Engineer said soft mortar between bricks is inadequate (13)

I believe the answer is:

disappointing

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'is inadequate' is the definition.
(thesaurus)

'engineer said soft mortar between' is the wordplay.
'engineer' is an anagram indicator.
'soft' becomes 'pp' (musical abbreviation for pianissimo).
'mortar between' becomes 'ointing' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'said' anagrammed gives 'disa'.
'disa'+'pp'+'ointing'='DISAPPOINTING'

'bricks' acts as a link.
This may not be correct. It may be part of another bit of the clue.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for disappointing that I've seen before include "Failing to satisfy" , "Poor" , "Not as good as one had hoped" .)

I've seen this clue in The Independent.

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