Season 4, Episode 9: The Clue of the Savant's Thumb
Go on, take it!
It's the first test.
It'll be hilarious. Can't wait to see her face.
This is taking ages. Hurry up. Write faster!
She's coming!
Who is responsible for this sacrilege?!
I tell you now, whoever did this,
no secret is hidden from the Holy Father.
You know who you are. And the wrath of the Lord will be upon you
and His punishment will be harsh and righteous,
and commensurate with the mortal sin of blasphemy!
GIRLS CHAT AND LAUGH
You've some weird and deviant ways, Rosalind Booth.
Natalie, have you anything you wish to say to me about this afternoon?
No, Sister Cunegonde.
WIND BLOWS
CREAKING
SCREAMING
GIRLS CRY
Sister!
SHE SCREAMS
We'll see if 24 hours of isolation can tame this
rebellious spirit of yours, Rosalind.
In this room you will read, reflect on your sins,
and learn penitence through the power of prayer.
And you will truly see God, and learn to love Him through the
blessed Saint Barnabas, and repent the error of your heathen ways.
So are you going to tell us what happened?
Did you actually see God? Come on, tell us.
Course I didn't "see God. "
What do you think? Absolutely nothing happened in there.
Nothing at all.
"Danse Macabre" by Camille Saint-Saens
'Yes, and although today one simply thinks of oneself as this
'jobbing writer-director-presenter-
'political-theorist-cum-social anthropologist, having trained
'initially, of course, in the areas of medicine and bio-chemistry,
'I still find these areas utterly fascinate me.
'There's a lady in Sweden, for example, who for 11 years
'now has been sending me videos of her husband's colonoscopies.
'And while it's true that to a specialist in rectal polyps
'his abdomen is positively stacked with treasures, what's curious
'is her passion for meticulously documenting their progress.
'Like some form of anal archivist recording his posterior
'for posterity, as it were. '
Well, there we must leave it.
As ever, Franklin Tartikoff,
it's been illuminating,
entertaining, and an absolute...
MEDIA FILE BEEPS
PHONE RINGS
Ah, Nigel!
Yes, some of these dates they've sent for the book tour,
I don't think are going to work, unfortunately.
July 15th, I'll be up to my eyes in The Winslow Boy.
That's Terence Rattigan, for any tabloid reporters listening in.
And the third and fourth of August,
I'll still be colour grading Robin Cook.
And then, I'm afraid, the last week of November's not good for me,
as I'll be dead. Any chance they could bring that one forward at all?
DOORBELL RINGS
Well, no. That prognosis, I'm told, is amazingly accurate,
based on this new software that can sample the echocardiogram
and then calculate the exact rate of ventricular atrophy.
As a tool for assessing life expectancy in terminal heart
disease, it's one of the most exciting new clinical
developments I can remember.
Peter!
Franklin.
Morning. Come on up, the coffee's on. How are you?
Are you well?
Fine thanks, yes. And how's Ros?
Glad to get that funeral out of the way this morning?
Oh, yes. An old school friend, apparently.
She's been obsessing about it for days. I don't know why.
Grace Elizabeth Elstow left this world too early,
but it was, at least, a world she had come to terms with.
She understood the temporary nature of existence,
that man is no more meaningful than a mountain of molecules,
beautifully, but pointlessly composited for one brief life span,
before reverting, without consequence,
to an infinity of dust.
Not quite the Pope's Easter message,
but... I suppose it's what she would have wanted.
Dear Beth. You were their one success story.
Funny how we all spin off in different directions.
That's Grace and Kate, then, now. Both gone.
Just the two of us left.
You... got my text?
And?
You went back. What did you see?
Too much.
I hoped...
Maybe I hoped it had all gone away.
All I know is, the sooner they pull that wretched place down, the better.
But they'll still be with us, Ros.
The ghosts will never leave us
as long as we go on running from the past.
We were just children. We didn't deserve that! I'm sorry, Beth.
I can't see the point.
It's 50 years now. For God's sake,
can't we please just let it go and move on!
Ah yes, I see what you're saying about the arrhythmia.
It's like a form of systolic syncopation, almost.
Art Tatum in the atrium.
PHONE RINGS
Ah! That'll be Fariba.
Said she'd call the minute she landed. Do you mind?
No, no, we're almost done.
Sweetheart! How was life in the jungle?
Yes, going to be clearing a space soon for that BAFTA documentary award!
I tell you, 108 days with the most primitive people on Earth -
109 if you count the baggage staff at Jakarta -
just so opens your eyes
to life,
survival, existence.
Well, listen, I can't wait to see the footage.
No, I can imagine.
Yeah, I only went to Bhubaneswar.
Pottering around the Buddhist shrine...
Peter. You're just off?
Yes. I've made one slight adjustment to your husband's medication.
If I could leave it with you?
Yes. Of course.
And I'll be in touch again next week.
Yes. Right. Bye then, Peter.
The student bar would be empty by 10 o'clock...
CAR ENGINE STARTS
Interesting.
Yes, but not something you'd have much use for. It's a god.
Tarua-Ran. Oh, yes?
Which means, roughly translated, "What cannot be explained. "
It's like they're living on a whole different spiritual plane to us.
Gosh. We think we know all the answers.
We don't even know the questions.
And how's Brad? You been keeping him warm for me?
Yes. Yes, we see him from time to time, don't we? Mm-hmm.
Is he all right?
What do you think? 16 weeks on his own?
