The empty ground on the estate map had seven washing lines.
Felix counted them from the old wall while Nora Dace unfolded the diagram against a stone.
A woman below was beating dust from a rug. A man repaired a roof gutter. Smoke rose from three cottage chimneys, and a child carried a bucket toward a shared water point.
“Unused branch,” Felix read.
“According to that,” Nora said.
The tenant engineer had met him yesterday and agreed to the inspection this morning. She carried a bag of measuring rods and knew where the path became slippery before he put his foot on it.
He had not listened closely enough to the last warning.
Mud occupied his left boot with unsettling confidence.
