and you will be representing which company? oh. what extension is she? dunno. maureen little anyone? maureen don't work here no more. she dismiss. why's that? you don't show for work two days running no doctor note, you get dismiss. what about this guy, was he looking for maureen, too? his name's lucas emerton. hathaway: how was mack? damaged. severely damaged. broke what's left of my heart. tell me about granny. well, it turns out that she did indeed work for the mighty j.c.n.b. until last month when she was sacked for "consecutive non-attendance." so, where is she now? we don't keep records on menials. god's sake, they must have got her from somewhere. well, a nice lady remembers a house in abingdon.

so i proceed in an orderly fashion to abingdon, (cell phone ringing) but no granny-- that's yours. yeah, lewis. say that again. samantha: are you looking for me? samantha wheeler. vernon oxe. (gasps) aha! well, let's get this kettle on, shall we? i can think of nothing more agreeable. unless it be martinis at the randolph? seems like a nice place.

samantha: you must tell me why i have the pleasure of meeting you, after years, it must be, of corresponding by check. this commission's rather special. it concerns the addiction. again? that seems a bit odd. i mean, i gave you my all for best of. specifically esmé ford. aren't you better placed? i just manage the product, dr. wheeler. i thought at the time that it might be prudent not to acquaint myself too intimately with the ingredients. people were dying, going to prison. my private life was quite exciting enough without all of that. esmé's life is extremely well documented. your eye for the telling detail, doctor renders your sleeve notes quite invaluable.

here's something... take away and listen to, very carefully, in private. lewis: sleeve rolled up inner tube round the bicep puncture mark, syringe on the deck, heroin in the pocket. what do you call that? i call it highly suspect. yeah, so do i. there weren't any other needle marks. this man no longer had the habit. (camera clicking) he made enemies. are you kidding? anyone who ever met him hated him. i bloody hated him and he was my best friend. (speaking quietly)

mr. bone, he is so much going london, london, london. where? whereabouts in london? soho. do we know what he was doing in soho? he is selling things. memory things of the band. photo, autograph little things. bone was a nice man, you know. that's a pretty incendiary statement. well, everyone else is wrong. he was kind. i want to talk to you about your mum. she's in new york. actually, you want to ask me what i think about esmé ford. well, she's a threat that's pretty clear. she comes back into your father's life everything goes wrong. people get killed. what would your mum say? about bone? three cheers. about esmé... no idea.

you're not writing this down. no, it's off the record. did you know that bone had £20,000 in cash stashed under the passenger seat of his land rover? you're kidding. he was flogging memorabilia. (laughing) that's actually cheered me up. what did he do that was so kind? he baked me a cake. can i go now? it's a sculpture? it's a macerator. my pride and joy. all the crap comes out of the house and the farm, down the soil pipes, and this sweet

little baby chops it all up, liquefies it. pushes it back into mother earth. i love this thing, man. i could watch it for hours. if i was still dropping acid i probably would. bone liked to drink, a lot but otherwise he was clean, man. he's been clean for years. i know. what got stuck in his arm may or may not be heroin. we'll find out. but it was designed to kill him. i think bone went to that bar because someone said he'd meet him there. he had a few shandies, went for a pee and while he was standing there-- a bit unsteady, maybe-- the guy jumped him stuck the needle in his arm. then bundled him into the cubicle

wrapped the band around his arm and left him there to die. did you kill bone? explain to me why i would do that. because he supervised the recording of your solo album and he cocked it up. wiped the tapes. i have my ideas about who was responsible. wasn't bone. but if it had been, i wouldn't have killed him for it. what sort of man do you think i am? i don't know, mr. maguire. it bothers me. (camera clicking) hey! you! you, you little bastard! still making people welcome down the farm?

i know you. yeah, darling, you do. you're not forgiven, richie. for what you did. what was it i did, mack? i can't remember. but you are not forgiven. hathaway: you managed the band throughout its entire career. yes. and now you... and now i what? what do you do now, sir, to make a living? we have just established that i managed the third best-selling group in the history of british rock. it'd be a pretty poor show if i was now obliged to "make a living."

what do you want? i want to know what went wrong between the brothers maguire. (scoffs) mack wrote a song called "counterculture blues." surprised? well, it's credited to richie. indeed it is. unfortunately for the luckless mack, at the time of composition he was out of his tiny mind on mandies-- mandrax the relaxant du jour-- popping them like smarties. curious situation. he didn't even know he'd written a song. richie did, copied it, put his name to it. royalties? forfeited "throughout the universe in perpetuity." millions, my dear. millions. the anthem of a generation. gone like smoke through the keyhole. midnight addiction night at the park. digitally remastered. sleeve notes by sam wheeler-- who's he? she... is the internationally acknowledged expert on 14th-century secular polyphony. but she has a dirty little secret.

