The Hangman’s Hold: A gripping serial killer thriller that will keep you hooked

Chapter Four

‘Why weren’t we told there was a sex offender living on our patch?’

DCI Matilda Darke was in her tiny, cluttered office with the door closed. DS Aaron Connolly was in front of her desk with a thick file in his hand.

‘I’ve no idea. According to this, when he was released from prison, he went back to his home in Essex, but was more or less forced out by the neighbours. He decided on a fresh start in Sheffield and informed Essex Police of his intentions. They were fine with him moving, probably just glad to get rid of him. He was in touch with his probation officer on a regular basis and did everything right.’

‘Until he came here and didn’t even bother informing us.’

‘That’s what it looks like.’

‘How long has he been out of prison?’

‘He was released in January last year.’

‘So how did he afford such a nice house in Linden Avenue?’

‘I’ve no idea, ma’am.’

Matilda looked past Aaron out into the incident room. The lack of officers was startling. It seemed unnervingly quiet too, though that probably had something to do with the absence of DC Rory Fleming who could frequently be heard above everyone else, even when the room was at full capacity.

‘Aaron, go back to his house and give it a thorough going over. I want to know everything about this Brian Appleby. What’s he been doing since last January? Why did he choose Sheffield? Talk to the neighbours – don’t mention he was a sex offender though – and find out what they know about him. What he did for a living, the usual stuff.’

‘Will do.’

‘Is that his police file?’ Matilda asked as Aaron was about to leave.

‘Yes.’

‘Leave it with me.’

He handed it to her. ‘I was thinking, Brian was a sex offender and his murder looks like an execution. Vigilante?’

‘I was thinking that myself,’ Matilda said, running her fingers through her hair. ‘But who knew he was here when even we didn’t?’

‘Maybe someone followed him up from Essex.’

‘It’s possible. I don’t like vigilantes,’ she said, turning to the window. She rolled her eyes at the uninspiring view. ‘They’re unpredictable, they’re violent, and there’s usually more than one victim.’

It was strange looking through the one-way mirror and seeing someone she knew sitting nervously in an interview room. Standing in the observation bay, Matilda watched Adele. Less than twenty-four hours ago she was in a restaurant with a charming man having a delicious meal and a pleasant conversation. Now, that man was dead, murdered, and Adele had been the last person to see him alive.

The door opened and the diminutive Assistant Chief Constable Valerie Masterson entered and joined Matilda. Still dressed in her overcoat and wearing a woollen hat a couple of sizes too big, she had obviously come straight from the car park.

‘I’ve just heard. How is she?’ Valerie asked, nodding towards Adele through the glass.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Who gave her that black eye?’

‘She surprised a burglar last night.’

‘Are the two connected?’

‘I don’t know. I doubt it. I’ll look into it, though.’

‘I hope you’re not intending on interviewing Dr Kean yourself.’ Valerie’s concern for Adele didn’t last and quickly turned to admonishment.

‘Of course not.’ I would have done if you hadn’t turned up.

‘Do I need to bring in someone else to run this investigation?’ Valerie asked staring intently at her DCI.

‘No. I’m more than capable of detaching myself.’

Valerie rolled her eyes, though Matilda didn’t see. She was fixed on Adele. ‘Matilda, I know the two of you are close. I don’t want your friendship getting in the way of a murder investigation.’

‘It won’t.’ Matilda turned to look at her boss. ‘I guarantee it.’

Matilda brushed past the ACC and into the corridor, where Chris Kean, Adele’s son, was waiting. He’d changed dramatically since finishing university. Gone were the unruly hair and sombre scowl of the modern-day student, the dour expression of a generation with the worry of the entire universe on their shoulders. He had been transformed into a member of the working society. He was smart, neat, tidy, handsome, and had put on a little muscle thanks to the training he’d been doing with his mother and Matilda for the half-marathon.

As soon as he saw Matilda he jumped up from his seat. ‘How’s my mum?’ he asked, the look of worry had returned.

