The Hangman's Hold

by Michael Wood

  ‘No wallet?’

  ‘There was one in his jacket pocket. I’ve bagged it but … sorry, can’t remember his name: tall bloke, looks miserable.’

  ‘DS Connolly?’ Matilda smiled at the perfect description of one of her sergeants.

  ‘That’s the one. He took it upstairs with him.’

  ‘Thanks, Diana. Any chance we can get our mystery man cut down and the hood removed?’

  ‘Sure. By the way, it’s a good old-fashioned hangman’s noose.’

  ‘How can you tell?’

  ‘Thirteen twists in the rope – a proper hangman’s knot, or a “forbidden knot” they used to call it. I’m a bit of a geek when it comes to facts about killings. Too gruesome for Mastermind probably.’

  Matilda walked away while the forensic officers set about carefully cutting the rope to lower the body to the floor. She dug out her mobile phone and rang Adele. It went straight to voicemail.

  In the background, she heard Diana Black ask a colleague if he knew the name of the last man to be hanged in Britain. Matilda would have bet her salary Diana knew.

  ‘Adele, it’s Matilda. Can you give me a call when you get this message, please?’ She hung up and looked at the screen with a frown. It wasn’t like Adele to have her phone switched off.

  ‘Ma’am, you’re going to want to see this,’ Aaron Connolly called. By the sound of the heavy footfalls he was bounding down the stairs. Following him was the incredibly tall and unnecessarily handsome DC Ranjeet Deshwal.

  ‘Morning, Aaron, how’s Katrina?’ Matilda asked.

  Aaron’s wife was eight months pregnant. She was suffering with endometriosis and pre-eclampsia and needed careful monitoring. Aaron had been full of excitement upon finding out he and his wife were finally going to become parents after years of trying. When her illnesses had been uncovered the dour expression he usually carried returned. All he needed was a long grey coat and he could be Idris Elba’s stand-in on an episode of Luther.

  ‘She’s at her mother’s, in Rhyl, for a couple of weeks, resting. I’ll be glad when she’s had this sodding baby. I’m going grey.’

  Matilda smiled. ‘How long does she have left?’

  ‘She’s not due until April. I’ve told her, there’s no way we’re having a second.’ He swallowed and tried to laugh it off, but the stress and strain of an expectant father was etched on his face.

  ‘What am I going to want to see?’ Matilda was keen to enquire how Aaron was feeling and show she cared but felt uncomfortable whenever the topic strayed from anything work related. She’d also chosen the wrong time, as usual. Aaron was a very private man; he wasn’t going to want to talk about his personal issues surrounded by his colleagues. She wished she could be more like Sian Mills, the surrogate mother of the group who took everyone under her wing, including Matilda.

  ‘I’ve found a diary. Look at his appointments for yesterday.’

  Matilda took the diary from him. Her eyes widened as she read down the page:

  12:00 – hairdressers

  13:30 – collect jacket from dry cleaners

  19:00 – Adele Kean @ City Hall

  Matilda turned back to the body, which was carefully being lowered into a body bag. ‘Jesus Christ! Who the hell is he?’

  Chapter Three

  Matilda dialled Adele’s number as she sat in traffic on Chesterfield Road, but again it went straight to voicemail. Matilda immediately thought the worst. Once the traffic began to clear, she slammed her foot down on the accelerator and headed for the city centre. She had to pass Adele’s office on the way to her house in Hillsborough, so turned off to see if she’d arrived late for some reason.

  Matilda was let into the building and ran along the corridor to the post-mortem suite. She pulled open the door and was hit by how bright it was compared to the dull morning outside. There was a woman in the corner of the room she had never seen before.

  ‘Hello,’ Matilda called out. ‘I’m looking for Dr Kean. Is she in yet?’

  ‘No. Can I give her a message?’

  Matilda frowned. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Lucy Dauman. I’m Dr Kean’s assistant,’ she said, flicking her blonde hair back.

  ‘What happened to Victoria?’

  ‘She left last week. She’s moved to Stockport.’

