Ruined By My Brother's Best Friend novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: Vacant

On Thursday the application went up on the council's planning portal.

I read it on my phone at the counter between customers, with a tray of cardamom buns going cold beside me.

The Ropery Quarter.

Twenty-eight storeys. Three hundred and twelve flats. A "vibrant ground-floor retail offer".

Then, on page four:

"The existing parade is largely vacant and structurally unsound. A full internal survey has been carried out."

Largely vacant.

I served a builder six sausage rolls, and the old man from the key-cutter's his daily custard tart.

Then I looked out of our window at Ropery Parade.

Our bakery. The launderette, with its dryers going round. The key-cutter's, with its little bell.

And three dead shopfronts with whitewash on the glass.

An old florist's. A chip shop. A newsagent.

That was the "largely".

"Lev," I said.

He was in the back, scrubbing trays, wearing Dad's spare apron because he didn't own anything that wasn't black.

"Hm?"

"He says we're empty. So we're going to be full."

He came out drying his hands.

I turned my phone round and showed him page four.

"Every Friday night until the vote," I said. "All three empty shops open. Stalls on the pavement. Lights across the street. Food, music, people. So many people the council can't call it vacant with a straight face."

He read it twice.

"The empty units belong to my father."

"The freehold does." I'd checked that at midnight. "The leases came with it. They haven't run out. The florist's daughter still has hers till Christmas. So does the chip shop. The newsagent's is paid to March."

Lev looked at me for a long moment.

"You've been planning this."

"Since page four."

By Friday lunchtime I'd been into every shop on the parade.

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