‘She’s fine, Chris. There’s nothing to be concerned about. We just need to talk to her about her date, that’s all.’

‘Are you going to interview her?’

Matilda looked back at the observation room, wondering if Valerie was listening. She lowered her voice. ‘No, Chris. I’m not allowed.’

‘Why not? She’d feel more comfortable with you in there.’

‘I know, but it’s a conflict of interest. We’re friends. It would be the same if you were in there. I’m sorry. She’s going to be interviewed by Aaron and Scott. She knows them; she’s worked alongside them for years. She’ll be fine. Trust me.’

‘But why are they allowed to interview her if they know her yet you’re not?’

‘Because they’ve never held her hair while she’s vomited a bottle of Prosecco down a toilet.’ Matilda smiled but Chris didn’t seem to see the funny side. ‘Look, Chris, you shouldn’t be here. You’ll have to wait in reception.’

Chris sat back down, slumping heavily into the plastic chair. ‘It’s all my fault.’

‘What makes you say that?’ Matilda asked sitting next to him.

‘I’ve been badgering her for months to go on the dating sites, meet someone,’ he sniffled. ‘She’s lonely, Mat. I can see it in her eyes. She says she’s not, but she is.’

‘I know, Chris. I blame myself too.’

‘Why?’

‘I’ve been so wrapped up in myself. Your mum is my best friend. She’s always been there for me and I should have been a better friend in return.’

‘You’ve been a great friend. You helped her when she first came to Sheffield.’

‘That was twenty years ago,’ Matilda scoffed. ‘It’s time I moved on. I need to start embracing life more, going out, enjoying myself. I think me and your mother deserve a holiday.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes.’ Matilda found herself smiling. ‘We should go somewhere warm with a beach, plenty of bars, maybe sing karaoke and chat up some blokes.’

Chris smiled but looked embarrassed.

‘Chris, you shouldn’t worry about your mum. You’re just starting out in life, you need to find out who you are, travel, meet new people, move away maybe. Your mum is going to be fine. I’ll see to that.’

‘You promise?’

‘Girl Guide’s honour,’ Matilda said, raising her right hand and giving the three-fingered salute.

‘You were a Girl Guide?’ He sniggered.

‘Well, not for long, I swore at the Patrol Leader – on more than one occasion. Come on, I’ll take you through to reception. If the ACC sees you here we’ll both be in trouble.’

DC Scott Andrews had been called in early. With Sian Mills on leave to decorate her house following the aftermath of her home being flooded, Matilda wanted someone alongside DS Aaron Connolly who Adele knew and liked. This would be a formal and recorded interview, but it needed to be as unobtrusive and sensitive as possible.

Matilda met Scott in the hallway in reception. He walked towards her carrying a tray of drinks.

‘I’ve snatched a few chocolate bars from Sian’s drawer too. I thought it might make things seem a bit more relaxed.’

Dressed in a dark grey suit with white shirt and grey tie, Scott looked his usual smart and dapper self. His hair had been recently trimmed. He was the embodiment of style. Today, however, his smooth complexion was one of worry. Adele was a regular figure in the station: everyone knew her, liked her, and respected her. Nobody wanted to see her interrogated.

‘Are you OK to do this?’ Matilda asked, noting his furrowed brow.

‘Of course. Who’s that?’ He lowered his voice and nodded at Chris Kean who was frantically chewing his nails.

‘That’s Adele’s son.’

‘Blimey, she doesn’t look old enough to have a son that age.’

‘Open with that line and you’ll have a friend for life.’ She opened the door for Scott and followed him through towards the interview suites.

‘Aaron!’ Matilda called to DS Connolly, who was talking to DC Easter. He made his excuses and joined Matilda outside interview room one. ‘Just the facts, Aaron. Don’t be too personal. We know Adele, she’s not a suspect,’ Matilda warned.

‘Yes, boss.’

