Chapter Twenty Dealing with the Facts #2
Havers looked at him under his lashes, almost as if waiting for more. But Jude glanced away, shame scorching under his skin. He couldn’t explain. Didn’t have the words for what alternative meant. And who it had been offering that. Had it been protocol or…something else?
“Can you continue, in your own words, what happened next?” Havers prompted.
Jude folded his arms, gripping tight. “Callum threatened Warren. Threatened me. So Warren…” he exhaled, sharp and bitter, “…identified himself as police. Disarmed Callum. Put the cuffs on him. Called it in. And now I’m here.”
Havers nodded, scratching his pen across the page. “Do you believe there was anything unprofessional about the way DS Beckford handled the situation?”
Jude barked a laugh that wasn’t a laugh at all. “I’ve got no fucking idea who DS Beckford even is. All I know is I thought I was staying at the house of a fellow teacher. So don’t ask me to measure professionalism, because I wouldn’t know what it looks like anymore.”
“I understand.” Havers made another note. “For the record, did you observe DS Beckford use brute or unnecessary force while disarming Mr Reid?”
Jude hesitated, chewing his lip. He could still hear the sickening crunch of bone when Warren slammed Reid’s face into the bonnet.
He remembered the swift, clinical brutality of the takedown.
Remembered how Callum had been cuffed and Warren had still punched him in the face without Callum having the ability to defend himself.
It was certainly unnecessary force, an explosion of rage.
But he also remembered Reid's eyes, feral and promising to kill.
Warren didn't use force against Jude; he used it for him.
So he said, “No.”
“And for the record,” Havers continued, gaze fixed on Jude, “do you have any complaint regarding DS Beckford’s handling of you?”
Jude inhaled hard, chest tight. He focused on the small red light on the recorder. And for reasons he couldn’t explain, or maybe didn’t want to, he said, “No.”
“Can you tell us who Callum Reid is to you?”
Jude shifted in his chair. To them it was probably a simple question. To him it was anything but. “He’s… someone I used to live with.”
Havers glanced down, pen moving. “And when was that?”
Jude frowned, counting back through years he’d rather forget. “From when I was seventeen. Until about twenty-two. Before he was arrested and sent to prison.”
Havers didn’t change his expression. “And the nature of your relationship with him?”
“I… well, he….” He closed his eyes for a moment. “We were together. I suppose. A relationship, but not a normal one.”
Another quiet note scribbled down. No judgement in Havers’ face, no comfort either. “And when did you come back into contact with him?”
“About a month ago. He turned up on my doorstep.”
“You weren’t in contact with him while he was serving his sentence at HMP Winchester?”
“No.”
“But he came directly to you following his release?”
Jude shrugged. “I don’t know the timing exactly. I had no idea when he was released. I wasn’t informed. He just… turned up. Unannounced. In my house.” His throat tightened. “Did I want him there? No. Of course not. I asked him to leave. He didn’t.”
“So he’s been living at your address on Ashworth Drive for approximately the last month?”
“Yes. Which is why I chose to leave and was sleeping in my car when Warren found me.”
Havers nodded once, switched off the device, and capped his pen. “Thank you, Mr Ellison.”
“Can I see him?”
“Reid?”
“No.” Jude shook his head. “Warren.”
Havers leaned back in his chair. “DS Beckford is undergoing debrief.”
“Why?”
Havers paused. Then finally sighed to deliver the news. “Because he broke protocol.”
Before Jude could respond, Havers’ phone buzzed on the table. He glanced at it, then stood. “Wait here, Mr Ellison.” He signalled to the liaison officer, and they both left.
Silence closed in, broken only by the hum of the fluorescent strip above.
When the door opened again, it was the woman from before. The senior one. Patel. She entered alone, lowered herself into the chair opposite, and folded her hands on the table.
“I imagine you have questions, Mr Ellison.”
“Where’s Warren?” That was the only real question he had. The only one he wanted an answer to anyway.
“DS Beckford is being dealt with.”
“He protected me.”
“Yes. That is his job.”
Jude looked away. “Right.” His stomach twisted and he bit his lip until it stung. “Why?”
Patel tilted her head. “Why what?”
“Why was I his job? Why the whole bloody thing?”
Patel inhaled deeply, then leaned forward. “Because we needed to establish whose side you were on.”
Jude cracked a bitter laugh. “You couldn’t have just asked?”
“Mr Ellison, we have reason to believe you fled a crime scene on the fifth of October, twenty-seventeen. That property was identified as a controlled address linked to a county lines network. You lived with a known dealer, Reid, who had established links to organised crime. Whether you were actively complicit or simply present, the investigating team at the time couldn’t determine.
You disappeared. No statement. No trace. ”
Jude’s stomach plummeted.
“When this operation began, we recovered a library card in the original case exhibits. That gave us a line of enquiry. Imagine our surprise when it led to a Mr Jude Ellison, now a respected history teacher in Worthbridge Academy… a school that subsequently became a hub in an active trafficking investigation involving one of your students.”
The heat drained from his face.
“You were not our primary target. But you were categorised as a person of interest. Once intelligence confirmed Reid was in your orbit, in Worthbridge, we needed to establish whether you had re-engaged with him willingly, whether you were compromised, or whether you remained a victim. Covert contact was the most effective method to establish that.”
Jude’s stomach flipped. “So you sent in an officer to… what? Befriend me?”
“In a word.”
