At the Rundowne Estate, a boy with a crossbow shoots a bird into the estate sign.
DC Anne Oldman goes to the home of Jack Cloth and knocks on the door. Jack wakes up on his couch and yells at Anne to go away.
A killer listens to Maniac FM.
At Rundowne Estate, old man Thomas Stafford walks in with a bag. Three teenagers harass him about World War II and grab his bag. He threatens to call the police, and they warn that he’s dead if he does. They take out a doll and rip off its head, and threaten to do the same to him, and the man goes inside.
Anne keeps knocking.
The old man goes into his flat, puts a record on and feeds his cat, and hears a door open. He goes out and sees who it is, and stares in horror at who he sees.
Jack finally answers the door and Anne introduces herself as his new partner. She says that she’s there about a murder, and the victim was a decorated war hero. They tried to call Jack, and Anne realizes that he smashed it. Jack has heard that their ACC, Tom Boss, has been grooming Anne, and she says that he’d meet them at the crime scene.
They cut to Anne driving the car, and arrive at the estate. The local youths cheer them as DCs Des Harihan and Asap Qureshi join them. Albert lived alone with one cat, and Asap briefs them on the victim. He had made several purchases at the local pet store but no leads. Jack and Anne check the body and find Albert chopped up and blood everywhere. Anne almost vomits when she sees a photo of Piers Morgan, and Jack finds the cat in Albert’s stomach cavity. Jack sees the photo of Piers Morgan and almost throws up as well.
Crime scene tech Natasha Sachet checks Albert’s body and tells Jack that Albert has been dead a week and the cat ate his body. Anne says that Tom is on his old way, and Anne comes in. Jack introduces the two women, and Natasha is surprised that they’re always on a first-name basis. She says that only a maniac could carry it out, and Jack calls for a maniac to carry out the corpse. Des is talking to Albert’s granddaughter, and Jack tells him to check the neighbors and see if they heard anything. Anne bemoans the lost of a dedicated soldier, just as Tom arrives. He reminds Jack that he’s now ACC, and demands results. He offers his condolences to the granddaughter and leaves, and Des says that a neighbor saw the teenagers harassing Albert. The leader is Darian Crossway, street name Crossbo. Tom tells him to arrest Jack immediately and leaves.
Jack and Anne question a local boy and he directs them to the Datdere Yute Club. Crossbo is painting a graffiti sign on the wall, and runs when the police hail him. Anne chases after him and after an elaborate series of jumps, leaps, and multi-story falls, finally catches him near the accompanying steel drum band. As they get into their car, Jack briefly hallucinates white-dressed woman on a nearby rooftop.
At the station, Jack, Anne, and PC Cardboard Cutout question Crossbo. Crossbo refuses to testify and shows him photos of Albert’s corpse. He slams Albert’s face into the photos and makes him smell a jar of Albert’s blood.Anne finally stops her partner and Jack storms out. In the observation room, Tom asks Jack why they haven’t charged Crossbo. Jack figures that Crossbo isn’t the killer, but Tom tells Jack to charge him anyway
In a dark room, the maniac lovingly fingers his murder weapon.
At the local police hangout, the Copper Kettle, Anne finds Jack. He complains that they’ve locked up an innocent man, and Anne gets a call from her fiancée Gemma. Gemma says that the meeting with the adoption agency has been confirmed, and the wedding invitations have gone out. Anne distractedly says that she loves her, hangs up, and goes back to Jack. She goes back to Jack and he warns that their job destroys relationships. Anne says that she knows Jack had a wife, Kate, but Jack angrily says that she doesn’t know him and walks away.
Jack goes to the restroom and remembers being with Kate, and how someone shot her. He goes back out and sees Des talking to Anne. Des says that there’s been another murder and Tom wants them to head over there. They arrive at the house and Asap explains that the victim was Aiden Matthew Hawkchurch, a successful chef with his own TV series. His wife, now widow, is Clare Hawkchurch. Natasha is already examining the body in the bedroom, and it’s been hacked to bits. She explains that the killer handcuffed him to the bed before he cut Aiden up. She figures that he was alive while he was killed. Des points out a woman stripping across the street, and Jack tells him to keep looking.
Clare tells Jack and Anne that Aiden was preparing supper and asked him to buy some herbs. When she came back, just before 1, Aiden didn’t respond when she called to him. Clare went upstairs and found her husband dead in the bedroom. She admits that her husband had lots of enemies, and says that DJ Henry Kelly was the only man who didn’t hate Aiden. Asap serves tea from wedding mugs, and Clare breaks into tears.
As Jack and Anne leave, Anne figures that something wasn’t right. Tom demands results, and privately tells Anne to keep an eye on Jack and tell him if Jack breaks any rules. He then heads home to tell his grandmother how to suck eggs. In the car, Jack turns on the radio and hears Henry talking about Aiden’s death.
At the station, Jack and Anne watch a DVD of Aiden’s TV show. He blows up at one of his students, pouring sauce on her head and stomps on her. Jack figures that sex is the motive, not fear. Des interrupts to say that Natasha wants them at the morgue. They go there and Natasha says that Aiden died of fright as well as blood loss. His stomach contained laminated pear, and Aiden owns the only restaurant that serves laminated pear. Des calls Jack over to check out a naked female corpse. Jack hallucinates Kate sitting up on one of the gurneys and smiling at him.
Anne talks to the restaurant and they send the CCTV video to Asap for analysis. Jack doesn’t believe in computers or the Internet, and Anne dismisses him as a relic of the past. Anne’s phone rings and Gemma says that the adoption woman is there and Anne isn’t. Gemma figures that the job is interfering with their relationship and hangs up.
In a dark room, the maniac lovingly fingers his murder weapon.
At home, Gavina Duntish gets into the bathtub and reads a book. She hears someone and assumes that it’s Aiden, and warns that if Clare finds out then she’ll kill them. The killer comes in and the woman screams. A lot.
Later, the maniac polishes his murder weapon and listens to a radio report about Gavina’s death.
Jack arrives at the forest where the Gavina’s body was dumped in Stanhope Forest. Natasha finishes her tanning and leads them to where the body has been put in several bags. She explains that Gavina was killed in her bath, killed with a sword, and dumped in the forest. Natasha found a bill from Aiden’s restaurant in the corpse’s stomach. Anne gets a call that they’re bringing in Clare as a suspect. Gavina’s father John arrives and Jack has Asap take him to the mortuary to identify the body.
At the morgue, Jack takes John and his wife to identify Gavina’s body as a choir boy sings in the background. John kisses his daughter goodbye. Then kisses her on the mouth. Then kisses her severed arm and hand. Afterward, Anne tells Jack that she should question Clare alone because Jack lost control with the last suspect. He reluctantly agrees, and Anne asks Cutout to step out for a moment. Once they’re alone, Anne tells Clare that Aiden and Gavina were having an affair. She figures that Clare found out and it made her angry and fed the bill to Gavina before killing her. Anne describes in great detail how she thinks the affair went, while Jack watches from the observation room. Asap comes in and shows him CCTV of Gavina leaving Clare’s place four days ago.
Jack goes into the interrogation room and asks Clare what she was doing at Gavina’s house. Clare says that Gavina was her friend and they all twelve of them met on the jury at the same time. In 1996, Clare spent all of her time watching 80s shows. She3 was summoned to jury service at a murder trial, and she and Aiden hit it off right away. Gavina didn’t care about them but Albert tutted about them when they were making out. Clare finally remembers that the defendant was Burton Bradstock.
The maniac uses his polished murder weapon to cut a watermelon in half.
Written by Gadfly on Jun 19, 2016