Jonathan Creek (1997–2016): Season 2, Episode 6 - Mother Redcap - full transcript

The gangland savages
who redefined the word "evil. "

Tonight, underworld associates promise
reprisals will be swift and bloody.

The man who condemned them, Judge
Forrest Sweetland, is under armed guard,

as Chinese assassins declare
he'll be dead by morning.

Good evening. A massive
security operation has been launched

at the home of the High Court judge
in the so-called Bamboo Mafia trial...

OK. They helpfully sent one set of these,
so you'll have to pass them round.

This character might be used
on a major hit, known as the Invisible Man,

which I don't take to mean
he'll have bandages round his face.

If you see this one, take special care.
He's a martial-art type.

He'll snap your spine as soon as look at you.



However, if this merchant turns up,
it's a whole different ball game.

He's a suicide bomber.
One tap, it could be goodnight, Vienna.

- Chief Inspector?
- Yes, sir.

We hope to have an early night.
I have to be up at six tomorrow.

No problem. The lads'll
do one final sweep of your room,

then we won't disturb you again.

I'm sorry, Ken.
I can do you "what" and "where",

but "how" is going to take
a bigger brain than mine.

It went through the centre of the heart.

The wound's barely a millimetre in diameter,

as if he'd been stabbed by - I don't know -

a rapier or something.

- How about "when"?
- Well, if they heard it at six o'clock,

any earlier, you wouldn't have seen
this carpet for blood.



Barred windows, solid walls, nothing
that comes close to a murder weapon.

What the hell are we looking at here?

Hello?

Who's been cutting their nails?

If they have, they were very blunt scissors.

This looks as if it's been
ripped off someone's finger.

You would not believe
how boring life is at the moment.

I've had bugger all of any interest
for five weeks.

Hardly the in-tray of a thriving crime writer.

- Who's Jason Tippet?
- God knows.

I got as far as he's an estate agent
and fell into a narcoleptic trance.

"I wonder if you'd be interested
in collaborating with me

"on a rather fascinating history I'm compiling

"of a London hostelry called the Mother Redcap.

"If convenient,
I'd like to ring you Monday evening... "

Oh! I'd better put this answerphone on quick...

- 3810546.
- I'm dead. I've been cremated.

Yep. She's standing right next to me, Mr Tippet.

Hang on while I pass you over.

Hello, Mr Tippet. Yes, I did. I was just...

Well, that's all right.

Don't be silly. Why would I think that?

Well, it pays to be careful.
There are some odd people about.

Forgive my scrappy letter.
I'm not a writer, as you'll have gathered.

That's why I'd love you
to help me out on this project.

It's actually the most macabre mystery
that goes back almost 50 years.

And for my money, you're the one person
who can do it justice.

You reckon?

No, nothing that can't wait. What a nice idea.

So, where are you thinking of going?

Mmm... Great.

OK. See you there, then.

Bye.

- You're not serious?
- What's your problem?

Can't stand the competition?
I need to run a bath.

Competition? You don't know him.
He could be some weirdo.

- Jonathan Creek?
- Yeah.

Fortunately, Jonathan, not everyone is a weirdo.

We don't all live in windmills,
thinking up ways to saw women in ha...

Toodle-oo.

I'm assuming you know nothing
of what happened

at the Mother Redcap in the 1940s.

I don't know where you place it -
unsolved murders or weird ghost stories.

Amazingly, no one's written a book about it,

which I rather hope we could put to rights.

- Now, I know what you're thinking...
- I suppose a fork's out the question?

- I beg your pardon?
- Sorry?

Excuse me.
Could you get me something with prongs?

Obviously, the copyright, royalties,
everything would be yours.

The research I could help with.
I've already done quite a bit.

As I said, the whole thing's so macabre.
I don't know where you start.

The beginning. Thanks.

Ever since the man who owned
and ran this place died -

it was 1969,
a man named William Ambergast -

the old Mother Redcap pub in Edmonton
has been property market poison.

