Chapter Thirteen Stop and Search
Chapter thirteen
Stop and Search
To say the next morning was awkward didn’t even scratch the surface.
The one silver lining, although Warren wasn’t sure it counted as one, was that by the time he woke, Jude was already up, showered, changed, bag packed, and out in the corridor herding kids towards breakfast. Which meant Warren hadn’t had to face him.
But it also meant Jude had let him sleep right through that part of the morning.
And Warren knew exactly why.
The noise of laughing teenagers filtering in from the hall pulled him out of bed. He stretched, scrubbing a hand over his face, still feeling the ghost of last night’s heat on his skin when the door opened.
“Hey.” Jude didn’t meet his eyes, his tone clipped but casual enough for the audience outside. He grabbed his phone from the desk, shoved it into his chino pocket. “I’ll take this early lot down to breakfast. Switch in fifteen so I can grab my bag? If you’re ready.”
Warren noted the quick sweep of his body, but it was gone in a blink. Then so was Jude, the door clicking shut behind him.
Warren exhaled his frustration. Fuck.
It was unravelling.
The kiss… he shouldn’t have let it happen.
And at the same time, maybe he should have let it go further.
Maybe he should have given Jude whatever he wanted if it meant cracking him open, earning the trust that would get him to talk.
That was the job. But Warren had a battle on his hands, and it wasn’t the one written into his cover.
Because the truth was, he hadn’t kissed Jude for the job.
He hadn’t been thinking about strategy or leverage.
When he’d asked if Jude wanted him to give him something else to think about, he’d meant talking.
The way he’d been taught to interrogate without it feeling like an interrogation.
To coax and calm. He hadn’t expected Jude to kiss him.
But when he had…God, Warren kissed him back. Not because it was smart. Or because it would gain him trust or loosen his tongue.
Because he wanted to.
And not in the way he sometimes did when undercover.
Those calculated touches, that occasional compromise of boundaries to keep a role believable, tools he used to gather intelligence.
No. Last night had been different. It had been him.
Warren Beckford. Not the fabricated PE teacher.
Or the copper with an angle. Just him, kissing someone he wanted.
Jesus Christ.
The strangest part? The fact Jude was a man barely registered as a complication.
What mattered, what stuck in his head like a bruise he kept prodding, was the feel of Jude’s body pressed to his. The way he’d whimpered into the kiss. The heat, the need, the weight of him. And the fact he’d been hard—for him.
Warren couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Stop thinking about him.
But the real truth kept swimming around in his head.
I’m falling for a suspect I’m assigned to investigate.
I’m the biggest risk to this operation.
And if I like this, like him, I'm compromised. If I'm compromised, Naomi's cover is blown. If her cover is blown, we both go down, and the case is lost.
Fuck.
He showered. Hot. Punishing. Scrubbing until his skin stung, as if he could rinse away the memory of Jude’s lips.
He thought about getting himself off just to take the edge off, but the setting was all wrong.
Too thin walled. Too risky. He’d deal with it later.
And when he emerged, he was back in uniform.
Mr Bailey’s uniform. School-branded hoodie.
Shorts. Locs tied back. And he noticed Jude’s suitcase.
Packed. No lock. Sitting right there by the bed.
DS Beckford needed to look inside.
It might be the only opportunity he had while Jude was occupied with the kids.
So he sat on the edge of the mattress, pulled the case towards him and unzipped it. He hated it. The way it felt, going through someone’s private things. Jude’s private things. This wasn’t a random search. This was Jude.
Jude, who he… liked. Wanted, if he was honest. Jude, who Amelia and Lily would probably tease him about “fancying.” Jesus Christ. This was the job.
Information gathering. Evidence hunting.
The thing he was paid to do. Trained to do.
He’d rifled through far worse before. And yet, here he was, elbow-deep in Jude’s neatly folded clothes, his packed toiletries, his spare phone chargers, and it felt wrong.
As if crossing a line he wasn’t sure he could uncross.
He found nothing.
Of course he found nothing. What had he expected?
A handwritten note from Callum Reid linking him directly to Radley?
Idiot. He zipped it closed, guilt chewing at him, when his gaze landed on the glasses case on the nightstand.
He picked it up. Slipped it into his own bag.
Didn’t think too hard about why. Then slung his bag over his shoulder, gripped the handle of Jude’s, hauling them both like some overworked mule, and headed down to breakfast.
