Jonathan Creek (1997) s01e02 Episode Script

If you think a banana is a banana, try unzipping a Tonga.
They are firm, but not too firm.
ARGH! Ripe, but not too ripe.
Delicious but not too ripe.
In fact, so tasty down to the last bite you'll see why they're everyone's top banana.
Well, almost everyone's.
What can I say? There isn't a laugh in the show! For a start, I'm barely on the screen.
Four close-ups And there's no trigger points because you never cut in for the joke! Jack, I don't have time for one of these lectures.
L want to watch my son growing up.
Plus, the funniest sight gag we seem to have lost, for some reason! Jack, jokes that were acceptable 20-30 years ago, today we have to be more sensitive.
And the image of a man parking his bike between a girl's buttocks, - in the current climate - Isn't PC? Is that what you're telling me? But this is? Scott, it's a pile of crap! To me, comedy is about truth! It's about reality! In reality, there's no way a bicycle would slip on a banana skin! You lose your audience! L disagree.
They'll buy into that because it's surreal.
The essence of the campaign is that we take Jack Holiday, legendary king of slapstick, subvert the form that made you famous This whole discussion is academic because the client will hack it to shreds.
Stop worrying about it and bank the cheques.
L gotta go.
L'll call you next week.
Goodbye, Jack.
"DANSE MACABRE" BY SAINT-SAËNS) Good morning, Kirsten.
- How's it looking? - Ask your husband.
Dare I ask how it went? Not good.
Well it gets worse, I'm afraid.
They're releasing Rokesmith at noon tomorrow.
Finally, I I want to thank my sister Rachel who never for one second doubted my innocence.
And everyone who has campaigned for my release.
Miss Magellan in particular, for bringing this whole case back to national attention.
L think it's worth remembering, if there was a death penalty, Alan Rokesmith would have hanged.
And if he had been hanged nine years ago, it's safe to say he wouldn't look too good in these photos.
Such was the media's obsession with Jennifer Holiday's murder, Mr Rokesmith was tried, convicted and sentenced by the tabloid press, who, as usual, proved as inaccurate as they are illiterate.
Can you spell that? Right.
And I find it hard to credit that even as we arrived today, this cheque was pressed into my hands for £150,000, to be divided between us for my brother's story.
This from the very people who helped to put him away.
Do you think any of us is interested in money?! Money can't restore nine years of a man's life.
All I ask now is the peace and privacy to go away and rebuild my self-respect.
Anyone at home? Mum? There's someone to see you.
So, Alan where to from here? L've got it all planned.
L'll rent a little cottage on the Welsh coast.
Away from the press and the media and the locks and keys.
Take a boat out, maybe.
Do a bit of fishing.
Just breathe in the freedom.
It's funny, nine years staring at a wall, you do a lot of thinking.
About guilt and innocence about your life.
In a strange way, it helps you to find yourself.
It's affected him, there's no question.
These last two weeks since they let that man out! He blames himself.
He always has done.
It happened.
If he'd been here that weekend, if he hadn't gone to LA for that casting? Lf IF! Lf.
When I rang him up to break the news, God help me if I ever have to live through that again! He's not in the house anywhere.
- The terrace? - No.
- Maybe he's gone for a walk? - Not alone.
Something's happened! We've picked up something by a locked door.
That's the nuclear shelter.
No one's been down there in years! Locked on the other side.
Can we get a crowbar? How will we get inside this thing? It won't be easy.
Right, nobody touch anything.
- Who's done this? - L'm afraid it was self-inflicted.
He can't have! Look, perhaps it's best if you just For God's sake, Jack didn't shoot himself, he couldn't have! He had crippling arthritis.
Someone has set this up! Mrs Holiday, we are 30 feet underground.
You saw how the doors were bolted.
It's a simple physical fact.
Nobody could possibly have killed your husband and then left this room.
Jonathan Creek.
Oh, hi.
How are you? Oh, you know, bits and pieces.
Usual nonsense.
No, I'm not.
The show's not on at the moment.
Adam's got a disease of the inner ear.
What do you call that thing where you lose your balance? Labyrinthitis? It suddenly came on.
Walked onstage, round of applause, fell in the orchestra pit.
Had to carry him to the ambulance on a xylophone.
It was a right old performance.
