The Medusa Touch (1978) Movie Script
I think they're about to lose radio contact
on the far side of the moon.
Despite the gravity of the situation
the flat American voices
retain their matter of fact tone
that has characterised so much...
It's unlocked, come in.
I thought you'd come, just a moment,
I don't want to miss this.
There's something coming through.
It's a response from Ferguson.
He's responding to control's suggestions.
I've poured you a drink.
We ought to be civilised about it.
Those were the lost words,
they've lost radio contact.
Achilles Six,
the Mission that was to inaugurate
man's first permanent station on the moon,
is locked into an orbit that,
unless some miracle occurs,
will produce
the first American disaster in space.
A response at last.
About two hours, I'd say.
He's still soft.
When it comes to violence,
there really is a common market.
I wouldn't spoil your breakfast.
Talk about beating somebody's brains out.
He was a writer.
Is that what you do with writer in England?
Please...
- That's the first one I've ever had.
- First what?
Writer. It's what you might call
a turn up for the books.
Sorry.
What did you find?
A neighbour reported to the Night Porter
who found the body and called us.
Let's speak to the neighbour.
Sergeant Duff.
Was the TV set on when they found him?
Yes sir, it was on when I came in.
NO SIGN OF L.
THE WEST FRON I saw the door standing open,
it isn't wise these days.
I called the Porter.
You didn't see the body, Mr. Pennington?
- Did you know Mr. Morlar well?
- We were just neighbours.
- Very British.
- I am British.
Any visitors, girlfriends?
- None that I've seen.
- Boyfriends?
No. He may have been strange,
but not that way, I think.
Would you know if he had any visitors?
What?
I can hear your TV set distinctly.
You would be able to hear anything in here
like laughter, argument, loud noise.
Not if my TV was on, it drowns the noise.
I see.
How did you discover what happened then?
I took my milk bottles out
during one of the commercial breaks.
His door was wide open.
I called the Porter.
Did you miss any of the programme?
What about your wife?
- My wife is dead.
- I'm sorry.
Thank you, Mr. Pennington.
What do you drink?
Pardon?
A drop of whisky. Why?
No reason.
Television will be the death
of crime detection.
- How's that, Inspector?
- No one hears anything any more.
Could I speak to the Porter now?
Listen.
"There are more tears than smiles.
There is more sea than earth.
One day the insupportable grief of mankind
will sweep over the land
and an ark will float
on that liquid expression of misery".
What do you make of that?
I'm not much on modern literature.
He's turned his TV off,
we've made some progress.
It's not possible...
My God.
Call an ambulance quickly
and alert the hospital.
How we fight against it...
They're busy, Jumbo crash.
This is Sergeant Hughes,
he'll be on the first shift.
- If he speaks one word, I want it.
- Yes, sir.
The Porter?
He came up when Pennington called
and found the man dead.
He ran back down and called us.
Any reason not to believe him?
None I could see, but I'm checking him.
- What about visitors?
- He didn't have any.
He had one tonight.
- Zonfeld?
- he never heard of him.
Pick me up in the morning at 9.
As soon as they'll let you in there.
- So the TV wasn't on when it happened?
- Apparently not.
The Porter turned it on while waiting,
because the astronauts
had just gone behind the moon...
All right, but we can't put him
to the guillotine for that.
- were there any prints?
- They were too smeared on the statue.
The only clear prints on the TV
were the Porter's.
Just when I thought
I was going back in peace,
it begins to have the smell
of one of those cases.
I don't know, Inspector, we found Zonfeld.
It's only been 12 hours, it's not bad.
Here we are, number 44.
- Dr. Zonfeld, please.
- First floor, end of the corridor, left.
Good morning, I am Inspector Brunel.
I told the Doctor you'd called.
Doctor, Inspector Brunel
is here to see you.
Terrible, isn't it?
No many Zonfelds in the directory.
- You're French.
- Yes.
I hope Mr. Morlar isn't in any trouble.
Dr. Zonfeld will see you now.
I expected a man.
I'm sorry, I had no way of knowing.
And I expected an English Inspector.
In Paris right now, a Frenchman
is confronting that English Inspector
and he is equally surprised.
I see.
We're trying to acquire
each other's weaknesses.
- Won't you sit down?
- Thank you.
I'm calling about John Morlar.
My secretary explained.
May I ask if your relationship
whit Mr. Morlar
is personal or professional?
Purely professional, he's a patient.
He was found in his flat last night.
Dead?
Not quite, but he had been badly assaulted.
I'm very sorry.
- I assume he'll be all right then.
- he will never be all right again.
That's tragic.
No one seems to know much about him.
I know a good deal about him.
But he had no enemies that I know of.
No friends either.
- That was one of his problems.
- he must have had one enemy.
But a man may be attacked
by a perfect stranger.
There were two glasses laid out.
One contained brandy and one whisky.
How can I help you?
Why did he came to you?
I have a gift for disaster.
- you seem to have survived it.
- I don't mean for me, but for others.
Have you come to me to confirm this gift
or to assist you in repudiating it?
He had delusions.
Most patients come because they feel
the world is too much for them.
Mr. Morlar felt
he was too much for the world.
In his case it began when a nanny he hated
died of measles.
He believed he caused it.
She was an Irish bitch, priest ridden,
rosary raked
and in desperate need
of the consolation of the damned.
...get you hence,
the Lord will no more dwell among you.
You will wander as orphans.
But Lucifer did not triumph
for the Lord is mighty and terrible
and in his wrath
he poured his fury out like fire
tormenting the wanton,
searing the flesh of those
who dwelled in iniquity.
He led the wicked into darkness.
Night after night she filled me
with visions of the blood red hell
she longed for on earth.
Until one night, boiling with measles,
I closed my eyes and prayed to the Devil.
"Dear Lucifer,
let her burn in hellfire
as you're burning me".
Next day she took to her bed and died.
He was a writer and so his descriptions
tended to be a little lurid.
It would hardly get him arrested.
But there were others.
Unfortunately his delusions reinforced.
It was a dreary place with seedy hotels
Mother was much like the hotels.
A lot of paint covering the worst cracks
in a pretence at being better than she was.
John...
...make yourself useful...
Father sported a moustache, a blazer
and the title "Major"
acquired from a reserve regiment
when England's need was at its greatest.
But he was no match for her.
You scuff those shoes,
you'll go to school in slippers.
My God, I don't know how we came
to have such a dreamer.
He's not like any of us as far as I see,
with those fish eyes
and that stupid mouth, half open.
I wouldn't mind if he saw things.
You're too hard on him,
he's naturally introspective.
Don't try and muddle me with long words,
Henry Morlar.
He's a fool
and I know where he gets it from.
And that and hereditary facts...
Come away from there, you stupid little...
- Henry, can't you control him?
- Get your hands off that.
- Let him enjoy himself.
- Are you taking his side against me?
Should I do everything myself?
Serve the lunch, pack it away again.
Ever since I've had that child...
John, get over here, help your mother.
Had you played with the brakes?
You didn't yell, you didn't warn them?
When I saw them from that hotel window,
I knew it was...
...inevitable.
- Are you sure that isn't an excuse?
- the simplistic interpretation.
If it were the only incident...
- there were others?
- Several.
All equally inevitable.
I felt them to be.
He's carried that kind of conviction
right through his life?
Yes, that's one way to describe it.
Doctor, Mrs. Harrison's here to see you.
I'm sorry, Inspector, I have a patient now.
- If I can be of any further help...
- you can.
I want to hear those other incidents.
If he believed he was involved in disasters
he may have convinced someone else too.
And they sought revenge.
I hardly think so.
Most people are very sane about delusions.
It's only the deluded themselves
who take their stories seriously.
I could come at 6, after you've finished.
Tonight?
There's a murderer or at least
an attempted murderer somewhere in London.
And I would like to find him.
I'm meeting someone for dinner.
All right, Inspector, 6 o'clock.
Thank you.
Does "West Front" mean anything to you?
He wrote it in his journal
next to your name.
No, I don't know what that means.
Thank you, Doctor.
- Please, try to keep the corridor clear.
- Sorry.
- Anything?
- No, sir, he's hardly alive.
I've met a Doctor Johnson, is he here now?
I think so, they're all pretty busy
and a bit unhappy about the bed
being tied up.
- It doesn't seem as though...
- Wait, there he is.
We'll have to have more plasma.
Call Leeds and try to get McManus here.
Give them the full list of casualties.
Inspector Brunel,
what a pain in the derriere you're being.
White, separate the children's figures,
that'll get McManus.
It's a waste of time,
we can't really afford that apparatus.
Waste of your time too.
- If We could Get one word from him.
- The jaw's off its hinges.
He couldn't form a word if he was sensate.
He could write one.
See that?
That's his pulse.
Now look at that
and you'll be watching a miracle.
That's the EEG, his brain.
It shouldn't be working at all
after the way it's been smashed.
The brain's a power to itself.
Brunel, when that brain stops screaming,
I'll need that bed badly.
Stay by him and keep
your pad and pencil ready.
It's all right, the Assistant Commissioner
wants a word with you.
Your office said you were on the way
to his publishers, I just wanted a word.
Your privilege.
- Are you on anything else?
- Yes, sir.
- there was a knifing in Clapham Common.
- Drop it.
We want to know who did it.
So do I.
I'm glad it fell to you.
We wouldn't dream of taking you off it.
Why don't you go and chat
in Piccadilly Circus?
You'd stop a bit more traffic there.
Is there something else?
No, just keep me informed.
He was a brilliant writer
and his last books were the best.
- What were They about?
- Evil and the power.
He had the gift for tying one to the other,
but nobody wanted to know.
Copies always sold,
but somehow they never got reviewed.
Could he have made enemies
with what he wrote?
You'd better read him and see.
Since no one paid very much attention,
I doubt they inspired murder.
It's funny,
there was something about him,
very private,
very intense, a little menacing.
It's not strange someone tried to kill him,
but I couldn't tell you why.
And his personal life?
I'd be surprised if he had one,
he was so self absorbed.
In all the times we met,
I can only remember one moment
that didn't have to do with business.
I've read your manuscript.
It's very exciting.
I love your satirical dissection
of the Prime Minister.
But there's this other bit that worries me.
- It's God who should...
...stand at the bar of public opinion.
That almighty enemy of evil should face
the jury of his victims,
the helpless, the hopeless deformed,
the despairing.
It's a little strong.
I'm not responsible
for what my characters say.
