The rain had rubbed the far bank out of the estuary. Mara could see the first two channel markers, their red cages standing above the brown water, but beyond them there was only a pale disturbance where the opposite shore should have been.
At eight ten she parked beside the entrance to Merebank Court and left the engine running long enough to check the address on her instruction sheet. Seventy-two flats. Failure of external retaining structure. Attendance requested urgently. The words were impersonal enough to have described somewhere else.
A delivery van passed her and climbed the access road. Behind it, a woman carrying a school bag led a child towards the bus stop. The road drains were running, though leaves had collected around the nearest grate. Mara switched off the engine.
Sixteen years had changed the entrance less than she had expected. Someone had painted the concrete planters blue. The lettering above the pedestrian arch had lost its final T.
A man in waterproof trousers stood beside a length of warning tape that sagged almost to the ground. He had a narrow face, a beard darkened by rain, and a ring of keys clipped inside his jacket.
“Eli Mercer?”
“That's me. You're the surveyor?”
“Mara Venn.”
His expression altered before he could make it courteous.
“Arthur's daughter.”
“Where did you first notice the movement?”
He glanced towards the buildings, then back at her. “Caretaker at six forty. Well, maintenance. Caretaker sounds like I get a house with it.”
He led her through the arch. The court opened around a rectangle of wet grass, with three residential wings stepping down towards the estuary. On the lower side, the ground ended in a retaining wall above a narrow maintenance terrace. A section of wall had fallen outward. Behind it, the earth supporting the lower court had washed away, leaving a dark bite beneath the paving.
Mara stopped well short of the broken edge.
“Anyone been down there?”
“Me. Before I saw how much had gone.”
“Anyone hurt?”
“No.”
Water threaded through exposed soil. A paving slab projected over the loss, its outer corner carrying a metal bench leg. The bench looked serviceable from the court. Someone could sit on it without seeing what no longer supported them.
“The tape needs to come back,” she said. “Past that path junction for now. And close the terrace at both ends.”
“That cuts off the doors under West.”
“Are they anyone's only entrance?”
“No. There's the road side. Step-free through the north lobby.”
“Unlocked?”
“Should be.”
“Please check.”
He took out his radio. While he spoke, Mara looked at the upper windows, counting bays against the arrangement on her plan. Curtains moved in one. In another, a man held a mug close to his mouth without drinking.
A woman in a yellow cycling jacket ducked under the tape.
“Excuse me,” Mara called.
“I just need my bike.”
The woman pointed towards a rack beside the bench and kept walking.
“Stop there, please.”
“It's chained up. Thirty seconds.”
Mara moved into her line of sight, remaining on the inner path.
“The paving beside that rack has lost the ground underneath it. Your weight could bring it down. You might not get a warning.”
The woman looked at the slab. From here the missing earth was visible beneath its edge.
“Oh,” she said.
“Where do you need to get to?”
“The surgery. I'm already late.”
“Can you use the road entrance while we work out whether the bicycle can be recovered?”
The woman pulled her hood tighter. “Who's paying for a taxi?”
“I don't know yet.”
It was an inadequate answer, but the woman stepped back. Eli gave her the office number and promised to contact her. Mara watched until she was beyond the junction, then helped him move the barriers stored against the lobby wall. Tape alone would not stop someone who had walked this way every morning for years.
By nine, Eli had confirmed that the north lobby was open and its approach clear. Mara had spoken to her office and requested a structural engineer, giving the location of the failure and explaining that occupied accommodation stood above it. The engineer would attend that afternoon. Mobile reception was good enough to send photographs.
“Drainage records?” she asked Eli.
“In the office, if we have them.”
“Previous wall repairs. Complaints about water coming through. Anything you've got.”
He rubbed rain off his forehead. “There'll be plenty about water.”
They approached the lower terrace from its eastern end, stopping on a concrete landing beyond the damaged stretch. Mara would not let him go farther. She photographed the whole elevation first, including both intact ends of the wall, then the collapse from several angles.
In her notebook she drew the terrace and marked where she stood. A cast-iron downpipe at the east corner became reference A; the corner of the concrete stair landing became B. Both appeared in wide photographs with their surroundings. She recorded the time, direction of view and the limits of what she could see. These were reference points for returning to the same position, not evidence that either structure was stable.
Eli watched her write.
“Expecting it to get worse?”
“I need to know if it changes.”
A gust carried rain beneath her hood. Through the torn face of the embankment she could distinguish coarse fill, roots and broken brick. Lower down, behind the remnants of the failed wall, older masonry ran in courses too regular to belong to the loose material above.
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