Matilda watched as Scott and Aaron entered the room. She hoped to give Adele a reassuring smile, but she didn’t look up from the table. The door closed, and Matilda was left in the corridor. She went into the observation room. She may not be able to conduct the interview, but there was no way she was going to allow it to be unsupervised.

‘Friday, 10th of March 2017. Interview with Adele Kean. Those present are myself, Detective Constable Scott Andrews—’

‘Detective Sergeant Aaron Connolly.’

Scott nodded at Adele when she didn’t speak.

‘Oh, sorry, Doctor Adele Kean,’ her voice was broken and soft.

‘Dr Kean, you are not under arrest and you haven’t been cautioned. This is a formal interview, as we believe you to be the last person to see Brian Appleby alive. Do you understand?’

Adele nodded.

‘You’re going to have to reply for the benefit of the recording,’ Scott said, leaning forward, his voice gentle and low.

‘I’m sorry. This is all new to me. Yes. I understand.’

‘Adele, can you tell me how you came to meet Brian Appleby?’ Aaron said, sitting back in his chair.

Adele closed her eyes and shook her head. She wasn’t embarrassed about using a website to find a man, everyone did it these days, she just hoped she wasn’t asked why she wanted to find a soulmate in the first place. That, she was embarrassed about.

‘It was a dating website aimed at people of mature years.’

‘Who made contact first?’

‘He did.’

‘How long after the first message did you arrange to meet?’

‘Just over a week, I think.’

‘And who chose the date and time to meet?’

‘I did.’

‘Did he arrive on his own?’

‘Yes.’

‘Was there anyone watching or following you? Did you see anyone acting suspiciously?’

Adele frowned. ‘No. Well, I don’t think so. I didn’t take much notice of anyone else.’

‘Where did you go when you’d met?’

‘Lloyd’s Bar. We had a couple of drinks then on to Zizzi’s for a meal.’

‘Was there anyone in Lloyd’s Bar who you thought might be watching you or Brian?’

‘No. I was just out having a drink, I wasn’t looking for anyone watching us. I mean, you don’t, do you? I’m not a paranoid person.’

‘It’s OK, Adele, try and relax,’ Scott jumped in.

Adele took a deep breath. She had a sip of her tea, but it tasted foul. ‘We had a lovely evening together. We had a meal, a good chat, swapped stories, and then went our separate ways. That was all.’

‘What did he tell you about his past?’

Adele shook her head. What he had said had obviously been a lie. She couldn’t believe she had been duped. ‘He told me he’d been living in America for eight years. He said he was an English teacher.’

‘He didn’t mention having been in prison?’

She flinched at the word. ‘Of course he didn’t,’ she raised her voice. ‘If I knew that I would have walked out of the restaurant.’

‘What else did he tell you about himself?’ Aaron asked.

‘He said he was divorced. His wife had cheated on him with another woman. He’d moved to America to put some distance between them. I felt sorry for him. Can you believe that? I actually felt sorry for him.’

‘Adele, you didn’t know,’ Scott said, taking on the role of a friend. ‘There’s no way you could have known.’

‘Are you going to tell me what he’d done?’ she asked. Matilda had only told her the basics in the car on the way to the station: that he had been killed and was known to the police. When pressed further, Matilda claimed she didn’t know all the facts herself.

‘Do you really want to know?’

‘No.’ She half-smiled.

‘How did Brian seem last night?’ Aaron asked, remaining focused and formal.

Adele thought for a while. ‘Nervous to begin with, but then so was I. We both soon relaxed. He was chatty, he smiled, he laughed. He came across like any other normal member of the public.’

‘How did the date end?’

Adele baulked at the word date. It was like she was reviled for having a date with a criminal. ‘He walked me to the taxi rank opposite John Lewis. We kissed and said we’d arrange to go out again. I went home.’

‘Did Brian say how he was getting home?’

‘He was driving.’

‘Did he drink alcohol during your date?’ Scott asked.

‘No. He had juice.’

‘Did you see which direction he headed in after he’d left you at the taxi rank?’

‘No. As my taxi pulled away I turned to look through the rear window and he was still stood on the pavement. He waved. I waved back. That was it.’