  ‘Oh I see.’ Another new face. ‘If she comes in make sure she rings me straight away, even before she takes her coat off.’

  ‘OK,’ Lucy said, looking perplexed. ‘And you are?’

  ‘I’m DCI Matilda Darke,’ Matilda replied testily.

  ‘And she has your number, does she?’

  ‘Just get her to call me,’ Matilda replied with anger, already halfway out of the door.

  Now Matilda was panicking. It was unusual for Adele not to be in work. It was almost unheard of for her to be out of work and not answering her phone. Matilda’s mind raced ahead and came up with all kinds of scenarios. Did she go to sleep last night and not wake up this morning? They had been training hard for the half-marathon next month. She tried not to think about the worst-case scenario, but it wasn’t possible. An image entered her mind of Adele hanging lifelessly from a light fitting, a noose tied around her neck.

  As she drove out of the centre of town, Matilda remembered the texts they had sent to each other following Adele’s date. They’d had a lovely evening. They’d kissed. They’d gone their separate ways. That was the last she heard from her. She was in the taxi on her way home. What if she hadn’t got there? Taxi drivers were at the centre of the Rotherham abuse scandal. What if Adele had been attacked in the back of the taxi and was lying dead in a ditch somewhere?

  Matilda knew it was selfish, but all she could think about was what would happen to her if Adele was dead? She was all she had. Since Matilda’s husband, James, had died she had relied on Adele to keep her sane. She was always there whenever she needed her. Without her, she was completely alone.

  ‘You selfish bitch,’ she chastised herself as she ran through a red light.

  Matilda turned into Adele’s road at speed, almost mounting the kerb. She pulled into the first available parking space without indicating, ignoring the four-letter tirade from the driver of a BMW behind her. She ripped off her seatbelt, slammed the car door behind her and ran to Adele’s house. She looked up and saw closed curtains in all the windows. The house seemed to be in silence.

  ‘Shit,’ Matilda said to herself.

  Matilda had had a copy of Adele’s key for as long as she could remember, but, until now, she had never had cause to use it.

  Shutting the front door behind her, she stood in the hallway and listened tentatively for some sign of life. There was nothing. All she could hear was a distant clock ticking, the hum from the fridge in the kitchen and the sound of the central heating rattling through the house. And her own heart pounding in her chest. As she stepped along the hallway she dreaded what she was going to find.

  ‘Adele, Adele,’ Matilda called out. ‘Are you in?’

  ‘Of course I’m in,’ Adele replied, stepping out of the kitchen into the hallway.

  ‘Oh my God, what the hell’s happened to you?’ Matilda asked noticing the black eye on her friend’s face.

  ‘I’ve been burgled.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I got home last night and there was a man in the living room. I must have disturbed him. He ran past, gave me a backhander, and left.’

  ‘Why didn’t you call?’ Matilda asked. Her voice was full of concern. She leaned in to get a better look at Adele’s face. Her left eye was purple.

  ‘I dialled 999 and was told to report it to my local police station. I called 101 and they gave me an incident number to give to my insurance company.’

  Adele made her way into the kitchen, and Matilda followed. She looked around but there was no mess in here, apart from a glass panel missing from the back door. There was a small piece of plywood nailed over the hole.

  ‘Has anything been taken?’

  �
��Fortunately, no. It looks like he came through here and went straight into the living room. He opened some drawers but left empty-handed.’

  A tear fell down Adele’s face, and Matilda pulled her into a tight hug. ‘You should have called.’

  ‘I was going to, but Chris came home not long after me and we started to tidy up. When we realized the police weren’t coming out, we made the back door secure. By then it was after two o’clock.’

  ‘Where’s Chris now?’ Matilda released Adele and walked her to the breakfast table. She sat her down and went to make them both a coffee.

  ‘He’s gone to get some locks.’ She sniffed hard and wiped her eyes. ‘I’ve never been burgled before.’

