man with the wild hair was on his feet. ‘The government inspectors who are now carrying out their inquiry will determine the cause of the collapse, not this inquest.’

Someone shouted, ‘It’s manslaughter!’ and Harriet gasped along with the crowd. She could see why the old lady found these goings-on so entertaining.

There were calls for quiet and now another man approached the witness box. It was the gentleman from before, the one with the kindly eyes, except now he looked as though all the worries of the world were on his shoulders. Her heart went out to him.

‘That’s ’im,’ the old woman nudged Harriet with her elbow. ‘That’s the chief engineer what caused all o’ this.’

Chapter 28

Silas stood on the slick cobbles outside the King’s Arms, shoulders hunched against the downpour. April’s predictable showers had halted work on the barracks building site and seemed in no hurry to let up.

He was waiting.

Voices that had been loudly raised inside the inn were muffled now. A couple of the regulars had been to the inquest and reported back on the various theories for the dam’s collapse. Silas had enjoyed listening to the old men who believed themselves experts in everything, but were most adroit at propping up the bar and sinking ale. It’s the fault of the greedy waterworks company. No, it’s nature getting her revenge on those who would gouge holes in her flanks. The real culprits are the politicians who run the town. Why? Just for being useless nincompoops, of course.

Silas had heard countless tales of those who had been in the torrent’s path and survived, and he’d told his own story often enough for the sharp horror of it to begin to lose its glare. He’d thought his near-death was somehow deserved – he’d been priding himself on his good luck the day he arrived in the town and pride came before a fall, his mother always told him. Now he could see that sort of thinking was all wrong-headed. Here he was, hemmed in on all sides by grey brick and stone, the sky clouded with soot, water trickling from the spout on the wall and carrying the stink of industry along the gutter in the road. Now, it was the thought of home, where hedges were his street map, and sheep cropped in fields under a clear sky, that caused his throat to restrict in a sudden panic about being surrounded, of having the life squeezed out of him.

Yet Harriet was here.

‘What are you smiling about?’

The reason for his waiting in the rain had appeared before him while he was deep in thought. He had not spotted her sheltered under a man’s umbrella.

‘Harriet.’ He liked to say her name, but then did not know what to say next.