Towards Zero (2025) s01e03 Episode Script

1
There's a body in the water.
Some city fool tried to swim across.
Got caught in the rip.
I need money. A lot of money.
Please, Aunt Camilla. Please help me.
Let us discuss the will.
If they must pursue
their pleasures elsewhere.
I'll see you both dead!
Every murder has its moment
of origin - its point zero.
A wound. A festering wound.
A family secret?
They found something.
Two blows to the head
with a blunt object.
You're the illegitimate son
of Sir Matthew Tressilian.
The family shame,
Sir Matthew and the maid.
RUMBLE OF THUNDER
No!
Help!
We'll have to have breakfast in here.
Dining room is still out of bounds.
Sit here with me, Louis.
You spent the night with Audrey?
Mr Treves?
Mr Treves?
Where's Mr Treves?
I have made him his French toast.
SHE GASPS
Right under my nose.
Smothered, sir. They left the pillow.
Just discarded it.
All right.
The girl found him.
Oh, my God.
Bastards.
Time of death between three and five.
Er, same as before - no break-in,
windows and doors all locked.
But here's the thing, Louis Morel
went to ground yesterday,
this morning he's having breakfast here.
Sir.
Find the other one.
Matthew Hutton, sir,
otherwise known as MacDonald -
do we let him go?
No. Doesn't rule him out.
He could be in league with someone.
Bring him back here.
I want to make sure the kid is
..all right.
Why
..Mr Treves?
I I don't know yet.
I should want to cry, but
..I don't know.
I don't.
That's all right.
Mr Treves was the only one left.
Will I have to stay with one of them?
Oh, I I I don't know.
I I can't say, Sylvia.
I don't like them.
These people
..this place
..they make my throat hurt.
I'll, erm
I'll come back in a little while.
Erm, one of you
..took
Don't think I won't find out.
You took the last person
that girl had in the world.
Whichever one of you it is,
whoever you are
I know him.
He's He's a fixer at the hotel.
Erm erm, girls, boys,
he he offered me.
He's a good old-fashioned criminal,
so let's do some good
old-fashioned police work.
No food, no water,
no fucking air.
I want them to suffer.
Mary.
Mary, you've got to
listen to me. It's Nevile.
Thomas
I know it is. It's all Nevile.
Why, Thomas?
Hm? Answer me that. Why?
I don't know why.
Whispering, Thomas?
I was with Audrey all night.
You're each other's alibi, are you?
You can wait in here, Mr Hutton.
You can't hold him
in here with us, Leach.
He's a suspect,
just like the rest of you.
- What do you think you're doing?
- I'll sit where I like.
The son of Sir Matthew Tressilian.
The illegitimate son.
But the son.
Not a nephew.
We're all equals before the noose.
Savile Row.
Hidden in the boiler room.
The other cufflink,
we found
..in Mr Strange's jewellery box.
Niblick, jacket, cufflink
..tells us Nevile Strange
did both murders.
But we know Nevile Strange
was at Easterhead
the night of Lady Tressilian's murder.
He was, sir.
But there is the 45-minute window
in which he was not seen.
He couldn't have driven it in that time.
The only boat he could have used
would have been the ferry.
Ferry man's sleeping in it again,
sir.
Wife's kicked him out.
Who uses their own golf club
..to commit a murder?
Hm?
Came off in the struggle?
Might as well have left a calling card.
When is a clue not a clue, Miller?
When it looks like a clue.
Lady Tressilian, Mr Treves, what
if they're not the targets at all?
We lock up Hutton, Mr Treves
is murdered that very night. Why?
To direct us to Nevile Strange.
What if this is a plot?
A plot to see Nevile Strange hang.
The ex-wife.
The black sheep.
The put-upon.
The wife.
The boyfriend.
The bastard son.
Each and every one has a reason
to hate Nevile Strange.
Your jacket with her blood on it,
your cufflink at Mr
Treves' murder scene
What?
..your niblick, the murder weapon,
your fingerprints, Mr Strange,
all over it.
What are you talking about?
What are you What are you saying?
I
I had no argument with Mr Treves.
Aunt Camilla, she was like
a mother to me. I could never
- Your jacket
- She was the only mother I ever knew.
- She shielded me from my father.
- ..your cufflink, your niblick.
- How do you explain it?
- I don't
I don't I don't know.
I
I don't know.
Well, then, someone
hates you, Mr Strange.
