Chapter Eighteen The Thin Blue Line
Chapter eighteen
The Thin Blue Line
The silence in the car was thick enough to suffocate in.
Freddie kept both hands on the wheel, eyes fixed on the road as the station loomed closer, each tick of the speedometer pushing them towards the inevitable. Nathan sat in the back, behind the partition. But the space between them felt miles wide.
Freddie’s shoulders ached with it all.
The in-car system recorded everything. GPS. Audio. Policy, procedure, protection. But it also meant he couldn’t breathe a word without it making its way back to the CID. Still, he couldn’t drive Nathan in like this. Not without giving him something .
So after parking up in the station bay, he turned towards Becca in the passenger seat, catching her eye, and mouthed, Two minutes.
She frowned. “Freddie—”
He didn’t wait. Reached down, flipped the toggle beneath the console. The red recording light blinked out.
“Two minutes,” he repeated. “Listen or don’t listen.”
In the rearview mirror, Nathan shifted, turning from the window to catch the exchange. Becca shot him a look pointed enough to cut glass but then shouldered open the passenger door and stepped out, shutting it with more force than necessary.
Freddie met Nathan’s gaze in the mirror. “First, I’m fucking sorry. Really fucking sorry. It was this or Alfie being dragged in, too. I’ll tell them he wasn’t there.”
Nathan inhaled. “Then thanks. Right call.”
“Second, you don’t know me. You didn’t see me at the raid. We’ve never spoken.”
Nathan nodded back, the ghost of something unreadable in his expression.
“And you weren’t at my place this morning.”
“I was.”
Those two words landed with a finality. As if Nathan was telling him that whatever this was, whatever they were, it still mattered. He hadn’t forgotten. He wasn’t discarding it as nothing.
“But that’s between me and you,” he added.
“Like always.”
Nathan gave a ghost of a smile, then Freddie flipped the toggle back on. The red light blinked to life again, bathing the dashboard in an accusatory glow. He said nothing else. There wasn’t anything left he could safely say.
The car doors unlocked with a mechanical clunk , and Freddie climbed out, rounding to the rear passenger door, opened it, and stood back, giving Nathan space to step out.
Nathan did. No fuss. No aggression. And a tight-jawed calm he wore like armour.
The same look he’d had all his life, one that said I’m holding it together, but only just .
Freddie didn’t touch him. Didn’t guide him in with a hand on the shoulder.
Didn’t need to. Nathan fell into step beside him, walking through the secure side entrance of the station, with Becca following.
The corridor to the custody suite felt longer than usual.
Each footstep an echo of the decision Freddie couldn’t unmake.
The custody sergeant stood behind the desk, filling out a log sheet. He looked up as they approached. “Name?”
“Nathan James Carter,” Freddie answered for him. “Date of birth. Twenty-third February, nineteen ninety-two. Arrested on suspicion of obstructing a police operation. Cautioned at the scene.”
Kemp nodded and began typing. “Any health concerns? Drugs, alcohol, medication?”
“No,” Nathan said flatly.
“Any injuries?”
“None.”
Freddie stepped forward and retrieved the cuff key from his belt. “I’ll take these off now.”
Too gentle. Too familiar. With anyone else, his tone would’ve been brisk.
Detached. Professional. He prayed no one noticed.
But Nathan did. Freddie could feel it in the way his eyes lifted to meet his.
Soft. Knowing. The same eyes that had always undone him without trying.
That made his pulse stutter, and his body lean in before his brain caught up.
So trying to keep his hands steady, he brushed his fingers along Nathan’s wrist. One stroke.
A fleeting touch. Nothing more. A quiet sign to say he was sorry.
Then he found the keyhole. The cuffs released and Nathan’s shoulders dropped.
Freddie fought the urge to say something.
To apologise again. To ask if he hated him. But the moment passed.
Nathan rubbed his wrists once, then stepped back.
Kemp gestured to the side. “Interview Room Two. Carrick and Bowen are waiting.”
Freddie gave a nod and motioned Nathan forward.
This time, he didn’t need to lead him. Nathan walked ahead, and Freddie followed to the door.
It buzzed and Freddie opened it, passing through to the holding corridor, and he clocked DS Bowen through the glass of Interview Room Two, already setting up the file on the desk.
DI Carrick was inside, too, flipping through his notes.
Freddie stopped at the threshold, turning to Nathan. “You can ask for a solicitor. You want me to arrange that?”
Nathan shook his head once. “I’m good.”
