Father Brown (2013) s07e07 Episode Script

Mrs M.
Mrs M.
Oh, yes.
Yes.
Mary, Peter.
Are you ready? We are gathered here today to witness the marriage of Peter and Mary.
Oi! Come here! When are you going to get it into your thick skull, I don't want to be with you any more! What, you honestly think you can do better than me? Get your dirty hands off me! Get off the road! Father, are you sure you don't mind me leaving early like this?Not at all.
Let me guess.
You're going to visit Patrick O'Leary.
Again.
It's his borders.
They're in a terrible state! They must be.
Honestly, spending all this time with a wealthy bachelor, you'll set tongues wagging.
I'm sure Patrick appreciates your kindness, Mrs McCarthy.
Oh, I said I'd be there by four o'clock! Tongues couldn't be wagging any more furiously.
That ivy looks sensational.
That is clematis.
See? This is why I need you here, Bridget.
To put me right on things.
You know a lot more about gardening, Patrick O'Leary, than you let on.
You've spoilt me with kindness these past few weeks, Bridget.
Well, hardly your fault your gardener decided to abandon you, was it? Blessing shall be the reward of kindly hearts.
Oh Patrick? What is it? A slight pain.
Nothing at all.
There.
I'm feeling better already, Bridget.
Thank you.
Mrs McCarthy.
Oh, Francesca.
George.
Ma'am.
I'm afraid Patrick's had a slight turn.
Oh, he needs to be resting, not exhausting himself outside with you.
Well, thanks to Mrs McCarthy, I was barely lifting a finger.
Even so, you have a weak heart, and as the doctor saidFrancesca.
Have you not got work to do? We've done the whole house, Sir.
Something the matter, Mrs McCarthy? No, no.
Uncle, have you asked Mrs McCarthy about this evening?Ah, yes.
Thank you, Maria.
Now, Mrs McCarthy.
I wonder would you do me the honour of joining me and my niece for dinner here tonight?Oh! I've been begging him to ask you for ages, given he's so fond of you.
Well, that would be lovely.
Wonderful! Now, I can't stop long, Father, but I have made you a shepherd's pie for your tea.
That's very kind, Mrs McCarthy.
May I say, what a lovely dress.
Oh, this.
I haven't worn it in years.
Bette Davis, eat your heart out! Penelope, please!Seriously! Patrick O'Leary is one lucky man.
I can assure you, Mr O'Leary is nothing more than a .
.
horticultural friend.
Now, I must be going! Have a lovely evening, Mrs McCarthy.
"Guard lips and tongue as thou would guard thy life from peril.
" Oh, yes.
They're a funny lot in Yorkshire! Tell me, what made you come to Kembleford? Thank you.
Well, you know, I had sold the Bible publishing business, and Well, the time comes when we all just need a change.
Maria.
I'm fine.
A year since her husband passed.
A year ago today? I am so sorry.
I'll be all right, really.
George.
I want to know all about you, Mrs McCarthy.
Me?! Oh Nothing to tell!Well, what happened to your husband? You are Mrs McCarthy?Yes.
You don't have to talk about it, Bridget.
Don't pretend you're not madly curious, Uncle.
Oh, yes.
Do tell.
Angelica.
You didn't change the locks, Patrick.
I don't know, maybe you wanted me to come back.
No, no.
Don't get up.
So, um Who's this? Mrs McCarthy has been very kindly helping out in the garden since you left.
Since I was asked to leave.
So, this was your gardener?Oh, yes.
We mowed lots of grass, me and Patrick.
Didn't we, Francesca? What do you want, Angelica? To let you know that your threats are in vain.
Tomorrow morning, I'm going to tell the world the truth.
I no longer fear your disapproval, Patrick.
I'm beyond that.
You see, in this house, we set our eyes on what is unseen.
Not on what we can see.
Angelica? Bridget? I have a very early Mass tomorrow, so Angelica had a crisis of faith a while back.
