The Hangman’s Hold. Michael Wood

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