Strangers. Paul Finch

       Chapter 1

       Now …

      He said that his name was Ronnie Ford and that he was from Warrington. By the looks of his heavy build, weathered face and chalk-grey hair, he was somewhere in his late forties. Apparently, he ran his own business – an auto-repair shop, which explained his ragged sweater and oil-stained canvas trousers – but he added that he was now on his way home for tea. Weirdly, the longer the woman rode alongside him, the more she came to suspect that he’d picked her up for honest, even gentlemanly reasons.

      For the first fifteen minutes of their shared journey, he’d kept his eyes firmly on the road, chatting amiably, covering every subject under the sun, from the unseasonably mild autumn weather, to the poor state of the Malaga hotel where he and his wife had spent two weeks last August, to the latest and, in his opinion, even-more-hopeless-than-usual contestants on the new series of X Factor. It was all very affable and light-hearted.

      So … a bit of a father figure, Ronnie Ford.

      Or at least, an avuncular uncle type.

      But ultimately he was a man too. And seemingly as red-blooded as so many others.

      When he parked the car in the quiet lay-by and she climbed out, he climbed out as well. When she ran giggling to the stile, he followed her, expressing open if feigned admiration as she climbed it with lithe efficiency, despite her tight, knee-length skirt and four-inch heels. It helped, of course, that she did it sexily, wiggling up the rickety ladder and stepping prettily over its topmost rung before descending into the field on the other side.

      At this point, he shouted. ‘Hold up, love! Whoa … wait a minute!’

      He’d lost sight of her, thanks mainly to the autumn twilight. It was early October and not yet seven in the evening, so it wasn’t what you’d actually call dusk. It wasn’t even what you’d call cold. They’d had an Indian summer, which even now was only dissipating slowly, but light was leaching from the cloudy sky and dim traces of mist rising in the undergrowth.

      In the field, hacked stubble was all that remained of a recently harvested crop. It was roughly the size of a football pitch, but as the woman already knew, there was a clear pathway running straight as a ribbon to a belt of reddish-leafed trees on its far side. She hared off along this, still giggling. She had no idea why men found that ‘cheeky giggle’ thing fetching; she supposed it harked back to those daft naughty schoolgirl fantasies that generation after generation of saucy movies and top-shelf lads’ mags had impressed on British male society.

      From behind, she heard the clump of Ronnie Ford’s feet on the wooden rungs, and his loud grunts for breath. A non-too-fit avuncular uncle then, but evidently a man who now felt he was on a mission.

      They usually were in the end. It was always so pathetically easy.

      She’d only needed to remove her black knitted beret and shake out her blonde locks, ease down the zip on her anorak just sufficiently to reveal the skimpy blouse underneath, and then cross and uncross her legs a few times while he’d attempted to drive.

      The surreptitious sidelong glances had started soon after. And then, about quarter of an hour into the journey, when the suggestive conversation had commenced, she’d known he was hers.

       ‘It’s okay to check me out,’ she said in what was almost an apologetic tone. ‘I know I’m a bit of alright. Men are always saying crude stuff like that to me. I’ve got used to it now. So if it makes it easier for you, I don’t mind you looking.’

       ‘The problem is,’ he replied, heat visibly flaming the back of his neck, ‘I’ve got to concentrate on the road. Where did you say you were heading for again?’

       ‘Liverpool.’

       ‘I can drop you off at Warrington bus station. You’ll have no problem getting a connection to Liverpool from there. It’s not too far.’

       ‘That’s very kind of you.’

       ‘Not at all.’

       Despite having permission, Ronnie still only glanced furtively at her. Possibly he was even more of a gentleman than she’d first thought. Or maybe it was just his age and upbringing. She’d all but invited him to ogle her, but his initial reaction seemed to be to try and resist, to try to avoid getting drawn into those huge doe-eyes, which had gazed on him so beseechingly when he’d first pulled up alongside her, as if to say: ‘Are you here to help? Is it possible you are genuinely here to help? Or are you only after one thing too?’

       That always added to the allure, the ‘little girl lost’ approach.

       She resumed that teasing conversation, again crossing and uncrossing her legs so that the hem of her skirt started to rise.

       ‘Warrington’s still quite a ride from here,’ she said. ‘And I’ve nothing to pay you with.’

       ‘Doesn’t matter,’ he replied. ‘I’m going that direction anyway.’

       ‘Yes, but you should get something for your trouble. I’m Loretta, by the way.’

       ‘Erm … nice to meet you, Loretta.’

       Somewhat belatedly, he fiddled with the radio, trying to find a different station, something smoother than the hard-edged rock jarring out at them. After twenty seconds jamming and prodding, he located a slow, bluesy saxophone and turned it down a notch so that it could clearly be heard but at the same time they could talk.

       ‘What about it?’ she asked again, watching him. ‘How do I make it worth your while?’

       ‘Don’t be daft, Loretta …’

       But she wasn’t being daft. And he knew it.

       The revealing attire, the improper pose, the Marilyn Monroe combo of sweet, innocent kid and pulse-pounding vamp.

       ‘Look … I don’t mean to imply anything, but …’ He cleared his throat awkwardly. ‘I don’t have much cash on me.’

       ‘You’re paying your way by giving me a ride,’ she tittered. ‘I’m just wondering if I can return the favour.’

       ‘Don’t taunt me like that, love,’ he said, driving less than steadily. ‘You’ll make a sad old man even sadder.’

       ‘No, I’m serious,’ she responded. ‘I want to make it up to you any way I can. You’ll find I’m very broadminded.’

       ‘Yeah?’ Though it wasn’t really a question.

       ‘Look … just ahead there’s a turn,’ she said. ‘That’s a backroad. It leads to Abram eventually, but about half a mile along it there’s a lay-by for lorries and such. There’s a chippie van there during the day, but it’ll be closed at this hour. We could park up.’

       He glanced at her wonderingly. Whatever he’d been about to say died on his tongue, his eyes diverting down to where the zip on her silver anorak had completely descended, exposing a deep, creamy cleavage, and then even further down, to