His vision stung. His throat closed. Fuck. All those words Warren had given him about trust, about safety…they hadn’t meant what Jude thought they had. Not to him. Not to the man behind the mask. And it hurt. God, it hurt so badly Jude couldn’t find anywhere inside himself to put it.
His voice cracked when he forced the next question, one that tasted like betrayal just saying it. “So you knew Callum had broken into my house?”
“No.” Patel shook her head. “We knew he was circling your address. You might have let him in.”
Jude shook his head violently, heat flaring under his skin. Fury, shame, disbelief. They’d left him there. They’d just watched.
Except… Warren had watched. Warren had followed. Warren had pulled him out.
He dropped his gaze to his hands, knotting his fingers tight and sniffed back the sting in his nose.
He wasn’t sure what hurt worse? That Callum had used him for sex for years and destroyed his faith in men, or that the first man he’d let near him since then had used sex to get close enough to do his job?
“Why didn’t you report Reid’s presence?” Patel leaned back.
“Considering you already know my history, you tell me.”
“Because you feared repercussions. From Reid. From his associates. Because you had been in a violent, coercive relationship with him, knew exactly what he was capable of, and had been trapped in that cycle for years. You were, and still are, a victim of domestic abuse. Victims often believe silence is safer than disclosure, because in their experience, silence buys survival.” She paused, eyes fixed on his.
“And because you knew that if it became public you once lived with and harboured a known offender, your career, your entire livelihood that you’d built up since fleeing Reid, would be at risk. ”
Jude hung his head. “Well done. Gold star. Ten house points.”
Patel exhaled slowly and pinched the bridge of her nose. “At any point in your involvement with Reid, were you aware of who his associates were? Who he was taking orders from further up the chain?”
Jude swallowed hard. “No.”
“You knew nothing?”
“I knew what he was,” Jude admitted quietly. “A dealer, at first. Then… something else. Muscle, maybe? Forgive me, I don’t know the official job titles or pay scales for organised gangs. I learned fast it was safer not to ask. He knew I wasn’t built for that life. I paid my way in… other things.”
“Sex.”
Jude’s jaw tightened. “Yes.”
“Did he ever send you on errands? Pick things up? Deliver messages?”
“Not really. Nothing illegal, not in the way you mean. Groceries. Cigarettes. Takeaway. Food. Actual food, before you start thinking that’s a code word. I think he wanted me clean. My hands clean.” Jude rubbed his palms together as if scrubbing them. As if they weren’t, nor would ever be clean.
“Why would that be?”
“I don’t know. So there was always a fallback.
A safe face. A name he could use.” He shook his head.
“I don’t know. You’re the expert. I was just a kid.
A scared, hurt, lonely kid who wanted…” Tears tracked down before he could stop them.
He ripped off his glasses, scrubbing his sleeve across his eyes.
“I just wanted to be left alone. To not be hurt. And when I had the chance to run, I ran. I’m sorry I wasn’t brave enough to stay. ”
Patel gave him a moment to gather himself before speaking again, her tone even. “But you stayed for Alfie Carter. You pulled him out of that fire. You rescued him.”
Jude slid his glasses back on. Said nothing.
“Jude, I’d like to level with you. We have an opportunity here. A significant one. Callum Reid is in custody. And we don’t believe you were the only reason he came back to Worthbridge. We believe he came chasing money owed to him.”
Jude nodded once, picking at his nails. “He said as much.”
“Have you heard of Graham Radley?”
“Who hasn’t?” Everyone in Worthbridge knew the name.
“Do you have any reason to believe Callum Reid was one of his associates?”
Silence stretched before he finally answered.
“Not at the time, no. Not until…” He shifted in his chair, cracking his neck from side to side.
“I always knew there was someone above him. Someone pulling the strings. Did I know who? No. Not back then. He made calls, got orders. Then he’d disappear for a few days, and I’d get a little breathing space.
Enough to go to the library at least. But he always had someone watching me.
Then he’d come back and it started again. ”
Patel waited.
“I never heard names. But one time… I saw a face. Just once. A man I didn’t know then.
And didn’t see again.” He paused, closing his eyes.
“Until a few months back. Here. In Worthbridge.” He opened his eyes to lay them on Patel.
“Outside a pub. He was arguing with a woman. Piper Webb. I know her. She’s the sister of a man I’d dated briefly.
Then I saw him again, clear as day, when they reopened the school.
Cutting the ribbon. Smiling for the cameras. ”
Patel’s eyes narrowed. “Graham Radley.”
Jude’s gut twisted. “Yes.”
“We need Radley caught in the act. Red-handed. No room for manoeuvre. No loopholes his barristers can twist into daylight.” Patel prodded a finger on the desk.
“We want to dismantle the operation pulling boys from your school into running gear and moving product. We want the supply lines shut down. His reach severed. His reign finished.” Her eyes didn’t waver.
“And you, Mr Ellison, may be in a position to help us do that.”
“How can I do that?”
“You work Reid.”
Air snagged in Jude’s throat.
“In exchange, you get protection. Police presence at your address. Safeguarding measures in place. What we want is leverage: a way to get Reid back inside Radley’s circle, into his house, with a recording device running.
” She let the words settle. “You’d be giving us the one thing we’ve never had against Radley—direct evidence. ”
Jude blinked, pulse drumming in his ears.
“What do you say, Jude? Are you ready not to run this time? To be the hero we already know you are? To take a risk for the greater good of all those who attend Worthbridge Academy?”