It was brought on by the sudden passing of her parents.
They died within a week of each other.
Oh, that poor girl! She began questioning the very existence of God.
Then she turned to the bottle.
Well, this being such a holy house So that was why you had to ask her to leave.
She has since veered even further from the path.
It has been painful to behold.
I can imagine.
I am sorry for the both of you.
You're a wonderful woman, Bridget.
I suspect not enough men have told you that in your life.
I love your kind heart, and your faith.
I love that you tell me what to do! But most of all, I love your eyes.
I really should go.
Thank you for a lovely evening.
Look after one another.
Oi! Angelica! I swear if you come anywhere near me again, Eddie Trist Is there something I can do to help? No! Hey.
Save a place for me, won't you? What's she doing here? Are you absolutely sure? No I'm fine.
Dominus illuminatio mea, et salus mea.
1 Corinthians, chapter 14, verse 34.
"And the women will stay silent in the churches" This woman will Angelica? Angelica? Well, Padre.
She was at least spared hearing you prattle on for three hours.
Cyanide poison?Yes, thank you.
I did detect the aroma of almonds on the victim, along with the contents of the pub cellar.
She was about to announce something.
Save your theories, Padre.
We've found our man.
It wasn't me!Eddie Trist, born troublemaker.
Humiliated by the deceased yesterday in front of his drinking pals.
Seen barging into the victim's house in the early hours of this morning to exact his revenge.
That's when you think he poisoned her? To most, an overreaction, but to Eddie Trist, merely settling a score.
A small amount of cyanide can take hours to kill.
It might widen the field a little.
Thank you for the toxicology lesson, Padre.
That poor girl.
I heard Eddie Trist always was a bit wild.
Up to no good since he could crawl.
But procurement of cyanide is a complicated process.
It's not exactly the modus operandi for a crime passionnel, which is Mallory's theory.
Did Angelica eat anything last night?No.
Well, she had some wine, but it was the same wine that everyone else drank.
Could someone have added poison to the wine?I don't see how.
The decanter was on the table right in front of me, and she just helped herself.
Where did she get the glass from? She snatched it out of poor George's hand the minute she arrived.
Maybe she was poisoned in her own home.
Well, Eddie.
You've excelled yourself this time.
I bet no-one's ever said that to you before, Mallory.
Kembleford's going to be an awful lot quieter with you in six feet of quicklime.
I've done nothing wrong! It's a peculiar feeling, let me tell you.
You were seen at the victim's house.
An hour later, she's dead from poisoning.
Is that it?! The same woman who had recently ended your relationship.
We got drunk, we rolled in the hay.
It was hardly Brief Encounter.
She also kicked you in the where's-your-fathers! In front of an audience.
All you've got on me is a grudge.
Let's see what a jury thinks, shall we? Mmm.
I'm so sorry to bother you, officer, but my car won't start.
I don't suppose you could help me with it? Very well, madam.
Thank you so much! I'm utterly hopeless with the sorts of things.
I think there might be some water in the carburettor? Who could've done such a thing? Someone who did not know the true Angelica.
She had her faults, but I was very fond of her.
I know.
I know.
There's something I'd been planning to do today.
Oh, that is beautiful.
It's yours.
No, Patrick.
Not today, not after what This is nothing to do with Angelica.
I've wanted you to have it for a while now.
You're a joke, Mallory! Oh, the irony! He thinks I'm the joke, Sergeant.
Well, I'm certainly not laughing, Sir.
Exactly.
Angelica's postmortem.
Well? The amount of hydrogen cyanide found in her blood was very small.
She could've ingested it up to 12 hours before she died.
It opens up the case a bit.
All this means is that Eddie slipped the poison into Angelica's drink at the pub yesterday.
We've just got to prove it.
Good gosh! Is that from Patrick? CASE SLAMS SHU I wonder how big the ring will be! Penelope, don't be ridiculous!Well, he's obviously working up to it.
Oh, Father.