He didn’t look good. He looked tired and wired, skin pale under the fluorescents, jaw set like stone. But he was ready. At least outwardly.
Freddie nodded, then pushed the door open. “Mr Carter for you, Ma’am.”
Bowen nodded.
Carrick didn’t look up. “Mr Carter, take a seat. We’ll begin shortly.”
Nathan stepped inside, sitting across from the detectives. Freddie hovered for a beat. Watching. Wanting to say something. Anything . But this wasn’t his place anymore. So he gave a brief nod to Bowen, then turned and pulled the door closed behind him.
And Freddie walked away down the corridor, every step echoing like the dull thuds of his heart.
* * * *
Nathan sat on the hard plastic chair, resting his elbows on the metal table, loosely clenching his fists to keep him steady. The room was all angles and pale grey walls, with a faint chemical smell, and a little red light blinking above the door.
DI Carrick started. “This is Detective Inspector Thomas Carrick. The time is eight forty-seven p.m. on the twenty-second of April. We’re at Worthbridge Police Station, Interview Room Two.
Also present: Detective Sergeant Asha Bowen, and Mr Nathan Carter, arrested on suspicion of obstructing a police operation in connection with the raid at fourteen Henley Crescent. ”
Nathan’s stomach twisted, a tight coil of stone and static. The words landed like lead, even though he’d already heard them.
Carrick continued, “Mr Carter, you are entitled to free legal advice and may pause the interview at any time to request a solicitor. Do you understand?”
“Yeah,” Nathan said, voice rough. “I understand.”
He gave them his full name and date of birth, words coming out like gravel. His throat was dry. He wanted water. He wanted to be anywhere else but here.
DS Bowen took over, her tone gentler but no less direct. “You’re being interviewed under caution. You do not have to say anything—”
He finished the line in his head before she could.
But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something you later rely on in court.
He’d heard it before. Once as a lad. Once again in the army, sitting in on briefings during joint ops.
Never like this. Never for something that could land him in that court.
Carrick leant forward. “Mr Carter, could you start by telling us where you were on the night of April twentieth, at approximately nine p.m.? ”
Nathan took a steady breath, the words catching in his throat before he forced them out. “I was at Henley Crescent.”
Carrick gave a small nod. “And what took you there?”
“I was following my son.”
Bowen glanced up from her notebook. “Alfie Carter?”
Nathan nodded. “That’s right.”
A brief silence stretched as Bowen and Carrick exchanged a look.
Bowen took over. “What was your son doing at Henley Crescent?”
“I don’t know,” Nathan said plainly. “That’s why I was following him. I didn’t trust where he said he was going.”
“And what had he told you?”
“Said he was nipping out to see a mate from school. Something about homework.”
“And you didn’t believe him?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Nathan tilted his head. “Couple reasons. One, he doesn’t really do his homework.
Two, he hasn’t been at that school long enough to have a mate who gives a shit about doing theirs.
Three, kids these days don’t go round each other’s houses to talk maths.
They’ve got phones. Group chats. Apps. Whole digital worlds.
” He paused, voice tightening. “But mostly? He’s a crap liar.
Gets twitchy. Won’t meet my eye. He was cagey as hell.
I figured he was sneaking off to smoke, maybe back to the skatepark, when I told him he weren’t to set foot near the place. ”
Carrick’s voice cut in, calm but pressing. “So you followed him. And he led you to Henley Crescent.”
“That’s right.”
“Did you recognise number fourteen? ”
“I knew of it. Used to live round here. Knew a few lads who ended up in places like that.”
“So you were aware of the property your son was entering?”
“I didn’t know exactly what he was walking into. But I knew what he wasn’t doing. And that was his bloody homework.”
Carrick pulled out a grainy photo. Passed it over. “Is that you, Mr Carter?”
Nathan glanced down. Grainy black and white. Him and Alfie, caught mid-run, ducked low through the alley, faces blurred but unmistakable. No point lying.
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s me.”
“Were you aware the property was under active surveillance at the time?”
“No.”
“You didn’t know Worthbridge Police were preparing to breach that house as part of an organised drug operation?”
Nathan held his gaze, voice steady. “No. I didn’t.”
Carrick arched an eyebrow. “Then why didn’t you go to the front door?
Why not knock and ask for your son like any concerned parent would?
Instead, you waited in the shadows for over ten minutes, then five minutes before a live operation was authorised, you scaled the rear wall, entered through a window, and extracted him out the same way. Why?”