Took him to hospital, gave him a brain scan, didn't find anything! So he's got to stay in bed and rest.
So, what have you been up to? Sorry? Tomorrow? What time? L'll just look at the diary.
No, that's fine.
Yeah.
Sounds great.
OK, see you then.
Bye.
Morning.
You're useful to have around.
This is illegal.
L'm just curious to see how it Ah.
L see what you're about.
So how are things in investigative journalism? Yeah, still earning a crust here and there.
And Trevor? Trevor and I were annoying each other, so I did the mature thing and burnt his underpants.
Listen, since we spoke, I've had a thought.
How do you fancy a drive to the coast? Flush out the carbon monoxide with sea air? It's tempting, but I'll have to put this back on once I've unlocked it.
- Interesting.
- Yeah.
L'm very impressed.
- Takes me that long with the key.
- L can imagine.
Where did you get this? Sorry, good journalist.
L have to protect my sources.
They're brilliant.
You can park anywhere in London.
Pop it in the boot for me.
L nearly rang you.
L'd get as far as the last digit and something would stop me.
L think it was the thought of being sucked into another grisly murder investigation.
You know how you always fear the worst? - Stop this car.
- Jonathan Flush out the carbon monoxide Just hear me out, then if you're not interested, I'll forget it, OK? You know Jack Holiday shot himself? - Yes.
Only thing he did that made me laugh! - The man's dead! Won't stop him overacting! At one of his homes, down on the south coast, where he'd had a nuclear bunker put in, around the time of Afghanistan.
No suicide note, but he was depressed.
Due to the man who strangled his first wife being released from prison with your assistance.
Alan Rokesmith didn't strangle Jennifer Holiday.
He was the victim of a miscarriage of justice.
He was found leaning over the corpse, in an alley, with a length of cord in his hands.
Exactly! On that flimsy evidence, they put him away! Right, a brief history lesson.
The night she's murdered, Rokesmith is in the next street with a prostitute.
They hear a scream.
Rokesmith runs to see what's happened, the slapper hops it.
Rokesmith is at the body untying a rope from her neck, when the coppers arrive to nick him.
Circumstantial evidence! He's put away for a crime he didn't commit! It's taken his sister five years to find that prostitute and get her to come forward.
She showed me the evidence and I kept pestering and publicising until the Home Office finally saw sense and granted a reprieve.
All right.
Can I ask where all this is leading? To the glove compartment.
It came yesterday from Holiday's second wife, who blames me for his death! As far as she is concerned, Rokesmith was guilty and I set him free to kill again.
"You meddling misguided cow.
"Thanks to your 'liberal' pamphleteering, my husband is dead.
"You're no more than scum, like all reporters, an oily egotistical parasite " Yes, all right! You needn't read it with such relish! It's the last bit.
"L know Jack was murdered and I intend to find out how, no matter how long it takes.
"May you rot in Hull Kingston Rovers?" Kirsten Rogers.
She used to be his secretary.
They got married about a year after the death of his first wife.
Look, Jack Holiday killed himself.
The whole thing is self-evident, but I just need to confirm it.
To prove there's no other possible explanation.
How come I get roped into this? Because there's no way she'll let me start poking round.
Besides, this is your specialist field.
A body in a locked room.
Please! - For my integrity and peace of mind? - L don't think so.
- For £100? - Stop this car.
Jonathan, where's your sense of justice? Stop the car.
L demand you stop the car now! Where do we start? OK, here's the script.
L give Kirsten a ring on your behalf, explaining who you are, etc, etc.
You've read about the case, offering your professional services, if she's interested, in checking out that underground chamber.
- What if she's not interested? - She was.
Welcome to the House of Fun Good luck.
If you need me, I'll be talking to a builder.
Lovely thing about my husband, even now, no one can say the name Jack Holiday without breaking into a smile.
One of the obituaries said, "He left behind a legacy of laughter.
" A heritage of hilarity that will survive us all, Mrs Holiday.
This is the outfit he wore in "Jack the Lad", 1967.
The actual outfit! Wow! The trousers were weighted round the waistband to make sure they fell down to the ankles in one movement.
If they stopped halfway, or bunched round the knees, it wasn't funny! Amazing! You don't realise the scientific precision that's involved.
That was with his first wife, Jennifer, on the set of "Jack to a King".
There was a slight age difference.
