Patience (2025) s01e04 Episode Script

1
Mr Franklin?
Mr Franklin?
BANGS ON DOOR
Hello?
Mr Franklin?
Mr Franklin?
Mr Franklin!
In you go for breakfast.
Knock-knock.
Ta-dah.
Oh, is that for me?
Yeah, I believe so.
Unless your scaly friend over there
has been using your Prime membership
to restock his supply
of freeze-dried beetles.
Another puzzle?
I'm afraid I have
some rather bad news, Patience.
It's about your favourite writer,
Harry Franklin.
Sorry, sir, I was
I can see.
This is the first Sunday
I've had off in more than a month.
Yeah, well, I was on the third tee.
Oh, you were playing golf?
Does the name Harry Franklin
mean anything to you?
The crime writer? Yeah.
He was found dead in his flat.
Doors bolted from the inside.
Now look, I want this tied up before
it becomes, you know, a thing.
"Police baffled by mystery death
of best-selling crime writer."
Exactly.
Have you contacted Parsons?
Yeah. She's been there an hour.
HE SIGHS
HE GROANS
Um, Harry Franklin's dead.
Yeah. How do you know?
Uh, Mr Gilmour, he, he told me.
Who the hell told him? It sounds
like a locked room mystery.
No mystery - he killed himself.
Right, but in his book A Crooked Man
the famous writer
appears to have killed himself,
and then
Do you want to see for yourself?
Eryes. Yes. I
Sorry Mm?
Sorry.
You worked it out yet?
This might be more of a challenge.
Patience. Mm? Pop these on.
Oh, thanks.
What are we dealing with?
Er, well, preliminary indications
suggest potassium cyanide
is cause of death.
Or hydrogen cyanide.
Er, potassium cyanide
is more common.
Mm. Not in this case, it's not.
Well, the lab will confirm
either way.
Just let her do her job.
People don't like
to be contradicted in public.
Boss?
I'll just be a minute. OK.
Mr Franklin usually responds
promptly to phone messages.
When he hadn't rung back
in three days, I was concerned.
And you are?
Kelvin Fitzwalter,
Pardona Publishing.
You publish Mr Franklin's books?
No. We were hoping to.
We contracted him
to write a memoir.
So, when did you last see him?
Today's the first time
I've ever set eyes on him.
Never came to your office? Oh,
Mr Franklin never left the building.
He didn't own a computer
or a mobile.
We only ever talked
on his landline.
You gave him a contract based
on a few chats on the phone?
When someone like him offers you
their memoirs, you don't say no.
So what about you?
Well, I spoke to him
maybe three days ago.
He asked me to post a letter. Did
you happen to notice the address?
I respect the residents' privacy.
Has he had any visitors since?
None that I saw. And, er
..my desk is right by
the front door.
Right, are you sure?
Is it indeed? Definitely?
Oh, right, OK. Yeah.
Thanks for that.
Yeah, OK, bye, bye.
Er, that was the lab.
Swabs from the glass
show traces of HCN.
Mm. Hydrogen cyanide.
You were right.
WHISPERS: Yes, I was.
It smells of almonds
and Harry's favourite liqueur -
the killer must have known that.
Except we don't think he was killed.
And why are you whispering?
Well, DI Metcalf said that
if I'm to contradict you,
I shouldn't do it publicly.
So, were there traces of HCN
in the Amaretto bottle?
I've a lot to get on with.
Please don't touch anything.
Patience?
What happened?
Is something the matter?
SHE SNIFFS
Would it help to talk about it?
"To make the correct patterns,
the player must be able
"to see things
from multiple perspectives."
Patience.
I got carried away at a crime scene
and I touched something
that I shouldn't have.
Oh, dear.
Now Detective Bea won't want me
as her investigative assistant.
We all make mistakes.
I know, 19 minutes late.
I didn't think
we'd be seeing you today.
Um, were there traces of HCN
found in the Amaretto bottle?
Or were there traces of HCN found
in any receptacle in the flat?
Slow down. OK.
Were there traces of HCN
found in a receptacle
that could have been thrown out
the window of his apartment?
I'll check with forensics, OK?
OK.
Um, I
I wanted to say sorry as well.
This is everything that I could find
on Harry Franklin.
I was up most of the night.
So I used red pen cos it felt like
the right colour
for those questions. That's
That's very helpful. Thank you.
Can you believe it?
More than 90 comments.
Most of them think he was murdered.
He was.
Patience has questioned
how the cyanide
got into Harry Franklin's glass
if he killed himself.
There's no traces of the poison
in the Amaretto bottle
or in any receptacle found in
his flat other than in his glass.