Whether it's superstition or what, I don't know.

Would you buy a 100-year-old building

where seven men were quite literally
terrified to death?

The way it's told,

the first one, Mr Clifford Jennings,
managing director of a big clothing firm,

was staying overnight with a lady friend
in a special room kept for visitors.

Round about midnight,
he was preparing for bed.

The death certificate
said it was his heart.

The truth was,
no one knew what had killed him.

The girl was convinced
he'd seen something outside.

"Something so utterly horrible,
it set off the fatal seizure. "

Between 1947 and '51,
there were five other cases,

deaths which have never been explained
from that day to this -

all in the same room, all after they'd
looked out of the window in the night.

Not a mark or scratch
on any of the bodies,

no evidence they'd been poisoned
or suffocated.

Four of them were found
on the floor the next morning.

Three were actually seen
at the moment of death,

collapsing in what appeared
to be a fit of mortal terror.

So, what are you saying?

Something appeared outside a window
that frightened seven grown men to death?

Why am I getting this image
of George Formby on a ladder?

Er, is there any chance
you could tell me what this is all about?

Oh, sorry!

Ken Speed, Chief Inspector. How do you do?

I'm sorry about the Neanderthal tactics
of my two constables.

They thought they were bringing a suspect in.

So I gather. I confessed
to two armed robberies on the way.

I was having a beer the other week
with DCI Janet Masterson.

That locked-room business
with the house of monkeys?

Work of genius. I thought, "If he can
help on this Sweetland thing, get him. "

- Judge Sweetland?
- That's right.

About six o'clock this morning,
he was found stabbed...

Oh, God. Is that a lump coming up
under there now?

- Tell me, does that feel swollen to you?
- Yeah...

Oh, right. Thank you, sweetheart.

WPC Radnor, this is Mr Creek,
the chap I mentioned.

Pull up a chair, and we'll take you
through the grisly details.

You're kidding?
It's been like this since the '50s.

Last year, it went for a song at auction.
Didn't even reach the reserve price.

Ah... Lock's been forced again.

I'm afraid it's a bit of a haven for vagrants.

- Be careful.
- Yes.

This is the room.

Where seven men died of fright,

looking out of this very window.

Just kidding.

I suppose
it's all been redeveloped since then,

just to make our lives even more diff..

Jason?

Jason?

Over here.

- What's the problem?
- Thing keeps cutting out.

A connection that needs re-soldering.

Now we come to the riddle
of the torn-off nail found by the body.

Have you got the blow-ups, Fay?

The question here being why
would a self-respecting Chinese assassin

let his fingernails
grow nearly half an inch long?

- How are you feeling now?
- Yes...

better, now my heart's back in my ribcage.

I suppose they're right. She was just
some old bag lady with a lungful of tar,

but talk about turning up on cue.

Be worth keeping tabs on,
in case it has a place in our story.

Listen, I feel, all of a sudden...

er, there's something
about me you ought to know.

What? You've got a month to live?
Just my sodding luck.

It's more in the way of... I suppose
you'd say an alternative lifestyle.

Myself and a few friends I share a house with...

- Oh, bit of a hippy on the quiet?
- No, nothing like that. It's just...

If you have a problem
with a man who practises nudism,

now would be the time to say.

Well, I think it's wonderful.

- Seriously?
- Mmm.

It's been a fascinating evening,
one way and another,

and we must get together and talk more.

Only I've just seen someone I know,
so why don't you get off,

and I'll give you a buzz tomorrow?

Goodnight.

Bye, Madeline.

Yes, can I help you at all?

The bloke in there. What's he here for?

Look, press have to go
through the proper channels.

I'm Madeline Creek and I'm that man's wife.

What's this all about?

So, if I come up with a solution
that leads to the killer's arrest,

by next week, I'm highest new entry
on the tong's UK death list.

Not much of an incentive.

