Chapter Three Deep Undercover #2
“Same.” He paused. “Means we won’t debrief each other unless it’s mission relevant.”
Naomi nodded. “Cleaner that way.”
They ate in silence for a beat. Then she added, “If you make progress with Ellison… don’t rush it. We’re not pushing anyone. This isn’t about catching him out. It’s about figuring out what he knows and whether he’s vulnerable or complicit.”
Warren ran a hand along his jaw. “You think he’s still working with Reid? Been his eyes on the outside this whole time?”
“I think Reid doesn’t show up in a town this size by accident.”
Yeah. Fair point.
Warren let the silence stretch as he turned it over.
Reid had ties to Radley, that much was certain.
That was as good a reason as any to bring him straight to Worthbridge.
But the Jude Ellison connection? That still didn’t sit right.
He’d watched him today. Shared a joke with him.
Seen him talking timidly with Freddie Webb, the local copper.
If there’d been history there, it looked like clean history.
And if Jude had gone from someone like Reid, a criminal, to someone like Webb, a police officer. Chalk and cheese didn’t cover it.
Still, people were surprising in what they went for.
“You wanna go through our backstory now?” he asked, mostly to stop himself sliding any further down the rabbit hole of what kind of bloke Jude Ellison might actually go for.
Because that shouldn’t matter.
Not even a little.
And it definitely didn’t twist something low in his chest to think Jude had a thing for either coppers or criminals. Especially when Warren had been both.
At the same time.
Naomi fixed her hair back. “Aren’t we reusing the old playbook?”
“Doubt ‘Mr and Mrs Drug Cartel’ will fly in a sleepy coastal town with a secondary school cover.”
“Fair.”
Warren drummed his fingers on the table. “Alright, let’s get this sorted and I’ll grab us some food. Spotted a jerk chicken place by the seafront. You still eat that, yeah?”
Naomi pulled a face. “I’m vegan now.”
He snorted. “’Course you are.” The shake of his head held more amusement than judgement.
“I only ever liked your mum’s jerk chicken, anyway.”
That one landed. His mum’s cooking wasn’t food, it was love ladled out in heaping portions, packed into foil and Tupperware after church, always enough to share.
Naomi had once wolfed it down without shame, licking sauce off her fingers.
Hearing her dismiss it now, fold it into a throwaway line, pinched somewhere deeper than he cared to admit.
He cocked his head. “That was never in the script.”
“Neither were a lot of things.” She drank her coffee. “Ops team came through this morning, stocked the cupboards. Dry goods, fridge basics. Standard issue. Probably not your usual beer, though.”
“I don’t drink anymore.”
Naomi widened her eyes. “Since when?”
“Since the last post. Too much booze. Too many blurred lines. Didn’t want to end up part of the collateral.”
She tightened her hand around her mug. “How was it?”
“Different.” Warren shrugged. “The same.”
Actually, it had been different. Very different. But he didn’t want to go into all that right then. Certainly not with her.
Warren leaned back in the chair, eyeing her over the rim of his mug. The silence between them wasn’t uncomfortable. Not exactly. But it was full.
“Right then,” he said. “Let’s write the script. Stick to the playbook. Don’t give the neighbours anything to sniff at.”
Naomi nodded once. “We’ll be boring as hell.”
Warren offered the ghost of a smile. “Wouldn’t that be a first.”
Naomi smiled back. Genuine. A smile that once might’ve meant something.
And for a moment, Warren felt the echo of curiosity.
The question that used to keep him awake, wanting to know every corner of her mind.
Not because there was anything left burning.
He wasn’t carrying a torch, not even an ember.
But because he’d once cared. And even now, after all the silence and the sharp edges of their parting, decency pulled at him.
He didn’t love her. Hadn’t for a long time.
He’d moved on. Sometimes carelessly, sometimes with intention. His bed had never been empty for long, though it had often been lonely. Whatever had once tethered them together had come undone quietly, like smoke through a gap in the window. He could barely remember the scent of her shampoo.
Still, he was a decent bloke. At least, he liked to think so.
And things had changed between them that wasn’t just her refusal to eat meat and his sobriety.
“You good?” he asked, voice low, without pressure.
Naomi met his gaze. Held it. “Yeah. I’m good. You?”
“Golden.” He hesitated, then added, “Anyone gonna miss you while you’re here?”
She looked away. Gathering herself. He gave her space.
“Yeah,” she said softly. “But they understand.” Then, after a beat, “You?”
He scratched his nails along the edge of the table, eyes fixed on a knot in the wood. “Nah. Went too deep last time. Would’ve been pointless.”
Naomi nodded once. That was all they needed.
They were fine. Two professionals with a quiet scar between them and a job to do.
Warren slapped his palm on the table. “Right. Let’s lock it in. I’m a PE teacher. On sabbatical from a PT role, recovering from a torn ACL. You run a boutique cleaning business. Domestic contracts. Eco branding. Real wholesome stuff.”
Naomi leaned back, already easing into the role. “We relocated for the sea air and fewer headaches.”
“No kids. No drama.”
“No marriage,” she added. “Let’s go with cousins. Shared rent, tight-knit family, nothing to hide.”
“Not going with the couple angle the senior team suggested?”
“I’d rather not.”
