While the neighborhood hoists wooden pallets to fortify the crescent’s gate, Billy makes a desperate confession to Tommy Higgins in the dark. A surprising knock brings Martha Green and the women of number four to the Harrison household, cementing a fierce new alliance just hours before the bailiffs are set to arrive.
The splintered timber of a heavy industrial pallet bit into Billy’s palms as he hoisted it onto the growing pile. All around the entrance to Dockside crescent, the dark was alive with activity. Joiners from the Duke Street site were slamming scaffolding poles into the soft earth by the kerb, while Mike the milkman lined up heavy plastic crates to narrow the asphalt gap. The blockade was primitive, but it was thick enough to stop a council wagon or a police Rover in its tracks.
"Lift your end, soft lad, you’re dragging the chain," Tommy Higgins grunted, his massive shoulder acting as a human crane for a twelve-foot timber joist.
Billy adjusted his grip, his breath rising in white plumes under the yellow sodium light. As they dropped the beam into place with a hollow thud, Billy stayed in the shadow of the van, his hands shaking inside his damp Post Office jacket. He couldn’t keep it in anymore. The weight of Greg's eight-o'clock deadline was physically choking him.
"Tommy," Billy whispered, his voice cracking against the metallic clatter of scaffolding poles down the road. "I need help. I lied to you yesterday. I’ve still got Greg on my back. He’s got a statement written out for the postal investigators, and if he hands it over at eight tomorrow morning, I’m done."
Tommy stopped. He didn't shout. He slowly wiped a streak of grey mortar dust from his cheek with the back of his massive hand, his eyes locking onto Billy with a terrifying, steady hardness. "You told me you were clean, Billy. Your old man emptied your mother's holiday tin to clear Mikey’s debt with Kevin."
"The debt with Kevin is clear," Billy said frantically, his Scouse accent thick with desperation. "But Greg took the boots to the ribs for us, Tommy. He lost his job at the Kwik Save and the door gig at the club because of me and Danny. He needs a hundred quid for his rent by morning or he grasses. I tried to win it at the bookies on County Road this afternoon, but the tip was a dud."
Tommy let out a long, low whistle, looking across the dark road toward the Harrison house. "You went to the bookies with the shirt on your back? You bloody idiot, Billy. Your dad is down at the regional office right now trying to stop a government corporation from flattening your mother’s kitchen, and you’re playing the horses with your uniform on the line." He shoved his hand into his heavy donkey jacket, pulling out a worn leather wallet. He snapped it open, pulling out three crisp, folded twenty-pound notes—his own cash-in-hand from the Duke Street groundwork. "That’s sixty. It’s all I’ve got on me until the gaffer pays the lump on Friday. You take Danny’s van, you find Danny, and you make up the other forty between you before the sun comes up over the river. If your dad finds out about this, Billy, the blockade won't be the only thing getting broken on this estate."
While the men dug trenches in the tarmac, the kitchen of number six was witnessing a different kind of restructuring.
Eileen Harrison stood by her cooker, a damp tea towel clutched to her chest as she listened to the rhythmic thudding of the barricade construction outside. The kettle was whistling on the gas ring, but before she could turn it off, a sharp, tentative knock rattled her front door.
Eileen pulled the door open, bracing herself for more bad news from the union depot. Instead, she found Martha Green standing on the step, flanked by Sandra and Chrissie. Martha looked smaller without her usual scowl, her hands buried deep in her winter coat, while Chrissie held a large biscuit tin containing the estate committee's emergency raffle funds.
"Eileen," Martha said, her voice unusually soft in the damp night air. "We’ve just come from the school mobile. Jim told us about the London crowd trying to buy out the tenancies. We... we thought the women of the crescent should be sitting together tonight. Sandra and Chrissie have got the paperwork from the housing clerk."
Eileen looked at Martha, then at the two young women from number four who she’d spent months politely ignoring at the corner shop. The solidarity of the dockers was one thing, but seeing Martha Green standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the girls made the kitchen feel suddenly warm.
"Come inside, lasses," Eileen said, stepping back and wiping a tear from her eye before it could fall. "The gas is on. Let's get some tea down us before the morning gets here."
As they sat down around the Formica table, Chrissie laid the biscuit tin in the center. "We’ve got forty-two pounds in the committee box, Mrs. Harrison," Chrissie said, her jaw set. "If the developers want to freeze us out, we use this for coal and paraffin for the picket line at the gates. Dockside isn't a private townhouse estate yet."
Down by the blockade, Billy watched the kitchen window click shut. He had sixty pounds of Tommy's money in his pocket, a stolen mail bag in the back of the van, and six hours left to find Danny McCarthy and the missing forty quid before his life completely collapsed.
Dockside has been developed using AI.