The poor man'll be pining for you desperately.
Oh!
Whoa!
THEY LAUGH
I think that's what DH Lawrence would call
"the hastening gravitation of spirit towards spirit
"and body towards body. "
Give me that again?
Whoa!
HE LAUGHS
No, I meant the bit about DH Lawrence.
You know, we need to look lively,
before the owners of this place catch us.
When are they due back?
The end of February.
So they fly south for the winter
and leave you to mind the shop. Got to be a cushy number.
And the rest.
There's all the maintenance work, sorting out the animal feed.
And picking up strange women at petrol stations.
I should have known you worked on a farm
when you had to sit on that little stool to put your hands up my shirt.
Nice part of the world, though.
What's that place? Like a stately home or something?
Oh, Waxwood Hall. Yeah, used to be an old convent school.
There was some weird story back in the '60s.
These girls who all woke up with, like,
strange red rings on their head.
Think one of them was actually found dead the next morning.
You know what it's like, local superstitions.
There's been talk around this place ever since.
"Dark forces" at work in that building
you really don't want to meddle with...
PHONE RINGS
Oh, course, she's back this week, I forgot.
Girl I was sort of seeing, till she, erm...
Hey! How the hell are you?
Oh, just the usual. Slopping about the farm.
Sorting out the livestock.
But listen, we should get together for a catch up.
Yeah, when's good for you?
I don't know, Brad. when's good for you?
Not just this minute, I'm guessing.
MUSIC STOPS
JONATHAN MUMBLES
APPLAUSE
Oh, I know! And he was so looking forward to catching up with you today.
But them's the breaks, I'm afraid, when you're running a global advertising agency.
Cos you and my dad go back 30 years,
directing those SDP party politicals.
Oh, yes, Roy Jenkins. "With not a little rancour. "
I think we went to 16 takes.
Oh, I never got a chance to introduce you all properly,
did I, to my husband, Jonathan?
Don't think you know Jack - producer extraordinaire.
You still based in Euston, have I remembered that right?
And Davina and Rosalind.
And Franklin Tartikoff, you obviously know.
Though to me you'll always be the Right Reverend Leslie Clitoris.
I mean, priceless. Some of the stuff you got away with,
those early satire shows on radio.
You remember the mad Catholic bishop
who tied women's legs together in a reef knot?
Gosh, yes. Leslie Clitoris. The BBC had no idea what we were saying.
They thought he was the chap who wrote The Saint.
THEY LAUGH
So, anyway. This is all news to us, Polly?
What was it, a whirlwind courtship?
More like an emergency airlift!
Poor man was living in a windmill, weren't you, when I first met him.
Thinking up conjuring tricks for a living.
So you know, bit of a reboot required there, but...
Good for us all periodically, I think. To metamorphose, move on.
I was born a man.
Exactly. Oh! Mustn't forget, by the way,
it's Jack and Davina's anniversary today,
so many congratulations to you both!
To the lucky husband and his lovely wife! Many more to come.
So where's he taking you after this, somewhere exciting?
What?
No, it's just all this "he", and "husband and wife. "
I'm very sorry.
No, no, darling, I'm sure he understands.
A few years ago, Jonathan,
I had some identity issues with my gender.
We discussed it, we resolved it.
I was Geoffrey Hyde, I'm now Jacqueline. It's done.
We've moved on. We're very happy.
So great, when people can work these things out.
So, sorry, what are you saying? That you...
Made what we both felt was the mature decision.
And in case you're wondering, I got to keep all my male genitalia.
Oh, right.
I keep it in a jar in my production office.
You know what it's like.
Pairs of shoes you don't wear any more,
you still can't bear to throw away.
And the name, I suppose - Jacqueline - sort of appropriate
with your identity issues?
Jacqueline Hyde?
How do you mean, exactly?
Actually, talking of satire,
did you have any luck with that demo tape? I meant to ask.
Some quite extraordinary performances... Let's go and say hi...
Can I say something embarrassing, Jonathan?
I'm such an admirer of all your cognitive work.
It takes a pretty stubborn mind sometimes
to fly the flag for common sense
when everyone else around you seems to believe in fairies.
That's... I realise, obviously,
that's a closed chapter in your life now,
but just so you know...
you have a fan.
MACHINE BEEPS AND CLICKS
I'll be away then now. And see you later.
Yes. Enjoy your "bridge night. "
CHANTING ON TV
Hi, how are you?
Indeed. In some ways the perfect night for it.
THUNDER CRASHES
We both know he knows.
Is there anything on this God-awful Earth he doesn't know?
It's just that, to say that to me, to even allude...
It's the first time ever he's tried to rattle me with subtext.
This time next year, things'll be different.
Yes, knowing him,
he'll suddenly develop a miracle cure in his coffee break.
I have to go.
WOMAN SOBS
THUNDER CRASHES
WOMAN SOBS
DOOR RATTLES
Fariba? You in there, darling? What's happening?
Fariba, please open the door!
ROSALIND BANGS ON DOOR
ROSALIND GASPS
Oh, no! Fariba!
Oh, God, oh, God! What's happened?!
Talk to me, will you?!
Fariba! Fariba!
Open the door!
BANGS ON DOOR
Talk to me, will you?
Fariba?
Fariba, can you hear me?
Fariba!
Yes, you've got to come over here now!
Oh, God, oh, God.
Fariba, can you hear me?
BANGING ON DOOR
Shh...