Colby's despair entitles him
to taunt that celestial non-entity.
But your readers won't see it that way,
they'll say it's you.
I can live with that,
I've known despair too.
As you say. There was this...
Another section I wondered about.
How incredible!
Just a moment, I think we ought to...
They sat there for over 3 hours.
They were still there when I left at 6.
Did you mention him the next time you met?
No, you didn't intrude
where Morlar didn't want you to be.
And the tramp, do you remember him?
- could you describe him?
- Not really.
I have a poor memory for faces.
Thanks for your help.
I'm sorry, it's just the only
personal anecdote I have.
For the state he's in
he must have a bloody reason to stay alive.
I cannot live alone with this knowledge.
What is more I cannot die with it.
It's the terrible beauty of a cleft stick.
Either end can beat you to death.
God and gentle Jesus are now "in".
Mouth pious nothings
and then grab the biggest fee you can.
No sign of L.
The walls of Jericho fell
to the power of thought.
So what is the meaning of impossibility?
Zonfeld, if only she knew".
You'll go blind, Inspector.
We've been sifting through the tenants,
it's a blank draw so far.
Only one woman ever spoke to him to get him
to join the Tenant's Association.
He said: "Don't bother me again with your
Middle Class crap" and closed the door.
I'm learning to admire the man
more and more.
What even his collection of pictures?
Look at Medusa over there,
she's not very pretty, is she?
She was a monster created
to do battle with the Gods.
She's supposed to turn you to stone,
not look pretty.
Come, I want to show you something.
- What's the word from the hospital?
- the same.
I would like an extra crew to check
the working tenants tonight.
Anything suspicious: I want it on paper.
Will they give us the personnel for that?
They will.
Look.
Floods, tornadoes,
earthquakes, massacres,
riots,
killings, air crashes,
famine... nothing but disaster.
He has reams of them
going back across the years.
- It's morbid.
- Maybe.
But when you see them collected like this
you realise how much disaster we live with.
How far would he get?
He had some risk at Windscale,
The B.1. Bomber crash,
the American submarine.
The last is the Jumbo business here.
If he'd lived a little bit longer,
he could've pasted in the moon shot.
There's no end to disaster, Sergeant.
Whenever he died,
there'd always be another.
- So what's the point?
- I don't know.
I thought you'd come up with some idea.
His death will be a disaster.
Perhaps he wanted to get into the book too.
Not bad, perhaps.
Get Rogers to send the rest of the journals
to my place.
With those and his novels
I have a lot of reading to do.
- How Did It go with the psychiatrist?
- I'm seeing her again.
Now.
At least I'm getting an idea
of what the man was like.
- Her?
- Yes, "her".
Not your type.
I want to be all the help I can to you,
but I've been through my notes on
Mr. Morlar and I can't find anything
that would prompt someone to assault him.
And tonight is very important to me.
I will be brief.
Do you know who "L" might be?
In his journal he has written:
"No sign of L".
Does that mean anything to you?
No, he never referred to anyone that way.
He seemed fixated on disasters.
Could any of the other incidents Morlar
felt responsible for
be called disasters?
One of them could be described that way.
- were there any deaths involved?
- Yes, a few.
A few.
Was Morlar blamed for any of them?
Yes, he was under suspicion.
May I take my coat off?
Parsons.
Since your first name is Walter
and your father is an expert in finance,
perhaps you'd care to contribute.
The First Crusade in...
I have given you a clue.
As the exquisite torture went on,
I chose to watch the scarlet leaves
being tossed by the autumn wind.
I took myself out of the arena.
Sit down, for God's sake,
you make me quite ill with your retchings.
Retention of the facts that is...
Can we assume that you are with us
in body if not in spirit?
Yes, sir.
- What is That supposed to mean?
- That your assumption is correct.
I was watching the leaves.
Get to your feet.
Are you trying to make a fool of me?
I'm sure one can only
a fool of himself, Mr. Copley.
Silence!
Very interesting.
It appears we have a philosopher
watching the leaves.
I'll assist you in your philosophic bent.
After chapel you'll go out into the grounds
and you will pick up exactly 1149 leaves,
which number, as you know,
is the terminating date
of the Second Crusade.
Then you'll bring those leaves to my study
and we will count them
and if I find one leaf more or less,
I will trash you, Morlar.
I will trash you so that you'll remember it
for the rest of your life.
Out of my way!
Your leaves, sir... 1149.
This won't do, Morlar.
These leaves are wet,
I can't have them soiling my carpet.
- go and dry them.
- Yes, sir.
How dare you look at me like that?
Get out.
Get out!
One master and 4 boys
died in the fire.
The master was the one who had made him?
At the inquest the whole story came out.
He admitted he left the furnace door open.
That was seen as the cause of the fire.
No one believed it was deliberate.
- he was exonerated of all blame.
- Even by the parents of the boys?
I don't know.
You've given me my first lead.
- I'm grateful.
- I'm glad I could be of some help.
What did Morlar feel?
When I looked Copley in the doorway,
I knew he was going to die.
What about the 4 boys?
They're one of the reasons I'm here.
- Did you set the fire?
- I didn't set fire to my school.
I did not touch my father's car.
Therefore?
Therefore must be something else.
Was there something else?
What else could there be?
That's right, the south of Kent.
I would like you to get the names
of the boys who died.
I would like a biography of their families.
Who's living, what they're doing, when...
I know, it's late Sergeant.
May I suggest you start
tomorrow morning early.
L today.
They blast off tomorrow.
One of them said:
"I'm just an ordinary fella doing a job"
and other finger-licking nausea.
They are worried about cracks
in the West Front.
We shall see.
Coming.
Telekinesis.
Sergeant Duff, come in.
I think I have found something.
So have I.
Two of the neighbours say Pennington felt
Morlar was responsible
for his wife's death.
- How Did she die?
- Apparently a suicide.
Morlar did have the habit of making himself
responsible for such things.
That one Pennington,
would he have the nerve to kill?
Maybe if you loved your wife enough.
Neighbours. People should mind
their own business.
- They were trying to help.
- They weren't trying to help me.
I hated him, I never tried to kill him.
Of course, but the more we learn about him,
the easier it will be to find who did it.
He'd deserve to get away with it.
You ever see Morlar's eyes?
A man can't be done in because of his eyes.
Maybe some should, the Church says
they're demons in some people.
And there are.
My Grace would be alive today,
if it hadn't been for him.
- he killed Her?
- He didn't take a gun to her.
There are more ways of killing a cat.
What exactly did he do, Mr. Pennington?
It was because of the fish.
Fish?
How can you pay money for something
that's diseased and rotten like that.
I looked it over carefully.
It's not rotten, it's the light in here.
The light has nothing to do with it.
It is foul, look at that colour,
it's most disgusting.
- Fishes look like that when they're dead.
- I'd like to know what that fish died of.
It's probably full of mercury and lead
and every poison in the sea.
It died like any other fish,
I'll make a little parsley sauce.
If you want to poison me,
don't try to disguise it.
I'm not trying to poison you, it's good,
The fishmonger won't...
The fishmonger... he sees
you coming, you fool.
I won't eat it
until you eat it first.
All right.
For heaven's sake, stop panicking,
we'll eat something else.
I planned this meal all day
and you bring something full of infection.
I don't know how I can go on.
Keep your voice down.
How can I? The TV is screaming!
You worry more about the neighbours
than about me.
I don't. I've wrapped the bloody fish up
and thrown it away.
Now take a pill and calm down.
Take a pill.
God, you and that Doctor!
I just don't know why I go on,
I just don't know why.
I'll open a tin of ravioli,
it'll be all right.
I'd rather die
and get it over with before you kill me.
- Stop talking like that.
- You wouldn't care, nobody cares.
- I've a good mind to jump.
- For God's sake woman, jump.
- was Morlar always a writer?
- No, he began as a lawyer.
Poor devil.
I glance through the paper every day
to see whether he's still with us.
- A medical wonder, they say.
- he has a great will to survive.
There we are, life and death,
damn funny things.
What do I know about him?
He was my junior for a time.
Just another ordinary young hack buck
trying to make his way to an odd guinea.
Never had a great deal to do with him,
little in common.
Not even the law.
Heart wasn't in it
and that's death in any profession.
He married not wisely,
but too well connected,
that probably didn't help.
What kind of person was he?
Very withdrawn sort of fellow.
Had the most disconcerting eyes.
One could never return his gaze
in conversation.
Somehow made one feel guilty.
Do you know why he left the law?
I thought you knew,
thought that's why you'd come.
No, I didn't know.
Mr. Morlar, may I suggest you be brief?
Barristers' first windings up tend to be
rather more generous of the Court's time
than is strictly necessary.
The chief villainy
of Mr. Lovelass's pamphlet
lies in his open admission
that he would do what he could
to make the world a saner
and more humane than the world we live in.
His phrase, not mine.
He made curbside speeches.
He even wrote certain politicians
and so called features of the...
Could you bring us to the charges?
My Lord,
the prosecution makes much
of the Defendant's professed wish to see
the lmperial War Museum destroyed.
"Why", the Defendant asks,
"do we send bus-loads of children
to gawk at that collection of tributes
to authorised murder?"
A crime?
Look at this venerable courtroom.
We are supposed to be civilised,
yet we do shove innocence
into that chamber of horrors,
stuffed with pain, mutilation and death
and say:
"This is what put the great in England".
But where in that asylum of grotesques
do we find framed the armament
manufacturer's cheque book,
together with Grandpa's pathetic medal
and his artificial leg?
I am with the Defendant.
If I knew how,
I would blow the bloody place sky high.
For which thought, if memory serves
the Prosecution argues,
if a man can be so scathing
about our bloodied militaristic past,
what is he not capable of?
I will tell you,
ladies and gentlemen of the Jury.
He is not capable of a non-event.
There was no bomb, no threats,
no conspiracy.
You know it, the Prosecution knows it,
I know it,
the Judge knows it.
It is not the Defendant
who should be on trial here,
but a besotted establishment
who can cheerfully send
a generation to slaughter
in the name of war
and yet has the audacity to bring
a hapless fool like Lovelass to trial
for uttering
words.
There was no crime,
therefore there can be no sentence.
My Lord.
Some good points of course,
but McKinley was the wrong man
to give them to, especially in that way.
He instructed the Jury. Got a verdict
and passed sentence.
It is plain that you deliberately sought
to attack the law with violence.
The only fit punishment
is to remove you from society.
I sentence you
to a period of imprisonment of 9 years.
