“No. I mean, like, I’d be a goner if it weren’t for him.”
“How come?”
Alfie cocked his head as if Warren should know already. “The fire. The school one. The accident that wasn’t. Everyone knows it wasn’t. Was meant for me, weren’t it? Stop me saying…stuff.” His voice dipped lower. “He pulled me out. Went back in for me when everyone else got out.”
Warren had read the reports. Seen Jude’s name there. Even got told about it from Reece Morgan, that firefighter from the gym. But hearing it from the kid, in his voice, cut through the suspicion the file had been feeding him.
“Sounds like he saved your life.”
Alfie met his gaze head-on. “Yeah.”
That was it. The bond Warren had been noticing between Alfie and Jude wasn’t about covering for someone shady. It was about debt. Gratitude carved deep enough to stay permanent. And suddenly, Warren was back in the prisoner-of-war barracks at the castle yesterday. Remembering Jude’s face when they’d stood in that low, cold room. The way his eyes had shone beforeReuban’s stupid belch had broken whatever moment he’d been in. Warren had thought then that Jude looked as though he understood captivity. Not from history books, but from memory.
And joining all those dots he’d been finding, he was sure.
Jude Ellison wasn’t complicit with Callum Reid.
He was his prisoner.
“Sir!” Reuban’s voice cut across the breakfast hall.
Warren dragged himself back. “Yeah, what?”
“It’s clean. Can we go now? I gotta get back for football training.”
Warren glanced out the window. Jude was there, waving the group on, corralling them towards the coach for the journey home. His smile was all teacher-politeness, but Warren could see the micro-expressions underneath. Tired. Guarded.
“Yeah, alright.” Warren stood, clapping his hands. “Year Ten! Clear your rubbish, grab your bags, and back on the coach. Move it.”
Thirty teenagers exploded into motion. Shoving, laughing, claiming they’d forgotten things in their rooms, the usual chaos. Eventually, they all filed onto the coach. Because of the Amelia and Lucas situation, everyone had been re-paired to avoid drama. It left Jude near the back, Warren up front. The quiet following was unnerving. Three hours of it, broken only by the low hum of the engine and the occasional murmur from the kids.
It wasn’t until they were rolling back into Worthbridge that Jude made his way down the aisle, checking for rubbish, then stopped by his seat.
“Don’t suppose you saw my glasses case when you left the room?” he asked, rummaging through his bag as the coach slowed.
“Uh… no. Grabbed my stuff and legged it. Sorry.”
Jude nodded. “Must’ve left it there.”
As the coach nosed into the school car park, Warren tried, “Listen, you got a second after we unload this lot?”
Jude looked at him, right before the coach braked hard, sending him stumbling forward. Warren grabbed his arm before he face planted on the coach floor. Jude straightened, adjusting his glasses, and didn’t answer his question, instead addressed the students.
“Welcome back, Year Ten. See you bright and early tomorrow. Don’t forget your bags and rubbish.”
He stepped off the coach before Warren could say another word. The Head was there, and the kids swarmed around them. Within minutes, Jude was pulled into a meeting, and Warren was left with no choice but to walk away.
He went home. Or rather, the safe house. Naomi was nowhere in sight. Good. She’d only want updates. And he needed to think. So he sat at the kitchen table, turning Jude’s missing glasses case over in his hands. Opening it. Shutting it. The clack echoing in the stillness, sharp as a metronome to the mess in his head.
After a while, he tore a strip from a notepad, scrawled the safehouse address and the wordsfor when you need to reach the seabeneath it. The words looked simple. To anyone else, meaningless. But Warren knew Jude would remember the POW barracks as he’d explained how the prisoners were kept there, looking out at the sea they could never reach. And he snapped the glasses case shut, tossed it onto the passenger seat, and drove to Jude’s street. He didn’t pull up outside. Instead, he killed the engine halfway down, tucked himself into the shadow of an overhanging tree, and let the dark swallow the car. Standard surveillance habits. No direct line of sight for too long, never centre himself in the suspect’s view.
Jude’s lights were on. Movement ghosted behind the curtains.
It should have been enough to note it, log the time and activity, and move on. That was procedure. But this wasn’t procedure.
This washim.
Warren stayed put for almost two hours, watching for patterns. Comings, goings, a sign of someone else in the house. Nothing obvious. No breach of his threshold of suspicion that would justify an intervention. No probable cause to enter.