I called the police. I called the ambulance.
Well done, well done.
In God's name...
FARIBA GROANS
My darling, are you all right? Can you talk?
Talk to me, what happened here?
This is insane.
You're making this up!
What happened? Why can't you tell us?
Because I... I don't know.
I came up here... I found him like that...
I heard somebody coming upstairs, and I locked the door.
Whoever did that, I didn't know, they might still be in the house,
outside there, with a gun to your head...
I... I couldn't think straight!
But you never moved from that door the whole time.
I mean, for God's sake, he was in here, you both saw him!
This is just surreal, isn't it?
Where the hell did he go?
THUNDER CRASHES
PEOPLE CHATTER
Can you please move...
Sorry, I thought he might have a small window, but
I'm afraid we're looking at back-to-back appointments all morning.
Then he's got lunch with his co-directors at Claridge's at one,
and from three to five he'll be at his club in town, so...
Erm, yes!
Can I stop you there?
I think we've got our wires crossed here, haven't we?
It's just, I googled the name and this company came up, but
obviously got the wrong Jonathan Creek here entirely, haven't I?
So, very sorry to have troubled you. Bye.
Oh! Oh, God! I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Sorry.
What are you like?
It wasn't deliberate, I swear to you, honestly.
INTERCOM BUZZES
'Sorry, Mr Creek, just to warn you.
'There was a rather strange woman hanging about earlier on.
'I got security to escort her off the premises,
'but just in case she manages to worm her way back in...
'She looked like the sort that doesn't give up. '
I'll bear that in mind. Thank you, Angelika.
Said she thought you might have a small window.
Has she ever been in this room?
Look, if all you've come here to do is smirk
at the fact that I've finally managed to
turn my life around, progress my career, do something
a bit more grown-up and responsible and creatively challenging.
Only I've got a very important presentation to Weetabix in five minutes, so if you don't mind...
All right, get out.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry - no! I'm sorry.
Look, three years. People can change, it's none of my business.
So look, I'll keep this short, OK?
Cos this won't be on your radar yet, probably.
It's only just breaking, but...
A dead man in a room, right,
seen and photographed by witnesses,
completely evaporates into thin air.
Walls, floor, ceiling all rock solid,
no way he could have got out through the window, or through the door,
which was being watched the whole time, and yet when they went in...
I mean, it is just mind-blowing.
There'll be an explanation.
It'll all be very weird and wonderful.
Once you've fathomed it, everyone will be deeply underwhelmed,
and you'll wonder why you bothered, so.
Ordinarily, agreed. But this one is so bulletproof,
from what they're saying,
it's like nothing you've ever come across.
There's a lot of mad talk in this village already
about supernatural forces.
And now with this Franklin Tartikoff character
just apparently turning into dust, like some kind of vampire...
Franklin Tartikoff?
Sorry, I didn't realise you were... in a meeting.
You know we're...
Yes. This was just... Absolutely.
Best of luck with that, then.
Sounds like you'll need it.
What's the latest news? What's going on?
Please step back. Please step back. There's nothing to see here.
Move all back. This is private property, ladies and gentlemen,
please move back.
Ow!
FARIBA CRIES
KNOCK ON DOOR
We found this in the kitchen, Mrs Tartikoff.
Could you enlighten us at all?
My husband's bat detector.
He'd been tracking this soprano pipistrelle for the past week,
appeared to have come out of hibernation.
Oh, in fact, that's something I should really have warned you about.
JOEY GASPS
Copy that, Sergeant.
I can report the bat net has just been safely located.
Joey Ross. Joey Ross...
Bear with me just a few seconds.
I could switch to voice recognition,
but calling up a Wikipedia file is not without risks.
Now, according to this, you run a website which catalogues
and explains real life paranormal experiences,
in occasional collaboration with...
Well, well, well!
A name that immediately sprang to mind, of course,
when this little puzzle first presented itself.
He and I had the pleasure of working together once,
on the curious matter of the limping man... Oh!
.. some years before a sniper's bullet put me in this contraption.
So you wouldn't be...
Gideon Pryke?
They tried to retire me, of course,
but I still have the use of one finger,
which was enough to argue my case.
And, please God, the world's moved on since Raymond Burr...
Sergeant Cudlipp!
The heel of a man's shoe, size 11 I'd imagine,
directly below the victim's study.
Get me a cast, as quick as you like, and roll out Operation Dandini.
Yeah, I think that's where DC O'Brien would have been, sir,
when he was checking out the windows.
Except DC O'Brien's tread is quite dissimilar,
and this chap appears to have been standing hard against the wall
with his nose in the bricks.
Unusual behaviour during a thunderstorm, what do you think?
No problem, Guv.
Assigned to me just this week
by someone upstairs who knows bugger all about bugger all.
But you've got some form in this line of inquiry.
What say we go and pool our early observations?
'Franklin Tartikoff, whose dead body was discovered late last night
'by his adopted daughter Fariba Tartikoff,
'only to vanish, minutes later, right under everyone's nose.
'But then, hopes of a solution rose this morning with
'the arrival of the formidable investigator Gideon Pryke,
'who famously suffered near-fatal injuries five years ago
'while rescuing a child's puppy during the Chinese Embassy siege
'and whose unique ability... '
Do you know, I'm not sure now about these blonde highlights.
Think next time I might go more Titian.
What does that involve, formaldehyde?
Hmm? What were you watching just then?
Look, the poor man's dead, there's nothing we can do about it.