But he's a crime writer.
Hethrew it out of the window
to confuse us.
Uniform searched the vicinity.
Somebody put it in and left.
But the door was bolted
from the inside.
Well, maybe he showed 'em out.
The poison's too fast-acting.
And besides,
the caretaker was adamant -
no visitors.
So he kept it in the glass
until the right moment.
It would have evaporated.
Sounds like a locked room mystery.
If we can't account for how Harry
got the cyanide into his own drink
then we have to assume some form
of third-party involvement.
Let's pull in CCTV images
from outside the flat.
Everybody's favourite job. I know.
You're so good at it.
See who came and went. When and why.
Did you follow up on the paperwork
we found at Harry's flat?
Yeah, the bank's offshore
and they won't play ball
without a court order.
What a surprise. Let's get one.
We did dig this out, though.
Two months ago, Harry opens his
first domestic account in 20 years.
Completely different bank.
That six-figure deposit
paid in by Pardona Publishing
the very same day,
for his memoirs, presumably.
Except there was nothing resembling
memoirs or notes for memoirs
in the gubbins we found in his flat.
Maybe he just hadn't started.
Or maybe somebody
cleared it all out.
We know some of his papers
are missing.
"Dear Lottie, thank you
for your reply to my letter."
Where's the reply?
The SOCOs didn't find it.
So, who has interest in preventing
the memoirs from being published?
What about his ex-publisher?
ErPippa Junor.
Halfpenny Publishing.
It's practically
a one-woman operation.
Who's just watched her pot
of gold walk out the door.
Mm, we should call her in
for a chat.
Harry's a creature of habit.
Same offshore bank account
for 20 years.
I want to know why, change it now?
Maybe customers get a cuddly toy?
You paid a tidy sum
for his memoirs.
That was just the advance.
Reckon they were gonna be worth it?
Look, his books have sold
18 million copies.
They bring thousands of people
to York each year.
Haven't you heard of
the Fortnum Mystery Weekends?
Mm. Can I see them?
These fabulous memoirs.
He hadn't delivered anything. Oh.
Well, there's nothing in his flat.
Reckon he was playing you?
No, absolutely not.
No immediate family,
no real friends,
barely leaves the house.
Doesn't sound like much of
a life to write about.
There was going to be a section on
the fire that almost killed him.
Plus, he promised a reveal
that the public
and the literary world
would find absolutely explosive.
Yeah - Writer's Retreat,
The Fire That Destroyed Me,
My Life As A Ghost,
Unmasked At Last.
Yeah, he'd been researching
for months.
There must be evidence of that.
Barely a shred.
I'm trying to identify
these people with Harry.
Well, I have no idea
who the woman is,
but, er, that is Edmund Lennox.
He's one of our star writers.
Well, he's, er,
gone a bit greyer since then.
Hm.
BELL TOLLS
Better day?
Er, yeah. Yeah.
You fancy some lemonade?
It's home-made.
Er, OK.
There you go. Thank you.
Patience, we're just about
There are seven types
of locked room mystery,
including the ice arrow, in which
the murder weapon disappears.
Are we on a Fortnum Mystery Weekend?
We're just on our way to
The killer mixed cyanide and water
and put it in the ice-cube tray,
and then Harry Franklin put
the frozen cube into his drink.
That's brilliant.
Can you get on to Parsons?
Tell her to test the ice tray.
Yeah, what about the interview
with Junor? Patience can observe.
When did you last speak to him?
A month ago.
What'd you talk about?
A new contract.
Er, Harry had killed off Fortnum.
I thought of a way
to bring him back.
How did he react?
He was evasive.
Then I found out he'd signed
a deal with Pardona.
And when did you last see him?
In person? Maybe a year ago.
After he sent me
the final Fortnum manuscript,
I came to try and dissuade him.
CCTV has you visiting his flat
last Saturday,
after waiting for the caretaker
to leave.
I knocked. Got no reply.
You looked pretty angry. Did I?
Fortnum was your golden goose.
In my office,
I have got the typescript
of the first Fortnum novel.
Harry's first draft.
Overblown, pretentious, a mess.
Every other publisher
had rejected it,
but I saw a clever plot,
cut it to the bone,
sent it back to him,
said I'd publish it,
but only in this form.
He agreed. Six months later,
it's a bestseller.
I made him.
I put up with his refusal
to promote his work,
his typescripts, his rudeness,
and then out of the blue,
I'm history.
I'll tell you why
I didn't want to be seen.
If Harry had opened that door
and treated me
in that bloody condescending,
offhand way of his,
I don't know what I would have done.