He proposed to her when she was seven.
She accepted.
He moved to America for 15 years and, when he came back, he kept his promise! The stuff of fairy tales.
L was on the payroll then as his secretary.
There wasn't a happier marriage in show business, until He started getting cranky phone calls.
Death threats and what have you.
Jack was scared out of his wits! He was a mass of neuroses at the best of times.
One minute it was the collapsing universe, the next, nuclear war.
L remember when he went to LA, his last words to Jennifer were begging her to take care, leave nothing to chance! Three days later, she'd been to the theatre, she was taking a shortcut back to her car Through the grief and the pain we became closer.
By the mid '80s, his career was all but over.
The body had seized up.
He'd lost the use of his hands, the fingers wouldn't even bend! That's how I know he couldn't have fired that gun! And why would this happen now, just after that man's released, unless Any light you can shed on the possible mechanics of this, I'd be grateful.
L'll get Oliver to take you down.
He's been with Jack longer than anyone.
L can't face that room again just yet.
Access to the shelter is down a stairwell 12 metres deep.
That's the minimum for any protection from a thermo-nuclear blast.
The contractors have built several round the country.
It's based loosely on the Swiss model.
Mr Holiday's would have been more robust, because it's set inside the cliff rock.
It had to be hollowed out with jack hammers and God knows what else! It was an 18-month job.
So, the chances of someone tunnelling or breaking into it? Are absolutely nil, believe me.
You're looking at an impenetrable cube, floors, walls, ceiling, all cast from reinforced concrete 50 cms thick, lined with bricks and mortar, and a single door, lined with solid armour plate, with bolts and deadlocks all on the inside.
Hmm.
When did you say it was built? Early '80s, when the Soviets went into Kabul.
Everyone thought the lot was going up.
By the time they'd finished the basic construction, it'd all cooled off.
Jack told them to forget it.
- They hadn't even put the doors in.
- Or the lavatory.
His body was just through here.
Head pointing that way, gun in his right hand.
That would have been the toilet.
Got as far as the pipework and that was it.
Quite a majestic lavatory.
That was Jack.
Odd.
Box says 40 watt, bulb inside is 100.
Anyone else know about this shelter? Can't be many who didn't.
He loved showing it off.
He was like a big boy a boy with a train set sometimes.
So, what do we think? It's something to do with the door, isn't it? Cards on the table, Mrs Holiday, that door is as solid as a rock.
From the way it's locked, nothing could have passed through afterwards.
Seven messages.
Six of them fax signals! How do you get this thing to fast forward? Is it Star 0? Could you glance at the road now and then, so we keep all our limbs and organs?! All right! Stop panicking.
L'm in control! Oh, a message from Rokesmith.
Asking me to get in touch ASAP.
Wonder what he wants.
- Can you fish out his number for me? - Yes, I've got it! L've got it! You drive, I'll dial, OK? God, you're a twitchy passenger! It's making me nervous being in the car with you! No reply from Mr Rokesmith.
'Course, he won't be there.
He's rented a cottage for the week.
Going away to relish his freedom.
Wonder why he didn't leave a number.
Anyway, I think it's been a very useful session.
We've put paid to that murder theory, for which I owe you a very large drink! Mmm.
What? What? - Sorry? - What's with the "Mmm"? And that crinkled look that says, "There's more to this than meets the eye"? Holiday was the only one who could lock the door behind him.
Depending how bad his hands really were.
According to his wife, he couldn't turn on a tap.
But he'd just starred in a TV commercial for bananas.
There you are, that doesn't square.
Something doesn't square here.
L've seen it with my own eyes, but I can't for the life of me tell you what it is.
Paul Garrick to edit suite three, please.
Hi, Scott Reisner? Maddy Magellan.
L rang last night about Jack Holiday.
This morning, but let's not be picky.
It was never after 12! You should do the same as me and unplug the phone! You'll see why they are everyone's top banana.
Almost everyone's.
Astonishing! You think so? It was all done with doubles.
Jack's pratfall days were over.
He was all rusted up, like walking rigor mortis.
Let me show you something.
Shot 29, take 13.
And actionl Can we go again? Someone's in front of the monitor.
Chris, don't worry if you're in shot.
We can matt round it.