Take him away.
May I guess what happened next?
As Morlar stared at him,
the Judge grew pale.
Exactly on the nail.
Later something happened to him.
In his chambers, an hour after the trial,
died of a heart attack.
The Coroner asked if there was anything
to account for the terror on his face.
- What's on your mind, Inspector?
- It's what's on that mind.
I've honestly never seen anything like it.
It seems to be struggling harder.
I have been reading his journals,
he talks about telekinesis.
Fairy stories or anything to it?
The power of thought to influence matter.
The Americans have done a lot of research,
the Russians too.
They have a girl who can apparently think
a chair across a room.
In America there's a man
who can think pictures onto film.
Our ignorance is great,
I keep an open mind.
We have traced the experiments
in telekinesis and mental powers.
The first one is fairly familiar,
the power of the mind dominates pain.
It's in the tradition of lying on spikes
and walking on hot coals.
This second experiment is more interesting.
The boy's head is linked to a scoreboard.
The power of his thoughts
can turn on lights and ring bells.
This film is one of the most famous
of telekinetic demonstrations.
Kulagina is just a Leningrad housewife
and grandmother.
Over 40 high ranking scientists
examined her for hidden magnets,
wires and other artificial aids.
There were none.
They could give no explanation
of her powers to move objects.
Lastly and the most dramatic.
This young history teacher is going to try
to will this sheet of glass to shatter.
To build a cenotaph,
first choose a million victims.
You know, Duff, I'm beginning to wonder
what we're chasing,
victim or murderer?
It's a string of coincidences.
I can see how it gave the bloke nightmares,
but every single one is explainable.
- What do you think he wants?
- Conclusions.
To tell me I have 2 months left in England
and I'm wasting too much time on a man
who isn't even dead.
Meanwhile let's find Lovelass.
Morning, Sir.
- Morlar still alive?
- Yes, Sir.
Everything going all right?
I think the expression is,
it belongs to the book.
I've read your reports.
This Zonfeld, is he reliable?
He's a her,
everything has checked so far.
Some interested parties want his journals.
Who?
You have interested parties in France too.
Why?
They don't have to say why.
- he wrote books.
- is That against the law in England?
Not yet, we've got enough trouble
without a dozen Watergates to handle.
Morlar knew too much
about those corridors of power,
what goes on behind the wainscoting
under the carpets.
God knows how he ever learnt but he did.
The books were bad enough, they want to see
what's going on in those journals.
You've given me
an interesting set of new suspects.
That's not their way, they're too subtle.
It was personal hatred that got Morlar.
Remember, I've been a detective too.
That's why I want those journals.
I tell you one thing,
lots of people will be relieved
to know who did it.
Not as many apparently as wished him dead.
Morlar didn't profess to us hypnosis
and you can't cause a school to burn
or a car to move with hypnosis.
He talks in his journals about telekinesis.
A very disputed field.
But it's hard to believe he could
give measles to his nanny in that way,
or induce a heart attack on Judge McKinley.
He told you about McKinley?
And his neighbour, Mrs. Pennington?
You sound a little like you're becoming
a victim of Morlar's own thinking.
It is a remarkable chain of coincidence.
Remarkable.
It's no coincidence, it's me.
It's seems like you,
but when we understand more about you,
perhaps we'll know why.
Don't patronise me.
You drag people out of hell
and yet you refuse to recognise the devil.
If I believed in possession,
I'd be a witch doctor.
You're clever,
they told me, that's why I came.
But don't talk to me of coincidence.
My wife and I had a baby,
it was born deformed, withered.
It lived for an hour and when it died
the hospital breathed a sigh of relief.
If you say coincidence to me,
I will drive my fist through your face.
All right, I'm not possessed.
I don't believe in the devil more than you,
any more than I believe in God.
But what is it?
Do you know what I did when I saw the baby?
I'd wanted that child.
I was the only thing I had wanted
from my marriage.
When I looked at it,
all these coincidences seemed too much.
I was afraid, to tell anyone.
So I went to the one place
where people who are afraid can go.
Come in, Mr. Morlar.
It is Morlar, is it?
Come in.
It's a little dim in here,
but most of my clients expect it.
The truth is we're nearer the dark ages
than we care to admit.
Sit down by the table, don't be nervous.
I have a very varied clientele.
Young girls who are pregnant,
stockbrokers whose business are failing,
ladies in love with their hairdressers.
We all need to know our destiny.
Just a simple reading you require, or...
Just a simple reading.
Is something wrong?
A simple reading will be fine.
Your hand, please, left hand.
There's been a recent tragedy...
I'm sorry, I'm not feeling...
I suggest
that you go elsewhere.
Coincidence.
Palmistry, I'm surprised at you.
Let's say you are possessed,
where do we go... Church?
I'm sorry.
Perhaps it would be better if we understood
why the child was all you wanted
from your marriage.
If you had met my wife that would be
totally understandable.
It's the first time
you mention your marriage.
We're separated, the one time in my life
when I almost felt
pleasure at what I am.
There you are.
Yes, here I am.
Don't I look ravishing?
What's the occasion? A traffic accident?
I am going to the theatre with Edward.
Edward Parrish,
I'm sure you recognise the face.
Vaguely.
Isn't he the peculiar fellow
who played Jesus with a wig once?
No, it couldn't be,
adultery wouldn't be his game.
Do you mind?
Go right ahead,
I think you may need the drink.
He isn't going to perform for us, is he?
No, but I see you are.
We're performers: me, the dutiful husband,
you, the loving wife.
I can see what Patricia means.
You really don't deserve her.
Nobody deserves Patricia,
She was invested by God to test
our belief in him.
She is a girl of extraordinary
sensitivity and talent.
Patricia was never a girl,
childhood has to do with innocence,
her gift is for prussic acid
and flying on broom sticks.
How did she ever choose you?
Divination.
I suppose daddy's going to finance
your next escapade on film.
I want to marry her.
He's offered that much!
You bastard!
- It was you who wanted to Get married.
- I mistook you For a woman.
You really are as foul as she says.
I have a gift of speaking the truth,
it leaves a strange stench in her nostrils,
something you have in common.
You go too far, dear boy.
I doubt it.
There's only one issue,
are you prepared to let her go?
Let her go?
If I weren't a faintly interested party,
I'd appear for you myself.
To the happiest day.
It is.
Daddy was right.
You aren't capable of producing anything...
...but a vegetable.
Goodbye, my dear husband,
don't expect me back.
I won't.
You know the rest.
An hour later an artificially
sympathetic policeman told me that my wife
and an unidentified male companion
had been killed in a car crash on Baywater.
I can see how, after your baby's death...
I made it happen.
It wasn't like the others where
I knew it would happen.
I made it happen.
Perhaps you wanted it to happen
more than the others,
but you couldn't cause an accident so far.
You wanted it badly,
that's what we must concentrate on.
I made that accident happen.
Inspector, your thinking
has come round to his.
You've given me another suspect to chase,
her father.
But I confess if I were Morlar,
I would be coming to see you too.
Were you able to help him?
I think that was the last time I saw him.
He never returned.
That's all.
I'm sorry we won't have to meet again,
but that is all I have to tell you
about Mr. Morlar.
Thank you, doctor.
Zonfeld is no more than a witch doctor
who conditions doubters
to accept the dung heap.
The planes are keeping me awake at night,
screaming over my head, hour after hour.
Delusions my dear friend.
My skin's black and I keep thinking
I'm different.
Delusions.
When I get behind a wheel,
I have an insane urge to kill.
Delusions, my dear friend, delusions.
Like a ride, Inspector?
English humour?
You're wanted at the hospital.
No more deaths from the Jumbo crush,
everything's back to normal.
The long hairs are planning a protest march
on the Atomic Energy Plant at Windscale.
- the old British public Are calling...
- Stop the car!
Inspector, wait, you can't!
I'm sorry,
but you're coming to the hospital with me.
- I have a patient due in!
- the patient will wait.
I want you to come to the hospital now.
I'm not sure why I called.
Perhaps I just needed someone
to share my astonishment.
Somewhere deep within
what's left of that brain
something is going on.
It's grown stronger almost every hour.
Is he recovering?
We've kept the respirator going,
we've tried to stimulate the heart,
but if it weren't for that, nothing.
- How can That be?
- the brain is complicated.
Ask her.
It begins in blood and flesh
and ends in incomprehensible tangles
of fear, dreams, love...
...will.
That's the ordinary brain.
All I can tell you is
you're looking at a mind
determined not to die.
Why?
Is there something he's trying to tell us?
Maybe he forgot to turn off the gas.
Extraordinary.
You know more about that brain than anyone.
What's going on?
I don't know.
Whatever it is, it's keeping him alive.
- I apologise.
- That's all right.
It's something I ought to have seen.
Goodbye again, Inspector.
...settlement was reached about
allowances and overtime pay.
Prisoners normal exercise periods
and other privileges which were stopped
during the work to rule
will be restored tomorrow morning.
A mass meeting of the Environmental
group of friends of the Earth
has unanimously approved a plan
to hold a protest march from London
to the Nuclear Power Station at Windscale
as part of their latest campaign
directed at the dangers
of nuclear pollution.
A spokesman for the campaign
said the Atomic Plant and associated
waste materials at Windscale
constituted a threat...
It's simmering.
Are the onions browned?
What now?
Put the onions and bacon in.
Onions and bacon going in.
Then pour in the wine
and have it "bouillee".
What?
Bubble for 2 minutes.
The Dean of Minster Cathedral
has announced that the Queen,
Members of the Cabinet
and representatives of the Commonwealth,
will be among the guests
at a Thanksgiving service
being held to commemorate the completion
of the restoration...
It's amazing how many of those who might
have a grudge against him are dead.
The family of those kids
and that Lovelass, poor old bugger,
got out of the nick,
spent 6 months on the dole,
became a tramp
and was finally knocked flat by a bus.
I want you to check on the father-in-law.
I've discovered he's in property
here and abroad.
She was the only daughter...
Yes, it is.
Flat B, 27 Latimer Gardens.
It's her?
I knew she couldn't drop him like that.
Shit! After all that work.
You wait in the kitchen.
- I'm sorry to disturb you.
- Not at all, I was glad to get your call.
I'm here for such a short time...
You've made it warm, it's what I expected.
- could I offer you a drink?
- Whisky, please.
Please, sit down.
- Anything?
- No, as it is.
I lied to you when I told you
I'd never seen him again.
I never saw him in the office again.