A couple of hours tomorrow is all I ask.
I'll pick you up about ten o'clock.

- What are you doing here?
- I was worried sick about you.

Come on. We'll grab a coffee.
You can tell me all about it.

Of course, technically, I'm retired.
That's a joke!

After the third bypass, they told me,

"Watch the stress levels
or you could go at any moment. "

Of course, they're so short-staffed...

You brainless little turd!

I'll nick your Brylcreemed arse!

Cor! Did you see that? Didn't even look.

- On another planet, some people.
- Still, we're in good time. No hurry.

Then you've got my daughter.
Says she's gay. What's that all about?

Expecting her first baby in a month,
courtesy of the local sperm bank.

What'll go on the birth certificate,
"Father: some wanker"?

- God knows what the world's coming to.
- Yes... Well...

In a minute, we can ask him.

Personally,
I don't know what's left to look for.

We turned the place inside out
before and after.

We've had body heat detectors,
ultrasonics, the lot.

And two of your officers
were outside that door all night?

From about 10.30 to 6am precisely.

They heard a disturbance,
came in to find the body.

Which I think you said
is what woke you up at the same time.

Normally, I'm a very heavy sleeper, but I...

The first thing I remember with any accuracy,

the door's been flung open,
the police were in here...

and when I saw the blood... on her hand...

Um... Sorry, just to fix it,

he'd half-fallen out of bed about here...

with a load of stuff
from his table on the floor.

If I remember from the photo,
his clock, a glass of water,

some papers and a table lamp.

His clock, there's another weird thing.
The fact that when I...

except that I obviously was dreaming.

- Dreaming, Mrs Sweetland?
- It's all the worry of that night.

It took me a while to drop off,
and I kept waking.

The first time, I remember clearly.
I happened to open my eyes,

and the clock there by his bedside said 5.10.

I nodded off. I must have woken up later,
and this time -

you'll think I'm mad - it said 4.06.

At the time, I'd swear it was real,
but how could it have been?

Oh, why are we all
standing around pretending?

There are only two explanations
for my husband's death -

either somehow
he did it to himself or I'm lying...

because I was the only person in the room.

I'm the only one
who could possibly have killed him.

If we take the evidence at face value,

and fall into exactly the trap
we're meant to fall into.

We believe he was stabbed at six o'clock
because it's when they heard the scuffle,

and because he'd barely started bleeding
despite a wound through his heart.

Even if he was killed earlier,
the question remains,

how did the assassin get in and out again?

Sorry? Er, no,
I think you're missing the point.

That question remains,
but it's largely irrelevant.

Implying what?

Implying...

there's a third explanation
for what happened in this room

that's so ingenious,
we're not within a mile of seeing it yet.

Morning. Someone said you did the PM
on that old lady last night.

- Could you say what she died of?
- No. That information's confidential.

Of course it is. Shame.

I suppose I'll just put
these photographs in the post, then.

Sorry about that. Bye.

Just a minute. What photographs?

Photographs, Mrs Climpson, that might be
of considerable interest to your husband.

- So, he's not really a Chelsea fan, then?
- Get out.

Holy moley!

You're kidding?
When did you find that out?

My God! And we thought this case
was already complicated!

What's that theory?
That everything that happens in the world

is somehow connected to everything else?

I read an article once,
that if a man breaks wind in Hounslow

it can affect a hurricane in Java.

In fact, I think I know the man they mean.
Travels on the Circle Line.

Did you tell that WPC you were my wife?

Certainly not.

Certainly NOT.

So, come on. How does all this fit together?

Corpses with ripped-off fingernails...

I'm going to have
to put a poultice on my brain.

You should never tumble-dry
a cotton and linen mix.

She wasn't a bag lady at all.

She was Sweetland's cleaning woman,
or someone with access to the house,

who the gangsters paid
to do the deed for them.

And afterwards, to shut her up,

they kill her and dump the body,
suitably disguised, in this old pub,

where no one'll find her
till she's rotted beyond recognition.