That is What are you saying? Jack Holiday needed a stunt man to peel a banana? He couldn't do anything with his hands? And if you're asking me if he could turn a key in a lock, load a gun and empty it into his head, I'd say not unless a miracle happened in the last two weeks of his life! Alan? Are you here? What is it? This cottage is being rented by Mr Alan Rokesmith? Yes, my brother.
Where is he? What's happened? L'm afraid they've just found the remains of his boat.
L'm very sorry.
So, what do they think? It hit some rocks? They said it was in pieces.
L don't know why I thought he could manage a fishing boat.
L don't know what possessed him.
He just had this thing in his head about getting right out into the open as far as possible.
What nine years in a steel cage do for you! And they think it happened when? Some time on Thursday? That's where his diary finished.
First thing Thursday morning.
He left a message on my machine on Monday afternoon.
It sounded fairly urgent, but I didn't have a number for him.
He didn't happen to root out those old letters for me? If not, it's no problem.
No, they're here somewhere.
Great, because when I come to write all this up, it'll give me chapter and verse.
Thanks.
That's everything he brought with him when he came out.
Stuff from the solicitor.
All your letters.
And mine.
Letters from some confectionary company, it looks like about an order he placed for some fudge.
L'm afraid I haven't had time to sort it.
Weird that, when he always hated fudge.
You must be gutted.
That the whole thing should end like this with all we've - What did you say? - Sorry? You said he hated fudge? Oh, not the old wreckage of a boat with no sign of a body?! Just what you don't need - another murder disguised as an accident.
Sorry? Oh, a sort of mushroomy thing with cheese.
Cross and Blackwell, I think.
When did all this happen? Thursday some time, we presume.
Nothing in his diary for yesterday.
Just when I was starting to believe Holiday's death was suicide, everything skews the other way.
L don't know what to think.
L've got a list of things which make no sense whatsoever.
All I can say is, if it was a trick, it's a bloody good one.
Not only have you got a locked room no one can leave, even if you did get out, you're in a cliff! So it must have been a suicide.
Except it wasn't.
Because Look, do you mind if I just lie down here for a minute and die?! You were the one who wanted to come back here.
Yes, all right! Holiday locked himself in the bunker using some sort of lever, or a device he could operate with his crippled hands.
Which he then dropped down the hole where the loo was going to go.
He had some special tool that enabled him to pull the trigger.
Like an arthritic suicide aid? Which was on elastic! So that when he collapsed, it also disappeared down the hole! Making it look like a suicide that wasn't quite convincing enough to really be suicide.
Amazing.
Yes? Why? Sorry? Why did he do that eccentric thing you described, as opposed to shooting himself in the sitting room? Those letters of Rokesmith's, can I have another squint? All they say is, "Thank you for ordering our quality fudge.
" Stuff like that.
"We have had some difficulty acquiring supplies.
" Maybe it's me, but I thought it was odd to keep something like that for nine years! The postmarks are all from around the time he was first arrested.
Fudge? Which, according to his sister, he absolutely detested, even as a boy.
That is odd.
One for your lateral brain.
Mmm.
Well, time's getting on.
L think we'd better get back to the car.
Oh, right, that's it, is it?! Well, so far, you have been a great help, I must say Can I get one thing straight? You are convinced that Jack Holiday wasn't murdered? No, I'm convinced he was murdered.
The only question is how.
Suppose someone had a reason to kill Jack and Jennifer Holiday in the first place.
They set up death threats to make it look like a crank.
Jennifer is strangled in an alleyway.
Alan Rokesmith happens to be around at the time, goes to jail accused of the murder.
The real killer has got away with it.
Nine years later, Rokesmith is released.
Now's their chance to kill Jack Holiday, and everyone will think it's Rokesmith.
Just to make sure Rokesmith can't come up with an alibi, he's disposed of as well.
L buy that much, but it still doesn't tell us how the killer left after shooting Holiday.
No, and it doesn't explain why a 100 watt light bulb is in a 40 watt packet.
Or why that bloody lavatory keeps coming back to haunt me! Come on, I'm getting soaked here! L can't find the keys! For goodness' sake, I - Oh.
- What? When I emptied my bag out up there, I'll bet I accidentally Thanks.
Any preference for a sea view? Airing cupboard? Tell me about Rokesmith.
Before he went to jail, where did he work? Telecommunications.
Sales rep of some sort.