I wondered where you'd been.
I have been trying to make sense of the wedding veil in Angelica's fireplace, so I telephoned the marriage records office in Yorkshire, and I made a rather surprising discovery .
.
about Patrick O'Leary.
Well? Yes.
Angelica was my wife.
Your wife? We met in Yorkshire, through the church.
We married four years later.
I see.
So why pretend she was your gardener? After Angelica lost God, our marriage rather fell apart, but neither of us wanted the humiliation of a divorce.
That's why we came here, where no-one knew us, where we could live our own lives.
And it was fine .
.
until her drinking started.
I wanted to tell you, but I was worried it would scare you away.
It won't, will it?Well, I Before you answer that, I have something else to share.
I don't know how much time I have left down here.
In Kembleford? On Earth.
Oh The prognosis for my heart, my doctor is not optimistic.
Oh, dear Lord!That's why Angelica had to leave this house.
The anxiety was threatening to kill me.
But I'm determined to make the most of the life I have left.
Which is why, Bridget, I so desperately hope you can forgive me.
I don't want to lose you, ever.
I've spoken to Father Brown.
He brought me up to speed.
Yes.
Well, before you make any smart remarks, I am not in the mood.
I'm not that cruel, Mrs M.
What kind of man makes his wife pretend to be his gardener and then fires her? Oh, you will stay away from him now, won't you? Part of me feels a bit sorry for him.
What?! Why? Well, the poor man has just lost his wife.
He disowned her.
And then there's his health Mrs M Maybe I was too harsh.
Bridget.
I came to apologise.
Whatever for? Earlier today, I think I was rather unsympathetic.
Not at all.
It was a lot to take in.
Won't you come in? Oh Are you all right, Bridget? Oh, just my mind playing tricks, I think.
A glass of wine, perhaps? Tea, thank you.
Bridget Let me explain.
No! Bridget, please! Mrs McCarthy.
What's the matter?Patrick is also married to Francesca.
And to Maria.
To every woman in that house, in fact.
He's a bigamist, Father! Oh, Mrs McCarthy.
And I'm the greatest fool, that I allowed myself even for one secondYou couldn't possibly have known.
.
.
that a man like that would be interested in me.
There was bound to be a catch, wasn't there? So many lies, from all of them! What Bridget thinks she saw in that album Patrick, I have spoken to marriage and birth records.
George is your son, isn't he? Do not judge me unkindly, Father.
Only God can judge.
I'm here out of concern for Mrs McCarthy's safety.
I was going to tell her the truth, at the right time.
I'm glad to hear it.
The arrangement we have in this house may be unusual, but it is not ungodly.
Look at Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon.
Each took more than one wife.
And which were condemned by the Lord for doing so? None of them.
Precisely.
God can see this is a happy house, with good people who have chosen to be here.
Was Angelica happy? Until she lost her faith, yes.
She stopped believing in God, and stopped believing in you.
That was the secret she was about to share at St Mary's.
The truth about this house.
I assure you what happened to poor Angelica had nothing to do with me, or anyone else in my home.
I trust I can count on your discretion in this? There's so much at stake, for all of us here.
I understand.
Yes.
I've been married to Patrick for nearly 20 years.
20 years? Yes, well, that certainly explains the funny looks you always gave me.
I love him with all my heart.
And you agreed to share him with two other women.
The father of your child! Patrick showed me that God has given him his permission to take other wives.
And you believed him.
The Lord gave me the strength I needed to accept it.
What is it you want from me, Francesca? Your word you will say nothing of this.
Oh, so I just turn a blind eye? You must! Your house of God is a house of lies, a den of sin, and Patrick O'Leary should go to prison for having built it.
But so will I, Mrs McCarthy.
And that would mean George going into care, which would destroy me.
Mrs McCarthy? Mrs McCarthy.
Has anyone from Patrick's house been here?Francesca.
Begging me to keep quiet.
Needless to say, Mrs M has told me all about it.