Patience?
Yes?
Whe Where are you?
Er, I'm
Nobody actually comes in here.
Do you want to come out?
No, I don't.
Shall we shout
through the crate, then?
PATIENCE SIGHS
No.
Do not touch anything, OK?
Why are you here?
You were right about the ice cubes.
Hm.
How would you feel about
talking to Baxter,
making your role with us official?
Er, I found them.
The people in the photograph.
"The fire claimed the life
of Lisa Newman, 23.
"Harry Franklin, 24,
was taken to hospital
"with second degree burns.
A second man, Edmund Lennox, 24,
"also attended
but was later released.
"Aldous Tate, who owns the cabin
that was destroyed in the fire
"and runs the Sandend
writers' retreat,
"said he was devastated by
Miss Newman's death."
Yeah, so this is the incident report
that Harry Franklin requested
a copy of two weeks ago.
To help research his memoirs. Yeah.
He also requested access
to Lisa Newman's postmortem.
I mean, the findings
were inconclusive, but
It could have been started
deliberately? Possibly.
Pardona could put us in touch
with the other man in the photo,
Edmund Lennox.
It must have been a shock,
Mr Lennox. Mm.
That's an understatement.
I've known Harry since we were 17.
You both have the same model.
Er, yeah, dared each other to buy
those with our student grants.
Commit to being a writer.
Harry loved the clatter of the keys,
wrote all his novels on it,
and mine just sat there glaring
at me, telling me not to give up.
You were never tempted?
To write detective fiction? God, no.
HE LAUGHS
No, mymy ambitions
lay on a higher plane.
Tell me about Lisa Newman.
Lisa, er
..what can I say?
Er, her death shattered Harry,
turned him into a recluse,
er, and a writer,
although it would be another five
years before he created Fortnum.
Mm. Was this taken at the retreat?
Yes.
Aldous Tate took it. The creep.
Why'd you call him that? Er,
Harry told me that he, uh, Aldous,
tried it on with Lisa.
She found him a bit scary.
Hm. Did Lisa have a twin sister?
I believe she did, yes.
Er, leave that, please.
If you must handle my books, here.
Have one of these.
When did you last visit Harry?
Er, must have been
a while back. Um
Are you treating his death
as suspicious?
Did you know he was writing
a memoir? I didn't, no.
Er, but I'm not surprised.
I mean, every writer
cranks one out eventually.
If they live long enough.
Oh, you bought a copy?
A gift. He insisted on signing it.
Well, we've got a gift for you too,
and I think you're gonna like this
one. But first, the bad news. Will?
There is another entrance
to the apartment block, ma'am,
via the car park,
but it's not covered by CCTV.
Right. Now the good.
Facial recognition picked him up.
Convicted of assault, 2015.
Aldous Tate. Tate.
Yeah. He's featured in
the news coverage about the fire.
Ran the Sandend writers' retreat,
owned the log cabin that
burned down, killing Lisa Newman,
and scarring Harry Franklin
for life.
And the PNC says Tate assaulted
the boyfriend
of a student that accused him
of sexual harassment.
A bunch of other women came forward,
and the university had to fire him.
Lennox said Tate
made unwanted advances
towards Lisa Newman as well.
And Patience dug out
the original fire report -
it could have been started
on purpose.
I checked Harry Franklin's
phone records.
He'd called Aldous Tate four times
in the past two weeks.
Hiya.
We're looking for Aldous Tate.
He's around somewhere.
Are you his daughter?
I'm his wife.
Excuse me.
Sweetie pie.
Are you Aldous Tate?
What do you want?
This is humiliating.
Yeah, well, we have to
test your clothes.
Why did you visit Harry's flat?
He wanted to talk.
About the fire.
About Lisa Newman,
more specifically?
She was an attractive young woman.
I've said all I'm ever going to
about Lisa Newman.
You took that photograph
of Edmund Lennox, Lisa,
and Harry Franklin.
No comment.
I want my lawyer.
FOOTSTEPS
Um, I finished it.
I haven't got past page 20.
Well, I'm a fast reader.
Hyperlexia is the medical term.
Right. So, at first I thought,
"This is terrible.
"There's no puzzle."
But then I realised there is one.
Lennox didn't write this.
What?
It was written by Harry Franklin.
What makes you think that?
Well, it has the same cadences,
the same syntactical constructs,
the same narrator's voice
as all of the Fortnum novels.
I think we need a bit more
than similar writing.
Identical writing.
And the Jaccard Index
will prove it.
I have no idea what that is.
Er, it's a similarity coefficient.