Where's that little knob?
I'm sorry? You know!
The one we have to keep turning down when your brain gets overheated.
Look, whatever it is that's happened...
PHONE RINGS
Probably your managing director and father-in-law. Excuse me.
PHONE RINGS
Jonathan Creek.
Oh, hi. Hi.
Yeah, of course, who hasn't?
I don't know what to say.
'I shouldn't have rung you, it's just... '
You're the only one I can say this to.
Jonathan... I'm frightened.
'Frightened that... '
every certainty, everything I've ever believed, is about to vanish...
like my husband, and never return.
And this was taken...
According to the statements,
about 13 minutes before they broke down the door.
So I can take it we're not looking at any tomfoolery with
floorboards, or hidden panels, or...
So his body was just here.
We don't know whether he'd been shot, or stabbed or what.
Let alone why.
His daughter was just here - who then fainted.
And this'll be, what,
like an airing cupboard?
Aargh! Red hot!
Dunno. He wasn't really dead,
and he got in the tank and boiled away?
Oh, God, this is freaking me out already.
Where the hell do you even start?
You disappoint me.
I would have thought the pictures on the stairs were rather suggestive?
Well, there go our two dinner parties this weekend.
He needs me over there, apparently, for this top-table powwow.
Sounds like they're only projecting single-digit growth now
across the affiliates.
So that's me off to JFK, crack of dawn.
Better get myself sorted. I'm so sorry, angel.
Oh, well.
SHE CLICKS HER FINGERS
The hand in his pocket!
Which is a bit of a weird one for starters
but according to those photos out there, he had that habit, apparently,
of always leaving his thumb outside, just like hooked over the edge.
Except here it isn't.
The whole hand's inside.
From which we might fairly conclude...
That he didn't put his hand in his pocket.
Someone else put it there deliberately, after he was dead.
But for what reason?
Well, when we know that,
I suspect we'll have the key to the whole mystery.
In the meantime, I draw your attention to a disc that was
sitting there in his DVD drive.
Fatally corrupted, unfortunately, so the contents are unknown.
"GP". Perhaps they knew you were coming.
Could be a dead end, of course.
But you might be intrigued to hear what the SOCO boys
found on his computer keyboard.
What?
Nothing. Which, I think you'll agree, is decidedly fishy.
There wasn't a single fingerprint on one of the keys.
Constable Atkins.
I want a complete shakedown of every notebook, BlackBerry,
tablet and diary in the house.
You're looking for a name with the initials GP.
An inside job? Possibly.
We'll give that daughter of his the benefit of the doubt for now,
but only for now.
Rest assured, someone around here
knows a lot more than they're saying
and by jingo, I'll have it out of them before we're done.
Until tomorrow?
OK? OK, good.
Oh. It's going to be a miserable weekend for you,
rattling around here on your own like a spare part.
What are you going do with yourself?
God only knows.
Just come back in one piece, OK? OK.
And love to your dad!
Listen, Fariba. That day in the field with Brad...
Is of no consequence to us now.
That's not who we are.
It's not what we are.
Something inside us
deep and infinite that can't be measured.
That was never created and can never die.
Do you buy into that, Joey?
We talk about belief, religion.
I see only wisdom.
The wisdom to accept what we can never know.
This is where you part company slightly, I gather, from your, erm...
I was three years old when they rescued me from the floods.
Mayabunder in the Andaman Islands.
He was out there doing a series about Marco Polo.
Growing up in the West, I don't know... Did I lose something?
Maybe that's why I went back, to find out.
Transubstantiation of the body into spirit.
Can a human being just float away into thin...
If you don't mind me giving it the once over.
Shall we say half an hour?
Anything else you need, just give me a shout.
Otherwise, all yours then, Mr Creek.
It's good to have you back in the saddle.
Well, this is poor.
But then, I call in Don Draper to solve a crime, what do I expect?
So what changed your mind then, in the end?
No, it's just... you look at this picture by the police
when they got here against the one she took out there on the landing...
Why can't I shake off the feeling there's something missing?
Err, yes. A dead body?
Sort of why we're all here.
No, it's too subliminal still. Just won't come.
So you noticed the hand in the pocket with no thumb sticking out?
Yes. And that shoe print under the window
that was flush against the wall?
Yes.
And the small piece of squashed Blu-tack lying over there on the floor?
Y...
What's that got to do with anything?
Nothing, possibly.
Or it could be the most significant detail in the whole case.
I suppose the "GP" on that corrupted disc
is unlikely to be our doctor friend.
Even if he is sleeping with the wife.
Where the hell did you get that from?
She told me.
Why go on pretending?
Franklin and I...
It was never that sort of marriage.
We both knew that almost from the start.
He was just simply the most astonishing, provocative
and intellectually gifted man I'd ever known.
As hard as it was, I'd prepared myself to lose him.
But not like this.
One other point, Mrs Tartikoff, you may be able to help us with.
A text my sergeant found on your phone,
dated January 3rd.
"Remember 1968, the year of the Circles. "
From someone called Beth.
Yes. Someone I knew at school.
St Barnabas Roman Catholic, not far from here.
One of our old classmates had just died, and...
No doubt you've already checked up on the history of it all.
No doubt I have.
A rather queer business in which a 14-year-old girl was found
dead in bed, with a red ring on her face.
No apparent explanation for what killed her,
but the general consensus was "sheer terror. "
More red rings were subsequently reported on several other girls,
but they lived to tell the tale.
