The Bletchley Circle s02e01 Episode Script

1 Yes, sir.
I'll give it to her now.
It could take a year to crack this from scratch.
Anything at all? Still nothing.
It's not our end.
The only explanation is the Germans have changed their machines.
If they've changed their machines, we may as well give up and go home.
God knows, we could use the sleep.
It's been two days.
In hut four, I've got girls twiddling their thumbs waiting for decrypts.
They're getting very twitchy about the house.
Let's go back to a data set from last week.
Run that, see what we get.
At least then we can eliminate - Wait! I think I've got it.
What? They haven't changed the machines.
They changed the codes.
Does anybody else count the letters in the message header? Why would anyone do that? It's three characters longer than is used to be.
I think they've changed their encoding system.
Moved three indicator characters out of the code and into the message header.
To what purpose? It's easier for the operators.
They've been using the system for two years and think it's unbreakable.
They're getting sloppy.
Those three characters are throwing everything off.
We just need to That should do it.
It can't be that simple.
Why not? You can build the most complicated machine but it will still be run by people.
People have shortcuts.
Try it.
Coming clear now.
Yes.
Are you sure you shouldn't be working in hut four? Oh I prefer machines really.
If you ever change your mind Nicely done, Miss Merren.
Will you come up to the house with me? Carry on, everyone, please.
How on earth did you spot that? Do you always count the letters? Only when the other options don't work.
I'm impressed.
I'm always impressed.
Hang on.
Oh I don't really need you at the house.
I've had some news.
They're posting me to another department.
Where? I don't know.
Came through suddenly.
I have to leave tonight.
I'm sorry.
At least we've had this time together.
It's all right.
I understand.
Well, goodbye, then, I suppose.
Goodbye.
Police, please.
I'm afraid something awful has happened.
Morning, Miss McBride.
Is she expecting you? Oh Yes.
Follow me, please.
Finished? For the moment, yes.
There's someone else to see you.
Hello, Alice.
I hope it's all right that I came.
You never answered any of my letters.
Sit down.
Let me know when you're finished.
No more than half an hour.
How are you? Are you all right? Are you Are you comfortable? You shouldn't be here.
Why did you come? Because I heard you were in trouble.
Well, I suppose I am.
And I wanted to know if there was anything I could do to help.
No, thank you.
Alice - You really should go.
Will you tell me what happened? Did he Did he do something to you? Did he hurt you? Whatever happened, I just want to help.
There's really nothing you can do.
Visitors out! Visitors out! I'll get you! Excuse me.
You're defending Alice Merren.
That's right.
Are you family? A former colleague.
Colleague? From where? Miss Merren seems to not want to talk about things either.
Which leaves me with very little material on which to base a defence.
What happens if she offers no defence? It will be a very short trial.
15 minutes should do it, I expect.
And then what? She'll be hanged.
It's a capital case.
The evidence is very clear.
If she wants to live, she has to say something to mitigate the circumstances.
Anything at all.
If you're really her friend, tell her that.
Put your shoes on, Lucy Don't you know you're in the city? Someone to see you out front.
It's not my lunch break yet.
Are you finished with those? Another ten minutes.
When you're done, you can pop out.
Anyone asks, you went on an errand for me.
All right.
I can't.
I'm sorry.
If they caught me taking files out of work, I'd lose my job.
You don't have to take them out, do you? You could look at them.
Recite them back to me and copy them down later.
Why do you want to know? Alice Merren.
I suppose you never met her.
She was in the machine hut.
At Bletchley? I went to see her.
It was a very strange conversation.
Maybe I'm missing something obvious.
But I get the feeling that she's hiding something.
Something important.
If you're in so much trouble that you're going to be hanged, what on earth would be so important that you would still keep it a secret? Please, Lucy.
All right.
Just like that? Just like that.
Thank you.
I'd better get back.
Scotland Yard? Good for you.
Good morning, ladies.
It happens all the time.
The worst thing is thinking of them as clients and not the enemy.
I get a lot of compliments.
'Your translation is excellent, Fraulein.
It will really help us secure this contract.
' I want to say it also helped us beat you, pal.