But I did see him.
I lied because I knew so much more
and what I knew seemed so incredible.
You said it was urgent, I've had to leave
a situation I'd rather not have left.
I'm sorry, but it was urgent to me.
I'm surprised you found something
so important
worth the attention of a witch doctor.
When you're not being obvious,
I have hopes for you.
You don't believe
I could cause my wife's death.
- But I don't...
- Please, listen to me.
It wasn't just my wife, it was all of them.
I made them happen: Copley, the children,
all of them, I made them happen.
- I made That school burn.
- You couldn't.
It's true, I made that school burn.
I killed my mother, I killed my father.
Even my nurse, I made it happen.
You don't believe me?
It might be useful if I gave you
something to help you sleep tonight,
then we'll meet in my office tomorrow.
I don't want your pills
or to be condescended to like some moron.
I tell you something.
I commanded it to happen!
- You still don't believe me.
- We'll talk about it tomorrow.
Tomorrow!
For God's sake, Zonfeld,
I killed my father, I killed my mother,
I killed my wife.
It's not just a damned headache.
What am I? How can I will death?
I'm going.
- I'll hold a space open at 11 o'clock.
- you stay here.
Tomorrow.
Not tomorrow.
Now.
Something's wrong.
You've got full power.
It's not responding!
Give me flaps 10.
It's all gone haywire, here!
What I don't understand is...
...why is it always destructive?
Sometimes when I'm alone at night,
I've thought I've created all
the world's disasters,
but it's not true.
We're all the Devil's children.
We find what powers the sun
and we make bombs of it.
We create wealth
and we become obsessed with greed.
We achieve power and we go mad.
We always destroy. Why, Zonfeld?
Reports are just coming in
that a Jumbo Jet has crashed
in Central London.
Over 300 people are believed
to have been on board the plane.
Unconfirmed reports say
that the plane plunged
into an office block and exploded,
falling debris has set fire to a cinema
and many people
have been killed.
Traffic in the West End
has been brought to a standstill.
It's not yet known what caused the crash.
That is the end of this News Flash.
Help me, Zonfeld, before I go mad.
I could help no one that night.
When I left those rooms I believed...
...what I'd seen.
When I got home I wasn't so certain.
It seemed so beyond belief.
Beyond belief.
Yes.
When I saw what I saw in that hospital
I felt I had to tell you.
I won't disturb you anymore.
Thank you.
I'm grateful you came.
What did you make of that.
The victim's obviously a nut
and now it turns out
her psychiatrist is one too.
What are you really thinking?
She just hasn't finished yet.
Do you think she did it?
No, Inspector,
that's a bit too much of a jump.
But why kill him?
It must have been because she believed
he was going to do something worse.
Worse than the Jumbo Jet disaster?
Certainly something worse
than she would be doing by killing him.
As you say it's not important,
what is important is whether you're right.
If you are right in getting a confession
that will stand up in court.
Where are you going?
Excuse me, what is this for?
We're getting ready for the
Thanksgiving Service tomorrow evening.
The Queen, the Commonwealth
Prime Ministers, it's for that.
3 million pounds
- It's not enough.
- what?
The West Front's cracking.
It goes right through to the nave.
If that goes, the whole lot goes.
The tower's too heavy,
the foundations can't support it anymore.
They're worried about cracks
on the West front.
We shall see.
I am the man
with the power to create catastrophe.
Terri, I said I didn't want to be...
I convinced her you would see me.
Of course.
I thought perhaps we should talk.
You've decided, have you?
It's been such a problem for me.
I can't live with this knowledge
or die with it.
I assume there were reasons.
Yes, there were reasons.
He came to see me at my home
after the Jumbo crash,
through all the chaos and the traffic.
For me the reality, ruined building,
ambulance men, broken bodies,
made what I'd seen in his flat seem
all the more impossible.
He sensed that immediately and he left
before we'd exchanged two sentences.
The next night he called,
he sounded unstable.
He said:
"The space shot is nearing the moon.
In 2 hours it goes into orbit.
You have my word it won't return".
While you're worrying about
that billion dollar coffin
striking the moon,
spare a thought for the millions
they might have fed with all
that technology and expertise.
How concerned all our great statesmen are
about those three
wonderful human beings
while millions of others rot to death.
Listen, Zonfeld, listen to me.
I've found a way to do
God's dirty work for him.
The Royal Chieftain, the parasites
and the whole gang
of international rabble rousers,
are going to bleat to the Almighty nothing
in his great Temple
to give praise for 3 million pounds.
I promise you,
the moment they kneel to pray
I will bring the whole edifice down
on their unworthy heads.
He sounded quite mad,
yet I believed every word he said.
I had to go to him.
The streets were deserted,
even the police were more concerned
with their traffic accidents than space.
No one saw me, no one cared.
The porter didn't even look up
from his television set.
I didn't know what I was going to do.
It's unlocked, come in.
I thought you'd come.
Just a moment, I don't want to miss this.
I've poured you a drink.
I thought we ought
to be civilised about it.
He sat watching
the last moments of catastrophe.
Those were the last words,
they had lost radio contact.
Achilles 6, the mission
that was to inaugurate
man's first permanent station on the moon
was locked into an orbit
that, unless some miracle occurs,
will produce the first
American disaster in space.
Even then I thought
I might somehow stop it.
For a moment he had turned me to a stone.
A response at last.
I knew as long as he lived
that there was no way of stopping it.
And I failed.
I couldn't tell anyone,
no one would believe me.
They'd say the madness was mine.
And perhaps it was.
Then we are mad together.
I have seen the Cathedral and I think
I know what's keeping him alive.
There's nothing you can do,
no one will believe you.
I'm going to try.
I wish you luck.
You're not arresting me?
It's a question of priorities.
You found the murderer, but two crack pots
don't add up to one good theory.
- I still don't believe you.
- To begin with Morlar isn't dead.
He's fighting to live
with superhuman resistance, right?
- against all reason.
- all right.
Against all reason he believed
he had the power to destroy a plane.
To shatter a Cathedral.
He's alive, so is the belief.
He said he would do it, I believe he will.
How?
I told you about those experiments.
Russia, Denmark, the United States.
I have seen a man shatter glass
just by concentrating his thoughts.
A hundred years ago,
the idea of sending the human voice
across oceans was madness.
But Minster Cathedral...
But Zonfeld believed he could do it,
she believed enough to kill him!
But why Minster, why a Cathedral?
Because it's the Church,
the Establishment, everything he hates.
All right, what would you suggest we do?
Cancel the ceremony, close the Cathedral.
Are you mad?
Do you know the kind of preparation...
Christ, Brunel.
What reason am I going to give them?
Your story? Lock me up.
Go to the Dean.
He shouldn't question
the power of unseen forces.
It's quite out of the question.
I have the Surveyor's word
for the soundness of the Cathedral
and Her Majesty's can't be forced
to change long laid plans
simply because a madman makes threats.
Sir, with respect,
we believe this threat is real.
We call it reasonable suspicion,
you might call it faith.
Well, moral philosophy,
something one doesn't expect from the Yard.
Science can't explain why Morlar's mind
is still alive.
And I don't think it can explain
what his mind is capable of either.
But you would agree
that there is much
that science cannot explain.
I've done you an injustice, Inspector.
I must grant an open mind on Mr. Morlar
and I will pray for his soul.
- Couldn't we go above the Dean?
- I could go to the Home Secretary.
Tell him: "There's this maniac,
three parts dead, sending out brain waves
powerful enough to shatter Cathedrals
from 2 miles away".
He's in Scotland, coming down tomorrow.
I'll try to catch him at Leeds,
talk to him on the way down.
All right?
It hurts to tell you,
I've failed again.
Already you are becoming used
to my failures
and we've only known each other
such a short time.
I went back to the hospital.
I stood and stared at him,
it seemed so easy,
cut one tube, pull one plug,
a dozen ways to end it.
But I couldn't...
...finish what I had begun.
So I leave our problem with you,
my dear Inspector.
Forgive me.
It's the lorries.
Terrible vibrations.
They should ban them from this area.
Riots at Nuclear Plant.
- any luck?
- He had meetings, wouldn't see me.
He'd make an appointment tomorrow morning.
I couldn't just barge in
with the story we have.
- What news from the hospital?
- I don't understand.
His EEG went crazy during the evening,
then it settled, now it's increasing again.
I don't know what it means.
Zonfeld's dead.
Suicide?
There are times when I know you're right
and others when I know it just can't be.
Frankly, I don't know what to do.
Watch, wait,
hope we are insane.
I have no time.
I know, but rubble
is falling from the Church.
That's what the fund is about,
it's the traffic.
The traffic has been diverted, there's...
I understand your concern,
but I promise you have nothing to fear.
Now pray for the Church,
pray for your own peace of mind.
Guards, general salute!
Present arms!
- Are you convinced?
- Enough to want to stop it!
There's one thing we can do.
I'll buy it at any price.
Throw a bomb scare.
We could empty the church in minutes.
We'll do it. You warn them in there,
I'll clear the whole area.
He'll never believe me, you go,
I'll get the area cleared.
Brunel, no panic.
- It's quarter to 7, nearly time.
- Very good.
Inspector Brunel, French Exchange.
We've had a bomb threat,
the Cathedral has to be cleared at once.
It's just a hoax, we've been through
that church 3 times, the Clergy have too.
Not a prayer book that hasn't been checked.
We have every reason to believe
it's not a hoax.
Double check the main aisle and the section
held for the Queen and the Minister.
Sir...
I'll handle this.
Now, what's the source of this call?
I'll get the Assistant Commissioner.
- Sir...
- have you seen the A.C.?
They wouldn't believe me,
they think it's a hoax, talk to them.
I got the Deacon. He gave them the news,
they'll be out shortly.
- That should convince them.
- It'll take time to clear this crowd.
Come on, get them out of there.
He didn't believe you,
they're not cancelling it.
Look!
I will bring the whole edifice down
on their unworthy heads!
Get them out of there,
I'm going to the hospital.
The Queen!
Stop the procession.
Get out of my way!
Stop!
Clear the Cathedral at once.
It is about to collapse, run!
Take every exit, go on!
There's a bomb, get the car out of the way.
Police!
Here at Minster Cathedral
a man has just stopped the Queen's car...
Look, up there, the cross,
is moving!
Come on, get it out now.
Use the other way!
Go back!
It's blocked outside, go back!
Use the other exits.
Sir, look!
The pen.
The Nuclear Plant.