Someone wants to see you hang.
Nevile, say something.
For the love of God, Nevile,
stop playing the martyr!
I know it's you, Nevile.
I know it's you.
Thomas, stop it.
Don't start this madness again.
No, I know I'm not mad, I'm
not mad, I never have been.
You're obsessed.
Oldest trick in the book -
accuse someone else.
I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not,
not, not, not, not, not, not
In a way, I hate to
disappoint you, Thomas
..but you can ask Leach.
He'll tell you what he told me.
It was my niblick that was used
to murder my aunt.
My jacket that was worn.
My cufflink left at the scene
of Mr Treves' murder.
Now, someone
..in this room is trying
to pin this horror on me!
Thomas.
Thomas Royde.
The letters he wrote me.
Some of them were pages
and pages about Nevile.
His grievances and jealousy.
I felt for him.
But I see it now for what it was.
An obsession.
I encouraged him to come here.
I wanted so much to meet him.
SHE TAKES A DEEP BREATH
You wrote your own letters
about Nevile Strange
and, indeed, about Lady Tressilian.
"Nevile Strange thinks he's
already the Lord and Master."
"Not ashamed to admit it,
today I wished him dead."
Quite a few pages of this, too.
You came here by air, Mr Royde.
A man on the brink of bankruptcy.
Quite an extravagance.
I couldn't sit on a boat for
30 days. I'd have lost my mind.
By air, it was a mere eight.
Bringing you here on the exact
same day Nevile Strange arrived.
Nevile Strange bullied you
remorselessly as a child.
He made your life a misery.
Money and hate.
Lady Tressilian, Nevile Strange.
Manipulation and deceit.
They all meet in you, Mr Royde.
Tell me you don't believe him.
You can't believe him.
This fantasy that someone else
was wearing his clothes.
If Mr Strange did all this, he left
quite the trail of carelessness.
No, no, it's not a question of that.
It's a question of arrogance.
He expects to get away with it.
Of course he does.
He killed a young boy.
He killed him.
And what happened?
The world smiled on him.
The night of your aunt's murder,
Mr Strange was at
the Easterhead Bay Hotel.
We have several witnesses
who put him there.
Audrey Strange has stated that,
at the time of Mr Treves' murder,
Nevile Strange was with her.
THOMAS CHUCKLES
Just arrest me now.
Arrest me.
One way or another,
I'll hang for him
..so just hang me now.
Thomas thinks
..that I stole Audrey from him
..so he'll say anything against me.
But what Thomas leaves out
in his telling of this
..this very sad and sorry tale
is that
..my aunt and I did right
by Peter James' family.
I stood up and owned it.
Look, it was just
It was a stupid
A stupid game gone wrong.
A mistake I've lived with
all my life.
And what it did to Audrey.
What it did to her?
She had no-one.
I mean, God knows what would
have happened to her at
..corrective school.
Look, none of this has got
anything to do with Audrey.
None of it.
Peter James.
What's Thomas been saying?
He's always hated Nevile.
He says Nevile Strange
got away with murder.
Peter James.
Tell me the truth.
Mm
It was an, erm
It was a terrible accident.
Blubbing won't bring him back.
Mr Strange suggests it unbalanced you.
This was supposed to be
their honeymoon, wasn't it?
What on earth are you doing
on your ex-husband's honeymoon?
SOMBRE TUNE PLAYED ON PIANO
Audrey Strange
..what else do we know about her?
Mother and father are part
of the travelling set.
Globe-trotters, pleasure-seekers.
The idle rich.
- What happened to them?
- Plane crash in Kenya.
She was 11.
Cooper, bring me whatever
scent she wears.
Sir.
Sir.
Hm.
Residue, sir.
- Here and here.
- Helmet.
Where the wrists
..sink in.
MUSIC STOPS
Audrey Strange, your face powder,
can you show it to us?
- My compact?
- Mm-hm.
Erm
..I lost it yesterday.
No, the day before yesterday.
You lost it the day
of Lady Tressilian's murder?
- Miller, have the men look for a compact.
- Yes, sir.
Gold, round.
It has my monogram on it.
And my mother's on the inside - BM.
She was looking for it that night,
but of course she couldn't find it
because she was too busy
seducing my husband.
What do you mean by all this, Leach?
Oh!
Oh, it is It's her.
She did it.
She did it
..and they've got her.