Pardon?

Sorry?

Is that all I get, contemptuous silence?
Give me your mobile.

And she got in and out of the room how?
Astral projection?

Oh, she was in one of the drawers.
I don't know. That's your department.

If she was murdered,
why does it say she died of emphysema?

And how could she have killed Sweetland
when she'd been dead for a week.

- And why pick a 70-year-old asthmatic...?
- All right! You've made your point.

This Mother Redcap thing, how does it go?

Seven men all died of fright?

While looking out the window.

Hi, Jason. It's Maddy. I got your message.

I'd love to come round for coffee.
That'd be great.

I'm sorry we keep missing each other.

There have been some amazing developments.
I'll fill you in tomorrow. Bye.

Look, it all happened 50 years ago,
and it's probably apocryphal anyway.

One's fact, one's folklore.
I don't see the relevance.

You don't, but the killer did.

You're losing me, Jonathan.

50 years ago, Mother Redcap -
seven baffling deaths in a bedroom.

This week, Judge Sweetland -
baffling death in a bedroom.

What are you saying?

That the people there were all
murdered using some clever method

that's now also been used to kill Sweetland?

Except their deaths couldn't be explained.
Your guy was stabbed through the heart.

A single, clean puncture, unaccompanied
by any peripheral tearing or damage...

which suggests there was no resistance.

Yet he brushed all that stuff
off his table onto the floor.

No resistance? Which means he must have
been stabbed while he was asleep.

Hmm... I've got a horrible feeling
it doesn't mean that at all.

I just wish I could get a fix
on that clock she said had gone backwards.

- What are you on about?
- When do you see your estate agent chum?

- Tomorrow at 11. Why?
- Get him to fill out the whole story,

as much as he knows, about the guy
who ran the pub, the victims,

the exact details of how each one died.

Somewhere in this place...

everything's telling me...

lies the truth behind Sweetland's murder.

And it's got sod all
to do with a fingernail.

Hi. Welcome
to our weird and wonderful world.

I've told everyone all about you,
but they're dying to see you in the flesh.

This is really, really nice.

God, aren't you lucky?

So long as... I suppose there's a danger
you could just chuck yourself off?

People call you a recluse
because they love labels.

I go into a pub or a restaurant,

and they're all pointing, going,
"There's that bloody recluse again. "

It's deeply disturbing.

What are they like? I don't know.

This looks smashing.

So, tell me, what made you become a copper?

Both my brothers were already in the force.

They more or less twisted my arm.

Sound a right pair of bastards.

They were both killed by an axe murderer.

There's some Parmesan there if you want it.

Mmm!

I was just saying to Gareth and Pauline,

when we first spoke -
I don't know if you sensed it,

and it may be too strong a word -
but a certain simpatica.

Most people can be terribly judgemental

about a lifestyle they simply don't understand.

Yes.

You're being held on suspicion of murder,
so you'd be well-advised...

Oh, can we take that as a confession?

Yes, just make yourself at home in there
for a day or two and bear with us.

That'd be smashing.

Oh, and no miraculously disappearing
through the walls this time, please.

Our job's hard enough as it is.

I mean, but that is a serious turn-off,

if you can't keep your tongue in your mouth.

Right out it came each time,

in this revolting scooping action,
like a giant iguana.

Listen, you're lucky
you only had a tongue to look at.

Let's put it down as nil-nil,
shall we, and move on?

I have got everything you ever wanted
to know about the Mother Redcap,

plus, the power should be on.

We can see what we're looking for...
What ARE we looking for?

Victim number five,
Mr Gordon James Chapman, age 53.

A merchant banker. Same as three and four -

dead on the floor the next morning.

No evidence of any human intervention.

Found him lying there
with a towel around his waist,

as if he'd had a bath, gone over to the window

and just died of shock or...
Am I talking to myself?

Plenty of woodworm
and a fair old bit of fungus.