I'm sure half of them were Nazis.
But the pay is good and needs must.
We live in a different world.
German as friends, Russians as enemies.
I suppose we'll just have to make our peace with it.
I suppose.
So, social call? Partly.
Oh, yes.
I did wonder.
We have 300 girls boarding and 90 day girls.
Yes, very good.
How old are these girls? Do they do anything beyond basic arithmetic? Calculus? Logic? Some of our girls do study maths to Ordinary level.
We have a specialist tutor.
We find that arts and languages are a better fit for most of our girls.
Some of these have been marked incorrectly.
Hello, Jean.
I've been waiting here for ages.
Since when did you start locking your front door? Since last year.
Coming in? I'm only asking you to take a look.
To satisfy my curiosity, if you will.
Jean, it's lovely to see you.
It wouldn't be like last time, Susan.
It's just reading some newspapers and looking at some files.
And if I'm right and there's something amiss here, I'll send it to Alice's defence counsel and he can handle it.
If I'm wrong, we'll walk away and let justice take its course.
Nobody's coming to any harm.
I still dream about it, you know.
Dreams where the house comes down.
We're trapped in the rubble in the dark.
I can't move.
Well, um I'll leave these here, just in case.
Goodbye, Susan.
Sam, Mummy said no ball in the house! Just like old times.
More or less.
Thank you for humouring me.
Lucy.
Alice Merren came to Richards' house on Thursday the 12th.
She shot him in the chest twice.
Her fingerprints were found on the gun and on the telephone she used to call the police.
There were signs of a struggle.
Lovers' quarrel? That's what the prosecution are going to say.
Richards was married.
Thursday evenings were his wife's bridge game.
A neighbour said she'd seen a woman in a green coat and a headscarf visiting a couple of times.
Thank God for nosy neighbours! They found a green coat at Alice's house.
They were lovers at Bletchley.
How do you know? Things seen.
Jean, everything you're saying, and everything Lucy's got, if this was a vector plot, they'd all be flat lines pointing in the same direction.
This is the sort of case the police can solve perfectly well, and it looks like they're doing just that.
Alice hasn't denied any of this.
But she hasn't confessed.
Contents of Richards' pockets.
One pocket handkerchief, one set of keys, one leather wallet containing two pounds, four shillings.
One florist receipt for two shillings and sixpence, dated 12th of February.
One identity card for Newgate Laboratories, and a book of second-class stamps.
If you cross-correlate those items with police inventories for Alice's flat and Richards' house Why? Ijust think something doesn't fit.
He bought flowers.
Men do that sometimes.
He got a receipt.
According to the inventory, there were no flowers listed at his house.
There wouldn't be.
You don't get a receipt if you're carrying a bunch away.
Only if you're having a bunch delivered.
Would have been a big bunch for two shillings.
That would have proved the romantic connection.
The police would not have missed that.
They weren't for his wife or his lover.
Who did he send the flowers to? Susan.
Thank you.
Ahem.
Ah, good night, sweetheart.
Good night, Daddy.
Night, Sams.
Sleep well.
Night, Daddy.
So how was Hallgrave House? It was all right.
Hm, same as Colebrooks, same as St Augustus, same as Hollydale.
Have you ever considered your standards might be a little high? If we're sending them away - We're not sending them away.
It's just boarding school.
It's not home.
No.
I just want to make sure that, wherever they go .
.
it's as good as I can make it.
I know.
And you will.
Um Steadman came to see me today.
Is it what you thought? Not exactly.
It is a promotion.
But it's not Home Office.
I'm sorry, darling.
It's rather better than that.
It's a Foreign Office posting.
What What would that mean exactly? Greater seniority.
Rather more money.
And a shot at doing something a little more engaging than vehicle licensing.
That's not quite what I meant.
It's a two-year posting to begin with.
Abroad.
Yes, of course.
Where? They haven't made the formal offer yet.
Look, I won't do anything that you don't want me to.
But this could be my chance, I think.
Hello.
Excuse me.
These were supposed to be delivered to a friend of mine.
But I don't think they ever reached her.
We'd have heard if that happened.
Well, I would just like to be sure.
