It began with a phone call at 6:13 AM. Eddie Stokes was already awake, staring at the rain lashing against his kitchen window in his terraced house near Ball Hill. His phone buzzed with the council’s emergency tone.

“Dig it out, Eddie!” “That’s a fatberg the size of a Ford Fiesta!” “My nan’s sink did that in ’78. She just used bleach.”

By 7 AM, Eddie was kneeling in a puddle outside a row of converted weaver’s cottages. The smell was unmistakable—stagnant, sharp, ancient. Chloe stood behind him, tablet in hand, shivering despite her high-vis jacket.

Chloe stared at her tablet. “Flow restored. Pressure normalized. How did you know the jetter would break through at that exact angle?”

“Hand me the jetter nozzle,” he called up. “The one with the rear-facing jets. We’re not just punching a hole. We’re going to peel this thing.”

But Eddie worked in silence, guiding the jetter inch by inch. At 11:23 AM, there was a deep gurgle —the sound a drain makes when it remembers how to sing. The water level dropped six inches in ten seconds. Then a foot. Then the entire line shuddered and flushed clear.