You can imagine the effect it had on us - young, impressionable schoolchildren.
Anyway, bizarre as it was, it's all ancient history now,
but there is something else, Inspector, you might be interested in
that's rather more current, and rather more sinister.
And so this is saying what, exactly?
They think there might be some kind of local secret society in the village.
This appeared 18 months ago,
and I know plenty of people say it's still going on.
Arcane activities. You can never get anyone to talk
about it, of course, but we've no idea what they're up to.
What, a few rolled-up trouser legs and the odd moose head?
I don't think we'll lose any sleep over this one, Mrs Tartikoff.
But rest assured,
if I spot any dodgy handshakes in the village, I'll let you know.
Yes, well, I need to be getting off now, to this seminar.
I am contactable, if you need anything else.
I understand, Mrs Tartikoff. Life goes on.
What?
If I could ask you not to leave the country until our enquiries are completed...
Load of old bollocks that was! Are you blind?
That secret society thing was so obviously just to get us all out of this room. Why?
Cos there was something in this drawer, didn't you notice?
That she very niftily locked away when all that talk came up,
about her old school. So come on, have you got all the gubbins?
No, I have not got all the gubbins!
This is a blatant intrusion into the privacy of a grieving woman.
Oh, don't be such an infant! I'll do it myself.
You know, you want to be careful.
Women who butter you up like that, they're usually after something.
Who said she was buttering me... Put down that foot file!
I demand that y... Do you have you any idea the damage you're doing with that?
Right.
OK.
Pound to the penny, this is what she didn't want us to see.
Postmark, same date as that text.
Her down here on the right, would you say?
With three of her old buddies.
Waxwood Cove, March '68.
Waxwood Hall I thought that place was called,
but named after somewhere on the coast maybe?
They all went to on a field trip once, or... Mmm.
And what have we got here when it's at home?
Some sort of schoolgirl's code?
With a drawing of a hangman.
Come on, you put all this together with "the year of the circles",
why was she so keen to convince us it was all just ancient history?
And why did the word 'circles' have a capital C?
Just get the feeling all that weird stuff that happened there,
there's got to be a connection.
Something that still haunts her to this day
and has somehow wormed its way into every corner of her life.
So, where exactly is this Waxwood Hall?
You know there's some interesting stuff here, about this place
when you start looking for it.
It says here, another thing a lot of ex-pupils talked about
was something called the "quiet room",
which was like a room where the nuns would put unruly pupils
with just some bread and water and a bible
"to study and contemplate and redeem themselves through prayer. "
Like being banged up in solitary for the night.
But what's weird is, listen to this:
"Notwithstanding their rebellious nature, many of the girls who were thus confined
"actually said they had seen God in the room, with several others
"claiming they had actually been touched by the blessed saint as they reached out to him. "
METALLIC TWANGING NOISE
Well, I think that gives the lie to our "seaside trip".
Question is why would you label a photo that was taken in that room upstairs "Waxwood Cove"?
Jonathan, I've got a horrible feeling we're not alone in this place.
I just heard this, I don't know what it was, like this strange
metallic twanging noise. Seemed to be coming from down there, somewhere.
Wait here.
Listen, I think I might've sussed that code!
Did they leave any chalk in here? Ah!
There's a definite feeling in here.
You shudder to imagine what it was like living in this place.
The clue is the hangman!
You think about the hangman game - what's the first thing you do,
before you try and guess the word?
You draw a small horizontal line for each letter.
Except on this, it's the other way round, which means...
.. if we fill in all the base-lines afterwards...
Mmm.
What do you mean, "Mmm"?
That's got to be worth more than "Mmm" any day of the week!
I'd like to see you manage to work that one out.
But, no, very good.
Question is, WHAT would be at midnight?
It's easy to think that "year of the Circles"
referred to those rings that appeared on their heads,
but I don't know. The capital C threw up another possibility that
would dovetail rather neatly with that photo taken upstairs.
Waxwood Cove quite obviously makes no sense as a place name.
But what if the end of that photo had been cut off
to remove something, or someone else, from the picture
and at the same time part of the writing went with it.
Well it's... it's hardly a theory we can test at this stage,
but how much more tenable is the idea of a Waxwood Coven
and a group of mutinous Catholic schoolgirls adopting the name of a witch from Greek mythology -
let's say, for example, the Four Circes
which didn't quite make it past the predictive text option on that phone message. Oh, wow.
So you think they might have had their own little secret society
that had something to do with those rings and the girl that died?
Whatever it was that happened that night, this suggests they knew it was coming.
And it's something she's still trying to deal with.
Well, I wonder where this "quiet room" was, when it's at home.
Ah! Agh!
Jonathan!
Joey? What happened? Are you OK?
What... in the name of Hell was all that about?!
Back in a sec.
So I guess we know now how those nuns made them
all feel they'd been "touched by the Lord".
It would appear someone round here's doing a rather naff job of trying to frighten us off.
Yes, not that naff! Can we please just leave?
Thank you.
Fun and games for you there then, Mr Creek.
And I wonder what you'll make of this little gem.
Submitted by a local busybody with a handy bit of surveillance kit on his property.
These are off a CCTV from the top of a pole outside his house.
Timed at 1.17am on the night of Tartikoff's death.
Like some kind of straw effigy. Being burnt at the stake?
What do you think? WI been watching The Wicker Man again?
We popped along to that spot this morning.