I am the man
with the power to create catastrophe.3
on the far side of the moon.
Despite the gravity of the situation
the flat American voices
retain their matter of fact tone
that has characterised so much...
It's unlocked, come in.
I thought you'd come, just a moment,
I don't want to miss this.
There's something coming through.
It's a response from Ferguson.
He's responding to control's suggestions.
I've poured you a drink.
We ought to be civilised about it.
Those were the lost words,
they've lost radio contact.
Achilles Six,
the Mission that was to inaugurate
man's first permanent station on the moon,
is locked into an orbit that,
unless some miracle occurs,
will produce
the first American disaster in space.
A response at last.
About two hours, I'd say.
He's still soft.
When it comes to violence,
there really is a common market.
I wouldn't spoil your breakfast.
Talk about beating somebody's brains out.
He was a writer.
Is that what you do with writer in England?
Please...
- That's the first one I've ever had.
- First what?
Writer. It's what you might call
a turn up for the books.
Sorry.
What did you find?
A neighbour reported to the Night Porter
who found the body and called us.
Let's speak to the neighbour.
Sergeant Duff.
Was the TV set on when they found him?
Yes sir, it was on when I came in.
NO SIGN OF L.
THE WEST FRON I saw the door standing open,
it isn't wise these days.
I called the Porter.
You didn't see the body, Mr. Pennington?
- Did you know Mr. Morlar well?
- We were just neighbours.
- Very British.
- I am British.
Any visitors, girlfriends?
- None that I've seen.
- Boyfriends?
No. He may have been strange,
but not that way, I think.
Would you know if he had any visitors?
What?
I can hear your TV set distinctly.
You would be able to hear anything in here
like laughter, argument, loud noise.
Not if my TV was on, it drowns the noise.
I see.
How did you discover what happened then?
I took my milk bottles out
during one of the commercial breaks.
His door was wide open.
I called the Porter.
Did you miss any of the programme?
What about your wife?
- My wife is dead.
- I'm sorry.
Thank you, Mr. Pennington.
What do you drink?
Pardon?
A drop of whisky. Why?
No reason.
Television will be the death
of crime detection.
- How's that, Inspector?
- No one hears anything any more.
Could I speak to the Porter now?
Listen.
"There are more tears than smiles.
There is more sea than earth.
One day the insupportable grief of mankind
will sweep over the land
and an ark will float
on that liquid expression of misery".
What do you make of that?
I'm not much on modern literature.
He's turned his TV off,
we've made some progress.
It's not possible...
My God.
Call an ambulance quickly
and alert the hospital.
How we fight against it...
They're busy, Jumbo crash.
This is Sergeant Hughes,
he'll be on the first shift.
- If he speaks one word, I want it.
- Yes, sir.
The Porter?
He came up when Pennington called
and found the man dead.
He ran back down and called us.
Any reason not to believe him?
None I could see, but I'm checking him.
- What about visitors?
- He didn't have any.
He had one tonight.
- Zonfeld?
- he never heard of him.
Pick me up in the morning at 9.
As soon as they'll let you in there.
- So the TV wasn't on when it happened?
- Apparently not.
The Porter turned it on while waiting,
because the astronauts
had just gone behind the moon...
All right, but we can't put him
to the guillotine for that.
- were there any prints?
- They were too smeared on the statue.
The only clear prints on the TV
were the Porter's.
Just when I thought
I was going back in peace,
it begins to have the smell
of one of those cases.
I don't know, Inspector, we found Zonfeld.
It's only been 12 hours, it's not bad.
Here we are, number 44.
- Dr. Zonfeld, please.
- First floor, end of the corridor, left.
Good morning, I am Inspector Brunel.
I told the Doctor you'd called.
Doctor, Inspector Brunel
is here to see you.
Terrible, isn't it?
No many Zonfelds in the directory.
- You're French.
- Yes.
I hope Mr. Morlar isn't in any trouble.
Dr. Zonfeld will see you now.
I expected a man.
I'm sorry, I had no way of knowing.
And I expected an English Inspector.
In Paris right now, a Frenchman
is confronting that English Inspector
and he is equally surprised.
I see.
We're trying to acquire
each other's weaknesses.
- Won't you sit down?
- Thank you.
I'm calling about John Morlar.
My secretary explained.
May I ask if your relationship
whit Mr. Morlar
is personal or professional?
Purely professional, he's a patient.
He was found in his flat last night.
Dead?
Not quite, but he had been badly assaulted.
I'm very sorry.
- I assume he'll be all right then.
- he will never be all right again.
That's tragic.
No one seems to know much about him.
I know a good deal about him.
But he had no enemies that I know of.
No friends either.
- That was one of his problems.
- he must have had one enemy.
But a man may be attacked
by a perfect stranger.
There were two glasses laid out.
One contained brandy and one whisky.
How can I help you?
Why did he came to you?
I have a gift for disaster.
- you seem to have survived it.
- I don't mean for me, but for others.
Have you come to me to confirm this gift
or to assist you in repudiating it?
He had delusions.
Most patients come because they feel
the world is too much for them.
Mr. Morlar felt
he was too much for the world.
In his case it began when a nanny he hated
died of measles.
He believed he caused it.
She was an Irish bitch, priest ridden,
rosary raked
and in desperate need
of the consolation of the damned.
...get you hence,
the Lord will no more dwell among you.
You will wander as orphans.
But Lucifer did not triumph
for the Lord is mighty and terrible
and in his wrath
he poured his fury out like fire
tormenting the wanton,
searing the flesh of those
who dwelled in iniquity.
He led the wicked into darkness.
Night after night she filled me
with visions of the blood red hell
she longed for on earth.
Until one night, boiling with measles,
I closed my eyes and prayed to the Devil.
"Dear Lucifer,
let her burn in hellfire
as you're burning me".
Next day she took to her bed and died.
He was a writer and so his descriptions
tended to be a little lurid.
It would hardly get him arrested.
But there were others.
Unfortunately his delusions reinforced.
It was a dreary place with seedy hotels
Mother was much like the hotels.
A lot of paint covering the worst cracks
in a pretence at being better than she was.
John...
...make yourself useful...
Father sported a moustache, a blazer
and the title "Major"
acquired from a reserve regiment
when England's need was at its greatest.
But he was no match for her.
You scuff those shoes,
you'll go to school in slippers.
My God, I don't know how we came
to have such a dreamer.
He's not like any of us as far as I see,
with those fish eyes
and that stupid mouth, half open.
I wouldn't mind if he saw things.
You're too hard on him,
he's naturally introspective.
Don't try and muddle me with long words,
Henry Morlar.
He's a fool
and I know where he gets it from.
And that and hereditary facts...
Come away from there, you stupid little...
- Henry, can't you control him?
- Get your hands off that.
- Let him enjoy himself.
- Are you taking his side against me?
Should I do everything myself?
Serve the lunch, pack it away again.
Ever since I've had that child...
John, get over here, help your mother.
Had you played with the brakes?
You didn't yell, you didn't warn them?
When I saw them from that hotel window,
I knew it was...
...inevitable.
- Are you sure that isn't an excuse?
- the simplistic interpretation.
If it were the only incident...
- there were others?
- Several.
All equally inevitable.
I felt them to be.
He's carried that kind of conviction
right through his life?
Yes, that's one way to describe it.
Doctor, Mrs. Harrison's here to see you.
I'm sorry, Inspector, I have a patient now.
- If I can be of any further help...
- you can.
I want to hear those other incidents.
If he believed he was involved in disasters
he may have convinced someone else too.
And they sought revenge.
I hardly think so.
Most people are very sane about delusions.
It's only the deluded themselves
who take their stories seriously.
I could come at 6, after you've finished.
Tonight?
There's a murderer or at least
an attempted murderer somewhere in London.
And I would like to find him.
I'm meeting someone for dinner.
All right, Inspector, 6 o'clock.
Thank you.
Does "West Front" mean anything to you?
He wrote it in his journal
next to your name.
No, I don't know what that means.
Thank you, Doctor.
- Please, try to keep the corridor clear.
- Sorry.
- Anything?
- No, sir, he's hardly alive.
I've met a Doctor Johnson, is he here now?
I think so, they're all pretty busy
and a bit unhappy about the bed
being tied up.
- It doesn't seem as though...
- Wait, there he is.
We'll have to have more plasma.
Call Leeds and try to get McManus here.
Give them the full list of casualties.
Inspector Brunel,
what a pain in the derriere you're being.
White, separate the children's figures,
that'll get McManus.
It's a waste of time,
we can't really afford that apparatus.
Waste of your time too.
- If We could Get one word from him.
- The jaw's off its hinges.
He couldn't form a word if he was sensate.
He could write one.
See that?
That's his pulse.
Now look at that
and you'll be watching a miracle.
That's the EEG, his brain.
It shouldn't be working at all
after the way it's been smashed.
The brain's a power to itself.
Brunel, when that brain stops screaming,
I'll need that bed badly.
Stay by him and keep
your pad and pencil ready.
It's all right, the Assistant Commissioner
wants a word with you.
Your office said you were on the way
to his publishers, I just wanted a word.
Your privilege.
- Are you on anything else?
- Yes, sir.
- there was a knifing in Clapham Common.
- Drop it.
We want to know who did it.
So do I.
I'm glad it fell to you.
We wouldn't dream of taking you off it.
Why don't you go and chat
in Piccadilly Circus?
You'd stop a bit more traffic there.
Is there something else?
No, just keep me informed.
He was a brilliant writer
and his last books were the best.
- What were They about?
- Evil and the power.
He had the gift for tying one to the other,
but nobody wanted to know.
Copies always sold,
but somehow they never got reviewed.
Could he have made enemies
with what he wrote?
You'd better read him and see.
Since no one paid very much attention,
I doubt they inspired murder.
It's funny,
there was something about him,
very private,
very intense, a little menacing.
It's not strange someone tried to kill him,
but I couldn't tell you why.
And his personal life?
I'd be surprised if he had one,
he was so self absorbed.
In all the times we met,
I can only remember one moment
that didn't have to do with business.
I've read your manuscript.
It's very exciting.
I love your satirical dissection
of the Prime Minister.
But there's this other bit that worries me.
- It's God who should...
...stand at the bar of public opinion.
That almighty enemy of evil should face
the jury of his victims,
the helpless, the hopeless deformed,
the despairing.
It's a little strong.
I'm not responsible
for what my characters say.
Colby's despair entitles him
to taunt that celestial non-entity.