Not averse to the odd back hander, a few dodgy deals.
We never said he was a saint, but it doesn't mean he was a murderer.
As far as we know, the only women in his life were his sister and mother, who he adored.
- There you go.
Simple.
- What have you found? Nothing.
It's taken me two hours.
L've been staring at these words, looking for hidden codes and there aren't any! The fudge is just an excuse someone has made up to write to him.
It's not in the letters.
It's on the envelopes, look.
What? It's screaming at you.
Sorry.
Let's go upstairs.
See the break in the franking mark where it's not perfectly aligned? No.
Oh, yeah, just about.
That shows that the stamps on these envelopes have been removed and stuck back on again.
Why do that? Suppose you want to write to someone in prison without the authorities reading it? Give it here! What, you mean like if he was having a secret affair? He was at it with someone he shouldn't have been? They sent each other messages underneath the stamps? Hey, presto! L see writing! You do this a bit too well.
Just improvising.
"L'm so sorry about what's happened.
"L pray it will yet be resolved somehow.
"We must try to be patient.
" "L know things are looking bad right now, "but if the truth comes out, it would be the end of everything.
"Don't give up hope.
" "These are dark times.
"L appreciate your silence and you have my word "I'll stand by my pledge to you come what may.
" Sounds like a pretty heavy relationship.
With a married woman, maybe? Makes sense that he kept them.
Helped see him through, probably.
Don't quite see how they help us, though.
No.
You did well tonight.
Going back for those keys.
Right.
Scored a lot of points.
Mmm-hmm.
L'll say goodnight, then.
Yep.
See you downstairs about eight? Yup? Did you put a melon on my pillow with a knife through it? Drunk? How can I be drunk at 8.
30 am? You were the one knocking back the Chianti! - You did everything but suck the corks! - Three glasses, small ones.
My giddy aunt! - Who put that there? - You didn't?! Yeah, I'll get up in the middle of the night and muck about in your bedroom There's a note.
L could have come in here and found you with your throat slit! Yeah.
L think I saw a sewing kit in the bathroom for just such an emergency.
Somebody must have slipped upstairs and into my room.
Someone who wants us off this story.
Someone who is worried we're getting too close to the truth.
Too close.
There is something in the lavatory.
What? - It's been hounding me from Day One.
- What? What has? Am I supposed to guess now? - No time to lose.
- Where are we going? Anywhere far away from here! That could be my head! Hang about.
You can't tell me you've unravelled it and then just bugger off! - What kind of spineless cretin are you? - No special kind.
Just your average cretin with a train to catch! Deep breaths now, Jonathan.
Then you're going to tell me everything.
Then we'll do whatever is necessary to see this through.
Morning.
Is Mrs Holiday around? She is but I don't imagine she's in the mood for visitors.
Mr Creek.
L wasn't expecting Good morning, Mrs Holiday.
Maddy Magellan.
L got your letter.
What is this? You've come back to tell me it was impossible, like the police and everyone.
Whoever did this managed to fool the lot of you.
Certainly fooled me.
Even in my darkest dreams, I never saw it coming.
With your permission, we'd like to go down to the shelter to carry out an experiment.
When I first checked this place out, I couldn't, for the life of me, spot the chink in the armour.
We're inside a room, inside a block of concrete, inside a cliff.
The only way in or out is through this door.
A door that can only be locked the way it was by someone inside the room.
But there was no one else in the room.
Only Jack Holiday.
To all intents, he had to have killed himself.
He couldn't! Why won't anyone believe me? Because what you're suggesting is impossible.
We mustn't confuse what's impossible with what's implausible.
What I do for a living relies on stuff that's implausible.
That's why it's hard to work out.
No one ever thinks you'd go to that much trouble to fool an audience.
But if we hack away at it long enough, there's a way, an elaborate way, this crime could have been carried out.
Only, to follow the method, we have to look at the motive.
Yes, have a seat, Mrs Holiday.
Not a bad-sized lavatory, is it? When Alan Rokesmith's conviction was quashed, it opened up the whole question again.
Who was responsible for strangling Jennifer Holiday and why? Someone wanted her dead and it's now obvious who that person was.
It was Jack Holiday himself.
Oh, that's just sheer ignorance of the facts! Jack was on the other side of the world in a restaurant in West Hollywood! How could he? You can be responsible for a murder without actually carrying it out.
