She tapped the remote again.The projector merged to a grainy black-and-white CCTV still of the subject.Callum Reid.He looked leaner than in his arrest photo. Prison had stripped the weight off him but hardened the rest. Mixed race. Face gaunt but sharp, as if carved out of bone and bad decisions. A jagged scar ran from the edge of his left brow down onto his cheek, old but angry, and his hoodie, pulled low, cast a shadow over deep-set eyes, unreadable in the static image, but they werecold. Hollow. And he clutched the strap of a battered prison-issue duffel, visible tattoos running over his knuckles, with his other shoved into the pouch of his hoodie. His posture was loose, almost casual, but Warren could see the tension in his shoulders. He’d been around men like him for years. Men born of violence barely leashed. Even in still frame, he looked coiled. Watchful.
Predatory.
A man who’d walked out of a cage and knew exactly where he was going.
“Release footage,” Patel said. “Mid-morning, two weeks ago. No known associates collected him.”
Another click. A slow-motion sequence played across the wall: Reid boarding a southbound bus at the layby, hands shoved deep into his hoodie, shoulders hunched as if trying to disappear.
“No verified parole address. The contact he gave on release was false. No tag. No supervision order. We wanted to see what he’d do and where he’d go with no one watching.”
The next clip showed a petrol station forecourt somewhere off the A36 near Southampton. Reid buying cigarettes. Hood up. Shoulders hunched. Glancing over his shoulder. Then another. A corner shop in Worthbridge, time-stamped three days later. This time, he wasn’t looking around.
He looked at home.
Worthbridge. A faded seaside place already softening into autumn: bunting swapped for plastic leaves in shop windows, cold brew replaced by spiced lattes, and school gates yawning open for the new term. Tourists thinning. Locals returning to routine. Streets quieter. Safer. Supposedly.
But Reid was here.
And Warren bet he hadn’t come for the sticks of rock or rejuvenating sea air.
“We believe he contacted someone when inside,” Patel said. “Possibly linked to the Radley network’s southern arm. He’s been keeping a low profile, but his pattern’s clear.” She stepped forward, casting a partial silhouette across the projected image. “We had him covered after release but he slipped the net when he went off-grid. Changed phones, no fixed address. Then he popped up near Worthbridge right where our Radley threads converge.”
“You want me to track him? Make friends?” Warren rubbed his palms together, hungry for it. “Haven’t had a good fake-out in a while. Love bringing down an arsehole with false loyalty.”
“You’re not tracking him, you’re watching the fallout. Who he goes to. Who protects him. That’s where the network lives.”
Warren frowned, folding his arms and chewing on the inside of his cheek.
“And we think it might be here.” Patel clicked the next slide. This time it wasn’t CCTV. It was a staff photo. School setting. A man sat at a desk, books stacked neatly to one side. White. Slim. Curly brown hair dishevelled. Black-rimmed glasses perched on a weary face. Eyes both tired and defiant. And soft.Sweet.
Warren narrowed his eyes. “Subject?”
“This is where it gets… delicate.” Patel stepped closer to the projector, folding her arms as the next image slid into focus. “Jude Ellison, thirty. History teacher at Worthbridge Academy. Moved to the town over two years ago. Originally from Leeds. No criminal record. No registered partner. Keeps to himself. Low profile. But we’ve flagged several anomalies.”
Warren studied the face on screen. Clean-cut. Soft eyes. Too unassuming for a room like this. “Anomalies like what?”
“We believe Ellison and Callum Reid were involved in London.” Patel’s voice cooled. “Intimately.”
She didn’t need to spell it out.
“If Reid’s shown his face in Worthbridge now, it isn’t a coincidence. We think Ellison could be the reason. And if that link between them still exists, then it’s possible he’s been biding his time, building a life in the school, embedding himself in the community, waiting for Callum to come back.”
Warren scrutinised Jude’s photo.
None of this was what he’d expected.
Jude didn’t look like someone playing a long game. He didn’t have the guarded eyes of a groomer or the sheen of a manipulator. He looked… ordinary. Messy hair. Soft focus. That weary smile teachers wore at the end of a long day. One that said he’d explain a battle strategy or a political scandal with the same patience he used to hand out detentions. Someone you’d nod to in the corridor and feel lighter for it.Kind.
And handsome enough to make you forget why you were there.
Warren blinked, dragging himself back into the room.
He’d learned a lot working undercover. Chief among them was that sentiment was a security breach. He’d stripped his personal life for parts years ago, rebuilt himself out of discipline and distance. Every feeling filed away, every impulse locked down. Showing interest in a local wasn’t just reckless, it was an open wound. A weakness waiting to be weaponised. One misstep and someone would trace that thread straight back to the Met, or worse, to SEROCU. And he’d seen the type before. The ones who hid their guilt behind charm, wearing sincerity as if it were a mask.
Yet something in him shifted.
Quiet. Inconvenient.
