Sacrifice

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 it … that didn’t sound like a bird to me.’

Realising that she wasn’t just being coy, Todd straightened up. ‘What’s the matter now?’

Cheryl stared through the windows, beyond which tendrils of icy mist ebbed amid meshed, naked twigs. ‘What … what if it’s someone messing around?’

‘All the way out here?’

She pondered that, inwardly agreeing that it seemed unlikely, but still discomforted. ‘Look, I definitely heard something …’

‘There are night birds, you know.’

‘In February?’

He shrugged. ‘Maybe. Hey … if someone’s here, and … I dunno, if they want to watch us, would they give themselves away by making daft noises?’

‘Watch us?’ She looked dismayed by the mere thought. ‘You mean like doggers?’

‘Well … yeah. But what are the chances of that at this hour?’

Even as he said this Cheryl thought she glimpsed movement: a black shadow flitting out of sight behind the even blacker pillar of a tree-trunk. She squealed and grabbed Todd’s hand. ‘There’s someone out there, I know it!’

‘Cheryl, there’s no one. It’s three in the morning!’

She peered into the encircling darkness, and he could tell that she was genuinely frightened.

‘What did you think you saw?’ he asked quietly.

‘I don’t know. It could have been a trick of the light …’

‘There is no light.’

Todd opened the car door and jumped out, his smoky breath wreathed around him as he scanned the nearby trees. Fleetingly, he too felt vulnerable. In darkness this opaque someone could be very near and he wouldn’t necessarily see them. But it was ridiculous, surely? No one would be all the way …

Something flickered at the corner of his vision. He spun in that direction; a low bough on the car park’s edge was quivering, as if someone had just brushed past it.

‘Hey!’ he called, striding quickly over there. ‘Hey, you fucking pervert!’

‘Todd, don’t!’ Cheryl hissed.

‘Why don’t you go back to the internet and knock a quick one off over some underagers, eh?’

‘Todd!’

He halted at the edge of the undergrowth, right next to the quivering bough. ‘There’s nothing here for you tonight … you got it?’ His eyes slowly attuned as he peered into the foliage, though it diminished quickly into a foggy gloom.

In truth, he’d only half heard the keening cry that had distracted Cheryl. But now that he pondered it, there had been something vaguely fake about it, as if – how had Cheryl put it? – someone was messing around. Again, Todd scanned the murky woodland, his ears pricked. It was so still, so quiet, as though the roots, the branches, the bark were listening back to him. He hung on there for several more seconds, defying someone to respond.

‘What do you think you’re playing at?’ Cheryl said, coming up behind, heels clattering the tarmac.

He shrugged. ‘Just a precaution.’

‘You’ll make them angry.’

‘Cheryl, there’s no one here, okay? I shouted on the off chance, but it’s a bit late at night for someone to be creeping around.’

She took his arm in a tight grip. ‘Right, fine … enough showing off, alright?’

‘I’m not showing off.’

She led him back to the car. ‘You don’t have to do stuff like that to impress me …’

Her words tailed off as they stumbled to a standstill.

An electric light was visible about seventy yards away, in the farthest corner of the car park. It was a single, feebly glowing bulb, only just managing to illuminate the narrow doorway underneath it, which they knew gave access to a small public lavatory. But this was the first time either of them had noticed it.

‘When did that get switched on?’ Cheryl asked quietly.

Todd mused. ‘Must’ve been on all the time.’

‘I didn’t see it when we first arrived.’

‘Were you looking?’

‘No, but surely we’d have spotted it?’

Todd started towards it, slowly at first but then with purpose.

‘What are we doing now?’ Cheryl asked, following, still clutching his arm.

‘Just seeing if there’s anyone there.’

‘Er … why?’

‘Because like you say, we don’t want spectators!’

‘But you said there’d be no one here at this hour.’

Todd had no immediate answer to that. It was possible they’d simply driven in here and hadn’t observed that the lavatory’s exterior light was on, but he doubted it. The clicking of their footfalls echoed eerily as they approached the tiny structure, its simple square dimensions slowly coming into view. They were about thirty yards away when its light winked off – they froze mid-stride – and then winked on again.

‘Not working properly,’ Todd stated. The exterior light flickered several times more, finally went off again, and then stayed off. ‘Just wait here … I’ll go and check.’