- You shut your fucking mouth, Kay!
- Sit down!
All of you.
Miss Strange.
The evidence against you, Miss Strange.
The pillow that was used
to smother Mr Treves
now bears the residue of your scent
and your make-up, we believe, on the
lapels of Nevile Strange's jacket.
You have nothing to say?
It's not me you should be
questioning, Inspector.
It's him.
Nevile.
You've stated you're his alibi
for Mr Treves.
I woke, erm
Yes, I woke at four, I think it was,
and he was gone.
Ms Strange, if you're telling me
you provided a false alibi,
that's perverting the course of justice.
The evidence against Audrey,
I'd like to see it.
- You're not police, Mr Strange.
- It can't possibly be her.
She says she woke in the night
to find you gone.
That's madness.
No, we were together all night.
What is she saying?
- Why is she Why is she doing this?
- You're like a pair of children.
You people, you think the world
is your playground.
You think a murder investigation
is a sandpit.
It was my aunt, Inspector.
Now, I don't know what Audrey
is playing at,
but we were together all night.
I'll vouch for her,
even if she won't for me.
He says, she says.
And all this could hang either of them.
- Or both.
- Or neither.
Evidence is blurred.
It'd confuse a jury.
The two of them together?
She kills Lady Tressilian
while he's at Easterhead,
he kills Mr Treves and she's his alibi.
Blame each other,
with no way of proving it.
- One's word against the other's.
- Yes, but to what end?
I'm going to the sea.
I may be some time.
Fuck!
You shouldn't swear, Mr Leach.
Does no-one ever look after this child?
Sylvia, please come down now?!
You shouldn't be on the rocks.
It's not safe.
I'm all right.
You're the one who falls in.
Sorry, what are you doing?
- It's stuck.
- Yes, what do you want with it, anyway?
You don't know where it's been.
Please come down.
Let's go and see
if Barrett's got some cake.
It's so boring in there.
- Please don't make me go back in there.
- I know, I know,
and I'm sorry, but I can't
leave you up here on your own.
Thank you.
Louis Morel, we
spoke to the ferry man
Good Good work, Miller.
Has the compact been found?
No, sir.
I'm starting again, Miller.
I'm turning it upside down.
Dumped off a fishing boat?
Flotsam? Jetsam?
Or is it how they got in?
All windows and doors locked,
Mrs Barrett drugged, bell disabled.
The inside job.
Turn it upside down.
An outside job!
They got in there.
The broken parapet.
This is why Mrs Barrett was drugged.
It wasn't about being disturbed.
This is how they got in and out.
Right next to her room.
We know it couldn't have been
Nevile Strange.
The 45-minute window.
But we don't have a window for Louis
Morel. No-one saw him all night.
- No, he has no alibi.
- So it is possible that Louis Morel,
Kay Strange and Matthew Hutton
are working together.
They would have needed access to
Barrett's senna and the bell.
Hutton could have provided that.
This way, he gets a share.
Kay Strange and Louis Morel?
Let's give them a stir.
Kay Elliot, as was.
Theft, fraud
and aiding and abetting Louis Morel.
You're a pair of grifters, aren't you?
The long game,
for the wife's inheritance.
Marry him, kill the Lady,
eliminate the lawyer,
inherit the fortune.
You followed them down
to the South of France,
you planted your compact in his car
so that you could get the divorce,
get into his life and into this house.
I never would have put it in his car.
I didn't want him to leave her
because I trapped him,
I wanted him to leave her
because he wanted me.
He was your mark
..but you fell in love with him.
And he went back to her.
They humiliated you.
So perhaps this is your revenge.
You and Kay Strange,
both in your different ways,
inserted yourselves
into Nevile Strange's life,
where you arrived at an understanding -
to kill Lady Tressilian,
frame Nevile Strange
and split the inheritance with Mr Morel.
Your charge sheet, Mr Hutton
Nine-month stretch at Armley
for assault and battery,
a history of violence.
You're the hired muscle.
No.
Then why did you come here?
I don't know.
I don't know what I thought I'd do.
My mother was a 16-year-old
scullery maid
..seduced by the Lord and Master,
and Lady Tressilian sent her away.
The girl he ruined
..away from her family, from her home,
for this family's good name.
I've done things.
I've hurt people.
But I'd die before I raised
my hand to a woman.
On my mother's soul, I swear,
I never hurt the Lady.
