Before the survey party stepped through the rear delivery door, Tavi Rusk unrolled three long strips of coarse brown butcher’s paper across the dry end of the zinc table. He held down the curling edges with four heavy iron railway nuts and a chipped clay pot teacup.
The paper was rough. It smelled of dry wood pulp, cured bacon, and animal fat grease. But the boy had mapped the heavy-duty roofscape of the lower valley with astonishing, sharp-angled care. Tavi used a piece of blue tailor’s chalk and a charred willow twig. He had drafted an aerial profile of the three-quarter-mile hall that linked the raised tram shed to the gorge of the River Ward.
Every chimney stack was marked with its height in paces. Every valley gutter was cross-hatched with its drainage pitch. And every firebreak wall was annotated with its low roof wall clearance.
“The ground routes along the canal are crawling with precinct patrols,” Tavi said. He tapped the blue chalk against the paper. “Ever since the storm under-road drain collapsed beneath Track Four at fourth bell, Magistrate Pell has doubled the court guard pickets along the High Street viaduct. They have placed six copper fire bowls at the northern footbridge approach. They’re stopping every carter carrying an oil can, an iron wrench, or a wooden crate.”