Cheryl remained where she was while Todd ventured forward over the last few yards, one eye on the lavatory’s half-open door behind which lay dank blackness, the other on the deep, dim undergrowth at the building’s rear. That too lay thick, motionless and impenetrable.

The lavatory was little more in size than a suburban outhouse. It was built from red brick and when seen in daylight, written all over with obscene slogans. Inside, it comprised a single narrow passage with a broken washbasin at the far end, and two cubicles that, when he’d gone in there once before to take a leak, were as dirty and smelly as animal stalls. Todd poked his head around the door first and fumbled along the jamb for a switch. He encountered two, and when he threw the first the interior bulb flickered to life, revealing an unwashed tile floor and damp plaster walls. He glanced into both cubicles. The first was empty and the toilet lid closed, but in the second the lid was open and someone had daubed the bowl’s fecal contents all over the surrounding woodwork in broad smears, at one point attempting to write something with it. Not surprisingly, the stench in there was appalling, and Todd was grateful to beat a hasty retreat. As he exited, the internal light also began flickering and buzzing loudly.

‘Loose connections,’ he said, rejoining Cheryl outside. ‘Probably been going on and off all day.’

‘But why would it be on in the first place?’ she asked as he walked her back across the car park.

‘Someone left it on … it’s no big deal.’

‘Listen, Todd …’ She glanced again at the encircling woodland, clotted with night-mist. ‘I think we should just go home.’

They’d now reached the Polo, and he gazed at her across its roof, hugely disappointed. ‘Oh … come on, Cheryl!’

She regarded him carefully. Todd was every inch the gentleman – he’d been so quick to protect her honour then, even against foes that were possibly imaginary – but he was a man too, and they hadn’t got frisky with each other for over a week. No wonder he looked so dejected.

‘Well at least get close to the road,’ she said, ‘so we can make a quick getaway if we need to.’

‘Whatever you say.’

They climbed in together. Todd twisted the key, put the Polo back in gear, and nosed it around in a three-point turn. Finger-like twigs groped at the windscreen and then at the side windows as the vehicle manoeuvred. As they drove back across the car park, Cheryl glanced towards the lavatory block. Both its internal and external lights had now gone off.

‘Even if there is someone around,’ Todd said cheerfully, ‘they won’t see much in this darkness.’

‘Dirty old men,’ she replied with disgust.

‘Dogging’s a popular sport these days. You get codgers, you get husky athletic types. All sorts.’

‘You seem to know a lot about it?’

‘Hey, I’m a man of the world.’ Todd was making light of the situation, though he couldn’t help glancing over his shoulder again, eyes roving the empty, moon-dappled tarmac behind them. It was funny how once you’d told yourself you weren’t alone in a dark and lonely place, it was difficult to get the idea out of your head. Not that it was easy to be distracted by this for long, the way Cheryl was now moistening her lips with the tip of her tongue.

‘I hope you’re going to show me how much of a man you are in a minute,’ she said.

He grinned as he drove.

This time they parked at the foot of the access lane, about thirty yards from the car park entrance. Even though a slice of grey, moonlit ribbon was visible where the main road passed by, deep, skeletal thickets blotted out the rest. Todd hurriedly unzipped his flies and pulled his trousers to his knees, pushing his underpants down after them. As his engorged penis sprang to life, Cheryl climbed over the gearstick to face him, straddling his lap. He entered her easily and quickly.

She grunted gently as she rode him, wrapping her arms around his neck, bending her head down to greedily kiss at his lips, their tongues lashing. Cheryl screwed her eyes shut to suffer no other distractions, to maximise every millisecond of bliss. And then, for some reason unknown to her, she opened them again.

Only briefly, fleetingly – but that was when she realised they had company.

At first she thought the tall figure with the glowing green eyes was standing in the car park directly behind them – only to realise that this was a reflection on the inside of the rear window. The figure was actually standing in front of the car.

As if telepathically connected, Todd realised someone was there too. His eyes snapped open and he stared past Cheryl’s suddenly rigid shoulder, focusing on the figure about twenty yards in front. He couldn’t distinguish anything about it except that it was taut, as though twisted partly around. In the very same second Todd realised why this was. The figure was straining on some complex, hi-tech instrument; he appeared to have drawn a heavy cord back to his shoulder.

