Still, he was a decent bloke. At least, he liked to think so.
And things had changed between them that wasn’t just her refusal to eat meat and his sobriety.
“You good?” he asked, voice low, without pressure.
Naomi met his gaze. Held it. “Yeah. I’m good. You?”
“Golden.” He hesitated, then added, “Anyone gonna miss you while you’re here?”
She looked away. Gathering herself. He gave her space.
“Yeah,” she said softly. “But they understand.” Then, after a beat, “You?”
He scratched his nails along the edge of the table, eyes fixed on a knot in the wood. “Nah. Went too deep last time. Would’ve been pointless.”
Naomi nodded once. That was all they needed.
They were fine. Two professionals with a quiet scar between them and a job to do.
Warren slapped his palm on the table. “Right. Let’s lock it in. I’m a PE teacher. On sabbatical from a PT role, recovering from a torn ACL. You run a boutique cleaning business. Domestic contracts. Eco branding. Real wholesome stuff.”
Naomi leaned back, already easing into the role. “We relocated for the sea air and fewer headaches.”
“No kids. No drama.”
“No marriage,” she added. “Let’s go with cousins. Shared rent, tight-knit family, nothing to hide.”
“Not going with the couple angle the senior team suggested?”
“I’d rather not.”
He nodded. “Fair enough. Explains the separate bedrooms.”
“Exactly. We’re boring.”
Warren lifted his mug.
Naomi’s personal phone buzzed on the table, screen flashing with a name Warren didn’t catch. Her cheeks pinked as she fumbled to silence it.
“I’m gonna…” She gestured vaguely towards the hallway.
Warren waved her off without looking. “Go.”
The moment she disappeared down the hall, Warren leaned back in his chair and reached for the folder HQ had slipped into his duffel.
Two names. One mission.
The primary: Callum Reid. Official file read:High-risk individual. Manipulative. Aggressive. Socially charming with a documented history of psychological dominance over romantic partners.Warren scrawled in the margin:Dangerous. Controlled. Operates in shadows. Watch your step.
Reid had hovered on the edge of Graham Radley’s circle for years. Never caught holding the burner, never behind the wheel. Always proximate, never central. But there was CCTV from East London: Reid pinning a teenage boy against the wall of a tower block. A known recruit who’d tried to walk. Police had given him the chance of a lesser sentence on his recent arrest if he gave them intel on Radley. He declined. Said he knew nothing. The evidence he had, wouldn’t have stood up in court. So he went down for the stuff they could pin on him.
Warren flipped the page.
The secondary: Jude Ellison. History teacher. Worthbridge Academy. The funny, quiet and rather charming man he’d met today. No criminal record. Popular with students. Formerly involved with a local officer, Freddie Webb. His name had come up in relation to Alfie Carter. Might be nothing. Might be everything. A sticky note in handwriting clung to the margin:Something’s off. Gut feeling. Keep eyes open.
Warren sifted through the photos. Timestamps. Observation notes. Street view stills. He landed on a map grid, red ink circling Jude’s address. A detached cottage facing the railway embankment. He committed it all to memory: names, timelines, routines. Patterns not yet formed. Then twenty minutes later, heclosed the file. Mind humming. Narrative threads beginning to knot.
He drained the last of his coffee, climbed the stairs, and dropped his bag in the smaller of the two bedrooms. Single bed. Narrow wardrobe. No view. He’d let Naomi have the king-sized with the sea breeze and the sash window. Fair enough, she’d drawn the sharp end of the op. Embedded with the suspected kingpin. High risk, high reward.