Found nothing but a sea of ash, of course.
Anyway, have to love you and leave you, I'm afraid.
Looks like we've found our elusive "GP" finally.
Entry in the deceased's personal organiser. Next Monday at ten,
he had a meeting arranged with a certain Greta Portland.
Not many of those on the electoral roll, but we have turned up one
in South Derbyshire, so anything exciting, I'll give you a bell.
So, there you go, that's us both booked in upstairs for later.
You never worry at all what the missus might make of all this?
Remember, she only knows you as Clark Kent.
So that's it then now, is it?
Pulling women out of elephants and sawing rabbits in half. All done with.
All done with, thank you.
It's a little thing called "growth", you should try it some time.
Course, he never said, did he, where those pictures were taken,
but if we're talking fields and farms,
I think I might know someone who can help.
So just a very quick recap, if I may.
This guy Brad, you think may be able to help us,
you don't actually know his surname.
Or where he comes from.
Or his phone number, or his address.
Or anything about his background, or basically anything about him at all.
Well, no, we didn't really get that far.
You only got as far as sex.
Well, yes. It was a very cold day.
A very cold day? Of all the spurious mitigation!
What happened to putting on a scarf?
I despair of the modern generation.
Hey, don't take your bedroom frustrations out on me!
Just cos you're off the market now. I beg your pardon?
And the reason I didn't pursue it,
was when I found out she was still technically in the frame,
I just thought I should fall on my sword.
But not before you'd fallen on his sword!
God, you can't turn it off, can you? What now?
This piece of timber...
.. has been very recently fixed across that post,
about six feet off the ground.
And we know that how?
Pattern of old slug trails, you can just make out.
And these hooks, with what appear to be wisps of rope through them...
.. it's almost like...
Ah. Funnily enough, we were just talking about you.
KNOCK AT DOOR
Can we talk?
MOBILE PHONE RINGS
Fariba Tartikoff.
Sorry?
Sorry, it's a terrible line. Just one second, can you hold on?
I'm just seeing if I can get a better signal here.
Ah, hello?
Eileen... sorry?
Eileen Aubrey?
No, no, no!
Of course I know your work, obviously, yes! Yeah, sure,
I can do. Any reason why we have to meet there or...?
No, that's fine.
OK.
OK, yeah, got that.
Right, well, I'll see you then.
You and I, Jonathan, we both see the world as it is.
Gods and spirits, and magic, and miracles!
The eternal refuge of the credulous.
And yet... and yet. I know.
For all the niggling little pointers in this case, that seemed to
promise so much, as things stand, you have to say, what happened
in that room with your husband just isn't physically possible.
I've never told this to anyone, but...
I had, once, an experience at school.
In which you were locked in a room with bread and water and a bible,
and a portrait of St Barnabas, and you had a vision of God?
Along with a whole load of other pupils who were sent to the "quiet room".
Not quite the miracle it seemed at the time, I would suggest.
But the reason you buried it, I'm guessing now,
is because you couldn't face the idea of being judged...
for a mortal sin, committed by you and your Catholic school friends
who belonged to this, whatever it was called, Waxwood Hall witches' coven.
The Sisters of Circe.
There's a nice Woody Allen story about a guy goes to the opera
and accidentally falls into the orchestra pit.
Too proud to admit his mistake,
he goes back every night for a month and does exactly the same thing.
There's an echo of that here, isn't there?
Those red rings that appeared on all the other girls' heads
just had to be a smokescreen you deliberately repeated,
to make other people think the first one was part of some bigger, supernatural mystery.
I can speculate, Rosalind, till the cows come home,
about what happened that day, "at midnight"...
.. but some kind of initiation rite for the new girl that went horribly wrong?
The cruellest irony - she was so desperate to join.
Of course we told her she'd first of all have to prove herself.
Survive this fiendish endurance test we'd prepared for her.
The time has come. Midnight is upon us all.
The witching hour. The witching hour.
Prepare you now to join the daughters of Lucifer.
The sisters of Circes. And nor shall you cry.
Prepare to face your darkness.
What we had no way of knowing - how could we possibly have known -
She had an allergy to bees.
Something we found out, by purest chance, weeks, months later.
To my dying day, I'll never forget the way she struggled!
She was trying to tell us her life was in danger.
Somewhere along the line, her heart gave out.
The fear, the sheer terror, she just stopped breathing.
How did this happen?!
What could we do?
To our eternal shame, we did nothing.
None of this ever happened.
Our minds were already so crammed with make-believe.
Was it one more act of rebellion to create this monstrous lie
we'd have to live with for the rest of our days?
Sister!
SCREAMS
Even when she wrote to me, Beth, and sent me the photo...
.. how could I bear, even now, to look into those eyes?
How could I seek forgiveness when there was no one there?
You see my problem?
Existence of a supreme being may be one for another day,
but whoever those fingers belonged to,
you touched in that room, it certainly wasn't God or any saint.
If it wasn't for the setting of a girls' convent school,
any kind of instant religious experience in the mid-1960s wouldn't take a lot of explaining.
Especially when you factor in a supply of sugar cubes.
Did they even have any idea what they were playing about with?
Polly's in New York, did you say?
Yeah, till Monday.
She's a lucky girl.
RINGS DOORBELL
MOBILE PHONE RINGS
Jonathan Creek.
Yeah, she was here, only just left.
Actually we... we got to the bottom of a couple of things, which...
Sorry - when was this? 'Down here!'
