Free Doctor How and the Deadly Anemones by Mark Speed Page A

got stuck in eddy currents. They’d crawl onto ledges well above the water when they were sick, and they’d die there. Not one body had he seen today. Why was it bothering him? He’d had nerves on day one of the job, but never since.
    He stabbed at the fat with his spade. This was something that had got much worse in the last few years: fat and fancy tissues made of fibre that didn’t break up like toilet paper. Together they were a lethal combination, clogging London’s sewers. The restaurants didn’t care – they just chucked the fat down the drain at the end of every night, and there was nothing to stop them.
    It had had one health benefit for himself though: it had made him give up takeaway food. He could see what the doctors were talking about now when they explained that fat clogged up arteries. He might be pushing fifty, but he thought he’d never been fitter, whereas some of his old school friends were diabetic now.
    He felt something bang up against the back of his wading boots. The new lad, Arek, was ‘on point’. The use of this military patrol term was their black humour for being the most upstream worker – the one who’d clear enough of a way through for the next man behind if it was really thick.
    Arek was a Pole. He was a good worker, and fearless too, but Earl couldn’t imagine what had possessed him to take a job in the London sewers. He could understand the younger ones coming over for jobs where they got to learn the language, like doing office work, or being a barista in a coffee shop. But you never got to say a word when you were down here, and the very nature of the job meant that language was limited. The Inuit might have a hundred words for snow, but there weren’t that many for turds – no matter how much time you spent with them. Once, Earl had tried to make a joke about the fact that you couldn’t polish a turd. When he’d written it out on paper to explain that ‘polish’ and ‘Polish’ had the same spelling but different meanings, Arek hadn’t really got the pun, and Earl had realised that associating the Polish with turds hadn’t been such a great idea in retrospect.
    He stepped aside and helped Arek’s lump of fat along with a swish of his spade before turning around again.
    Arek was facing upstream, his back to Earl. He saw him hack skilfully at one last big yellow-white mound of fat at shoulder height. It fell in one piece and splashed into the water in front of him. He stepped carefully over it and gave it a shove with the flat of his blade, sending it downstream to Earl, who saw that it was so big it was damming the water behind it. It edged towards him and then stopped, the water and waste flowing over it. There was no sense in shouting over at Arek, who was splashing along the last few yards to an intersection, where the main tunnel split into two gaping black chasms that were tributaries to the section they were cleaning. The one on the right came from Balham and Tooting, and was likely to be the filthier of the two, given the high density of restaurants and takeaways in those locations. It veered off quite sharply compared to the one coming over from Streatham Hill.
    Earl saw the beam of his own light wobble and realised he was shaking his head subconsciously. Arek wasn’t just fearless – he was curious with it. No harm in him going off to take a quick look and make a start on the next section. Earl glanced at his watch. Ten minutes until they swapped. He’d tackle Arek’s lump and then finish his own section on the way back downstream. He’d get out in the fresh air for half an hour, have a laugh and a cup of tea with the lads, and then spend the remainder of the shift doing the easy job of manning the suction pipe with a patch of sky over his head. The prospect cheered him no end, and settled his nerves.
    He walked carefully up through the sewer to the large chunk of fat and wet wipes. He planted his feet either side of the curved wall and stepped over