Ryan pulled out his cuffs. Liam flinched.
Liam didn’t run. He stood there, cuffed to an empty flask, watching two cops sprint toward the dark, roaring sea.
Liam stared. Jo raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
Jo didn’t laugh. “Probably a student who’s discovered anarchism and bad hygiene. You take the lead.”
They found the man outside a vegan bakery. He wasn't jangling anything now. He was on his knees, hands shaking, not from cold but from withdrawal. His name was Liam. Twenty-two. Homeless for eighteen months. The charity tin—empty except for three pound coins and a button—lay beside him like a fallen soldier.
As Ryan typed on his PDA, Liam drank. Not fast—slowly, like a man learning what warmth felt like again.
Then the radio crackled. “All units. Code Zero. Person in the water, Palace Pier. Repeat—person in the water.”
But instead of clicking them shut, Ryan looped the cuffs through the handle of his own thermal flask, then clicked one cuff around Liam’s wrist and the other around the flask.