But your readers won't see it that way,
they'll say it's you.
I can live with that,
I've known despair too.
As you say. There was this...
Another section I wondered about.
How incredible!
Just a moment, I think we ought to...
They sat there for over 3 hours.
They were still there when I left at 6.
Did you mention him the next time you met?
No, you didn't intrude
where Morlar didn't want you to be.
And the tramp, do you remember him?
- could you describe him?
- Not really.
I have a poor memory for faces.
Thanks for your help.
I'm sorry, it's just the only
personal anecdote I have.
For the state he's in
he must have a bloody reason to stay alive.
I cannot live alone with this knowledge.
What is more I cannot die with it.
It's the terrible beauty of a cleft stick.
Either end can beat you to death.
God and gentle Jesus are now "in".
Mouth pious nothings
and then grab the biggest fee you can.
No sign of L.
The walls of Jericho fell
to the power of thought.
So what is the meaning of impossibility?
Zonfeld, if only she knew".
You'll go blind, Inspector.
We've been sifting through the tenants,
it's a blank draw so far.
Only one woman ever spoke to him to get him
to join the Tenant's Association.
He said: "Don't bother me again with your
Middle Class crap" and closed the door.
I'm learning to admire the man
more and more.
What even his collection of pictures?
Look at Medusa over there,
she's not very pretty, is she?
She was a monster created
to do battle with the Gods.
She's supposed to turn you to stone,
not look pretty.
Come, I want to show you something.
- What's the word from the hospital?
- the same.
I would like an extra crew to check
the working tenants tonight.
Anything suspicious: I want it on paper.
Will they give us the personnel for that?
They will.
Look.
Floods, tornadoes,
earthquakes, massacres,
riots,
killings, air crashes,
famine... nothing but disaster.
He has reams of them
going back across the years.
- It's morbid.
- Maybe.
But when you see them collected like this
you realise how much disaster we live with.
How far would he get?
He had some risk at Windscale,
The B.1. Bomber crash,
the American submarine.
The last is the Jumbo business here.
If he'd lived a little bit longer,
he could've pasted in the moon shot.
There's no end to disaster, Sergeant.
Whenever he died,
there'd always be another.
- So what's the point?
- I don't know.
I thought you'd come up with some idea.
His death will be a disaster.
Perhaps he wanted to get into the book too.
Not bad, perhaps.
Get Rogers to send the rest of the journals
to my place.
With those and his novels
I have a lot of reading to do.
- How Did It go with the psychiatrist?
- I'm seeing her again.
Now.
At least I'm getting an idea
of what the man was like.
- Her?
- Yes, "her".
Not your type.
I want to be all the help I can to you,
but I've been through my notes on
Mr. Morlar and I can't find anything
that would prompt someone to assault him.
And tonight is very important to me.
I will be brief.
Do you know who "L" might be?
In his journal he has written:
"No sign of L".
Does that mean anything to you?
No, he never referred to anyone that way.
He seemed fixated on disasters.
Could any of the other incidents Morlar
felt responsible for
be called disasters?
One of them could be described that way.
- were there any deaths involved?
- Yes, a few.
A few.
Was Morlar blamed for any of them?
Yes, he was under suspicion.
May I take my coat off?
Parsons.
Since your first name is Walter
and your father is an expert in finance,
perhaps you'd care to contribute.
The First Crusade in...
I have given you a clue.
As the exquisite torture went on,
I chose to watch the scarlet leaves
being tossed by the autumn wind.
I took myself out of the arena.
Sit down, for God's sake,
you make me quite ill with your retchings.
Retention of the facts that is...
Can we assume that you are with us
in body if not in spirit?
Yes, sir.
- What is That supposed to mean?
- That your assumption is correct.
I was watching the leaves.
Get to your feet.
Are you trying to make a fool of me?
I'm sure one can only
a fool of himself, Mr. Copley.
Silence!
Very interesting.
It appears we have a philosopher
watching the leaves.
I'll assist you in your philosophic bent.
After chapel you'll go out into the grounds
and you will pick up exactly 1149 leaves,
which number, as you know,
is the terminating date
of the Second Crusade.
Then you'll bring those leaves to my study
and we will count them
and if I find one leaf more or less,
I will trash you, Morlar.
I will trash you so that you'll remember it
for the rest of your life.
Out of my way!
Your leaves, sir... 1149.
This won't do, Morlar.
These leaves are wet,
I can't have them soiling my carpet.
- go and dry them.
- Yes, sir.
How dare you look at me like that?
Get out.
Get out!
One master and 4 boys
died in the fire.
The master was the one who had made him?
At the inquest the whole story came out.
He admitted he left the furnace door open.
That was seen as the cause of the fire.
No one believed it was deliberate.
- he was exonerated of all blame.
- Even by the parents of the boys?
I don't know.
You've given me my first lead.
- I'm grateful.
- I'm glad I could be of some help.
What did Morlar feel?
When I looked Copley in the doorway,
I knew he was going to die.
What about the 4 boys?
They're one of the reasons I'm here.
- Did you set the fire?
- I didn't set fire to my school.
I did not touch my father's car.
Therefore?
Therefore must be something else.
Was there something else?
What else could there be?
That's right, the south of Kent.
I would like you to get the names
of the boys who died.
I would like a biography of their families.
Who's living, what they're doing, when...
I know, it's late Sergeant.
May I suggest you start
tomorrow morning early.
L today.
They blast off tomorrow.
One of them said:
"I'm just an ordinary fella doing a job"
and other finger-licking nausea.
They are worried about cracks
in the West Front.
We shall see.
Coming.
Telekinesis.
Sergeant Duff, come in.
I think I have found something.
So have I.
Two of the neighbours say Pennington felt
Morlar was responsible
for his wife's death.
- How Did she die?
- Apparently a suicide.
Morlar did have the habit of making himself
responsible for such things.
That one Pennington,
would he have the nerve to kill?
Maybe if you loved your wife enough.
Neighbours. People should mind
their own business.
- They were trying to help.
- They weren't trying to help me.
I hated him, I never tried to kill him.
Of course, but the more we learn about him,
the easier it will be to find who did it.
He'd deserve to get away with it.
You ever see Morlar's eyes?
A man can't be done in because of his eyes.
Maybe some should, the Church says
they're demons in some people.
And there are.
My Grace would be alive today,
if it hadn't been for him.
- he killed Her?
- He didn't take a gun to her.
There are more ways of killing a cat.
What exactly did he do, Mr. Pennington?
It was because of the fish.
Fish?
How can you pay money for something
that's diseased and rotten like that.
I looked it over carefully.
It's not rotten, it's the light in here.
The light has nothing to do with it.
It is foul, look at that colour,
it's most disgusting.
- Fishes look like that when they're dead.
- I'd like to know what that fish died of.
It's probably full of mercury and lead
and every poison in the sea.
It died like any other fish,
I'll make a little parsley sauce.
If you want to poison me,
don't try to disguise it.
I'm not trying to poison you, it's good,
The fishmonger won't...
The fishmonger... he sees
you coming, you fool.
I won't eat it
until you eat it first.
All right.
For heaven's sake, stop panicking,
we'll eat something else.
I planned this meal all day
and you bring something full of infection.
I don't know how I can go on.
Keep your voice down.
How can I? The TV is screaming!
You worry more about the neighbours
than about me.
I don't. I've wrapped the bloody fish up
and thrown it away.
Now take a pill and calm down.
Take a pill.
God, you and that Doctor!
I just don't know why I go on,
I just don't know why.
I'll open a tin of ravioli,
it'll be all right.
I'd rather die
and get it over with before you kill me.
- Stop talking like that.
- You wouldn't care, nobody cares.
- I've a good mind to jump.
- For God's sake woman, jump.
- was Morlar always a writer?
- No, he began as a lawyer.
Poor devil.
I glance through the paper every day
to see whether he's still with us.
- A medical wonder, they say.
- he has a great will to survive.
There we are, life and death,
damn funny things.
What do I know about him?
He was my junior for a time.
Just another ordinary young hack buck
trying to make his way to an odd guinea.
Never had a great deal to do with him,
little in common.
Not even the law.
Heart wasn't in it
and that's death in any profession.
He married not wisely,
but too well connected,
that probably didn't help.
What kind of person was he?
Very withdrawn sort of fellow.
Had the most disconcerting eyes.
One could never return his gaze
in conversation.
Somehow made one feel guilty.
Do you know why he left the law?
I thought you knew,
thought that's why you'd come.
No, I didn't know.
Mr. Morlar, may I suggest you be brief?
Barristers' first windings up tend to be
rather more generous of the Court's time
than is strictly necessary.
The chief villainy
of Mr. Lovelass's pamphlet
lies in his open admission
that he would do what he could
to make the world a saner
and more humane than the world we live in.
His phrase, not mine.
He made curbside speeches.
He even wrote certain politicians
and so called features of the...
Could you bring us to the charges?
My Lord,
the prosecution makes much
of the Defendant's professed wish to see
the lmperial War Museum destroyed.
"Why", the Defendant asks,
"do we send bus-loads of children
to gawk at that collection of tributes
to authorised murder?"
A crime?
Look at this venerable courtroom.
We are supposed to be civilised,
yet we do shove innocence
into that chamber of horrors,
stuffed with pain, mutilation and death
and say:
"This is what put the great in England".
But where in that asylum of grotesques
do we find framed the armament
manufacturer's cheque book,
together with Grandpa's pathetic medal
and his artificial leg?
I am with the Defendant.
If I knew how,
I would blow the bloody place sky high.
For which thought, if memory serves
the Prosecution argues,
if a man can be so scathing
about our bloodied militaristic past,
what is he not capable of?
I will tell you,
ladies and gentlemen of the Jury.
He is not capable of a non-event.
There was no bomb, no threats,
no conspiracy.
You know it, the Prosecution knows it,
I know it,
the Judge knows it.
It is not the Defendant
who should be on trial here,
but a besotted establishment
who can cheerfully send
a generation to slaughter
in the name of war
and yet has the audacity to bring
a hapless fool like Lovelass to trial
for uttering
words.
There was no crime,
therefore there can be no sentence.
My Lord.
Some good points of course,
but McKinley was the wrong man
to give them to, especially in that way.
He instructed the Jury. Got a verdict
and passed sentence.
It is plain that you deliberately sought
to attack the law with violence.
The only fit punishment
is to remove you from society.
I sentence you
to a period of imprisonment of 9 years.
Take him away.
May I guess what happened next?