I could feed the chickens.
Inspector Leach said you're to
stay here with me. You heard him.
What are you doing down there?!
I'm not a delinquent.
Where did you find this?
Show me.
This belongs to Audrey Strange.
It was in here? You're sure?
HE SIGHS
The compact belonging to Audrey Strange,
claimed lost.
But Sylvia found it this morning
in Audrey Strange's vanity case.
Why claim she lost it
if it was in her case all that time?
If it was in her case all that time
..someone took it
and someone put it back.
We're going to have to start
all over again.
Right, back to it.
Mrs Barrett, would you have an aspirin?
Maybe a cup of tea
if there's one in the pot.
Thank you.
Just a splash of milk.
Thank you.
That's my son.
I'm so I'm so sorry.
I didn't mean to intrude.
Battle of Morval.
Hardly been there a minute.
I led them
..led them into the guns, and
..watched them drop around me.
Better men than me.
Now I walk the Earth in their place.
Do you think if you'd died,
my boy would have lived?
Or any of them?
I'm luckier than most.
Lady Tressilian took me back
and I've had Mr Nevile.
He's been a comfort
to me his whole life.
He's never out of the papers.
"Gold digger gets her man."
She knew what she was doing.
She knew it was the only way
she'd get him.
The only way Audrey would get a divorce.
Oh, don't they look well together.
Mind, they used to frighten me,
the way they'd fight.
"Nevile Strange's 400 yard sprint."
He's a swimmer.
Thank you for the tea
and aspirin, Mrs Barrett.
Leach, what are you doing?
I'm like you, Mr Strange -
can't bear to be idle.
We are waiting on
the criminalistics.
A case like this, with so many
conflicting testimonies,
we rely on the science now.
But you're making progress still?
Oh, don't you worry.
We're closing in.
- Solid forehand you've got there.
- LEACH LAUGHS
Police Cadets Champion, 1919.
It seemed utterly meaningless
but it was considered therapeutic.
Mm. Well, it's good for the soul.
Sir.
The laboratory says it's at least
another two hours.
Oh. Nothing to do but wait.
Miller, take Mr Strange
inside, would you?
Unless
Urgh!
Game.
Yes, that's all right, Cooper,
bring them in, let them watch.
Only fair they should get out, too.
BELL CHIMES
Ready, Mr Strange?
Out.
Out.
Out. Game, Leach.
I think you're letting me win.
It's very sporting of you.
Bad shoulder, Mr Strange?
How did you come by that?
Mercy.
Mercy, Mr Strange.
Ah.
Thank you.
Thank you, Bee.
You always know what I need before I do.
Like a mother to you.
- Thank you.
- Thank you.
Cooper, bring out Audrey Strange.
Your serve, Mr Strange.
What?
I thought for a moment you were both
leading me a merry old dance.
And then I realised.
It's not a dance, is it?
It's a game.
I learned something today.
Nevile Strange, the gentleman
sportsman, can't abide to lose.
In life, in love, it's all a game
to you, isn't it, Mr Strange?
It was the game that killed
Peter James.
Thomas Royde swears you killed
Peter James deliberately.
But Audrey Strange told the coroner
it was an accident.
All these years
she has kept faith with you,
until today.
I know now what I saw.
Doubt.
Thomas Royde
..you made everyone believe
that he was the liar.
Drove him half out of his mind.
You watched him suffer
like an animal in a trap.
Are we playing, Leach?
I lead two games to one.
One minute, Mr Strange.
Inspector! Inspector!
Evidence back from the lab.
The compact, sir,
belonging to Audrey Strange.
Laboratory confirms it matches the
powder on Nevile Strange's jacket,
and a fingerprint, sir,
belonging to Nevile Strange.
Thank you, Miller.
Audrey Strange didn't lose her compact.
You took it.
It wasn't the gold digger that
planted the compact in your car,
was it, Mr Strange?
It was Audrey Strange.
Proof of your infidelity.
I have never been unfaithful to Audrey.
The only way she could get her divorce
after you betrayed her
with another woman.
She exposed you.
Showed the world who you really are.
Nevile Strange, the gentleman sportsman,
a liar and a philanderer.
Mr Strange, you are granted
your Decree Nisi.
Here it is - the point zero.
The moment the murder is seeded.
You laid your trap, married Kay
..and drew Audrey back to you.
Back to the place you fell in love.
Gull's Point.