Someone called Eileen Aubrey?
Wanted her to meet up at eight o'clock tonight in the "East Barn".
'I looked up the name,'
she writes for one of these TV trade papers,
but at that time of night?
Don't know, someone's up to something round here.
What if it's some kind of set-up?
I mean, I don't know. Whoever tried to throttle me in that room, what if...
ORIENTAL MUSIC PLAYS
You're not telling me this is what that secret society was all about?
Only one of your soppy Magic Circle outfits.
That's what it was that was missing from that photo.
I can see it now, plain as day.
Africa. What?
APPLAUSE BELOW
No sign of Fariba here, I notice.
And it's just coming up to eight o'clock now.
Hang on.
East Barn, you said?
But if the moon's over there... No, I wrote it down.
That's exactly what she put.
You didn't say she put a full stop!
So? Cos it's not East Barn at all, is it?
EA - Eileen Aubrey. St Barnabas.
We're in the wrong place!
METALLIC TWANGING SOUND
Look out! Ah! No!
No!
They said you might be... in some... some danger.
I followed you here. Don't try to talk!
Oh! SHE SOBS
You always said there are some things we can never know.
So, is this where I have to admit you were right?
What a bore.
This won't take us long, ladies and gentlemen.
But on the back of last night's tragic developments,
I thought it might be a good idea to just pool our thoughts
and see if we can't nudge this one, finally, into the back of the net.
Sceptic, as I was, about all that secret society nonsense,
it turns out to have been at the very heart of this illusion.
An illusion as ingenious as it was macabre.
And perpetrated, it seems, for the most perverse of motives.
The disappearing body deprived us of one crucial piece of information
that would have unravelled this case in seconds.
HOW the victim was killed.
No body, but there was a photo.
A photo that confirmed what everyone saw - Franklin Tartikoff lying
against the wall, one arm behind his back, the other hand in his pocket.
Distinctly odd.
And clearly deliberately engineered by another party.
But why?
A fleeting image last night of a revolving pumpkin
suddenly unlocked it for me.
What it was that had changed between these two pictures,
before and after the body disappeared.
The logic of which led directly to the reason why that hand
had to be kept out of sight in that pocket.
Because there was no hand.
For all his credentials as this iconic polymath,
there was a lighter side, wasn't there, to your father,
that was all of a piece with his early work in TV and radio.
And yet another passion,
that he took a mischievous delight in keeping secret.
Nemo dicite.
"Tell no one". The society was very strict about all that.
Like everything he turned his mind to, magic became quite a skill.
Rather like yourself, he had all these amazing ideas for different props.
He'd design, I'd put together.
Then we'd meet up to make sure it all worked.
THUNDER RUMBLES
MOBILE PHONE RINGS
Hey.
Yeah, all set.
In some ways, the perfect night for it.
'It took me three weeks to build.
'A woman sawn in half and the blade appears to go right through, into the wood.
'We were all set to give it a trial run... when it happened. '
CHAINSAW ENGINE REVS
HE COUGHS
'There was only one person I could think of turning to. '
Franklin...
I always knew... there was something else.
The way he was with me...
.. it wasn't such a secret round here.
What if no one believed me?
What if they thought I'd done this?
THUNDERCLAPS
Look...
All I could think about was my mother.
Somehow,
if I could make it look like he'd never left the house,
at least she'd be spared the worst of that horror.
OK, look at me...
'It was like, in some weird way, I was being tested.
'This was my chance to make it happen,
'what cannot be explained. '
SHE KNOCKS Fariba?
'I could make it seem like he'd been attacked in that room. '
SHE GASPS Oh, God.
Fariba!
SHE HYPERVENTILATES 'The body would disappear,
'but she would absolutely swear it had been there.
'It would look like the flap had just slipped back again.
'She'd go off and ring the police
'and I'd have, maybe ten minutes to take it all apart.
'When she never moved from outside door, I had to improvise. '
'Amazingly, I found a few minutes before the police arrived,
'to recover it all. '
The fact that that globe had revolved 180 degrees,
of course, proved nothing.
But it was enough to trigger the only real insight
that made any sense here,
that all we actually need to think we've seen a body
is the head.
The rest, more or less, we don't even question.
Except for the hands.
That was where it all started to unravel.
Maybe...
Maybe I just dared to hope somewhere in that night of hell,
there was some... purpose.
That I could take her to a place where science would desert her.
Before she left us,
something deeper,
more meaningful might find its way into her life.
Of course we still don't know who, or what, made that statue come down.
Or why the flat of a retired postmistress called Greta Portland
had been turned over and not a penny stolen.
Accident?
Coincidence?
Maybe.
Or maybe there's one more sting in the tail here yet we can't foresee.
One for the professionals, I think.
TEXT MESSAGE ALERT
Oh...
There you go, staring us right in the face again as usual. What?
I'll tell you in a bit.
Suffice to say, that on this occasion, predictive text
would've have done us all a very big favour.
DIALS A NUMBER
Yes, got that.
That's great.
Erm, I do kind of need to, yes.
'If this checks out, God only knows what's gonna kick off. '
Oh, great
And so what about Arabella's 40th?
I mean, what time are you going to be..?
I'll give you a call, OK?
Oh, and if anyone else comes asking for that address,
'very sorry, but you can't help. '
OK?
Take care, bye.
CAR ENGINE STARTS
So this person I'm about to meet, when you say keep an open mind,
what's that supposed to...