Well You're not sugges He paid someone? And I think that's exactly why he left the country.
To be as far away as possible while someone else did the job for him.
Someone who finally couldn't live with what had happened and decided that Jack Holiday should pay for what he'd done.
Wait! Wait! Listen to me! But now came the problem.
The gun was put in his hand to suggest suicide, a hand we all know was incapable of squeezing the trigger.
The conclusion is that the killer didn't know about Jack's arthritis.
You were right.
L was wrong.
L believed in Alan Rokesmith.
His sister did.
We all did.
L'm only just beginning to see how he did it from behind bars, manipulated, paid off witnesses paid that prostitute to say she'd been with him, literally bought his way out of there.
You haven't anything to connect Jack with that evil man! He'd kept these, Mrs Holiday.
L don't think you'll argue that it's your husband's writing, even in capitals.
The Greek Es and tails on the Rs are all over that script you showed me upstairs.
We thought they were from a lover.
If the truth came out, it would be the end of everything.
He was telling Rokesmith to keep his mouth shut.
In exchange for which, he'd stand by his pledge - make sure the money came through as they'd arranged.
This is some sort of malicious hoax! - And it's time I called the police.
- No, Kirsten.
You knew about this?! Couple of years ago, one of his dark days, the whole world was against him, he got well oiled up and poured it all out.
Like the plot of one of his films.
Sad little clown.
Everyone thought Jack and Jennifer were the business.
Behind the lovey-dovey it was a disaster! She was just a kid still.
Spent his money, slept with a cast of thousands.
Any sniff of divorce, she'd have filleted him like a kipper! He knew a lot of villains.
It wasn't hard for him to find somebody like Rokesmith.
Every day after that, he was terrified Rokesmith would talk, but he never did.
Jack left the world a lot of happy memories.
The thought of all this destroying that didn't seem right.
- L suppose the knife in the melon was - Faintly childish? You're telling me it was Rokesmith, but how did he get out of this room?! A lavatory and a light bulb held the key.
This is how I think it happened.
Several days before the murder, I can't say how long it took him, Rokesmith was systematically dismantling the end wall in what was to have been the toilet.
Brick by brick, he exposed the outer wall of reinforced concrete.
No chance of escaping through that.
But the point was, he had no intention of escaping.
If I'm right, Alan Rokesmith's purpose when he brought your husband down here wasn't murder, but a double execution.
Looking back, it was all there in his eyes.
A kind of hollow calm.
All that creepy talk about guilt and innocence.
He'd made peace with his conscience because he knew what he had to do.
He was going and taking Holiday with him.
But he had to do it in a way that his mother and sister would never find out the truth.
He set up a fake trip to Wales.
Wrote stuff in his diary days beforehand to make it look like he was there till Thursday.
Wrecked his own boat, so eventually they'd find the bits and assume he'd drowned.
But, in fact, he was here.
He now rebuilds the wall, this time deeper inside the room, leaving a narrow recess between the new wall and the concrete behind.
My guess is he swallows a bottle of something - pills, paracetamol, and with his last half hour or so, seals himself up.
If you look at this hole in the floor, you assume the lavatory would go here.
With the pan facing out towards the door.
Problem is, it couldn't.
With the pan hard against this wall, where will the cistern go? There's no room behind it.
And if the plan was for the lavatory to go against this wall, That's where your cistern will go.
Now, you've got a wall in the way.
It won't fit.
The reason being that this wall is further out now than it used to be.
You wouldn't notice the different brickwork because Rokesmith switched bulbs, so the light in here would be dimmer.
Do you want to do this? Now, let me see if I've got this.
You know what, that's crap if you actually try it.
It's totally impossible to slip on a banana skin.
Seaweed, no problem.
Dog's mess, piece of cake.
You try a banana peel! Yes, brilliant! That is utterly baffling.
- No, it doesn't work.
- What do you mean? There's not enough scope for the imagination.
There's only one explanation - the matches stay in the box and another drawer comes out.
Like the killer had to be in that room because there's no way he could get out.
Maybe if I took a run at it.
Though how it was Rokesmith, who had apparently called me two days before? How often does that happen? You play back an old message and think it's just come in.
OK.
Here we go.
AHHHH! Well done! You proved your point about the dog's mess! One more go with the banana peel?