Chapter Twenty-Three Reference and Evidence
chapter twenty-three
Reference and Evidence
The bell split the air, sharp and shrill, signalling the end of the lesson.
The end of the week.
The end of Jude’s ability to keep putting it off.
Time had run too fast. Every day had been an act, every hour a performance. Standing in front of a classroom, feigning calm, when inside he choked on nerves. The weekend loomed like a storm cloud. Radley’s party. The wire. The trap.
His throat tight, words kept snagging mid-sentence, and his hands couldn’t warm up no matter how much he rubbed them together. He’d catch himself glancing at the door, the windows, shadows in the corners. Waiting.
Because Callum was out.
Patel had assured him Reid was locked down in a safe house, tag on his ankle, phones stripped, police on him night and day. “He can’t take a piss without us logging it.”
But it didn’t stop Jude from looking over his shoulder.
The only thing that did stop him was the man now currently leaning in his classroom doorway, rapping his knuckles lightly on the frame while Jude’s Year Tens clattered to leave.
Jude’s chest eased the moment he saw him.
Warren. Standard PE kit—those scandalous shorts, polo stretched across his frame, hoodie hanging loose, socks shoved into trainers.
Locs tied back neat. He looked like he could anchor the entire room without saying a word.
Jude caught himself smiling before he even knew it.
That man had been keeping him warm all week. Keeping him together.
Rumours were bound to be circling by now.
How could they not? They drove in together.
Shared lunches in this classroom, always the same café bags on the desk between them.
It passed as routine, but Jude knew better.
Their stolen half-hours had become something else.
Questions and confessions traded in place of touches, restraint stretched thin when Warren perched on the desk close enough for his thigh to brush Jude’s knee.
The more Jude learned about Warren Beckford, the further he tipped.
Not just attraction. Not just distraction.
Something heavier. Dangerous in its simplicity.
Falling. But he still had to keep the walls up.
Had to keep the act going. Pretence was the only shield left.
So he schooled his face, even as warmth tugged at his mouth.
“Mr Bailey.”
Warren’s answering grin was infuriatingly easy. “Mr Ellison.”
The ritual almost made him laugh. And he turned back to his class so as not to blush.
“Homework for Monday. Essay on the causes of the First World War. I want research, I want evidence, and proper citations this time.” His tongue tripped on the word evidence, catching in his chest. Because it wasn’t only his students who’d be gathering it this weekend.
And he couldn’t, in all honesty, promise he’d be here to read those reports.
“Alright, sir?” Reuban lingered at the door, grinning at Warren. “We still got that game next week?”
“Yeah,” Warren folded his arms. “Northbridge. Big one. You’ll want to work on your place kicks.” He dropped his gaze to Reuban’s spotless trainers poking out of his ruck sack. “Not in those, though, eh?”
The boys shoved each other on their way out, laughter ricocheting down the corridor.
Jude’s gaze snagged on Warren’s. He swallowed hard.
Another reminder of why he had to follow this through.
Those spotless trainers weren’t bought with shifts at Maccie D’s.
And no single mum on benefits could stretch that far either.
They were paid for another way. Quiet money.
A side hustle wrapped in promises and silence.
Radley lines.
The last of the kids filtered out, chatter fading down the corridor.
Silence fell with the door clicking shut, leaving Jude alone with the hum of the projector cooling down and the stacks of marking he doubted he’d ever get through.
He shut off the PC, gathered the papers into uneven piles, and wondered, not for the first time, if he was being dramatic.
Was the gnawing sense that things were ending real, or just the dread of not knowing where Warren would be after this weekend?
A future without him already felt too close, too certain.
“You ready?” Warren perched onto the front row, casual in a way that made Jude’s chest ache.
Jude glanced up, half a smile tugging at his mouth. “Can’t we just stay here?”
Warren held his gaze for a beat, then stood, rubbed his hands together. “Alright.” He slid behind the desk row, pulled out a chair, then sat properly, tucking himself in like one of Jude’s students. “Teach me something.”
Jude arched an eyebrow.
“Not what you’ve been teaching me at home.” Warren quirked a brow.
“For which I owe you a sticker.” Jude tugged open his desk drawer, slipping out the sheet of novelty stickers he kept for the few students who still cared about such things. He peeled one free, held it balanced on the edge of his thumb and read the label, “Excellent Progress.”
Warren’s laugh came low, eyes dropping for a moment, then looked up again.