Did Francesca leave anything, touch anything?No.
Why? I think Angelica was silenced by someone in that house, and if they silenced her They could do the same to me! Sweet Jesus!Where are you going? To see Inspector Mallory.
Whatever for?They can hardly silence me if I've already reported their dirty little secret.
In that case, we'll go with you.
Who in their right mind would want to share their husband with two other women?All three wives had their reasons, I'm sure.
It must get so complicated.
Hmm God doesn't actually support bigamy, does he, Father? I don't believe so.
However, nowhere in the Bible does he expressly forbid it, which rather leaves things open to interpretation.
I bet Patrick couldn't believe his luck! Oh.
A word, father? Er, I'll go and arrange that for you, Father.
Oh, yes.
Thank you, Bunty.
Where's Mrs McCarthy? Inside, with the inspector.
Then it's the end of everything.
According to the marriage records office, your first husband's still alive.
He is dead to me.
He hurt me.
Often.
A year ago I escaped.
I was sleeping on the streets in Gloucester.
I had nothing.
And then Patrick found me and gave me sanctuary.
In return for becoming his third wife, and playing the part of a widowed niece.
His home is the most beautiful place in the world.
A true house of God.
For the first time in my life I felt safe.
And now it's over.
So, what do you intend doing about it, Inspector? Inspector? Mm?You do agree that those women and that poor boy must be rescued from that sordid den of iniquity? Sordid, yes.
And that Patrick O'Leary is a disgrace of a man, who deserves to be put behind bars.
Absolutely.
Three wives, you say?Yes.
Unbelievable.
It makes me think of that old Bob Hope quip, about bigamy being the only time two rites make a wrong.
It's a play on words.
Rites is spelt R-I-T-E-S.
Doesn't matter.
Inspector.
I think we need to get Mr O'Leary in for a chat, hadn't we? Find out exactly what was going on in that house.
How it all worked.
So, let me get this straight.
One day, out of the blue, you told Francesca that God wanted you to take another wife, and she went along with it.
You're clearly a remarkably persuasive man, Mr O'Leary.
Three spouses, all younger than you, including one who is 28.
You certainly appear to have covered all the bases.
Age is irrelevant in our house.
The only thing that matters is serving God.
Of course.
Well, you're looking at a seven-year stretch for this.
I hope it was worth it.
I suspect it probably was.
I assume there was some sort of rota? Ladies.
Well, Goodfellow, I don't know if that man should be slapped in jail or given a medal.
I still think one of them could've murdered Angelica O'Leary, Sir.
They all had good reason to.
They're each other's alibis that none of them left the house in the hours before the victim died.
And, given that she didn't eat or drink anything personal to her when she visited Sir.
To be fair, sir, we still haven't got any proof that Eddie Trist did it, either.
We do now, Sergeant.
We do now! Traces of the same poison found in a jar on the work shelf of his shed.
So, while we're waiting for all the marriage certificates, let's get these deviants out on bail.
I've got a murderer to charge.
Imagine if Patrick had produced a ring and you said yes and accidentally signed up for Sodom and Gomorrah! Here it is.
"The seeds of stone fruit such as apricots, "plums and cherries contain a substance which releases "cyanide when metabolised.
" Yes.
And? The night before Angelica died, there were fruit pips on Patrick's kitchen floor, and I am sure they were cherry pips.
That is very useful.
Very useful indeed, Mrs McCarthy.
Yes, well done, Mrs M.
And I just thought Francesca had been a bit slack with her cleaning.
If that's where the cyanide came from, then who prepared it? And how did they get Angelica to ingest it? Tell me again exactly what happened when Angelica gate-crashed the dinner.
Disgusting! Forgive them.
Look at them.
No shame.
I can't believe it.
Bridget.
Might I have a word? I'll join you in a minute.
I thought I could trust you, Bridget.
Well, that makes two of us.
This belonged to Angelica, didn't it? You are a shameless man, Patrick O'Leary Bridget .
