Dockside – Chapter 43 – Glass Walls and Iron Grills

Inside the suffocating walls of the depot glass office, Billy refuses to break under Vaughan's final interrogation. Down at the distribution yard, Sue’s evening class morphs into a radical city-wide committee, while Danny prepares to blast a high-stakes message directly into the ears of the striking dockers.

The fluorescent lighting inside the assistant supervisor's office at Copperas Hill gave off a sharp, rhythmic buzz that made Billy Harrison’s eyes ache. He sat on a hard wooden chair, his hands clamped tight between his knees, staring down at the polished surface of the desk. In the center sat the manila file containing the State of Mind flyers and the statement Greg had signed before the shift ended.

"You’re protecting a phantom network, Harrison," Mr. Vaughan said, his sharp face contorted into a cold sneer as he leaned across the desk, the smell of stale tobacco thick on his breath. "The Post Office investigators don't care about your dad's old dock union. They care about three hundred pounds of unauthorized cash moving through the mail vans. If you don't give us the names of the university students who bought those blocks of tickets, you’ll be moving out of that Dockside close and into a cell at Walton before Friday."

Billy looked through the glass partition toward the main sorting floor. It was completely dead, the rows of empty frames looking like rows of teeth in an open mouth. The strike vote had cleared the room, but the weight of his father’s empty lapel was still a physical chokehold around his neck.

"The names aren't mine to give, Vaughan," Billy said, his Scouse accent flat and hard against the glass walls. "The university crowd don't know who I am, and the dockers don't know who they are. You’ve got the cash, and you’ve got my uniform. That’s all you’re getting from this frame."

Vaughan slammed his hand onto the desk, his pencil rattling against the ledger. "Your old man’s a dinosaur, Billy! He resigned because he knew the system had him cornered. If you think this mobile radio nonsense is going to stop the London developers from flattening that crescent, you're as soft as he is."

Before Billy could answer, a deep, low rumble from the street outside made the desk lamps vibrate. It wasn't the sound of the container trucks or the police Rovers. It was the synchronized, roaring chant of five hundred posties and loaders who had just walked off the night shifts, their heavy boots hitting the tarmac of Lime Street in a solid, unyielding wall of noise. Jim Harrison’s resignation hadn't broken the depot; it had just taken the filters off the engine.

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