“Alright, then. Give me a point in history we can work from. Do or die. A quote.” He gestured loosely to the classroom walls, to the maps and timelines pinned in crooked rows. “One of your chosen ones summing up what we’re about to do.”
Jude drew in a long breath. Adjusted his glasses, stalling for time, the truth pressing hard in his chest. After tonight—after the wire, the raid, the chaos following—there might be nothing left.
Not of the plan. Not of them. He thought of his students.
The lessons he drilled into them about men who had stood on the edge of endings and chosen to step forward anyway.
“General Wolfe, before the Plains of Abraham,” he said. “‘You know too well the disorder of our troops, the folly of opposing our bayonets to their horse. But the thing is determined. Death or victory.’”
The silence after it rang louder than the quote itself.
Warren nodded once, understanding lambent in his eyes. “Death or victory.” He leaned forward, elbows on the desk. “We’ll take victory.”
Is he talking about Radley—or us?
“’If you’re going through hell… keep going’.” He forced a wink, though his chest felt too tight. “Churchill, 1940.” He stacked his papers into a messy pile, masking the tremor in his hands. “So let’s keep going.”
Warren’s gaze softened. “You know I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“I know you wouldn’t want anything to happen to me.” Jude’s smile tilted, fragile but sure. “And you’ll do whatever you can. But I’m in there alone. And I’m fully coming to terms with that.”
Warren pushed up from the desk. “We could cut and run.”
Jude tipped his head, mouth curving. “’England expects that every man will do his duty’. Nelson, Trafalgar, 1805.” He moved for the door. “Think of Reuban. He might still be here next year if we stay and do this.”
A shadow brushed his side. Warren stepped close, sliding his hand up Jude’s back, strong fingers resting at the nape of his neck. A single stroke before he pulled away fast at the sound of approaching heels.
“Ah, Jude. There you are.” Mrs Turner appeared, sharp smile in place. She clocked Warren, maybe the non-distance between them, maybe not. “Next week, I’ll need you on isolation duty every lunch.”
“Of course.” Jude nodded.
“Great. Good.” And she was gone again, brisk as she came.
Jude exhaled, glancing back at Warren with a half-smirk. “Cut and run sounds better every second.”
Warren leaned close, his breath warm, voice pitched for him alone. “Your country needs you.”
Jude let out a low laugh. “Not a direct quote, but I’ll take it considering you’re a geography man.”
“And you do have a cracking rock formation.” Warren’s mouth curved, then he leaned closer still, voice rough and quieter. “How about—I need you.”
The shiver came before Jude could stop it. His chest clenched, his body answering before his mind caught up. He turned, caught Warren’s gaze, and for a heartbeat neither moved. The silence swelled, charged and dangerous. Then Warren leaned in and pressed his lips to Jude’s.
The kiss was brief but consuming, a clash of restraint and urgency. The papers almost fell from Jude’s arms and Warren’s hand returned to his nape, before pulling away to rescue the marking.
They laughed.
Because if they didn’t, they might not make it over the edge.
* * * *
Within the hour, Jude’s shirt was half undone, collar pulled wide as a technician threaded a length of fine cable down the seam in a backroom of the SEROCU headquarters.
“Keep still.” The woman’s fingers were quick and impersonal as she secured the mic onto Jude’s chest. “You’ll forget it’s there after five minutes. Signal strength’s strong, battery gives you eight hours. Don’t knock it. Don’t sweat through it.”
Jude managed a hollow laugh. “I’m already sweating.”
From across the room Warren shifted in his chair, gaze fixed on the process with a tension Jude could feel across the distance. Patel caught it too, clearing her throat.
“This isn’t optional, Ellison. The wire isn’t about trust, it’s about evidence. You’re about to sit across from a man who will incriminate himself if he feels safe. We need that on record. Jury needs to hear his voice, not ours.”
Jude managed a nod. “I know.”
He’d had every briefing. Every drill. Talked through scenarios until the words blurred, tested and retested until it felt more like drama improv than life or death.
Naomi had run him through role-plays, Patel hammering in the procedure, Havers ticking off contingencies.
And in the quiet between those sessions, Warren had given him the real guidance.
Low-voiced reminders, post-coital strategy whispered into Jude’s hair while their fingers laced.
Jude leaning back into his chest, clinging to the hand that steadied him.
So yes, he knew what he was doing. He knew what he had to get.