What the hell is it?

Yeah, sorry. Number six.

Number six. Oh, yeah. Got a picture of this one.

Sir Michael Pritchett QC.
That was his last entry in the family album.

You'd think word would have got round,

or you'd think the publican,
Mr Ambergast, would put a sign up -

"Caution. Do not gaze out... " What?

- What have you spotted?
- Shoes.

Over by the chest of drawers.

- So?
- The last one had just come out the bath,

and they were all going to bed,

so it's a fair bet that when they died,
each would have...

Yes...

Clever. It wouldn't work every time, but...

Hang on. Who are we talking about? Ambergast?

You think he lured people up here
to bump them off?

And no one tumbled it, because nothing
suggested a crime had been committed.

They swallowed that tosh about dying of fright.

Three of them were actually seen
convulsing with horror as they looked out.

Doesn't that point you in a definite direction?

Especially when you look
at all the things it couldn't have been.

- What did Holmes said to Watson?
- "Get your kit off and give us a kiss"?

Exactly. Which leaves us
with only one possibility.

Which is?

Why is there no woodworm in this skirting
board when the floor is riddled with it?

Pass.

Stay right where you are.

- What are you looking for now?
- Don't know till I've found it.

I still can't get over that other, you know?

If you were looking for the quickest way
to destroy any sense of mystique,

opening the door stark bollock naked
would do it every time.

- Got you.
- What if there was a wasp or something?

Mistaken it for a sprig of buddleia?

I can tell you, you wouldn't catch me
dabbing on his Savlon.

Ooh, put me right off.

The things people get up to in pr...

Jonathan?

What are we doing in this sodding place?!

I think I'm ready to go home now, Jonathan.

Solution or no solution.

I'm afraid I draw the line at bubonic plague.

Don't go near the window!

I'm sorry.

Oh, God!

I could have killed you.

What the hell happened there?

The same thing as happened
to those seven guys...

and nearly happened to you.

It's been electrocuted.

That's not woodworm in those boards...

They're the holes for a set of tiny metal pins,

just very slightly proud of the surface.

Can you see?

Step on those in your bare feet...

You're kidding?

For a 50-year-old booby trap,
it still works surprisingly well.

Come on.

You've got a lever here, evidently,
which raises and lowers the pins...

and a switch here, on and off.

And that's how he did it?

Well, beats Sweeney Todd into a cocked hat.

But... how do we put this together
with the murder of Judge Sweetland?

No.

That's the one.

He followed me home last week, and made
himself scarce when he saw the police.

OK.

That's very useful, Mrs Sweetland.

Have you got a moment?
I think Mr Creek has something to tell us.

Sorry to rake this all over yet again,
but last night, about 2am,

a load of stuff suddenly came into focus,

and I finally got a sense
of the whole thing in context.

- Are you OK?
- Just get on with it.

Sometimes what looks sinister
turns out to be frighteningly normal.

Something like the time on the clock
that appears the wrong way around

with a glass of water in front of it.

It's safe to assume that the first time
you opened your eyes and looked across,

the time was actually twenty past one.

Only, because you were seeing it through
the water, the display was reversed,

and it read ten past five.

Next time you look, your husband
has taken a sip and put the glass back,

only this time not in front of the clock,
so you see the correct time - 4.06.

So...

the clock had nothing to do
with the murder at all.

Alternatively, it may have everything
to do with the murder.

God help us. If I get through
this one alive, it'll be a miracle.

Cutting to the quick, we face two questions.

How was your husband stabbed by an assailant

who spirited himself into the room
like Dracula, and then out again.

And what has an old bag lady,
whose fingernail was found,

got to do with the murder of a High Court judge.

According to the description in this report...

Mr Sweetland put up no resistance...

to the blade or whatever it was
when he was stabbed,

suggesting the attack took place
when he was asleep.

But how do we explain the apparent struggle

and the way he'd knocked
all that stuff off his table?