It was chaos, as expected.
Amelia was curled into Lucas’s side, his arm slung over her shoulder. Lily sat in the far corner, flanked by two other girls offering comfort. The scrape of cutlery, the hum of gossip, the occasional burst of laughter. It was all noise.
Warren’s focus went straight to the table by the window.
Jude.
Nursing a coffee as if it kept him upright. To anyone else, he probably looked composed. Controlled. But Warren saw the cracks. Felt them, almost, as if his own hands had made them.
He went over and set Jude’s case down beside him, and when Jude looked up, it winded him. Those eyes. Christ. Hurt and shame tangled together, with something else in between. Gone was the pink flush from last night. The sidelong glances, the small touches feeling like a private language.
All of it—gone.
“Thanks.” Jude pushed his chair back and stood. “Alright, Year Tens, coach will be here in ten minutes. Eat up.” Then, to Warren, without meeting his gaze for long, “Better grab something. I’ll go check on the coach.”
Then he was out the door before Warren could reply.
Warren sighed, grabbed a pastry from the buffet, bit into it on the way back, and slid into the seat Jude had vacated, straight across from Alfie Carter.
The kid had earbuds in, eyes fixed on his phone.
Nothing unusual for a teenager. Plenty of them lived online more than off.
But Warren’s radar didn’t work on usual.
Kids who kept to themselves, who drifted on the edges, were exactly the ones crews liked to pick off.
And Alfie had already been on a list once.
The file had been clear: targeted to be a runner for one of the lines feeding Graham Radley’s network. It had only been stopped because his old man, and PC Freddie Webb, had stepped in.
Freddie Webb.
Warren drifted his gaze to the window, where Jude stood outside with the arriving coach driver, tablet in hand, rain speckling his hair.
He’d heard that Jude and Freddie had once had a thing.
A brief one, if Freddie’s “five minutes” at the gym was anything to go by.
Still, Warren couldn’t help wondering if Freddie had seen the tattoo.
The one that told a story most people wouldn’t understand, but any copper working organised crime would.
If he had, Warren would’ve expected it to be logged somewhere.
A note. A quiet flag. Something. But there was nothing.
No mention in local intelligence, no cross-references in the Radley files, no link tying Jude Ellison to Callum Reid.
As far as Worthbridge Police were concerned, Jude was clean.
Because Freddie, and every other local officer, worked with surface-level data.
Intel that didn’t touch sealed records or SEROCU’s encrypted archives.
They didn’t know what to look for. The real history, Jude’s buried one, had only surfaced when Warren’s unit dug deeper, threading through the classified files and sealed custody reports local policing never had clearance to see.
Which left him with two possibilities.
Either Freddie Webb was in on it—
Or he’d never got close enough to Jude to see the ink for what it was.
Because any officer trained in street and gang crime would know that tattoo. The difference between art and allegiance. Between decoration and declaration.
Warren hated the first possibility.
The second stirred something far more dangerous. Something he didn’t want to name.
So he turned his attention back to Alfie. “You into history?”
Alfie barely looked up. “S’alright.”
“What made you pick it over geography?”
A shrug. “Better teacher.”
Perfect. “Like Mr Ellison, then?”
Alfie stayed glued to his phone. “He’s alright. Don’t shout.”
Warren breathed out a laugh. “Yeah, the shouty ones are the worst, right?”
That got a glance. An eyebrow rise.
Warren clutched his chest in mock offence. “Ouch. I only shout on the pitch.”
A crash from across the room interrupted as if on cue. One of the tables had knocked over a cup of tea, followed by a shriek of laughter from the class.
“Oi! Reuban!” Warren hollered over. “Clear it up. Now!”
“How am I meant to, sir?”
“Get a cloth from the staff, you pillock. Or I’ll make you mop it up with those nice Jordan’s.” He glanced down at the pristine pair of trainers. “They new?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Suggest you get a cloth then.”
Reuban tutted and wandered off.
Warren turned back to Alfie. “Sometimes shouting’s necessary.”
Alfie snorted and went back to scrolling.
“Bet your old man can shout.” Warren leaned in a little, drumming the table with his fingertips. “Ex-army, right? Getting on the wrong side of him’s gotta be unwise.”
No answer.
“Bet having a dad like that, and a copper keeping an eye out for you, makes you feel a little safer, right?”
This time, Alfie looked up, brow creased. “Why you askin’?”