she's crazy about the band. she knows every damn last detail about everything they ever did. sad for one of her standing, but jolly useful. (plucking note on guitar singing note) (tuning guitar) sharp. bloody hell, amigo it's the only thing about you that is sharp. i don't know what i'm doing here. where's kitten? kitten he remembers. she's at her university, man. student. music student, man. i think i'm in tune now. let's play, yeah? (guitar solo playing) okay. this is the bit where you tell me the truth. if you lie to me now you'll regret it. have i lied to you? you've been highly selective with what you say

and don't say. you give the impression you just materialized here. what should i have said? that you were delivered to the farm gates by vernon oxe. materializing was good showbiz. people were impressed. 35 years ago the band was in thrall to me. i was the enchantment that held us together. made us stars. think of that girl in the top hat, lewis... and look at what i am now. if i'm going to do any enchanting these days, i'll need all the magic i can get. now, vernon may be a sad fat old letch, but he's still got a bit of fairy dust up his sleeve. if it looked like the band was gonna get back on its feet that everybody was gonna be in the vibe, then i'd trundle vernon out of the wings. that was the plan.

i saw you play in newcastle city hall the night i met my wife. is that a trick question? did we play newcastle? you did. were we good? better than good. we could be again. not if one of you's a murderer. (knocking on door) dr. wheeler, the name's hathaway. i was wondering if... (bells chiming) (crying)

if you want to talk to me you're going to have to wait because i'm going to be sick. (cell phone beeping) woman: i'm constance frisch. you know that, it's written on the door. that poor girl. she was close to dr. wheeler? we're all of us close to our undergraduates here. music is an intimate discipline. quite. dr. wheeler's computer is as she left it. neither of us can touch it, yet. but could you tell just by looking at the screen what it is she might have been listening to? is it rock? no. this doesn't fit the sound of an amplified band. that would be all over the place. i'd say she was listening to a single instrument.

guitar? no. something altogether more constrained. somebody constraining themselves to within a particular range of an instrument's capability? say, sticking to within a couple of octaves. that would also fit the bill. dr. wheeler have any unusual visitors recently? apart from vernon oxe? dreadful. dreadful. forgive me, sir, can anybody confirm that you spent the whole of yesterday afternoon here in the hotel? two people. the barman and the beauteous bellhop. but i don't know either of their names, alas. and you came looking for dr. wheeler to offer her another job? yes. are you going to tell me what? can you keep a secret? possibly. maybe. couldn't promise. i wanted her to prepare some materials on esmé ford. for god's sake tell me you've heard of esmé ford.

i know the person you mean. then you may be astonished to learn that she isn't dead. my understanding was she committed suicide. piece of theater. i stage-managed the whole bloody thing. esmé didn't die in the caribbean. she wrote the famous letter, dictated by me on the balcony of her hotel room overlooking the bay at st. george. she got into a private airplane, and she flew to venezuela with me. now she's poised to spring again, pantherlike onto the world of rock and roll and devour it. and those who survived are set to make a great deal of money. some of them. those who remained faithful. may i also ask you, sir, if you've recently come into contact with a person widely known as the bone? god, is he still going? no, sir. he too has been murdered.

innocent: who did this? that's what we're trying to establish, ma'am. the deaths... i'm not talking about deaths. i'm talking about the press. the chief constable is endeavoring to present rural oxfordshire as a haven of respectability and safety and this, lewis, is not what is required. what was that? i didn't speak, ma'am. you didn't, and i heard you not doing it. who is that richie's got his arms round? "unknown family friend"? i think it's an unknown friend of the family, ma'am. out, both of you. i want frolicking bloody baa-lambs on the front page of my newspaper. see to it. ma'am. i made a considerable effort just now not to show how angry i am. yes, sir. it showed. three dead bodies, she gets her gusset in a bind about p.r. our rulers live in a different country. have you got a minute, peter? actually, no, i haven't. i gather you're reading classics.

so you'll appreciate the concept of the rhetorical question. here, let's go to your place. hathaway: do you play? or do you just collect this stuff? okay, i have a lecture to go to, actually, i... no. you've been to a lecture and you've just got back. let's not get off on the wrong foot with you telling me things that aren't true. you're blackmailing kitten maguire. tell me about that. who? she won't tell me what it is you've got on her. i think she's frightened of you. okay, i want a lawyer. i'm sure you do, but i forgot to bring one. all of this stuff is paid for by kitten. she's lying. is she? i haven't told you what she said yet. you're a policeman. you're not actually allowed on college premises without the permission of the master or his appointed representative. and you are dirty, woodrow. i want you to know that i know. and i want you to know that i'm going to have you. soco's found this in a wheelie bin down the road from the faculty. they're good boys.

