Chapter Nine Storm in a Teacup
chapter nine
Storm in a Teacup
Warren didn’t see Jude outside his classroom for the rest of the week.
He wasn’t in the staffroom. Nor hanging out at the vending machine.
He didn’t even see him lingering at the edges of the corridors where teachers usually hovered with lukewarm coffee and recycled gossip.
And when he did catch a glimpse across the playing field or through a rain-streaked window, Jude’s head was always down.
The glances were gone. The offhand comments.
The half-smiles traded across hallways. The easy banter that had sparked from day one.
Something had shifted.
And, worst of all, Warren missed it. Missed him.
He’d tried to open himself up to him. Completely breaking protocol.
The fundamental rule of maintaining distance had been shattered the moment he’d listened to Jude talk about the prisoners of the castle.
What he should have done at that point was file an immediate, confidential report to the taskforce, flagging Jude as a person of interest requiring specialised support.
Not open himself up, with subtle hints asking him if he was okay, if he could help him.
Whether they’d landed or not. His job was simple, get intel.
Not initiate touch. But when he'd felt Jude’s fingers in his passing over that pencil, Warren had wanted to hold on and never let go.
It was instinctive.
And utterly unprofessional.
DS Warren Beckford did not possess a “need to protect”, he possessed a mandate to observe. But with Jude…this feeling was hitting heights he'd never wanted to reach before.
So he leaned on his cover: the students.
Casual questions, idle chatter on the field, nothing more than surface interest. Or so it looked.
In truth, it was UC training kicking in, digging for crumbs.
The year sevens in Jude’s form told him Mr Ellison was still kind, still one of their favourites, but less warm.
The spark had dulled. But they didn’t know him that well.
So Warren pressed the older ones. GCSE groups.
Sixth formers, too. They agreed. His lessons were still good but the ease was gone. The charm muted.
Jude Ellison was retreating.
And Warren couldn’t tell if it was the fallout of the OCG's presence... or him.
That was his compromisation kicking in. He wasn't assessing the risk; he was obsessing over the personal slight. He was too up his own arse thinking Jude was avoiding him, rather than considering the dozens of other things it could be. It was fatally hindering his judgment.
But the other teachers had noticed too. Angie had made a passing comment in the staffroom on Wednesday, stirring milk into her tea.
“Has anyone seen Ellison? Did he change his PPA to live in the Humanities cupboard or something?”
A few laughed.
Warren didn’t.
And he started checking the perimeter at lunch.
Taking the long route between buildings, looping the playing fields, then circling the car park.
But he never caught sight of him. Wherever he was having lunch, it was a secret.
He even followed him home. Jude was always the last to leave.
Not completely against the norm for him according to the other staff, but it was getting later.
Especially as Jude walked, his car still locked up in the garage.
But Warren kept a measured distance, circling the blocks in his car, never close enough to spook him in the dark.
He noted the way Jude slowed as he neared home, hesitation written into every step.
Once, he even mounted the path, turned on his heel as if fleeing, then finally surrendered with a sigh and slipped inside.
The house told its own story. Curtains sealed tight. Front room unlit. That would raise red flags in every training manual.
By Friday, Warren had had enough. Jude’s shift in behaviour wasn’t personal. It was operational. If Ellison was under threat, or worse, being used, then Warren was obligated to find out. And if he wasn’t? Then Warren was supposed to cut the cord. Step back. Stop caring.
But that was impossible.
Caring was the thing that kept him alive in this job, the tether stopping him slipping under. Only with Ellison, it was no longer professional duty. It had shifted. Warped into something riskier. Something he couldn’t define, except to admit it was already more than it should be.
School had closed a couple hours earlier and he’d pulled into the side of the nearly empty car park, engine idling as rain hammered down on the roof.
A storm had been threatened to attack the southeast coast, and this was the start of it.
The Head had urged everyone to go immediately home, with all afterschool clubs cancelled. Everyone should have left.
Except not everyone had.
Warren knew that.
His wipers ticked, and Warren once again had to tell himself that sitting here, waiting for Jude to emerge from the building, was routine.
Another check-in. When really, he’d be here if Patel told him to pull back.
Which was probably the reason why he hadn’t told her his suspicions yet.
He didn’t want to be pulled away. He didn’t want them calling in Jude, because then his time with him would be over.
But he had to do something. So with his breath fogging the air, he rubbed a thumb over the corner of his phone before flipping open the burner.