Nathan paused. His throat worked once. Then, “Cause I’m trained to.”
Carrick shot a glance at DS Bowen, then looked back. “Trained for what , exactly?”
“I’m a soldier. Until a few months ago, you’d have addressed me as Staff Sergeant Carter, Royal Anglian.
I’ve been through doors in places you wouldn’t walk through, even with six behind you.
I’ve pulled mates out of compounds rigged with pressure plates.
I’ve cleared stairwells stinking of death.
You think I’m gonna stand on a step and politely knock when I’m aware what sort of gear might be stashed in a place like that?
What kind of people are inside? I was fully aware they weren’t gonna hand him over with a fucking party bag. ”
He gathered his temper with a breath.
“I didn’t know that raid was happening. But I knew Alfie was mixed up in something dangerous. I saw him go in. I made the call. I went in the way I was trained to. Fast, unseen, like I was never there, and with no intention of leaving him behind.”
Carrick studied him for a long moment. Then tapped the photo again. “If your timing had been thirty seconds later, you would’ve come face-to-face with my entry team. Armed. Under pressure. That could’ve gone bad fast .”
“Guess I was lucky then.”
The room stilled. Bowen and Carrick leant back in unison, arms folded, eyes narrowing in tandem. A coordinated silence designed to make him sweat.
Bowen broke it first. “Your prints are on the rear window. The same window used for entry.”
“I told you why I was there. I went in for my son. Nothing more.”
Carrick raised an eyebrow. “You’re admitting to entering a building under surveillance during a live investigation.”
“No. Like I said, I didn’t know it was under surveillance.
So, no. I’m not admitting that. I’m admitting breaking and entering.
Charge me with that, if you want. Hell, obstruction, too.
And if you are, get on with it. But you’ve already got the timeline.
You know I was out of there before the breach.
You know I wasn’t involved with anything happening inside that house.
” He stared them both down, shoulders squared.
“I’m not part of that world. Was never in that world. I got my kid, and I got him out .”
Carrick exchanged a look with Bowen and Nathan felt the shift. The pressure change. This wasn’t just about him anymore.
Bowen leant forward, eyes locking onto his. “But your son was.”
Nathan’s back went rigid.
“Alfie Carter. Arrested for assault on Sunday at the skatepark. Seen with two lads who were found inside that house. On camera. On foot. And one of them was carrying. Now,” Carrick smoothed out.
Professional. Rehearsed. S trategic . “We’re not interested in dragging you or Alfie through the courts.
He’s young. Still impressionable. But we both know how fast that can go south. ”
“He’s a kid who got himself into the wrong place at the wrong time,” Nathan growled. “He’s not a criminal.”
Carrick held up a hand. “Which is why we’re offering a way out.”
Bowen leant in. “We need names. Who recruited him. Who’s using the estate to run product. Who gave the orders. Your son has access and context. He could help us shut the whole thing down.”
Nathan’s blood ran cold. “You want to flip him.”
“We want to protect him,” Bowen replied. “The best way to do that is to dismantle what’s around him and he could be the key.”
Carrick’s gaze turned heavy. “You say you went in to protect him. We’re offering you a way to finish the job.”
“He’s fourteen,” Nathan snapped. “He’s a child. Not bait .”
“And every day we let this slide, more kids like him get pulled in. You know how this works, Staff. You’ve seen what happens when you leave bad actors in place because someone hesitated to act.”
Nathan clenched his jaw.
Carrick leant forward. “We’re not asking him to go undercover. We’re not throwing him to the wolves. But he knows names. Patterns. Drop locations. If he tells us what he’s seen, we can build the case. Pull them out by the roots. You wanted to shield him? Then help us burn the whole system down.”
Bowen added, more gently, “You trained soldiers to make the hard calls. You know what it means to lose one because someone didn’t step up in time. We don’t want to lose Alfie. But we can’t protect him unless we know who’s pulling the strings.”
Nathan didn’t answer. Couldn’t .
The room felt too quiet, like the moment after an explosion.
He’d spent years making hard calls. Sending lads into danger. Risking lives to protect something bigger. But this wasn’t a briefing. This wasn’t strategy.
This was his son .
And yet, the truth pressed in like a blade to the ribs.
Alfie was already in the war zone.
The only question left was whether Nathan had the guts to pull him out the right way… or keep dragging him deeper.
He exhaled, slow and tight.
Protect him. Finish the job.
God help him if he got this wrong.