‘Adele,’ Scott adjusted himself in his seat, ‘when you arrived home, did Brian contact you anymore that night?’

‘No.’

‘Did anything out of the ordinary happen?’

‘You mean apart from being burgled?’

The detectives remained silent, giving Adele a chance to relax and calm down a little before continuing.

‘Did you recognize the person burgling your home?’

‘No. It all happened so quickly. He was dressed in dark clothing.’

‘You’re sure it was a man?’

‘He was tall, a great big barrel. Yes, he was a man.’

‘Did he say anything?’

‘No. He looked at me and ran towards me. I just froze. The next thing I know there’s this gloved fist in my face and I’m on the floor.’

‘Did you lose consciousness?’

‘No. I was just a bit dazed.’ Adele wiped her nose with a soaked tissue. She took a deep breath. ‘I don’t want to know what Brian had done, but do you think I was set up? Get me out of the house then burgle me?’

Scott and Aaron exchanged glances. ‘I don’t think so, Adele,’ Scott said.

‘It’s bad, isn’t it? What he did. He didn’t spend eight years in prison for being a serial burglar, did he?’

‘No.’

‘I … No. Don’t tell me,’ she said before bursting into tears. She eventually stopped enough to speak. She looked up. ‘He was a rapist, wasn’t he?’

Scott turned away. He had no idea what to say.

Aaron leaned forward and placed his hand over Adele’s. ‘I’m only telling you this now because you’re in such a state. There’s no point in you getting better, then finding out afterwards and feeling all shit again. Brian Appleby was on the sex offender’s register.’

The tears stopped flowing. ‘The bastard,’ Adele hissed.

In the observation room, Matilda was slumped into a very uncomfortable chair. She had one hand clamped to her mouth. Her eyes were full of tears. She couldn’t imagine the torment Adele was going through right now.

Chapter Five

‘In 2008, Brian Appleby was sentenced to sixteen years for sexual offences on three girls under the age of sixteen. He was released from Ashfield Prison, in Gloucestershire, in January last year after serving half of his sentence.’

The briefing room was packed with detectives and uniformed officers. Matilda Darke was perched on the edge of a desk near the front. Her face was a picture of worry. She had just observed her best friend describe her date with a sex offender. It had been a horrible experience. Adele was usually a confident, positive person, but this could damage that.

As soon as the interview had concluded, Adele had been allowed to leave the station. Matilda had said she would go round straight after work and see how she was. She hoped she would be welcomed when she knocked on the door.

‘Police first became aware of Brian Appleby when Daisy Bishop, the fourteen-year-old daughter of his next-door neighbour, accused him of putting his hand up her skirt in the summer of 2008,’ Aaron continued, reading from the file to the whole room. ‘Once that came to light, two other girls made allegations: Allegra Chalmers said he had sex with her on two occasions in 2007, and Bryony Watts accused him of raping her, also in 2007.’

‘How old were Allegra and Bryony?’ DI Christian Brady said. Having just had a tooth extracted that morning, the left side of his face was slightly swollen, his speech affected.

‘Allegra was fifteen and Bryony thirteen.’

‘Bastard,’ Christian muttered, immediately thinking of his own young children.

‘Good riddance to bad rubbish,’ Ranjeet said. Nodding from other officers around the room showed they shared his sentiment.

‘So he’s released from prison in January and goes home to Essex. Why doesn’t he stay there?’ Scott asked.

‘Hate mail, windows broken, spat at in the streets. He was basically run out of town,’ Aaron said.

‘Why did he choose Sheffield?’

‘No idea. His wife divorced him a year after he was sentenced. His parents and two brothers disowned him. He has no connections at all with Sheffield.’

‘When did he move up here?’ Scott asked.

Aaron flicked through the file. ‘He approached Essex Police in the summer. He last visited them in August, telling them he’d found a place to live in Sheffield.’

‘Aaron, what did you find in his house?’ Matilda asked for the first time.