Two rings.
“Tell me you’re not still loitering near the sixth form entrance like a creep,” Naomi’s voice came low and dry through the line, her usual greeting.
“Only to build character.”
“You eaten?”
“Flatbread and regret. Couple hours back.”
“Christ. You’ve got that ‘malnourished-in-a-van’ tone. Try something hot, yeah?”
He smirked. Let it die. “Secondary’s gone quiet.”
“Ellison?”
“Yeah.” Warren kept his focus on the darkened side gate. “Behaviour’s changed. No staffroom since Monday. Walks with his head down. Kids still engage, but he’s withdrawn. No personal chatter. No social overlap. Avoids me, too.”
A pause. Slight crackle on the line.
“Anything else?”
“Leaves last. Walks home alone. Same route. Curtains always drawn. Doesn’t turn lights on in the front room. Looks… closed up. Not grieving. Not sad. Managed. Contained.”
Naomi’s tone changed. “You think he’s being leaned on?”
“Feels like pressure. External, not internal. Something’s sitting on him.”
“I’ll flag it. Request static obs on the property. Traffic cams on Ashworth Lane and school exit points. If Patel signs off, we’ll get eyes. You want internal CCTV pulled?”
“Love it. If you can keep your head above all the paperwork to get it.”
“We can but try?”
“Alright. Don’t drown. Humanities corridor.
Rear exits.” Warren rubbed his forehead, exhaustion pressing behind his eyes.
He needed to know if anyone had been watching Ellison from the perimeter.
Where he went at lunch. Who he spoke to.
Whether he was being handled from outside.
Spying? Sure. But that was his job. “And see if anyone’s clocked Reid. ”
“Copy.”
Warren hesitated, tapping his thumb on the steering wheel. Then, “Also… saw Ellison with Alfie Carter. Alone.”
Naomi didn’t interrupt. She never did when Warren’s tone dipped like that.
“Could be nothing. But I walked in on them Monday. Caught the tail end of something. Quiet. Low-voiced. Carter looked wired. When he left, Ellison said something that…” He exhaled. “It sounded like a warning.”
“A warning?”
Warren scrubbed a hand over his face. He didn’t want to say it.
Hadn’t wanted to log it at all. But it had been stuck in his head since the second it happened.
Since Jude had pulled away, turned down the quiz, gone cold.
He wouldn’t be a very good UC if he didn’t log everything he was meant to just because he was… having mixed feelings about his target.
“Something about talking. ‘Remember what I said about talking.’”
Silence stretched for a second.
“I’ll log it,” Naomi said. “We’ll get some eyes on the kid. Maybe speak to local—”
“No,” Warren cut in. “He’s already on the radar. His dad’s fellas a copper, remember? We spook him, word gets back, and it could tighten whatever leash is locked on whoever. They’ll start suspecting we’re watching. Or worse.”
A pause. Then, “Stick to CCTV?”
“Stick to CCTV.” Warren stared at the dark school building. “If there’s something there, it’ll show up. And if there’s not… I still want to know.”
There was a pause. Then softer, she said, “You still good in there?”
“I’m warm and well-fed.”
“Warren…”
He exhaled. “I’m fine.”
“You seem more concerned than usual about this.”
Warren chewed on his lip. This was why working with the woman who used to know him inside out was both a blessing and a curse.
He couldn’t hide anything from her. She’d seen him at play, and she’d seen him on the field.
She knew his best and, unfortunately, knew his worst. She could detect a change in his breath.
“Just… watching it happen.” He aimed for detached but heard the edge in his own voice. The analyst in him wanted to frame it as observation. But it wasn’t. Not anymore. It was him admitting, without meaning to, that he cared. “It’s like…her all over again.”
It wasn’t exactly like her. He knew that. But it was better than admitting what it was really like.
Another breath crackled down the line before Naomi spoke again. “Don’t go too far in with him. This is only secondary. A maybe. A potential lead. Don’t lose your head over it. And you know this is Patel testing you.”
Of course she was. And somehow, Patel’s choice of test had been the perfect snare.
Jude Ellison—reserved, broken at the edges, a man Warren should have read as nothing more than a line in the file.
But he was proving to be his undoing. Maybe Patel had sensed it before he had.
Maybe she’d seen the weakness he hadn’t wanted to name.
“I’m not planning to,” he lied.