The early morning drizzle in Harrowby smelled of diesel exhaust, damp soot, and wet asphalt as Ben Morland unlocked the padlock on the corrugated iron gate of Morland Plumbing & Heating. The yard was stacked high with pallets of cast-iron radiator loops, bundles of half-inch copper pipe bound with wire, and crates of brass gate valves. Usually, by eight o’clock, Ada would have the kettle whistling on the gas ring in the timber office shed, with two grease pencils tucked behind her ears, sorting through the morning dispatch chits.
Today, the office was cold. The tea mug sitting on the desk was stained with dried boiled tea from thirty-six hours ago. The blackboard listing boiler callouts across the West Riding was untouched. Ben walked into the shed, turned on the small lamp-wax heater. Then he watched the blue flame flicker into life. It filled the cramped space with the familiar, heavy smell of burning oil.
He walked over to Ada’s workbench in the corner of the shed. There, her three toolboxes were lined up in order of weight: the light sheet-metal tin for domestic tap washers, the medium canvas shoulder satchel for copper pipe cutting, and the heavy thirty-pound oak chest with iron drop-handles for steam boilers. He lifted the lid of the steam chest. Inside, laid out in routed pine grooves, were her drop-forged box wrenches, her hardened steel pipe taps. Her eight-inch stilson wrench, its knurled shift ring coated in a thin protective film of neatsfoot oil. The…