very thorough. what's on it? frisch's skin, which is what one might expect. but there's also a very small quantity of leather. one doesn't play the lute wearing gloves. with garrottings one must expect gloves; the garrotter doesn't want to cut their hands on the murder weapon. i have three killings, doctor. they're all connected. yep, i think they are. and i'll tell you something else about your murderer. he or she is very fastidious. killed the first one with a car, second one with a needle and strangled the third whilst wearing dinky little gloves. doesn't like the contact. doesn't shy away from the brutal deed but doesn't like to touch. so, the killer silences lucas. but that's not enough. bone has to be got rid of, too. then the killer thinks: "blimey, is there someone else i have to keep quiet?" and there was. samantha wheeler. what's the secret here, laura? i mean, try and imagine three more utterly different people. what is it they all know that's so

threatening? and who else knows? there's a rat. yeah. someone's been in contact with the press, and we must assume they still are. (sighs) where's esmé? were you aware, sir, that at the time esmé ford joined the band that she was bone's lover? were you aware that the bone had two false teeth right at the front? that's because when i found out in 1969, i punched him in the mouth. we didn't discuss the matter further. not necessary. anything else, while we're gazing into each other's eyes? just before she disappeared, esmé ford wrote you a letter. you don't say. do you still have it? (jo screams) spider. spider, spider spider, spider! jo: don't, don't, don't touch it! it ran across my hand! it was ginormous! tarantula? (jo screams again)

precisely what is going on here? caroline. baby. how was new york? you've been to new york, haven't you, richie? it was like that. who's this? this is the police. police, this is my wife. it's all go since i've been away. when did you arrive back, ma'am? i don't know. does it matter? i'm afraid so. which flight? i might need to check. i never went to new york. i was staying at the randolph. where, as you discover when you check, i was obliged to keep an even lower profile than i had planned because that cretin oxe was there, holding court. go on. i wanted to give richie...

the necessary space. i can always tell when he's building up to an affair. i never know who, but i always know when, and i just prefer not to be around when it's actually happening. never lasts long. he's like a dog, really. needs exercising. now, oh dear. you've gone all po-faced. tolerance of infidelity isn't that shocking, is it? why tell him you'd gone all the way to new york? to make him feel safe. that way it might be over even quicker. and why did you decide that now was the right time to come back? the idea of reforming the band. richie flailing up and down the motorway in some stupid truck for the next five years. that i really don't want. no, the ford woman will have to go.

man (whispering): i can get you more, yes! ah, felipe. is there anybody through there? anybody? there? okay, fine. whereabouts is the spider? the... oh, yes. i want to know if this particular creature comes from venezuela. well, i'll get someone to interview it other than me. arachnophobe, hathaway? card-carrying, sir. so was jo race. but who knew that? yet another thing we need to find out. any news from the shop? a nice e-mail from reverend armstrong hoping that whatever's going on down here will put paid to all the banging on a sunday morning.

oh, and kitten is being blackmailed. what? fellow student peter woodrow. blackmailed about what? well, she's not saying, but she's obviously paying out with money from her godfather. bone-- selling the family silver to bail her out. what is that? sculpture? you know nothing about life in the country, do you? it's a macerator. it stinks. what does it do? you don't want to know. so, what about this student? peter woodrow. i felt his collar and he squealed for mummy. very distasteful piece of work. even the sound of his voice makes me want to give him a dry slap. idiot! give me your mobile a minute, felipe? i want to see who you were talking to just then. the news of the screws? filling them in about esmé? or was it somebody just checking that their parcel had arrived safely? chauffeur, electrician... the ultimate odd job man, aren't you? and always looking out for an angle but whatever else you've been up to,

richie's going to take a pretty dim view when i tell him it was you that was tipping off the press. i just turned the power back on, by the way. this is your one chance to be treated leniently. i know nothing about the spider. this is harassment. no, this is my superior officer, inspector lewis. hello, peter. let's talk about this kitten business. oh, for god's sake. she just wasn't coming over with the cash quickly enough, was she? so you decided to put the frighteners on her. this is outrageous. i'll tell you what's outrageous, son! the fact that kitten didn't send the bone round to you with a bloody great hammer. now listen-- it's in your best interest to tell me politely what you did. i can't hear you, peter. kitten took me to the farm. one night. she'd had some mushrooms.