It's a change of plans.
We will be there in August, Kay and I.
Kiss me.
You seduced her, even as you
plotted to destroy her.
You wanted her tried in public,
as you'd been.
Hanged for crimes she didn't commit -
the murder of Lady Tressilian
and Mr Treves
and the attempted murder
of Nevile Strange.
The double frame.
You framed yourself to frame her.
You managed everything to perfection.
You sent Barrett upstairs to see
Lady Tressilian to check on her.
Poor Aunt Camilla. I mean, she's
not well enough for this mayhem.
I'll just go up and see she's all right.
You drugged Barrett so that she
wouldn't hear any of what's to come.
You put Veronal in her senna brew.
RUMBLE OF THUNDER
You then disable Lady Tressilian's
bell throughout the house
so that you know you won't be
disturbed by anyone.
So you could prepare the scene
..hide the weapon and put out the rope.
And then you drive to Easterhead.
Bar!
You made sure you were noticed.
What on earth are you
talking about, Leach?
You designed this plan around
an impossibility -
Easterhead, the 45-minute window.
Couldn't have driven it, there are
no boats between here and Plymouth.
- There's no other way across.
- No. And you can't swim it, so
Can't you?
Dangerous, yes
..but if you've swum it your whole life,
if you know the currents and the rips
You're absolutely right, Mr Strange,
I can't swim it.
But you can.
You swim the rip
..you climb the rope
..and then the moment has come.
You put Audrey's make-up on your lapels.
Her make-up and her hair
on your bloodied jacket.
Poetic justice, is that it?
She gets you with Kay's compact,
now you get her with hers.
You know, I think I've run you
too hard, Inspector.
It's simply not possible.
Because you're forgetting
..that I would have had
to have swum back.
Now, once I might believe, but twice?
Yes.
Yes, no-one could survive that,
exhausted and in shock
..and you hurt your shoulder
on the way over.
You'd have to be more than
an athlete to survive that,
you would have to be a God.
And that's what you think you are,
isn't it?
You hid the compact in the vanity,
brilliant,
but you threw the rope in the sea.
You thought the rip would carry it
out and away.
But the sea brought the rope back
..because you're not a God.
And Mr Treves.
Of course, you didn't plan to
kill him, but we wrongly arrested
Matthew Hutton for
Lady Tressilian's murder,
so you killed Mr Treves
to direct us back to the frame,
to Audrey Strange.
SHE CRIES
The aunt who nurtured you,
your guardian Mr Treves
and Audrey Strange.
Is there anyone you won't destroy,
Mr Strange?
No jury will ever convict me.
I'm Nevile Strange.
Aaaargh!
You'll see me hang?!
SHE GASPS FOR BREATH
You'll have me hang?!
Aaaargh!
You killed me when you left me.
You killed me with every
every woman you touched,
every piece of trash
you insulted me with!
Did you think I'd just take it?
- Did you think I'd just take it?
- SHE CRIES
You divorced me.
You divorced me! In front of
the world you divorced me!
And you'll have me hang for it?!
What is this madness?
Oh, my God
SHE SOBS
What have you done?!
What have you done?!
No, we We swore You swore
You and I never apart, we swore,
and then you left me!
SHE SOBS
Who are you?
Who are you?!
All right, Leach
..I confess.
Now you live without me.
MUSIC: Notturno by Schubert
When do you sail?
Three days.
Business in London first.
What will you do? Have you decided?
I'm going to travel.
Now that I have some money put by,
I'm going to take the Blue Train
..and the Orient Express.
THEY GIGGLE
I'll write.
My mother used to talk of Saltcreek.
I wanted to see it - where she grew up.
I just
I just wanted to be near her again.
You came here for love.
You don't still love him?
Well, it wasn't It wasn't love
..really, it was
..starvation.
Where will you go?
SHE SIGHS
Anywhere.
Will he be hanged?
Yes.
Is it my fault?
No.
What will happen now?
Will I go to an orphanage?
No.
Can I stay with you?
Yes.
The thing is
..I'm not very good
at looking after myself
..so maybe Mrs Barrett will help us.
MUSIC: Everything Depends On You
by Mildred Bailey
I could sing a new song ♪
Never sing a blue song ♪
Everything depends ♪
On you ♪
It all depends on just you, dear ♪
I could end my story ♪
In a blaze of glory ♪
Everything depends ♪
On you ♪