Sacrifice. Paul Finch

you know from the beginning there were two murderers?’

      ‘Please gentlemen!’ Hunter said. ‘We’ve told you all we can.’

      ‘And that would be that you’re very happy two men have died in a car crash, sir?’

      Hunter’s smile tightened, but he retained his cool. ‘I think you know what I mean …’

      ‘Sir,’ Heck whispered, ‘we’ve probably said enough.’

      Hunter raised his voice one final time. ‘All you need tell the public at present is that there’s been a major development in the M1 Maniac enquiry – a major development – and that we are very, very encouraged by it.’

      He and Heck turned and walked back into the hospital, ignoring all further questions. Once they were safe in A&E, Hunter dabbed sweat from his brow with a handkerchief but still looked satisfied. ‘That gave them something to chew on at least.’

      Heck didn’t say what he was thinking: Yes, sir … your arse.

       Chapter 4

      Todd really liked Cheryl, and Cheryl really liked Todd. In fact, if they were honest, it went a lot further than that. The first time Todd had told Cheryl he loved her it had been just before Christmas, while they were walking Monty, her parents’ pet Labrador, over the snowy ridges of Rivington Moor. She’d simply replied: ‘I know.’

      Which had thrown him a little.

      Todd could only muster small-talk all the way back to the car park. But once Cheryl had installed Monty on the blanket in the back of her boyfriend’s periwinkle-blue Volkswagen Polo, and had climbed into the front passenger seat alongside him, she kissed him on the cheek. Not just any old kiss, not just a peck; it was long and moist and warm. He turned to face her, and their lips entwined and their tongues snaked together, and there’d been no going back really from that point on.

      They hadn’t told anybody yet, especially not their respective parents, but they planned to marry in about two years’ time, depending on their ability to save up for a mortgage. Of course they were only nineteen and twenty, so they weren’t rushing anything.

      Even so, they were electric together.

      That was what Cheryl told her girlfriends: ‘We’re electric.’ If Todd so much as touched her hand, a warm jolt passed through her. And in one of their more intimate moments, he confessed the same about her.

      They couldn’t wait to see each other that Valentine’s Eve.

      As always, Todd arrived at Cheryl’s parents’ house bang on time, looking spick and span in his dark jeans, his bold striped sport shirt and well-pressed blazer. His gleaming, newly-washed Polo waited at the end of the drive – her chariot. That was one thing Cheryl’s parents really liked about Todd. He nearly always drove, so he rarely drank, which was a good thing in itself and in addition meant their lovely daughter was always assured of getting home safely.

      It was Cheryl’s mum, Marlene, who answered the door. She was a bit of a looker herself, and she too was going out somewhere that evening, so she looked sexy, her voluptuous curves wrapped in chiffon and black lace, her blood-red toenails peeking out of patent black stilettos. But it was Cheryl who was the star of the show in a metallic-blue sequin dress with gloss tights and sky-high heels. Presenting Cheryl with ten red Valentine’s roses, Todd didn’t know what to say, except what he always said, which was that he was the luckiest man alive.

      By seven-thirty they’d hit the road. After stopping for a bite to eat at their favourite pizzeria, they drove to a pub they knew, where they met up with two other couples they were friendly with. After a few drinks, the girls already getting tipsy on the landlady’s special Valentine’s cocktail, they headed off to Manchester together to hit one of the expensive, glitzy nightclubs.

      It was a cracking event.

      City centre clubs could get a bit crowded, a bit sweaty, a bit noisy – but the atmosphere in this one was just right. The music was ultra schmaltzy, but Cheryl really didn’t care because tonight was all about love, and she had Todd. There was lots of dancing and lots and lots of kissing. Subsequently, by two o’clock in the morning, their intense affection for each other had become unmanageably passionate. So they said their goodbyes and hurried outside hand-in-hand, giggling.

      It was another very cold night, their breath steaming, and the light sweat on their foreheads prickling like ice. As they made their way down the back alley to the car park, its cobblestones were rimed with frost.

      The moment they got into the car and closed the doors, Todd put a hungry hand on Cheryl’s nylon-clad thigh.

      ‘Not here,’ she said, pouting.

      Todd glanced around. She was probably right. People would be coming and going for a little while yet. ‘Usual place?’ he asked with an impish grin.

      ‘It’s a lot quieter there,’ she said.

      So Todd drove them back out of Manchester along the M61 motorway. Their home town, Bolton, was only about eight or nine miles away, but before they reached it, they diverted along the A675 onto the West Pennine Moors. En route, Cheryl lifted the hem of her dress to reveal that she wasn’t wearing shiny tights at all, but shiny stockings fastened to pretty white suspender straps. She wiggled her bottom as she drew a pair of panties down her shapely legs.

      ‘Watch the road,’ she said sternly as Todd kept glancing down, his eyes popping.

      There were few other cars around at this time of night, especially here on the West Pennine Moors, though these weren’t wild moors as such – more like open countryside alternating with reservoirs and dense tracts of woodland. But only one or two main roads led through this area, with few streetlamps.

      Todd eventually decided he couldn’t wait any longer and pulled up in a lay-by – only for Cheryl to glance around, discomforted. ‘Here?’ she said. ‘We’re still on the road.’

      ‘There’s no one out at this hour,’ he replied, loosening his seatbelt.

      ‘I thought we were going to the usual place?’

      ‘That’s another five minutes off …’

      ‘Yeah, but it’s more sheltered than this.’ She pouted. ‘Please.’

      Sighing, he switched the engine back on. Two miles further along, they swung left down a short access way and into a small car park, which was used during the day by walkers and picnickers but at night was nearly always deserted. At present it was pitch-black, huddled beneath a roof of branches so interlaced that only faint beams of frosty moonlight penetrated. Even so, Todd drove down to its farthest end, about a hundred yards from the entrance. He pulled up, applied the handbrake and switched off his headlights.

      Beside them stood a wall of leafless thickets, but these were only vaguely distinguishable in the gloom. Beyond those lay a blackness in which nothing stirred, at least nothing they could see. At normal times they might have been a little oppressed by this sense of isolation, but now the twosome were hot for each other, breathless with anticipation.

      At first only Cheryl reacted to the brief, shrill cry, which sounded from somewhere close by.

      ‘What was that?’ she said, sitting bolt upright.

      ‘Does it matter?’ Todd fumbled eagerly with the button of his jeans.

      ‘No Todd, seriously … what was it?’

      ‘I don’t know … a bird probably.’

      ‘In the middle of the night?’

      ‘Mating call. How appropriate.’ He leaned over, planted his mouth on Cheryl’s perfumed neck and tried to worm a mischievous hand between her thighs – but she kept them clamped together and pushed him away.

      ‘Stop