Can't believe you didn't know that.
Let's see what Lennox has to say.
So, how may I help you?
My colleague's read your book.
She's hyperlexic.
Did you enjoy it?
Oh, no, I didn't enjoy it.
Who cares?
You didn't write it.
Oh? I was sure I did.
Er, let me see.
No, thatthat is definitely me.
Mm. Harry Franklin wrote it.
The Jaccard Index will prove it.
Why would he use your name,
Mr Lennox?
Er, it's
It's not a crime.
We'll be the judge of that.
Harry thought the critics
didn't take him seriously.
He wanted to write
something literary.
Prove them wrong.
Our plan was to reveal all,
but only after the reviews were out
and it had been judged
on its merits, not on his name.
Then Adam's Island was shortlisted
for one of the better literary
prizes. We agreed to hold off
the big reveal until
we found out if it had won.
Since I heard about his death,
I admit I have been wondering
whether it might not be
a better idea to
..just allow our secret
to be buried with him.
Metcalf.
Great. On my way.
Traces of cyanide
on Tate's clothing.
We got him.
Mr Tate. My client won't be
answering any more questions.
Release him or charge him.
Aldous Tate, you are charged with
the murder of Harry Franklin.
You do not have to say anything,
but it may harm your defence if
you do not mention when questioned
something that you later rely on
in court.
Anything you do say
may be given in evidence.
KNOCK ON DOOR
Come in.
Here you go.
I'm
I don't know, I
I've only looked at this
from one perspective, and I'm
I'm starting to think
the reverse might also be true.
I don't understand. Well
..why would someone with
a badly damaged hand
use a manual typewriter?
Are you saying that
you don't think Harry Franklin
wrote the Fortnum novels?
I don't know what I'm saying.
I'm saying that I admired him
as a writer and,
well, I've let that cloud
my judgment.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Er, DCI Baxter is not receiving
anyone at the mo
Excuse me.
Calvin. Marissa.
According to this, hydrogen cyanide
occurs naturally in certain plants.
Millets, sprouts, cassava roots,
lima beans -
all grown by Aldous Tate's wife.
DI Metcalf was also
in the greenhouse.
She will also have traces
of HCN on her clothing.
Are you going to charge her too?
Release my client immediately or
I will sue you for wrongful arrest.
HE SIGHS
Mr Tate.
We've got a suspect in the room
on the day that the guy died.
Traces of cyanide on his clothes.
What more do they want?
Boss.
Puts a different perspective on it.
Patience, it's Detective Bea.
Here you go.
Harry's first Fortnum manuscript.
Could I? It's not a holy relic.
So, Harry Franklin didn't write
the Fortnum novels.
In his "Dear Lottie" letter,
in his typewriter,
which we assume he did write,
the indentations on
the left-hand keys are much weaker.
And, well
..on these pages
there's no discernible difference
between the keys
you strike with your left hand,
and the ones that you'd strike
with your right.
I'm sorry, I gave you bad advice.
Why would Lennox lie about it?
I don't I What do you think?
I don't I
I think I'm not cut out to be
your investigative assistant.
I'm
I think I'd just like to go home.
Patience?
Huh.
Just, I feel like I'm not
I'm not doing anything right,
andI don't know.
Yeah. Self-doubt,
the way Patience is describing it,
is common.
But perhaps for us,
due to trauma in the past,
it can be extreme.
We can be drawn
to thinking in absolutes.
Everything is all or nothing. Yeah.
Your father was a police officer,
Patience,
and a decorated one at that.
Yeah.
That's a lot to live up to.
INDISTINCT RADIO CHATTER
Hiya. Hi. Hiya.
Almonds? Cyanide.
Found it in the boot.
Looks like notes.
From Harry Franklin's lost memoirs.
Huh. I cannot believe we had
Harry Franklin's killer in custody,
and we let him go.
Well, the cause of death
for Tate, sir,
is exactly the same MO as used
to kill Harry Franklin.
Hydrogen cyanide.
Yeah. The forensics don't indicate
any third-party involvement.
Mm. CCTV places Tate
at the scene of the murder
on the day that Harry died.
We've got to assume
that he stole the notes
for Harry's memoirs
that we found in the car.
"Asked Tate to visit,
said I needed help to research
"what really happened with the fire.
He demanded payment. £2,000 agreed.
"Worth it to see his face when
I tell him I know he killed Lisa."
This sounds like supposition.
I digitised Lisa Newman's
postmortem images.
The same ones Harry Franklin
requested as part of his research.
Now, this is not
a heat-related lesion.
This is a stab wound.