  ‘Neither have I.’ Matilda filled two mugs from the boiling water tap and took the coffee over to the table. ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘Sick. Why do people think they can just come into someone else’s house and help themselves?’ Adele’s voice broke as the emotion got the better of her.

  ‘I don’t know, Adele.’

  ‘And why don’t you investigate anymore? I’ve been given an incident number. Nobody’s coming out to check for prints or anything.’

  Matilda turned to her friend with a blank expression. She had no idea what to say.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Adele said. ‘It’s like you asking me why people die.’

  ‘Do you want to come and stay with me for a few days?’

  ‘No. Thanks, but I have to carry on as normal. If I went to stay at your house I wouldn’t come back. It’s a good job my date was last night and not tonight with this shiner.’

  Matilda’s face dropped as she suddenly remembered the hanging man at a house in Linden Avenue. She looked to the floor, not sure how to proceed.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Adele asked.

  Matilda and Adele had known each other for twenty years, give or take. They were more than colleagues, they were best friends. Together, they were strong enough to cope with anything. What Matilda was about to say would test that strength.

  ‘Adele, the bloke you went out with last night—’

  ‘Brian,’ Adele interrupted.

  Matilda took a deep breath. ‘He wasn’t called Brian Appleby, was he?’

  ‘Yes. How did you …? Oh God. What’s happened?’

  ‘Adele, I was called out to a house this morning in Linden Avenue. A man was found hanging in his living room.’

  ‘Hanging? You mean he committed suicide? Jesus! What does that say about me? He went home after our first date and hanged himself?’ Tears rolled down Adele’s face.

  ‘No. Adele, he didn’t kill himself.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We think he was murdered.’

  Adele stood up and went to the counter, tore off a few sheets of kitchen roll and dried her eyes. She loudly blew her nose and rubbed it red with the rough paper. ‘Murdered?’ she asked. ‘I don’t …? This doesn’t make any sense.’

  ‘Obviously I’ll have to wait for the results from Forensics and I’ll need to draft in a new pathologist, but I’m pretty certain he was murdered.’

  ‘Oh no. Oh God, no.’ Adele moved over to the sofa in the corner of the kitchen and slumped into it. ‘He was a lovely man. Why would anyone do such a thing? What was it, a robbery or something?’

  ‘I’ve no idea yet, Adele.’ Matilda frowned. Her mind started working in overdrive. Adele and Brian go out on a date; by the next morning one has been burgled and one has been murdered. Coincidence? ‘What can you tell me about him?’ Matilda asked, moving over to sit next to her friend.

  ‘I’m not sure really.’ Adele composed herself and ran her fingers through her knotted hair. ‘He’s not been back in England long. He’s been living in America. He’s from somewhere down south originally. Essex, I think he said.’

  ‘Any family?’

  ‘He didn’t say. There’s an ex-wife but no kids. I can’t believe it. I really liked him.’

  Matilda’s phone started ringing, and she looked at the display. It was Aaron. ‘I’m going to need to take this.’

  Matilda waited until she was out in the hallway before she answered, and then she kept her voice low.

  ‘Ma’am, I just want to let you know that I’ve found some photo ID and shown it to the neighbour. Forensics have removed the hood covering his face and it matches his passport.’

  ‘So it is the man who lives there then?’ Matilda asked, not wanting to say Brian’s name in case Adele overheard.

  ‘Brian Appleby, yes. The thing is, I’ve run his name through the PNC – the bloke’s a nonce.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘He’s on the sex offender’s register. He got out of Ashfield Prison, in Gloucestershire, last year after spending eight years in prison for a series of sexual assaults on young girls.’

  ‘Bloody hell!’

  Matilda ended the call and turned back to the kitchen. Through the gap in the door she saw Adele sitting on the leather sofa tearing the kitchen roll with shaking fingers. She looked up at Matilda with a tear-stained face and a swollen eye. She had seen her upset and sad in the past but now she seemed vulnerable. How could Matilda go in there and tell her the first date she had been on in more than twenty years was with a convicted sex offender?

  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 M
asterson 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.’