Pale October sunlight broke through the rain-washed oak trees along the drive of Harrowby Technical College, glinting off wet tarmac and the red-brick facade of the North Riding Clockwork & Heavy Building Wing. The Yorkshire morning smelled of fallen sycamore leaves, city bus diesel, and fresh battleship-gray enamel paint drifting from the ground-floor machine shops. Ada Morland walked up the concrete steps in her good navy wool coat and sensible low-heeled leather shoes. Her leather handbag was tucked firmly beneath her elbow.
Her insteps ached slightly and the central heating inside the administration hall felt stifling after the crisp autumn breeze off the Pennines. She was far more comfortable in steel-toed site boots than Sunday calfskin. Beside her walked her seventeen-year-old nephew Benjamin Morland, her late sister’s boy, his lanky frame shooting half a head taller than Ada’s five-foot-four as he craned his neck to peer through the wire-glass doors of the fluid-mechanics lab.
Ada paused by the watching window, her master plumber’s eye automatically auditing the student test rigs inside. Four-inch flanged mild-steel loops fitted with tuned Bourdon pressure gauges, see-through acrylic venturi tubes for demonstrating bubbling blast onset, and spring-loaded safety relief valves piped cleanly into floor gullies. The exact clockwork principles Hal Rook had defended in Lowbank and Master Sorell had bricked over.