okay? she had some mushrooms. i didn't. i wanted to stay straight, make sure she would be okay. she took me to the studio. richie had been recording these songs for her. he didn't think she knew. she knew. she was so stoned. she... wiped the master. the whole album. gone. straight away, she, um she wanted to wake richie up and tell him. i admired her for that. you're a hell of a guy. but i persuaded her not to. you saw a business opportunity. what i saw, okay, was richie go bloody postal the next morning. yeah? terrifying. hey, i've, you know, done what you asked. i told you what happened. this isn't school, peter. you can't put your hand up for nicking sweets and expect a pat on the back

for owning up. lewis: so, off goes lucas to slough in search of his gran. but unfortunately, she doesn't work for j.c.n.b. anymore. dead end. but there's a cleaner remembers gran's address. so lucas calls round. what does he see? declan? i don't know the answer to this bit. you're going to have to help me. he finds someone else. did lucas describe this other person at all? he opened the door a millimeter. tells lucas he's got the wrong place, no woman here. but he's lying. lucas isn't stupid. he thinks, "this man's hiding my grandmother." so what does he do? what would you do? say "sorry" and leave.

then i'd stake him out and the minute he left the house i'd be in. or follow him. thinking he's keeping granny somewhere else. is that what lucas was going to do? we're going to nail the guy who killed your friend. okay? i give you my word. lewis: you know what i'm doing? i'm trying to think like morse. does that mean we're going to the pub? lucas. bone. samantha. richie. could he have killed lucas? yes. lucas might have been richie's son. why would he have killed him? don't know. could he have killed bone? yes. why would he? every reason not to. i doubt very much whether he'd have killed samantha,

because he was still under quarantine with us up at the farm. i say he's still in the frame. me too. franco. could he have killed lucas? yes. why? don't know. bone? yes. why? he hates bone. franco hates everybody. felipe. mr. up-for-grabs. i suspect he was making too much money out of people to want them dead. jo. you think she might have sent the spider to herself? it occurred to me, yeah. let's come back to her. mack. now, this is a man carrying around the most appalling secret, but i don't know what it is. unfortunately, i don't think he does either. kitten. more secrets. who was that? that was vernon. vernon's gone. better not have done. i've yet to have the pleasure.

gentlemen, this is not an aid to my digestion. the quicker you answer our questions, sir the sooner we leave. what has mack got to hide? one really doesn't know. it was the halcyon days of rock and roll excess. we were all at it like scissors on heat. though some of us did our scissoring elsewhere to maintain our authority. always? always. generally. there was the once. franco? a bit pruney-looking nowadays, isn't he and so bitter. he was such a pretty boy. delicious. oh, come, come, come.

you can exchange silent looks of disapproval to your hearts' content. i couldn't care less. the addiction is mine. i put the band together, i named it i bought the clothes i bought the deals. the band was my creation and it remains mine. at my touch it shall live again and do my bidding. et bloody cetera. (chuckling) and if anyone doesn't like the idea, they'd be advised to stand well aside. because i am coming through. (chuckles) (rock music playing) you see, that, to me does not sound like face-meltingly awesome blues-based prog rock. sounds more like status quo whinging about the biscuits

in the old people's home. one... two... three... four. (mack playing out of synch) (feedback whining) that was good, mack. you're getting there. richie, for god's sake go and get franco back. (feedback stops) this is it. tonight. if this is as good as it gets well, we all go our separate ways. finish. solo career, here i come. caroline would have me halfway back to venezuela by now if your lot hadn't asked me to stay. if we told you you could leave now, where would you go? lancaster. that's a very definite and rather unexpected answer. i had the best time in lancaster.

university. i read sociology. it was in a bar on the campus that i was picked up by bone. what year was that? '65-- lifetime ago. mack: where's kitten? she's in her room. she's safe. (playing fluent jazz/rock passage) good. i want her to be safe. why, mack? why does kitten matter to you so much? because she's my daughter. i mean, to allow oneself to be impregnated by mack maguire could be written off as youthful indiscretion. but to keep the child... that speaks of a deep-rooted confidence

i now... cannot recognize in myself at all. the father's a junky? that's okay. swap him for his big brother. raise the child with him instead. it'll work out. does she know? all this truth in circulation, she'll probably find out. best if i let her know myself, i think. poor mack. he never cared about "counterculture blues." but richie relieving him of his baby. that was hard to take. that's what tipped him over the edge.

richie knows it. that's why he's so crippled with guilt. any idea who sent that spider to jo race? i did. i thought she was having an affair with richie. dr. frisch, she said yes. to what? the e-mail i sent her asking whether the pattern on samantha wheeler's computer could have been made by an unaccompanied female voice. now, that is interesting. lancaster university. ha! sir? look it up on that doodah of yours now. i'll bet you 50 qu... who's that? you should have come in. complexion for the connection. might never get out. we don't lock people up for being black.