So let's run, for a minute,
with a different hypothesis -

that he was stabbed through the heart
after he'd been murdered.

Now we're looking for a different cause
of death, something less obvious,

that would be totally overlooked
next to a knife wound in the chest.

Enter Mr William Ambergast, a thoroughly
unpleasant character in the 1940s,

who electrocuted his victims
at a London pub called the Mother Redcap.

Electrocuted?

I'd been trying to squeeze
the mechanics of it out of my brain.

How do you electrocute someone
without anybody realising what happened?

You'd need to rig something up in his bedroom,

something you knew he was going to touch
that was connected to a power point,

that looked entirely harmless.

If not for that thing about time going
backwards, I'd never have got it -

the frightening simplicity of a clock
that had been carefully sabotaged

so the alarm button actually becomes live.

So that when he goes to hit it...

at 6am precisely...

I'm afraid everything that follows,
follows directly from that basic premise.

If Mr Sweetland was killed
by an electrified clock at 6am,

and less than 15 seconds later was found
with a stab wound through his heart,

there was only one possible explanation...

and only possible killer.

Oh, God. Fay.

A quick trawl through
the news services filled in the gaps.

The man who slaughtered both your brothers,

decapitating one with an axe,

and then himself being killed
in a police shoot-out,

had previously been released on bail,
pending another charge for assault.

Their deaths would never have happened
if that man had still been in custody.

It was a bum decision...

but did it give you the right
to murder the judge who made it?

Well, I couldn't believe it, could I?

When I found I'd been rota'd
on the protection detail.

My first thought was, "To hell with it. "

Just produce a gun. Hang what they did to me.

That's how much I wanted to blow
his trendy, progressive brains away.

Then something happened...

about a week beforehand...

that showed me I could be more...
creative than that.

OK. All right. Up you go.

My finger's caught.

Just caught.

There it goes.

I said I'd try and get her in a hostel
somewhere, but she wasn't interested.

This was her home.

I decided to stay
with her for a few minutes,

during which I got her life story

and the story of that place,
the Mother Redcap.

It turned out in the '40s,
she'd actually worked there...

and not as a barmaid.

A room upstairs
was basically a knocking shop.

Discreet service with professional
gentlemen of the day...

with the additional grisly sideline
you know about.

Seems these blokes' wives coughed up
a lot of money

to have their husbands
conveniently disposed of.

What it did... was set me thinking.

If I was clever...

I could do this... and get away with it.

Required some special expertise...
but I knew just who to go to for that.

The deal was done. They fixed me up
with a duplicate clock, suitably modified.

And to throw everyone off, I was given
one of their more... sophisticated devices.

Earlier, I'd made the switch, knowing it
would be easy to swap them back later.

At six o'clock, when we heard the noise...

My God, you're proud of what you did to him.

You murdering...!

Oh, my God. Someone call an ambulance.

Chief Constable
Peter Grisham paid tribute

to Mr Speed's incomparable intellect
and powers of deductive analysis.

His window Marjorie could cherish
with pride the memory of a husband

whose lasting memorial, he said,
was the resolution

of one of the most complex
and baffling murders in police history.

Now let's see the weather.

No, I'm impressed, I must say.

'Cause it wouldn't have mattered a toss
to him who got credit,

but you, Mr Self-Effacing Softie,
knew what it would mean to her.

It almost makes up for you being a smart-arse

who never gets anything wrong,
not matter what he does.

Now... What have we here?

- How is it?
- Hmm... Bliss.

Utter... pure... bliss.

I've finally found something
you're crap at - food.

Ugh! This is absolutely horrible!

The worst Caesar salad
I have ever tasted, bar none.

- Urgh!
- Maybe I overdid the raw egg.

Raw? You're supposed to wait
until the chicken's laid it!

Didn't anyone tell you, the first rule
of preparing lettuce, take off the slugs?

- They're anchovies.
- Get your coat. We'll go to the chippie.

Mmm!