He didn’t believe in ghosts. But he believed in the things people buried—sometimes literally—in their pipes. And he knew, with absolute certainty, that the tooth hadn’t come from upstairs. It had come from below. From the old stormwater tunnel that ran beneath the house, the one the council maps didn’t show anymore.

“What’s that?” Simon whispered over his shoulder.

Leo sighed. He threaded the jetter head into the pipe and turned the pressure to 3,500 psi—enough to strip paint off concrete. The hose shuddered. Water geysered back through the floor drain, brown and foul. Then something gave . The hose lurched forward half a metre.

Leo pulled the camera back slowly. “You been putting coffee grounds down the sink?”

Leo looked toward the laundry floor drain. For a split second, he could have sworn he saw a ripple in the standing water—a ripple with no source.