Todd gasped, choked …

It was a bow and arrow.

There was a muffled twang.

And the windscreen shattered.

Chapter 5

When Detective Superintendent Gemma Piper gave you a bollocking, you knew you’d been bollocked. They didn’t call her ‘the Lioness’ for nothing. When Gemma roared, the corridors at New Scotland Yard shook. And she was articulate with it, so it wasn’t just uncontrolled rage you were exposed to; her choice of words could be so scathing that even if delivered in terms of friendly banter, they could make an eavesdropper wince.

And this wasn’t friendly banter.

Heck sat alone outside her office as he listened to the racket within. Because of his rank, Bob Hunter had been summoned in to see the superintendent first. That had been a good thirty minutes ago, and Gemma was still tearing strips off him, the whipcrack voice penetrating the closed door and ringing down the central corridor of the Serial Crimes Unit. By the sounds of it, she’d now moved from criticising Hunter’s handling of the enquiry, primarily the way he’d allowed it to ‘crash and burn’, to something more akin to common abuse. Phrases like ‘swaggering overconfidence’, ‘buffoonish disregard for protocol’, and ‘off-the-scale ineptitude’ sounded decidedly non-specific.

In one respect, it all seemed a little unfair, given that the M1 murders had officially been solved. The evidence found in the wrecked van, including the pistol used in all the killings, had strongly indicated that the Savage twins were the culprits. What was more, two days ago, the inquest into their deaths, which had delayed the team returning to base from Milton Keynes, had returned a verdict of death by misadventure, so there ought to be no further questions regarding the double fatality.

The problem was that even though the case of the M1 Maniac was now firmly closed, the press, who had fed on it for months in a shark-like frenzy, weren’t content to leave it there. With the inquest over, the finer details of the enquiry had been made public, and fascinated journalists had pored over them, determined to find mistakes. It almost seemed as if the actions of two cold-blooded serial killers had provided insufficient explanation for the deaths of eight teenage boys. Any errors made by those charged with catching the deranged duo had to be immediately and ruthlessly exposed, as though these constituted sins as reprehensible as the homicides themselves.

Heck wouldn’t ordinarily dispute that viewpoint – it was the job of the police to catch killers, and if they couldn’t do it, they ought to be asked why. But the hunt for the M1 Maniac had stirred widespread panic across southern England and put intolerable pressure on the investigating team. There’d been massive interference at all levels, both judicial and political; everyone from the Prime Minister down to the average petty criminal had stridently demanded a resolution. Exhaustion had set in, mental and physical, so it was no wonder errors were made by the team: failure to follow up leads, failure to update computer files, innocent suspects suffering heavy-handed treatment from overworked officers, and so forth.

Now, after the revelation that Jordan Savage had been spoken to at an early stage of the investigation but then disregarded, resulting in he and his brother going on to commit a further five murders – the press were having an absolute field day.

‘Keystone Cops,’ one headline proclaimed over a photograph of the Yard’s famous revolving signpost. ‘Police 2, Bad Guys 9,’ another said. Its strapline added: ‘So how dare they claim victory’. It was enough to make even Heck cringe with guilt, and he was the one who had broken the case.

He wasn’t sure where to look when the door to Gemma’s office opened and Bob Hunter came stiffly out. The DI winked, but the only colour registering in his chastened face were two dots of bright pink, one on either cheekbone. He stuck a thumb over his shoulder at the half-closed door, turned and perambulated down the corridor, his gait slow and delicate.

Heck stood up and brushed his hair with his hand, before knocking.

‘Yes?’ came an irritable voice.

Heck walked in, closing the door behind him.

‘Ah-hah … the arresting officer!’ Gemma said. ‘Or something to that effect.’

Her personal office was always fastidiously neat – and rather bare, in fact some would say ‘spartan’ – and yet surprisingly small, given her high rank. Of course, this made it all the easier for it to be filled by her towering personality.

Detective Superintendent Gemma Piper was formidable; a force of nature. Her beauty helped her in this regard. It was fierce, leonine (hence the nickname) – she had wild, ash-blonde hair, blue eyes, red lips, flawless features – all the usual accoutrements of fine femininity, yet somehow it combined to create a warrior rather than a princess. In addition she was tall and athletically built, and she dressed to enhance this; men could be reduced to jelly in Gemma’s presence for all kinds of reasons. Heck knew this better than anyone, because at one time, many years ago now, he’d shared her life and her bed.

