Northcote plumbing, she thought. You never know what’s flowing under the surface.
“Mr. Ashworth,” Marta said slowly. “Who lived here before you?”
She reached for her wrench, but something made her pause. Instead, she unscrewed the access panel, reached in with bare fingers, and gently, carefully, untied the first knot.
The call came in on a Tuesday, just as she was packing up from a burst hot water system. The voice on the message was elderly, precise, and slightly alarmed. “Mr. Ashworth here. There’s a… a sound. In the walls. Like someone weeping. And the water in the downstairs loo has turned the colour of strong tea.”
She nodded once.
Marta had been a plumber in Northcote for eleven years, which meant she’d seen the guts of half the houses on High Street. She knew which Victorian terraces had original lead pipes sweating under the floorboards, which 1970s townhouses had been rewired by enthusiastic amateurs, and exactly which café’s grease trap was two weeks overdue for a clean.