‘Nothing that stands out. He was a very meticulous man though. He kept and filed all his receipts and bank statements. Everything was neat and tidy. There’s an address book but I haven’t had time to go through it all yet. I had an email from Forensics who have searched his laptop and there’s nothing on it. He used it mostly for shopping. There’s no pornography on there, no questionable websites visited, a few photos of family, that’s it.’

‘Could it have been wiped?’

‘Maybe, but Forensics would have been able to tell. There is, however, one very creepy piece of evidence we’ve found.’

‘Go on,’ Matilda instructed.

‘His mobile phone. It was in his inside jacket pocket. While looking through it, Forensics found eighteen photographs of Adele Kean standing outside the City Hall. The timestamp on them matches the time Dr Kean says they met. It looks like he was taking her picture without her realizing before they met.’

‘Pervert,’ Ranjeet uttered.

Matilda bit her bottom lip. She wondered how close Adele came to being harmed by this man. ‘Keep that between us,’ she told the room. ‘Adele doesn’t need to know about that.’

‘Agreed,’ Christian struggled to say.

Matilda frowned. ‘If he was so meticulous and well-organized, why didn’t he report himself to South Yorkshire Police when he arrived here?’

There was no reply because nobody could give one.

‘I’d like to know how he could afford such a lovely house when he didn’t work,’ Faith said, opening a fun-size packet of Maltesers from Sian’s drawer.

‘The house was rented,’ Aaron said. ‘Private landlord. Brian had the money because he’d sold his home in Essex for over half a million pounds. That was reduced, too, for a quick sale.’

‘Didn’t his wife get the house in the divorce?’

‘According to her witness statement in the file,’ Aaron said, flicking through the paperwork, ‘she wanted nothing to do with him at all.’

‘I can understand that,’ Faith said. ‘Who would stay married to a pervert?’

‘So, who would want him dead?’ Scott asked.

‘The family of the victims would be high up on the list, I’m guessing,’ Faith said.

‘But how did they know where to find him? He’s hardly likely to leave a forwarding address with the new owners in Essex, is he? Also, if we didn’t know he was here, how could anyone else?’ Matilda asked.

‘We need to speak to Essex Police,’ Christian mumbled. There was a slight ripple of laughter at his struggled attempt to pronounce Essex. ‘Faith, how did you get on with the neighbours?’

‘The standard reply – he kept himself to himself, seemed like a nice man, always said hello when he saw you in the street, quiet, no loud music or parties. The perfect neighbour.’

‘People are often quiet and keep themselves to themselves for a reason,’ Scott said.

‘That’s pretty cynical, Scott. People can be quiet because they want to live their life how they want to. Not everyone has to be the life and soul of the neighbourhood,’ Faith said.

‘I know that. I just meant, people have secrets. We all do. If we don’t want those secrets getting out, then we stay in the background.’

‘So what’s your secret then, Scott?’ Faith asked, a mischievous smile on her face.

‘I think we’re wandering from the point here,’ Matilda said before Scott could reply. ‘What we need to do next is find out who knew Brian was a sex offender and who knew where he was living. He wasn’t working, so we have no colleagues to ask. His neighbours have all been interviewed, so who else is there?’

Again, the room went quiet.

‘Maybe the answer lies in his life before he came to Sheffield. Question his family, former neighbours, find out where they were last night.’

‘I hope sending officers to Essex isn’t coming out of my budget,’ Christian said.

‘It’s not coming out of anyone’s budget. We’ll get Essex Police to go round and interview them for us. In the meantime, this stays in this room. I don’t want anyone talking to the press about a sex offender being murdered. Speaking of which,’ Matilda said, pointing to a photograph on the wall, ‘you will notice we have a new addition to our wall of shame. That is Danny Hanson. He’s a journalist on The Star and fancies himself as some kind of maverick reporter. Memorize that face. If you see him, ignore him. Now, ladies, he’s young, he’s good-looking, don’t let him bewitch you with those puppy eyes. Understand?’