You have to sign if they're delivered.
So we'd know.
If you could just check.
It was for a special occasion, you see.
What name was it? Richards.
Won't be a moment.
Here's the receipt.
No, they were delivered as requested.
That's strange.
Perhaps they were delivered to the wrong address.
17C Marnham Terrace.
Oh, that's right.
Oh, and the card? 'Happy birthday.
' Just as requested.
That's super.
Thank you.
They were sent to Marnham Terrace.
That's only a few stops from here.
It must be a woman.
You don't send a man flowers.
A woman he knows well enough to know her birthday.
17C.
That's going to be the top floor.
Makes her not well off.
Or too young to be well off.
He could have been having more than one affair.
Someone's coming out.
Walk on.
Green coat and a headscarf.
That's what the neighbour said.
It's a blue coat.
It was night-time.
The street lamps would have been on.
Blue coat, yellow light.
It would look green, like the WAAF uniforms.
Come on.
The court is ready for you.
Silence! Silence! Look at you, all smart and professional.
Scotland Yard's finest.
Finest clerical support officer.
Is Susan coming? I left a message with Timothy.
Tell us about the girl.
Her name is Elizabeth Lancaster.
She's 17 years old.
She moved down from Yorkshire about a year ago.
Which is when she took the flat.
She works in Mayfair at J Moran and Co.
I couldn't find out anything else.
If Richards was seeing this girl as well as Alice, and Alice found out, she could have killed him out of jealousy.
They found Alice guilty.
It was on the wireless news.
She didn't say a word.
Nothing.
We need to find out all we can about this Elizabeth Lancaster character.
We could look at her flat.
Isn't that breaking and entering? Weren't we supposed just to be looking at papers? She was one of my girls.
You all were.
She'll hang unless somebody does something.
Are you coming or not? Hurry up.
She'll be back soon.
Don't rattle your cage, Jean.
Don't push so hard.
Ben told me you feel for them one by one.
Then pop them up and keep the file tense.
Jesus.
I should report you.
That's amazing.
Who's Ben? Just someone at work.
What are we looking for? I don't know.
Anything at all.
I found something.
John Richards.
These are war files, military documents.
Requisitioning dockets.
Inter-departmental memoranda.
These are duty detail breakdown from the machine huts.
So she was stealing from him.
Maybe she was going to sell them to the Russians.
This isn't top secret missile plans.
It's orders for an extra set of valves fromnine years ago.
Without clearance, she could still be arrested for just looking at this.
You think she didn't know what they were? A girl who numbers Paradise Lost amongst her bedtime reading? She's no idiot.
Let's keep looking.
I've already looked there.
You crafty devil! Or did Ben teach you where to hide things too? What's taking you so long? You're supposed to be on lookout! Newspaper clippings.
Is that it? There's more here than you think.
'The accident occurred on Salisbury Plain in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
A truck carrying chemical waste collided with another vehicle.
The driver in the truck, a corporal in the British Army, was pronounced dead at the scene.
Military personnel who attended the chemical spill have been treated for fume inhalation.
' Why did she hide these and then stuff the secret military documents down the back of the cupboard? Why hide these at all? Strange story for a girl to be fixated on.
I don't think she was.
This is Richards' address.
These were his.
She's seeing him regularly, on the quiet.
An affair probably.
She's stealing secret material that she has no business with.
He confronts her.
There's a struggle.
He ends up dead.
Let's get out of here.
Let's go and find this Elizabeth.
Visitor.
I thought we had an understanding.
You know me.
I'm never happy leaving things half-finished.
You've read the papers.
You're too late.
You didn't kill John Richards, did you? Alice, what's going on? You were such a bright young thing.
You obviously liked him.
Loved him, for all I know.
And now he's dead.
The way things are looking, you're going to hang for that.
You understand this, don't you? Of course I understand it.
So why won't you tell me the truth? A woman called Elizabeth Lancaster killed John, didn't she? We found her.
Jean, for God's sake.
We know that she was stealing from him.
We - Jean, stop it.
You have no idea You have to stop this.
Leave her alone.
Alice! Leave her alone.