As Morlar stared at him,
the Judge grew pale.
Exactly on the nail.
Later something happened to him.
In his chambers, an hour after the trial,
died of a heart attack.
The Coroner asked if there was anything
to account for the terror on his face.
- What's on your mind, Inspector?
- It's what's on that mind.
I've honestly never seen anything like it.
It seems to be struggling harder.
I have been reading his journals,
he talks about telekinesis.
Fairy stories or anything to it?
The power of thought to influence matter.
The Americans have done a lot of research,
the Russians too.
They have a girl who can apparently think
a chair across a room.
In America there's a man
who can think pictures onto film.
Our ignorance is great,
I keep an open mind.
We have traced the experiments
in telekinesis and mental powers.
The first one is fairly familiar,
the power of the mind dominates pain.
It's in the tradition of lying on spikes
and walking on hot coals.
This second experiment is more interesting.
The boy's head is linked to a scoreboard.
The power of his thoughts
can turn on lights and ring bells.
This film is one of the most famous
of telekinetic demonstrations.
Kulagina is just a Leningrad housewife
and grandmother.
Over 40 high ranking scientists
examined her for hidden magnets,
wires and other artificial aids.
There were none.
They could give no explanation
of her powers to move objects.
Lastly and the most dramatic.
This young history teacher is going to try
to will this sheet of glass to shatter.
To build a cenotaph,
first choose a million victims.
You know, Duff, I'm beginning to wonder
what we're chasing,
victim or murderer?
It's a string of coincidences.
I can see how it gave the bloke nightmares,
but every single one is explainable.
- What do you think he wants?
- Conclusions.
To tell me I have 2 months left in England
and I'm wasting too much time on a man
who isn't even dead.
Meanwhile let's find Lovelass.
Morning, Sir.
- Morlar still alive?
- Yes, Sir.
Everything going all right?
I think the expression is,
it belongs to the book.
I've read your reports.
This Zonfeld, is he reliable?
He's a her,
everything has checked so far.
Some interested parties want his journals.
Who?
You have interested parties in France too.
Why?
They don't have to say why.
- he wrote books.
- is That against the law in England?
Not yet, we've got enough trouble
without a dozen Watergates to handle.
Morlar knew too much
about those corridors of power,
what goes on behind the wainscoting
under the carpets.
God knows how he ever learnt but he did.
The books were bad enough, they want to see
what's going on in those journals.
You've given me
an interesting set of new suspects.
That's not their way, they're too subtle.
It was personal hatred that got Morlar.
Remember, I've been a detective too.
That's why I want those journals.
I tell you one thing,
lots of people will be relieved
to know who did it.
Not as many apparently as wished him dead.
Morlar didn't profess to us hypnosis
and you can't cause a school to burn
or a car to move with hypnosis.
He talks in his journals about telekinesis.
A very disputed field.
But it's hard to believe he could
give measles to his nanny in that way,
or induce a heart attack on Judge McKinley.
He told you about McKinley?
And his neighbour, Mrs. Pennington?
You sound a little like you're becoming
a victim of Morlar's own thinking.
It is a remarkable chain of coincidence.
Remarkable.
It's no coincidence, it's me.
It's seems like you,
but when we understand more about you,
perhaps we'll know why.
Don't patronise me.
You drag people out of hell
and yet you refuse to recognise the devil.
If I believed in possession,
I'd be a witch doctor.
You're clever,
they told me, that's why I came.
But don't talk to me of coincidence.
My wife and I had a baby,
it was born deformed, withered.
It lived for an hour and when it died
the hospital breathed a sigh of relief.
If you say coincidence to me,
I will drive my fist through your face.
All right, I'm not possessed.
I don't believe in the devil more than you,
any more than I believe in God.
But what is it?
Do you know what I did when I saw the baby?
I'd wanted that child.
I was the only thing I had wanted
from my marriage.
When I looked at it,
all these coincidences seemed too much.
I was afraid, to tell anyone.
So I went to the one place
where people who are afraid can go.
Come in, Mr. Morlar.
It is Morlar, is it?
Come in.
It's a little dim in here,
but most of my clients expect it.
The truth is we're nearer the dark ages
than we care to admit.
Sit down by the table, don't be nervous.
I have a very varied clientele.
Young girls who are pregnant,
stockbrokers whose business are failing,
ladies in love with their hairdressers.
We all need to know our destiny.
Just a simple reading you require, or...
Just a simple reading.
Is something wrong?
A simple reading will be fine.
Your hand, please, left hand.
There's been a recent tragedy...
I'm sorry, I'm not feeling...
I suggest
that you go elsewhere.
Coincidence.
Palmistry, I'm surprised at you.
Let's say you are possessed,
where do we go... Church?
I'm sorry.
Perhaps it would be better if we understood
why the child was all you wanted
from your marriage.
If you had met my wife that would be
totally understandable.
It's the first time
you mention your marriage.
We're separated, the one time in my life
when I almost felt
pleasure at what I am.
There you are.
Yes, here I am.
Don't I look ravishing?
What's the occasion? A traffic accident?
I am going to the theatre with Edward.
Edward Parrish,
I'm sure you recognise the face.
Vaguely.
Isn't he the peculiar fellow
who played Jesus with a wig once?
No, it couldn't be,
adultery wouldn't be his game.
Do you mind?
Go right ahead,
I think you may need the drink.
He isn't going to perform for us, is he?
No, but I see you are.
We're performers: me, the dutiful husband,
you, the loving wife.
I can see what Patricia means.
You really don't deserve her.
Nobody deserves Patricia,
She was invested by God to test
our belief in him.
She is a girl of extraordinary
sensitivity and talent.
Patricia was never a girl,
childhood has to do with innocence,
her gift is for prussic acid
and flying on broom sticks.
How did she ever choose you?
Divination.
I suppose daddy's going to finance
your next escapade on film.
I want to marry her.
He's offered that much!
You bastard!
- It was you who wanted to Get married.
- I mistook you For a woman.
You really are as foul as she says.
I have a gift of speaking the truth,
it leaves a strange stench in her nostrils,
something you have in common.
You go too far, dear boy.
I doubt it.
There's only one issue,
are you prepared to let her go?
Let her go?
If I weren't a faintly interested party,
I'd appear for you myself.
To the happiest day.
It is.
Daddy was right.
You aren't capable of producing anything...
...but a vegetable.
Goodbye, my dear husband,
don't expect me back.
I won't.
You know the rest.
An hour later an artificially
sympathetic policeman told me that my wife
and an unidentified male companion
had been killed in a car crash on Baywater.
I can see how, after your baby's death...
I made it happen.
It wasn't like the others where
I knew it would happen.
I made it happen.
Perhaps you wanted it to happen
more than the others,
but you couldn't cause an accident so far.
You wanted it badly,
that's what we must concentrate on.
I made that accident happen.
Inspector, your thinking
has come round to his.
You've given me another suspect to chase,
her father.
But I confess if I were Morlar,
I would be coming to see you too.
Were you able to help him?
I think that was the last time I saw him.
He never returned.
That's all.
I'm sorry we won't have to meet again,
but that is all I have to tell you
about Mr. Morlar.
Thank you, doctor.
Zonfeld is no more than a witch doctor
who conditions doubters
to accept the dung heap.
The planes are keeping me awake at night,
screaming over my head, hour after hour.
Delusions my dear friend.
My skin's black and I keep thinking
I'm different.
Delusions.
When I get behind a wheel,
I have an insane urge to kill.
Delusions, my dear friend, delusions.
Like a ride, Inspector?
English humour?
You're wanted at the hospital.
No more deaths from the Jumbo crush,
everything's back to normal.
The long hairs are planning a protest march
on the Atomic Energy Plant at Windscale.
- the old British public Are calling...
- Stop the car!
Inspector, wait, you can't!
I'm sorry,
but you're coming to the hospital with me.
- I have a patient due in!
- the patient will wait.
I want you to come to the hospital now.
I'm not sure why I called.
Perhaps I just needed someone
to share my astonishment.
Somewhere deep within
what's left of that brain
something is going on.
It's grown stronger almost every hour.
Is he recovering?
We've kept the respirator going,
we've tried to stimulate the heart,
but if it weren't for that, nothing.
- How can That be?
- the brain is complicated.
Ask her.
It begins in blood and flesh
and ends in incomprehensible tangles
of fear, dreams, love...
...will.
That's the ordinary brain.
All I can tell you is
you're looking at a mind
determined not to die.
Why?
Is there something he's trying to tell us?
Maybe he forgot to turn off the gas.
Extraordinary.
You know more about that brain than anyone.
What's going on?
I don't know.
Whatever it is, it's keeping him alive.
- I apologise.
- That's all right.
It's something I ought to have seen.
Goodbye again, Inspector.
...settlement was reached about
allowances and overtime pay.
Prisoners normal exercise periods
and other privileges which were stopped
during the work to rule
will be restored tomorrow morning.
A mass meeting of the Environmental
group of friends of the Earth
has unanimously approved a plan
to hold a protest march from London
to the Nuclear Power Station at Windscale
as part of their latest campaign
directed at the dangers
of nuclear pollution.
A spokesman for the campaign
said the Atomic Plant and associated
waste materials at Windscale
constituted a threat...
It's simmering.
Are the onions browned?
What now?
Put the onions and bacon in.
Onions and bacon going in.
Then pour in the wine
and have it "bouillee".
What?
Bubble for 2 minutes.
The Dean of Minster Cathedral
has announced that the Queen,
Members of the Cabinet
and representatives of the Commonwealth,
will be among the guests
at a Thanksgiving service
being held to commemorate the completion
of the restoration...
It's amazing how many of those who might
have a grudge against him are dead.
The family of those kids
and that Lovelass, poor old bugger,
got out of the nick,
spent 6 months on the dole,
became a tramp
and was finally knocked flat by a bus.
I want you to check on the father-in-law.
I've discovered he's in property
here and abroad.
She was the only daughter...
Yes, it is.
Flat B, 27 Latimer Gardens.
It's her?
I knew she couldn't drop him like that.
Shit! After all that work.
You wait in the kitchen.
- I'm sorry to disturb you.
- Not at all, I was glad to get your call.
I'm here for such a short time...
You've made it warm, it's what I expected.
- could I offer you a drink?
- Whisky, please.
Please, sit down.
- Anything?
- No, as it is.
I lied to you when I told you
I'd never seen him again.
I never saw him in the office again.
But I did see him.