He nodded. “Fair enough. Explains the separate bedrooms.”
“Exactly. We’re boring.”
Warren lifted his mug.
Naomi’s personal phone buzzed on the table, screen flashing with a name Warren didn’t catch. Her cheeks pinked as she fumbled to silence it.
“I’m gonna…” She gestured vaguely towards the hallway.
Warren waved her off without looking. “Go.”
The moment she disappeared down the hall, Warren leaned back in his chair and reached for the folder HQ had slipped into his duffel.
Two names. One mission.
The primary: Callum Reid. Official file read: High-risk individual. Manipulative. Aggressive. Socially charming with a documented history of psychological dominance over romantic partners. Warren scrawled in the margin: Dangerous. Controlled. Operates in shadows. Watch your step.
Reid had hovered on the edge of Graham Radley’s circle for years.
Never caught holding the burner, never behind the wheel.
Always proximate, never central. But there was CCTV from East London: Reid pinning a teenage boy against the wall of a tower block.
A known recruit who’d tried to walk. Police had given him the chance of a lesser sentence on his recent arrest if he gave them intel on Radley.
He declined. Said he knew nothing. The evidence he had, wouldn’t have stood up in court.
So he went down for the stuff they could pin on him.
Warren flipped the page.
The secondary: Jude Ellison. History teacher.
Worthbridge Academy. The funny, quiet and rather charming man he’d met today.
No criminal record. Popular with students.
Formerly involved with a local officer, Freddie Webb.
His name had come up in relation to Alfie Carter.
Might be nothing. Might be everything. A sticky note in handwriting clung to the margin: Something’s off. Gut feeling. Keep eyes open.
Warren sifted through the photos. Timestamps.
Observation notes. Street view stills. He landed on a map grid, red ink circling Jude’s address.
A detached cottage facing the railway embankment.
He committed it all to memory: names, timelines, routines.
Patterns not yet formed. Then twenty minutes later, he closed the file.
Mind humming. Narrative threads beginning to knot.
He drained the last of his coffee, climbed the stairs, and dropped his bag in the smaller of the two bedrooms. Single bed.
Narrow wardrobe. No view. He’d let Naomi have the king-sized with the sea breeze and the sash window.
Fair enough, she’d drawn the sharp end of the op.
Embedded with the suspected kingpin. High risk, high reward.
Warren? He got the soft sell.
Befriend the local schoolteacher. Low-pressure engagement.
Smile, ask questions, assess loyalty and access points.
The sort of assignment given to a rookie or a liability.
Which, after the last op, was apparently what they thought he was.
The latter. Because he had fifteen years under his belt in serious crime.
So this was nothing more than a test dressed up as a deployment.
See if he still had the edge. If he could follow orders without going off-script.
Or, as they’d called it in the review: “Failure to maintain operational integrity.”
He called it doing what needed to be done.
It didn’t matter now. He was back in play.
And if this was how they wanted to ease him in, fine.
He’d play along. And he knew better than most not to underestimate anyone.
He’d watched drugs move through church deacons and youth volunteers.
Respectable faces didn’t mean clean hands.
A schoolteacher who lived for lesson plans and overdue library fines might still be knee deep in something darker.
And if he was, Warren would be the one to expose it.
Win back a few stripes. Get himself back in the fold.
Properly. Like Naomi already was.
He pulled on running shorts and a tee, pushed his locs back into a band, then thumbed through his phone to map out a loose route. Then he jogged downstairs, pushed open the front door, and stepped into the sea-salt air of Worthbridge at dusk.
The air outside hit sharp and cool. Sea salt on concrete, gulls wheeling overhead.
He crossed the main road and hit the coastal path, shoes thudding in time with the low throb of music in his ears.
Worthbridge unfolded around him in layers.
Shuttered shops with flaking paint. The old salt baths, long drained and overgrown.
A mural of a mermaid half-faded on a brick wall, her eyes staring blankly at the tide.
Kids vaped by the seawall. A pub spilled light and low laughter onto the esplanade.
It was a far cry from South London. Slower.
Sleepier. But Warren didn’t mistake the stillness for safety.
Places like this had their own rules. Quieter currents.
He just had to listen. So he took a right at the war memorial, passed the crumbling lido, and let his pace carry him past the high street and through a row of 1940s terraces, front gardens tight and overgrown.
Jude’s street came into view.
Warren slowed, subtly pulling his pace into a light jog as he approached from the far side of the cul-de-sac. The houses here were narrow, their brickwork dulled by the sea wind, most of them with two recycling bins and a porch light flickering from motion sensors.
Jude’s house was the one with a hanging basket and a crooked house number. Warm light spilled from a ground-floor window. Someone moved inside. Silhouetted for a moment, then gone.
Warren kept his distance, watching from the end of the lane.
He didn’t know what he thought he’d feel. Maybe nothing. Maybe curiosity. Maybe a quiet chill at the fact that a teacher with no priors was caught in the web of something this dark. Or maybe he wanted to see if anything looked… off.
So far, nothing did.
Just a man in his house. Lights on. Curtains drawn.
Warren turned back towards the coast, kicked up his pace again, and let the music drown the noise in his head.
Pretending continued tomorrow. But surveillance never stopped.
Not for someone like him.