.
all baubles and flowers and honey words.
And none of it meaning a thing.
That's not true.
As the Lord says Don't you dare try and twist the Holy Book with me! You are a manipulator and a bully, and you deserve whatever fate comes your way.
Bridget, please! Mrs McCarthy to you.
There you go, Mrs M.
That'll do you a world of good.
He has no scruples, that man.
None! I agree.
Maybe he murdered poor Angelica.
He's certainly capable of it, I've no doubt about that.
If he did do it, then he must've put the poison in that wine.
I have told you, Angelica drank from the same decanter as the rest of us.
Are you certain that no-one could've slipped anything in it when she arrived? Oh, think, Mrs M.
He had the glass ready.
Patrick? No, George.
Oh, Marjorie.
Have you seen Father Brown? Sorry, Mrs McCarthy, no.
Let's split up.
Good idea.
Er, right.
Maria.
You're OK.
Let's go.
Yes! Where are you? Wait, stop! Please! Father Brown, you are a marvel.
Don't mind if I join you, do you? Going far? What do you want, Father? The wine glass that Angelica took from you had poison in it, didn't it, George? But you didn't put it in there, because it wasn't your idea to murder Angelica.
What are you talking about? George did what he did for love, and it has become clear to me that he is very much in love with you.
You're wrong.
It was all my idea.
Um, how did you procure the poison? The cherry tree.
Tell me, George, because I'm interested.
How did you extract cyanide from a cherry tree?I It was you, Maria, that extracted the poison from the cherry pips.
It was you that delivered the letter to Angelica, knowing it would provoke her to visit that evening.
And it was you who persuaded poor lovelorn George here, to hold out the wineglass that you had lined with poison.
And you even ensured that Mrs McCarthy was there to testify that you had kept your hands clean.
Why would I do any of that? Because Angelica was about to cost you dear.
Not sanctuary, but a substantial inheritance, which, given Patrick's fragile heart, could've come at any time.
Inheritance? As you well know, a bigamist's will is null and void when the crime is exposed.
I don't care about Patrick's money.
You have a very expensive taste in jewellery.
This is outrageous! May I ask what's in your bag? That's got nothing to do with you.
George George! You stupid boy! A train ticket.
To London.
You were going to abandon me.
I'm afraid that Maria has taken advantage of your affection for her.
You said this was to keep me out of care.
You told me you loved me.
Oh, God.
What've I done?Stop the bus! Drive on, Eric! Stop this bus at once! I order you to open this door! This bus now terminates at the police station.
Before this bus reaches its final destination, I urge you, for the sake of your mortal souls, to repent.
Inspector Mallory! Thank you, Eric.
What in the blazes is? Padre.
You can let Eddie Trist go, Inspector.
Oh, can I? I gave Angelica the cyanide, in a wineglass.
Sorry, sonny.
Eddie Trist did it.
We found poison in his shed.
In a jar on his workbench.
Yes.
I put it there.
That's where Maria told me to put it.
I'll take him inside, Sir.
Come on, son.
You may have to work a bit harder with his accomplice, Inspector.
Unusually thoughtful of Inspector Mallory to allow them to pray together at St Mary's before he goes.
I wonder if Patrick will survive seven years in prison.
If he does, I suspect Francesca will be waiting for him at the gates.
Hasn't the poor woman suffered enough? "Love bears all things, love believes all things, "love hopes all things, love endures all things.
" "Love never fails.
" So, how did you know which bus those two were going to take, Father? I saw George looking at a Kembleford to Cirencester timetable in the Post Office.
You really are far too clever! Cheer up, Mrs M.
Not every man you're keen on will turn out to be a bigamist.
You sound awfully certain about that.
If it's any consolation, I don't think I could ever get used to calling you Mrs O, Mrs M.
Me neither.
Oh, come on, Mrs M.
Aren't you just a tiny bit flattered that Patrick went for you rather than another younger model? No, I am not.