I lied because I knew so much more
and what I knew seemed so incredible.
You said it was urgent, I've had to leave
a situation I'd rather not have left.
I'm sorry, but it was urgent to me.
I'm surprised you found something
so important
worth the attention of a witch doctor.
When you're not being obvious,
I have hopes for you.
You don't believe
I could cause my wife's death.
- But I don't...
- Please, listen to me.
It wasn't just my wife, it was all of them.
I made them happen: Copley, the children,
all of them, I made them happen.
- I made That school burn.
- You couldn't.
It's true, I made that school burn.
I killed my mother, I killed my father.
Even my nurse, I made it happen.
You don't believe me?
It might be useful if I gave you
something to help you sleep tonight,
then we'll meet in my office tomorrow.
I don't want your pills
or to be condescended to like some moron.
I tell you something.
I commanded it to happen!
- You still don't believe me.
- We'll talk about it tomorrow.
Tomorrow!
For God's sake, Zonfeld,
I killed my father, I killed my mother,
I killed my wife.
It's not just a damned headache.
What am I? How can I will death?
I'm going.
- I'll hold a space open at 11 o'clock.
- you stay here.
Tomorrow.
Not tomorrow.
Now.
Something's wrong.
You've got full power.
It's not responding!
Give me flaps 10.
It's all gone haywire, here!
What I don't understand is...
...why is it always destructive?
Sometimes when I'm alone at night,
I've thought I've created all
the world's disasters,
but it's not true.
We're all the Devil's children.
We find what powers the sun
and we make bombs of it.
We create wealth
and we become obsessed with greed.
We achieve power and we go mad.
We always destroy. Why, Zonfeld?
Reports are just coming in
that a Jumbo Jet has crashed
in Central London.
Over 300 people are believed
to have been on board the plane.
Unconfirmed reports say
that the plane plunged
into an office block and exploded,
falling debris has set fire to a cinema
and many people
have been killed.
Traffic in the West End
has been brought to a standstill.
It's not yet known what caused the crash.
That is the end of this News Flash.
Help me, Zonfeld, before I go mad.
I could help no one that night.
When I left those rooms I believed...
...what I'd seen.
When I got home I wasn't so certain.
It seemed so beyond belief.
Beyond belief.
Yes.
When I saw what I saw in that hospital
I felt I had to tell you.
I won't disturb you anymore.
Thank you.
I'm grateful you came.
What did you make of that.
The victim's obviously a nut
and now it turns out
her psychiatrist is one too.
What are you really thinking?
She just hasn't finished yet.
Do you think she did it?
No, Inspector,
that's a bit too much of a jump.
But why kill him?
It must have been because she believed
he was going to do something worse.
Worse than the Jumbo Jet disaster?
Certainly something worse
than she would be doing by killing him.
As you say it's not important,
what is important is whether you're right.
If you are right in getting a confession
that will stand up in court.
Where are you going?
Excuse me, what is this for?
We're getting ready for the
Thanksgiving Service tomorrow evening.
The Queen, the Commonwealth
Prime Ministers, it's for that.
3 million pounds
- It's not enough.
- what?
The West Front's cracking.
It goes right through to the nave.
If that goes, the whole lot goes.
The tower's too heavy,
the foundations can't support it anymore.
They're worried about cracks
on the West front.
We shall see.
I am the man
with the power to create catastrophe.
Terri, I said I didn't want to be...
I convinced her you would see me.
Of course.
I thought perhaps we should talk.
You've decided, have you?
It's been such a problem for me.
I can't live with this knowledge
or die with it.
I assume there were reasons.
Yes, there were reasons.
He came to see me at my home
after the Jumbo crash,
through all the chaos and the traffic.
For me the reality, ruined building,
ambulance men, broken bodies,
made what I'd seen in his flat seem
all the more impossible.
He sensed that immediately and he left
before we'd exchanged two sentences.
The next night he called,
he sounded unstable.
He said:
"The space shot is nearing the moon.
In 2 hours it goes into orbit.
You have my word it won't return".
While you're worrying about
that billion dollar coffin
striking the moon,
spare a thought for the millions
they might have fed with all
that technology and expertise.
How concerned all our great statesmen are
about those three
wonderful human beings
while millions of others rot to death.
Listen, Zonfeld, listen to me.
I've found a way to do
God's dirty work for him.
The Royal Chieftain, the parasites
and the whole gang
of international rabble rousers,
are going to bleat to the Almighty nothing
in his great Temple
to give praise for 3 million pounds.
I promise you,
the moment they kneel to pray
I will bring the whole edifice down
on their unworthy heads.
He sounded quite mad,
yet I believed every word he said.
I had to go to him.
The streets were deserted,
even the police were more concerned
with their traffic accidents than space.
No one saw me, no one cared.
The porter didn't even look up
from his television set.
I didn't know what I was going to do.
It's unlocked, come in.
I thought you'd come.
Just a moment, I don't want to miss this.
I've poured you a drink.
I thought we ought
to be civilised about it.
He sat watching
the last moments of catastrophe.
Those were the last words,
they had lost radio contact.
Achilles 6, the mission
that was to inaugurate
man's first permanent station on the moon
was locked into an orbit
that, unless some miracle occurs,
will produce the first
American disaster in space.
Even then I thought
I might somehow stop it.
For a moment he had turned me to a stone.
A response at last.
I knew as long as he lived
that there was no way of stopping it.
And I failed.
I couldn't tell anyone,
no one would believe me.
They'd say the madness was mine.
And perhaps it was.
Then we are mad together.
I have seen the Cathedral and I think
I know what's keeping him alive.
There's nothing you can do,
no one will believe you.
I'm going to try.
I wish you luck.
You're not arresting me?
It's a question of priorities.
You found the murderer, but two crack pots
don't add up to one good theory.
- I still don't believe you.
- To begin with Morlar isn't dead.
He's fighting to live
with superhuman resistance, right?
- against all reason.
- all right.
Against all reason he believed
he had the power to destroy a plane.
To shatter a Cathedral.
He's alive, so is the belief.
He said he would do it, I believe he will.
How?
I told you about those experiments.
Russia, Denmark, the United States.
I have seen a man shatter glass
just by concentrating his thoughts.
A hundred years ago,
the idea of sending the human voice
across oceans was madness.
But Minster Cathedral...
But Zonfeld believed he could do it,
she believed enough to kill him!
But why Minster, why a Cathedral?
Because it's the Church,
the Establishment, everything he hates.
All right, what would you suggest we do?
Cancel the ceremony, close the Cathedral.
Are you mad?
Do you know the kind of preparation...
Christ, Brunel.
What reason am I going to give them?
Your story? Lock me up.
Go to the Dean.
He shouldn't question
the power of unseen forces.
It's quite out of the question.
I have the Surveyor's word
for the soundness of the Cathedral
and Her Majesty's can't be forced
to change long laid plans
simply because a madman makes threats.
Sir, with respect,
we believe this threat is real.
We call it reasonable suspicion,
you might call it faith.
Well, moral philosophy,
something one doesn't expect from the Yard.
Science can't explain why Morlar's mind
is still alive.
And I don't think it can explain
what his mind is capable of either.
But you would agree
that there is much
that science cannot explain.
I've done you an injustice, Inspector.
I must grant an open mind on Mr. Morlar
and I will pray for his soul.
- Couldn't we go above the Dean?
- I could go to the Home Secretary.
Tell him: "There's this maniac,
three parts dead, sending out brain waves
powerful enough to shatter Cathedrals
from 2 miles away".
He's in Scotland, coming down tomorrow.
I'll try to catch him at Leeds,
talk to him on the way down.
All right?
It hurts to tell you,
I've failed again.
Already you are becoming used
to my failures
and we've only known each other
such a short time.
I went back to the hospital.
I stood and stared at him,
it seemed so easy,
cut one tube, pull one plug,
a dozen ways to end it.
But I couldn't...
...finish what I had begun.
So I leave our problem with you,
my dear Inspector.
Forgive me.
It's the lorries.
Terrible vibrations.
They should ban them from this area.
Riots at Nuclear Plant.
- any luck?
- He had meetings, wouldn't see me.
He'd make an appointment tomorrow morning.
I couldn't just barge in
with the story we have.
- What news from the hospital?
- I don't understand.
His EEG went crazy during the evening,
then it settled, now it's increasing again.
I don't know what it means.
Zonfeld's dead.
Suicide?
There are times when I know you're right
and others when I know it just can't be.
Frankly, I don't know what to do.
Watch, wait,
hope we are insane.
I have no time.
I know, but rubble
is falling from the Church.
That's what the fund is about,
it's the traffic.
The traffic has been diverted, there's...
I understand your concern,
but I promise you have nothing to fear.
Now pray for the Church,
pray for your own peace of mind.
Guards, general salute!
Present arms!
- Are you convinced?
- Enough to want to stop it!
There's one thing we can do.
I'll buy it at any price.
Throw a bomb scare.
We could empty the church in minutes.
We'll do it. You warn them in there,
I'll clear the whole area.
He'll never believe me, you go,
I'll get the area cleared.
Brunel, no panic.
- It's quarter to 7, nearly time.
- Very good.
Inspector Brunel, French Exchange.
We've had a bomb threat,
the Cathedral has to be cleared at once.
It's just a hoax, we've been through
that church 3 times, the Clergy have too.
Not a prayer book that hasn't been checked.
We have every reason to believe
it's not a hoax.
Double check the main aisle and the section
held for the Queen and the Minister.
Sir...
I'll handle this.
Now, what's the source of this call?
I'll get the Assistant Commissioner.
- Sir...
- have you seen the A.C.?
They wouldn't believe me,
they think it's a hoax, talk to them.
I got the Deacon. He gave them the news,
they'll be out shortly.
- That should convince them.
- It'll take time to clear this crowd.
Come on, get them out of there.
He didn't believe you,
they're not cancelling it.
Look!
I will bring the whole edifice down
on their unworthy heads!
Get them out of there,
I'm going to the hospital.
The Queen!
Stop the procession.
Get out of my way!
Stop!
Clear the Cathedral at once.
It is about to collapse, run!
Take every exit, go on!
There's a bomb, get the car out of the way.
Police!
Here at Minster Cathedral
a man has just stopped the Queen's car...
Look, up there, the cross,
is moving!
Come on, get it out now.
Use the other way!
Go back!
It's blocked outside, go back!
Use the other exits.
Sir, look!
The pen.
The Nuclear Plant.
I am the man
with the power to create catastrophe.3