She killed the man you loved.
I know.
What? I know what she did.
And you'd hang in her place? What leverage has she got over you? Please, go now.
It's finished.
There's nothing for you to do.
Alice, why are you protecting her? Finished.
Goodbye, Jean.
Good evening, Mr Jardine.
Good evening.
Elizabeth? Elizabeth, is that you? Elizabeth, wait! Look out! Are you OK? Jesus.
That was deliberate, wasn't it?! Where is she? We've got to find her.
Stay by the door.
Don't let her run for it.
Someone was looking for something.
Someone didn't find it.
I I I I need to go.
Timothy I'm sorry.
Long day? Not half.
What did you make of Hazeldean? What? Weren't you going to look around today? Gosh, I completely forgot.
I met Millie.
We got chatting.
Better give them a ring tomorrow.
Say you were stricken down.
Yes.
They're going to need an answer, one way or another, about this job.
Have you given it any thought? Of course.
I mean, I am.
It seems like an awfully big change.
I've checked her work and she's not gone back.
Which isn't entirely surprising.
She must be scared half to death.
Alice has just been sentenced.
Date of execution is still to be set.
Any sign of Elizabeth? She's vanished.
I've got Alice's address.
I don't know what we'll find there, but we're running out of time and options.
Alice knew that Elizabeth killed him right from the start.
And she's still willing to hang for it.
This is the stop.
This is it.
Number 23.
Try the back.
Where's Lucy when you need her? We could try a window.
We can't just break in.
Who are you and why are you following me? All right, let's all calm down, shall we? Are you working for that Merren bitch? I beg your pardon? Don't pretend! The bitch in prison.
Are you working for her? Oh, my God.
Listen, you've got the wrong end of the stick.
We're trying to help our friend.
You tried to kill me.
No, not us.
Think.
We weren't in that car.
We've got it wrong.
What? Greater love hath no man than this, than a man lay down his life for his friends.
Except they weren't friends.
What's she talking about? 1936.
They're young, they're in love.
Except they're not married.
Who the hell are you people? Friends of your mother's.
Who? Alice.
Alice Merren.
She's your mother.
No.
No.
Elizabeth, wait! Get away from me! It's all right.
It's all right.
Someone tried to kill me.
I know.
Not us.
Who, then? We don't know.
She can't be my mother.
She can't be.
Janet and Anthony Lancaster adopted a two-month-old baby girl Elizabeth, no surname, on April 16th 1936.
I cross-checked the hospital birth records for two months before that.
There's an interesting pattern of missing files, as if someone was trying to cover their tracks.
Typical Bletchley training.
She gave her name as Alice Green.
Elizabeth must have realised she was adopted and went looking for her parents.
Can't find the mother because she's hidden herself too well.
So she finds the father.
Thanks, Lucy.
She can stay here for now.
I'm sorry, Miss McBride.
But as I've already said, my client has expressly stated she will entertain no more visits from you.
She doesn't want to see you.
I think she wants to be alone to make her peace with what's coming.
You should respect that.
Could you give her a message? What? Could you say 14, hut four.
14, hut four? That's it? Yes, she'll understand.
14? Error code.
Code 14.
Corruption in data set.
Re-do calculation from start.
Fingers crossed she still remembers.
Timothy's been offered a job abroad.
Says it's up to me whether he takes it or not.
Go to some far-off place.
Exciting, important.
'A chance for a new beginning.
' I don't know what he means.
Really? He's not thick, you know.
He must realise something.
Ever since Crowley, there's been a secret between you.
There's always been a secret between us.
Yes, but that was an official secret, if you like.
You had to keep it.
This one is of your own making.
You know that.
And I imagine he feels it.
Of course he wants a new beginning.
He wants his wife back.
I haven't gone anywhere.
Susan! It's what we planned, you and I.
Going abroad, travelling.
I wanted to.
I was so ready to.
And then What happened happened.
You don't regret it, do you? Not usually.
Just Part of me, I always felt that I'm running after you.
Trying to catch the train.
Girls! Thank you.
Miss Merren would like to talk to you.
So What have I got wrong? You thought you were protecting your daughter.
