Chapter Thirteen Stop and Search #2
Warren shrugged, aiming for harmless curiosity. “Heard you had a few close calls. Making sure you’re alright.” He widened his eyes. “Are you? You feel safe? Around Mr Ellison?”
Alfie dated his gaze to the window where Jude was still talking to the coach driver. “Wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Mr Ellison, would I?”
That landed differently. “You mean the history trip?”
“No. I mean, like, I’d be a goner if it weren’t for him.”
“How come?”
Alfie cocked his head as if Warren should know already. “The fire. The school one. The accident that wasn’t. Everyone knows it wasn’t. Was meant for me, weren’t it? Stop me saying…stuff.” His voice dipped lower. “He pulled me out. Went back in for me when everyone else got out.”
Warren had read the reports. Seen Jude’s name there. Even got told about it from Reece Morgan, that firefighter from the gym. But hearing it from the kid, in his voice, cut through the suspicion the file had been feeding him.
“Sounds like he saved your life.”
Alfie met his gaze head-on. “Yeah.”
That was it. The bond Warren had been noticing between Alfie and Jude wasn’t about covering for someone shady.
It was about debt. Gratitude carved deep enough to stay permanent.
And suddenly, Warren was back in the prisoner-of-war barracks at the castle yesterday.
Remembering Jude’s face when they’d stood in that low, cold room.
The way his eyes had shone before Reuban’s stupid belch had broken whatever moment he’d been in.
Warren had thought then that Jude looked as though he understood captivity.
Not from history books, but from memory.
And joining all those dots he’d been finding, he was sure.
Jude Ellison wasn’t complicit with Callum Reid.
He was his prisoner.
“Sir!” Reuban’s voice cut across the breakfast hall.
Warren dragged himself back. “Yeah, what?”
“It’s clean. Can we go now? I gotta get back for football training.”
Warren glanced out the window. Jude was there, waving the group on, corralling them towards the coach for the journey home. His smile was all teacher-politeness, but Warren could see the micro-expressions underneath. Tired. Guarded.
“Yeah, alright.” Warren stood, clapping his hands. “Year Ten! Clear your rubbish, grab your bags, and back on the coach. Move it.”
Thirty teenagers exploded into motion. Shoving, laughing, claiming they’d forgotten things in their rooms, the usual chaos.
Eventually, they all filed onto the coach.
Because of the Amelia and Lucas situation, everyone had been re-paired to avoid drama.
It left Jude near the back, Warren up front.
The quiet following was unnerving. Three hours of it, broken only by the low hum of the engine and the occasional murmur from the kids.
It wasn’t until they were rolling back into Worthbridge that Jude made his way down the aisle, checking for rubbish, then stopped by his seat.
“Don’t suppose you saw my glasses case when you left the room?” he asked, rummaging through his bag as the coach slowed.
“Uh… no. Grabbed my stuff and legged it. Sorry.”
Jude nodded. “Must’ve left it there.”
As the coach nosed into the school car park, Warren tried, “Listen, you got a second after we unload this lot?”
Jude looked at him, right before the coach braked hard, sending him stumbling forward. Warren grabbed his arm before he face planted on the coach floor. Jude straightened, adjusting his glasses, and didn’t answer his question, instead addressed the students.
“Welcome back, Year Ten. See you bright and early tomorrow. Don’t forget your bags and rubbish.”
He stepped off the coach before Warren could say another word. The Head was there, and the kids swarmed around them. Within minutes, Jude was pulled into a meeting, and Warren was left with no choice but to walk away.
He went home. Or rather, the safe house.
Naomi was nowhere in sight. Good. She’d only want updates.
And he needed to think. So he sat at the kitchen table, turning Jude’s missing glasses case over in his hands.
Opening it. Shutting it. The clack echoing in the stillness, sharp as a metronome to the mess in his head.
After a while, he tore a strip from a notepad, scrawled the safehouse address and the words for when you need to reach the sea beneath it.
The words looked simple. To anyone else, meaningless.
But Warren knew Jude would remember the POW barracks as he’d explained how the prisoners were kept there, looking out at the sea they could never reach.
And he snapped the glasses case shut, tossed it onto the passenger seat, and drove to Jude’s street.
He didn’t pull up outside. Instead, he killed the engine halfway down, tucked himself into the shadow of an overhanging tree, and let the dark swallow the car.
Standard surveillance habits. No direct line of sight for too long, never centre himself in the suspect’s view.
Jude’s lights were on. Movement ghosted behind the curtains.
It should have been enough to note it, log the time and activity, and move on. That was procedure. But this wasn’t procedure.
This was him.
Warren stayed put for almost two hours, watching for patterns. Comings, goings, a sign of someone else in the house. Nothing obvious. No breach of his threshold of suspicion that would justify an intervention. No probable cause to enter.
And that was the thing about undercover work.
He couldn’t act on instinct. He’d done that before.
Rookie days on borough CID, a domestic call-out where he’d pushed in because the girlfriend’s eyes screamed help me.
The case collapsed because he’d tainted the entry.
Evidence gone. Suspect walked. The girlfriend went right back to him.
He couldn’t make a move on anything unless he could back it up in court.
Otherwise, he was just another uniform with nothing to show for it.
He wasn’t even uniform now. He was deep cover.
And in deep cover, he couldn’t blow his face unless the target was on the ground and the evidence in his pocket.
Still, after two hours of nothing, he climbed out of the car and walked up to Jude’s door.
He could hear voices inside. Not the drone of a telly. Too irregular for that. Then a crash.
His body went taut. He held still, listening. Nothing followed.
So he knocked.
Rustling came from behind the door. The sound of a chain sliding. Then Jude’s face appeared in the narrow gap, eyes catching on Warren’s like a hook.
“Hey,” Warren said, trying for easy. “You alright?”
“Yeah. Fine.” Jude glanced over his shoulder before looking back. “Sorry, this isn’t a good time.”
“Sure. I just…” Warren lifted the glasses case. “Found this in my bag. Must’ve picked it up by mistake.”
Jude eased his arm through the gap and took it. “Thanks. Appreciated. You could’ve just given it to me tomorrow.”
“Yeah, no, I…” Warren rubbed the back of his neck. “Thought we could talk.”
“I can’t right now.” Jude’s gaze stayed locked to his. “But thanks. And, look, no worries, yeah? No need to talk about anything. It’s all fine. I’ll see you at school.”
He shut the door.
And Warren stood there a moment, listening. Too quiet. A quiet that wasn’t peace, it was weight. He stepped back, scanning the upper windows the way he’d done on a hundred other doorsteps. Curtains stirred at the front room and Warren immediately glanced to them.
The eyes looking back at him weren’t Jude’s.
Callum Reid.
Warren had seen that face in the SEROCU files enough to know the lines, the smirk that didn’t reach the eyes.
And every muscle in his body screamed to move.
Kick in the door, drag Reid out, and end it before it bled any further into Jude’s life.
But there was nothing to hang it on. No arrest plan in place, no immediate threat he could prove.
Going in now would get him pulled from the op, blow months of work, maybe let Reid vanish for good and Radley would go, once again, untainted.
He had to swallow it down.
Turn away.
Walk back to his car as if this was any other street, any other door. And stop himself from going rogue by telling himself he would see Jude tomorrow.
Still hated himself for it, though.