‘Morning, ma’am,’ he said.

She pointed to the chair in front of her desk. He sat.

‘You know why I want to see you?’ She leaned forward, fingers steepled. She was pale in the cheek, but her anger seemed to have abated a little, presumably because she’d vented most of it on Bob Hunter – though there was still a menacing snap in her tone.

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Because this …’ and she dropped a file related to the M1 enquiry on the desk; it landed like a paving stone, ‘… should have “Cowboys and Indians” written on it. Particularly the bit at the end. You know, the bit where the damage runs into hundreds of thousands of pounds … caused by a frantic car-chase, which you instigated. The bit where the two perpetrators suffered horrific, life-ending injuries. I mean, killing the two chief suspects, Heck … that kind of faux pas knocks everything else that went wrong on this enquiry into a cocked hat.’

‘Ma’am …’ Heck shrugged helplessly. ‘These guys had a lot to lose. They were never going to come quietly.’

‘I understand that, but we still have to be accountable for our actions.’

‘If we have to account to Joe Public, we’ve no worries. He’s fine with it.’

‘Joe Public is an arsehole!’ she replied, her voice sharpening again. ‘Joe Public will turn on us viciously the first time we do the slightest thing he doesn’t agree with. Don’t pretend Joe Public is our mate, Heck, because he isn’t.’

‘Ma’am …’ Heck tried his most earnest tone. ‘You can surely see I had no choice but to pursue the suspects?’

‘Even though they were armed and you weren’t?’

‘Well … yes. I knew it was a risk, but it was less of a risk for me than it would have been a risk for the general public if those two were allowed to remain at liberty. For what it’s worth, if I’d been going there to make an arrest, I’d have taken armed support with me, but it didn’t happen that way.’

Gemma pondered this. There was no doubt she was torn. If Heck’s actions leading to the fatal accident were reckless, he’d also showed exceptional bravery, which was something she valued in her officers.

‘Even if the suspects had got away, ma’am, I couldn’t afford to lose that van,’ he added. ‘It was chock full of physical evidence.’

‘Celebrating its capture hardly seemed appropriate, given that two men had died.’

‘I know that.’

She sat back. ‘It won’t surprise you to learn that Max Humphreys has distanced himself – by some margin – from the comments Bob Hunter made on the hospital steps.’

‘No, that doesn’t surprise me.’

Detective Chief Superintendent Max Humphreys of the Thames Valley Police, nominal SIO in the M1 Maniac enquiry, had struck Heck from the outset as an uninspiring leader; too old and tired, too disorganised, and alarmingly prone to avoiding responsibility. For all that, Bob Hunter’s triumphalist attitude in front of the press had been very ill-advised, given the errors that would later emerge.

‘Now in actual fact,’ Gemma said, ‘I’m not too concerned that you were involved in that extremely injudicious press conference. I know you were acting under Hunter’s orders, and I’ve already had it verbatim from DCs Quinnell and McCluskey that you were against the idea. But I’m very concerned at the way this investigation ended overall. What should have been a feather in our cap has brought ridicule on us. The press are ripping us a new one.’

Heck snorted. ‘To be fair, ma’am, the press did their own bit to turn the M1 Maniac into a monster. They created the name, they caused the anti-gay panic. In fact, the whole thing’s ended too quickly for them. They wanted more and more – a show-trial, exemplary sentences, maybe a protracted appeals process. And now they can’t have it, and they’re looking for scapegoats …’

‘Have you finished?’ she asked, eyebrows arched. ‘Because anyone would think you believe the investigation was handled well!’

He shook his head. ‘Ma’am, Chief Superintendent Humphreys …’

‘I’m well aware of Max Humphreys’ shortcomings. He’ll be getting exactly the same bollocking up at Thames Valley that you lot are getting now. But Max Humphreys is a carrot cruncher, whereas we’re supposed to be experts. We were advising him, leading the enquiry, and by the looks of it, missing stuff that was right under our noses.’

Heck nodded, unable to disagree. ‘That’s why I spent three days going back through the files. I’d never known any case before where we just weren’t getting anywhere.’