Jonathan, hi. I got your message.
Jacqueline, this is Joey.
So I think you've got a DVD we might be interested in.
How often does it happen? We all type "great" and get "Greta".
I'd even seen it on a guest list a few weeks ago.
Don't think you know Jack, producer extraordinaire?
You still based in Euston, have I remembered that right?
Talking of sat navs, have you had any luck with that demo tape?
I meant to ask... FADES OUT
I had some fanciful notion,
if we could sell it as a series, he might come on board...
in an advisory capacity.
'So if we can maintain that fiction,
'which seems to be working well for us at the moment,
'if we can get 50% of the media to swallow our story
'then we're home and dry. '
My God, is that..?
How did you get hold of this?
INDISTINCT VOICES ON TV
LOUD MUSIC AND MUTED TV VOICES
Well, I'm gobsmacked.
You imagine if this went public?
This is what everyone's been saying, for the last ten years.
I mean, complete and absolute proof
they were all lying through their teeth. It's lethal.
What's known in the business, I think, as 'a smoking gun'.
Or at least it would be...
if any of it was real.
The production, we were more than happy with.
Uncanny look-alikes and some brilliant mimics for the voices.
I just felt, as late-night satire, it was all a bit clunky.
Whereas Franklin, I know, would've given it some wit.
But how scary is it, that certain people in very high places
appear to have somehow got wind of this footage,
and took it completely at face value?
Then everything we're told never happens in real life,
tracking down every copy of the DVD,
and neutralising anyone who might have known about it...
.. has been going on, right under our noses.
Oh, God. Because Fariba works in documentaries,
she could've been a threat.
And that chainsaw coming to bits...
You don't think that was..?
Oh, shit.
SHE WHIMPERS
Oh, God. Polly... Uh-uh-uh.
How is that a smart move? Come on.
It's OK, you can all relax.
Oh God, Jonathan.
We've just got one little job to take care of
and then we'll be out of your hair.
THEY SCREAM
Just so we've got all bases covered.
You don't need to do this, none of that's real!
Insurance policy.
We'll see what you make of this locked room.
OK!
I hate to be a killjoy, but that's not going to work, I'm afraid.
No, no...
You think so?
Try me.
No!
Yes, it's dangerous stuff, petrol.
When I got my lads to search your car,
I couldn't quite work out what it was doing there.
So I had them replace it with diluted apple juice.
Hell of a lot safer, and healthier too, you'll find.
I don't think so, matey-girl.
God, you lot took your time!
Go on, back to the nick with them, the fun's over.
Move!
All done? All done!
VOICES DROWNED OUT BY MUSIC
It all had to start somewhere.
I'm afraid it started with me.
A man who couldn't keep his mouth shut.
That last day, I went round to check him over.
I found myself alone in the study.
Ah, that'll be Fariba,
she told me she'd call me when she landed. Do you mind?
No, no...
'It was devastating stuff, as I thought.
'I mean, absolute political dynamite.
'I may have mentioned it the next day to a friend at the golf club.
'A gentleman...
'Well, let's say rather well placed in Whitehall. '
We can only guess how far it went ... up the ladder.
Far enough, at any rate,
for a couple of specialists to be planted on my team
having already set about their dirty work.
Took me a while to rumble that one, I'm afraid.
Who else could've beaten me to that false lead in Derbyshire?
They'll take the rap for all this today,
but that's about all.
Far too smart to leave any footprints.
Bit like the people they're protecting?
Well, we all know how it works.
Smooth tongue, big smile and the right hand gestures,
you really CAN get away with murder.
Anyway, thanks.
No, thank you.
Enjoy the rest of your Sunday.
In deciphering the puzzle,
my attention was drawn to several key details...
the prints of the shoes, which landed in an unusual position against the wall,
the way the globe had turned around,
suggesting it might have been opened up and used as...
some kind of hiding place
and you go through all the various clues. I mean, it's brilliant!
Obviously, I know his nibs here's got no taste any more for that kind of publicity.
Wouldn't do his new career in the City much good.
Oh, God no. You've got to keep his name out. Thank you.
THEY LAUGH AND DOORBELL RINGS
So, filming an advert for Weetabix, how does that work, then?
You get the rushes every day, presumably?! Stop it!
JOEY LAUGHS She's a riot.
No, listen... I think you've made the right decision.
I will admit, I couldn't see it at first,
but all this post-modern detective malarkey, you're right.
It's a young man's game.
You don't want to get to the point where you're embarrassing yourself.
And she'll be good for you.
Nice choice.
Thank you.
From someone called Brad...
Oh was, was he that guy that you, um..?
"Forgive me, Jonathan,
"but you'll understand why I couldn't bear to keep this.
"Although it may seem ghoulish,
"I felt you were the one person
"who would truly appreciate its finer points. "
Ah.
So there you go, then. A little toy for you to play with.
CHAINSAW AND JOEY LAUGHS
So where did you first meet this character anyway?
At a miserable bastards convention?
Oh, don't! Don't know what you'd be doing there. That's another story.
Friend of mine took me to see this magic show,
which is just so not my scene. Oh, I know what you mean.
It's this weird little world they all live in, don't they?
THEY know it's a con, WE know it's a con,
they know we know it's a con,
and at the end of the day, you're all like, who's fooling who?
You might want to get out more.
And here's an idea, don't be such a dick.
Oh. Sorry, how was it?
Did you have any joy?
Sadly not.