Kev packed his gear. “Better than new. But here’s the thing, pal. You call me again in six months? I’ll bring a camera for the other reason.” He tapped his nose. “Blocked drains don’t happen by accident. Somewhere up there, someone’s pouring fat down the sink like they’re trying to grease a lorry.”
Then the sink joined in, a low, wet belch that pushed a gray slick of scummy water up over the plug hole. Marlon froze, a piece of naan halfway to his mouth. He’d ignored the slow draining in the shower for a week. He’d ignored the way the kitchen sink took two minutes to empty. But this—this was a declaration of war from the pipes.
“That’s a drain baby,” Kev said, chewing gum. “Been growing for months. You got kids?”
The Tuesday downpour hit Coventry just as the evening rush hour was choking the ring road. Inside his ground-floor flat on Stoney Stanton Road, Marlon was trying to finish a curry when the toilet coughed.
Forty minutes later, a white van with a faded Drain Avenger decal pulled up. Kev was in his fifties, with a high-vis vest stretched over a gut that suggested a lifelong love of pork pies. He carried an inspection camera like a TV host holding a microphone. “Right, lad. Let’s see what’s festering down there.”
It was a nightmare collage: congealed fat, a child’s hair scrunchie, a surprisingly intact takeaway menu from Ali’s Kebab House , and what looked like a tangle of wet wipes, despite the packaging’s flushable lie.
Kev packed his gear. “Better than new. But here’s the thing, pal. You call me again in six months? I’ll bring a camera for the other reason.” He tapped his nose. “Blocked drains don’t happen by accident. Somewhere up there, someone’s pouring fat down the sink like they’re trying to grease a lorry.”
Then the sink joined in, a low, wet belch that pushed a gray slick of scummy water up over the plug hole. Marlon froze, a piece of naan halfway to his mouth. He’d ignored the slow draining in the shower for a week. He’d ignored the way the kitchen sink took two minutes to empty. But this—this was a declaration of war from the pipes.
“That’s a drain baby,” Kev said, chewing gum. “Been growing for months. You got kids?”
The Tuesday downpour hit Coventry just as the evening rush hour was choking the ring road. Inside his ground-floor flat on Stoney Stanton Road, Marlon was trying to finish a curry when the toilet coughed.
Forty minutes later, a white van with a faded Drain Avenger decal pulled up. Kev was in his fifties, with a high-vis vest stretched over a gut that suggested a lifelong love of pork pies. He carried an inspection camera like a TV host holding a microphone. “Right, lad. Let’s see what’s festering down there.”
It was a nightmare collage: congealed fat, a child’s hair scrunchie, a surprisingly intact takeaway menu from Ali’s Kebab House , and what looked like a tangle of wet wipes, despite the packaging’s flushable lie.