That's it, isn't it? Elizabeth is your daughter.
Yes.
And John Richards, her father.
You've been busy.
Tell us what happened that night.
You know what happened.
I want to hear it from you.
Why? I want to know where you went wrong.
Alice, please tell us.
Why were you even there that night? John called me.
I hadn't heard from him in years.
It was very unexpected.
He told me that Lizzie had found him.
Thatthey'd been in touch regularly.
How did she seem? He said she was .
.
erratic, I suppose.
Confused about her past.
Angry about being abandoned.
But also keen to reconcile, to make an effort to pursue who she really was.
I think that's how he put it.
He wanted me to meet her.
I went to the house.
She was supposed to be there.
Instead - Instead, you found him dead.
And you assumed that Lizzie had killed him.
I'm prepared for all this, you know.
We abandoned our child because I was young and foolish and not prepared to face the shame.
He was engaged to someone else.
Someonesuitable.
His family, you know.
No matter how bright I was, I was still a shopkeeper's daughter.
How am I to blame her for hating us? You see, there's the error.
Will you stop being so blood patronising and say what you mean? Lizzie didn't kill John.
There were secret military documents hidden in her flat.
Hidden not very well.
Meant to be found.
She was supposed to take the blame.
Hang for Richards' death.
Then you showed up at the crime scene.
Put your prints on the gun, called the police, took her place.
The thing is, whoever's out there wants her dead.
And meanwhile, you're going to hang for something your daughter didn't actually do.
There's still time.
No, there isn't.
There was a deadline for the appeal.
It's just gone.
I told themno appeal.
What have I done?! She won't answer.
Lizzie? Lizzie, it's us.
What is it? Someone tried to get in.
Sweetheart, there are always noises.
It's like Piccadilly Circus sometimes.
No, someone was there.
Someone's after me.
No-one will bother you here.
You're the ones who robbed my flat.
Technically, I suppose.
But we were very neat.
We left it tidy.
Whoever turned it over came later.
They were after the same things though.
The newspaper clippings.
And these.
I've never seen these before in my life.
They were down the back of the kitchen cupboard.
They're not mine.
They were planted.
These clippings.
Why do you have these? He gave them to me.
Why? Don't know.
That's a bit strange.
Giving you newspaper clippings.
He must have said something.
What did he say? Lizzie, please.
He said they were important.
These clippings? He said they were vital.
Did he say why? What is it you're not telling us? We understand he was your father.
But this could really help.
He said he had blood on his hands.
He told me to keep them somewhere safe.
Secret.
He frightened me.
I was scared.
It wasn't like him.
Dear God.
What? Why plant stolen documents in Lizzie's flat? To implicate her in the murder.
She was already implicated.
To make the case watertight, then.
A 17-year-old girl would take jewellery, money, from a house.
But military documents? Think, what do they do? They breach the Official Secrets Act.
And what does that mean? The trial will be held under military jurisdiction.
Exactly.
Except Lizzie wasn't arrested.
Alice saw to that.
But you see the connection.
The army.
Every step of the way.
The case would never have seen the light of day if Lizzie had been the one taken in for it.
It would have been referred to a military court.
Richards was a chemist.
He was following a story.
He was obsessed with it.
Why? He'd seen something in these reports that meant something to him and not to anyone else.
This crash story, it feels like a cover-up.
A fake.
Something happened on Salisbury Plain.
Richards found out.
They killed him to keep him quiet.
By they, you mean The army.
If you're right, they didn't just kill Richards.
They also tried to kill a girl who's done nothing more than speak to her father.
What the hell have you got us into? There's no improvement.
Not with any of them? There are severe respiratory complications.
The tissues of their lungs are Well, corroded.
I don't know they'll survive.
If they die, what shall I say is the cause of death? Chemical burns, fume inhalation.
After all, that's the truth, isn't it? You'll have to excuse me now, Doctor.
I have some rather pressing business.
Tell me what you've got.
Anything is better than just waiting.
Mummy, if Daddy goes abroad, does that mean Sam and I come too? I'm sorry, your services are no longer required.
She's gone.
There are four of you.
Where's your friend?