Look at the clean line.
Well, why wasn't it noticed
at the time?
Well, modern topographical
techniques can pick it up,
but not, er, not in the '90s.
All right, so you've given me
a possible motive
for Tate murdering Harry Franklin,
to stop him exposing him
for the murder of Lisa Newman
20-plus years ago.
But what was Tate's motive
for killing himself?
He had the notes, Harry was dead.
The memoirs aren't going to see
the light of day.
Care to honour us with an insight?
Not until I've shown these
to a colleague in criminal records,
sir.
Yeah, this was typed by
the same person who wrote
the "Dear Lottie" letter.
On the same typewriter,
it would appear. Are you sure?
Yeah.
Good. What you're looking at
is the letter Harry sent to Lottie
requesting information
about her sister Lisa,
just before he was killed.
Now, look at this.
Well, this was typed by
a completely different person,
on a different machine.
It's the one that was used to type
the Fortnum manuscript we looked at.
I'm certain of it.
SHE SIGHS
It's one of the pages of Harry's
notes we found in Tate's car.
But Edmund Lennox wrote them.
We've got him. Thanks to you.
You wrote the Fortnum novels,
Edmund.
Do you have proof of that?
We can prove Harry Franklin didn't.
We had an expert analyse the pages
of the first Fortnum manuscript.
It shouldn't be too difficult
to match them
to the Olivetti typewriter
on your client's desk.
I'd call it typing, not writing,
but yes, Fortnum was my creation.
CLICKS TONGUE
So what?
But you despise crime fiction.
Well, as Samuel Johnson almost said,
only a fool
would write crime fiction
for anything other than money.
You certainly made plenty of that.
For the tape, I'm showing a letter
from the Tortuga National Bank
in the Cayman Islands,
dated October 2004.
An offshore account,
open and closed by you,
but in the name of Edmund Lennox
AND Harry Franklin.
We got a court order, Edmund.
You paid Harry an awful lot
of money.
WHISPERS
EDMUND: For research.
For the tape,
we are showing three items.
A letter typed by Harry Franklin
to Lisa Newman's sister,
a page from the typescript
of the first Fortnum novel.
And notes for Harry Franklin's
memoir,
recovered from Aldous Tate's car.
Because of the burns to
his left hand, when Harry typed,
the keys on the left side
of the typewriter
made a weaker indentation
than those on the right.
Harry's letter to Lottie
is very distinct
from the notes found in Tate's car.
This was typed by Harry.
These were typed by you.
You didn't pay him for research.
It was blood money,
paid out of guilt.
Harry was my friend.
He suffered.
Oh, you have no idea.
The burns, the loss of the girl
he loved. He
I did what I could to support him.
I'm sure you tried to convince
yourself of that over the years,
but then you discover Harry
is writing a memoir. Oh, God.
I told you, I had no idea.
You're lying, Edmund.
We spoke again to Kelvin Fitzwater.
He told you over dinner
that Pardona had signed Harry,
about Harry's research
and the explosive reveal.
You realised
he was gonna tell the world
that you'd murdered his girlfriend.
HE LAUGHS
That's utter nonsense.
We spoke to Lisa's sister.
It wasn't Tate she was scared of,
it was you.
Lisa Newman died from a knife wound.
You set fire to the cabin
to cover your tracks.
You staged Harry's death
to look like a suicide.
When that unravelled,
you tried to frame Tate.
Lured him with the promise of money,
poisoned him,
left Harry's notes in his car.
Except they weren't Harry's notes -
you made them up.
The success that I had
with Adam's Island,
I took to be a sign
..I no longer had to expend
my talent on Fortnum.
I'd paid Harry reparations enough.
Then I found out
he's not only cashing in
on the fame I'd given him,
but he's about to expose me.
So you killed Harry Franklin.
I had no choice.
And Aldous Tate.
Oh, well, no loss.
And Lisa Newman.
HE SIGHS
A crime passionnel.
When she told me
that she preferred Harry,
I had a moment ofblind
..black, fathomless rage.
Interview suspended, 17.40.
This is a letter
from Harry Franklin
that Pardona Publishing found
in their post room this morning.
The explosive reveal
he was planning
He didn't write the Fortnum novels.
He blamed Aldous Tate
for Lisa's death, not you.
You had no reason to kill him.
It's a puzzle box.
Oh. Is iteasy to open?
Er, I don't know, I've never tried.
You left a puzzle unsolved?
Who's Mathilde Hendricks?
It's my mother.
It's the only thing she didn't
take with her before she left.
Have you ever tried to contact her?
Why would I want to do that?