Ripper Street (2012) s02e08 Episode Script

Sergeant Artherton? Mr Drake - he has fought Inspector Shine.
He has.
Did he win, Sir? Councillor Cobden? A word with you, if I might? A comment, if you will? On my purpose here? You are welcome to it, Mr Best.
I am set on the renovation of St Paul's Wharfside.
Oh, no, good lady.
I have a surfeit of those already.
No.
It's, erm, it's comment on other matters I seek.
Yourself and Detective Inspector Reid, you have been friends long? We have interests that conjoin.
Politicians and police - it will ever be the case.
I know, it's a sweet story.
Yourself and Edmund Reid - aligned for ever more .
.
on his night-time visits to your offices.
Conjoined good and proper, I imagine.
Ma'am! Oh! Good God, no! Shine, Shine, Shine! The width of the cleft is barely a millimetre through Mr Hinchcliffe's throat - cut clean through the windpipe, but the wound encircles the neck entirely.
So piano or cheese wire, most like.
It's from behind - pull clean, hold tight.
A man of strength and precision.
An all too recent murder.
And one to which we must add the investigation of this rotted array of bone work.
You ask me, the river's the best thing for them.
We must do what we can.
Straighten up, now in to him, body, body! Liver and kidneys! Don.
Bennet.
Jab! Jab! He is not without skill, Artherton tells me.
Head, body It is not skill he needs.
Bennet, Mr Hinchcliffe .
.
now, the man who defrauded him, the man who murdered him, perhaps, he sits in our cells not ten yards from where we stand.
Body, body! Jab, jab! May I show him to you? Cross! Nathaniel Hinchcliffe, the man you cheated, Mr Werner.
The man you say I cheated.
His murdered body lies in my dead room - ready to give up the secrets of its death.
Well, then that is where you must find them, cos you'll get none from me.
Have it from me, Reid, the look of disgust on your face when you struck me? You lack the stomach for another man's torment.
Perhaps.
But might I introduce you to my friend here? His name is Drake.
Perhaps you have heard it spoken.
I heard it, he was gone.
As you can see, he is not.
Now, Nathaniel Hinchcliffe, you defrauded him and then you had him murdered, did you not? What, Inspector? Has your dog gone lame? Sergeant Drake? You have my warrant card, Sir.
I've not taken it back.
And so I am not your sergeant to be bid no more.
You retrieved Hinchcliffe's broken body.
That man in there, he will not talk to me and I cannot You cannot find it in yourself to force him? No.
And so once more require me to do so for you? Inspector, I will not be that man no more.
I cannot.
Do you not see what it has brought me, Sir? Each lip I've fattened .
.
each head I've beaten against steel bars, at your bidding.
And you stood there in silence, waiting for their secrets to pour forth.
Inspector, look at the ruins of our lives.
Anyone we might care for or bring close to us, anyone! They suffer and we lose them.
Do you think these facts not related? No.
That is not the way the universe functions.
There is no There is no God, stood in judgment.
Who mentioned God, Sir? No, I talk of life! And life, Mr Reid, is offended by you and me.
Mr Blewett? Mr Blewett? Mr Blewett? Is that my name atop of tonight's bill? It is, Rose.
And I hope to not receive another visit from your friends and they now appreciate the efforts I make for you.
All my days, all of them, whatever happens, I will always be grateful to you.
Rose, please, hush.
This is not to be laid at my door.
But if it is not you I thank, then No thanks required.
Erm Nonetheless, Sir, you have them.
Miss Rose.
Susan, am I to wait in bed all morning for my kippers? That one there.
Make it two.
Thank you, Sir.
Good day to you.
Lunchtime repast for you boys.
Mr Judge, you may feel protected by your familial relationship with this station house.
But we are both patient and watchful men.
Should you try to sell our diamond, Sir, we will have it from you.
And that item recovered, we shall then take your head.
This will rile you.
Then don't say it.
Our father would have been proud of your skill.
Pleased that you put it to use.
Our diamond still in there, then? Those shits in suits still watch you? I think they're in love.
Then it stays put.
And I must hit you for more spending.
You want more money from me? Go to that cabinet, bottom-right drawer, get yourself an apron and make yourself useful.
Reach for something here - a supporting opinion may be conducive.
Mr Reid give it me, to help me hunt for you, Bennet.
He said I would return it to you.
And see, I have.
You want coffee, girl? No, Rose, you, er you stay out here.
I'm told there will be scouts attending from the West End playhouses.
I worry, Bennet.
I fear the song I am to perform is not That I don't sing it very well.
But it's fashionable and comic.
You must do what you think best, Rose.
If I was to do what you thought best? I know no songs.
But if you ask me .
.
you must use a song that speaks to your heart .
.
and sing it from there, girl.
Will you come to Blewett's? Watch me? It would mean the world.
Then I shall come.
Constable.
Is it true what the streets say? That Bennet Drake has emerged from the pauper's pit with the body of Nathaniel Hinchcliffe in his arms? It is, Mr Shine.
And that body now lay beneath the keen eye of Edmund Reid's American? In all likelihood.
And I imagine yours an opinion all Leman Street would urgently hear.
What? You kill me? I made you, son.
What were you .
.
before Jedediah Shine laid his eyes on you? I was a bad man when you found me.
But you have since made evil of me, sir.
You see? I cannot be ended.
Your brother is qualified to assist you, is he? Our father - a doctor himself - enrolled us in The University of Virginia to study medicine.
Twink here lasted the course.
I did not.
So I can, er approximate a number of factors.
Gender, age, time of death and manner of that passing.
From these? I said approximate.
Number one - a lady, and from the wearing on her teeth, I'd say she's past 50.
Two and three, both men.
Mr Two here, likewise past 50.
Mr Three is a somewhat younger man, perhaps only recently advanced into adulthood.
Two, however - well, he has a peculiarity.
The bowing in the tibia.
The maxilla is enlarged.
The man had Paget's disease.
Paget's.
That's the misshapen enlargement of the bones, is it not? You are a medical man yourself, sir? He reads.
You said you might hazard a time of death.
What? A month? The season and the year.
There's two factors to consider.
Cartilage and the wasps.
Wasps? So we are to be led to the truth by dead insects.
Hey, without them, we're nowhere.
That nest in the ribcage.
Now the queen can only have built it in the summer of last year.
Not this past? She'd have flew out and stung you on your nose.
So it is the frost of the intervening winter which has killed them.
Summer of '89, when she makes this body her home, it's already got to be empty of flesh.
So these are dead the spring of 1889? Give or take.
That's cartilage.
In all three, you can find the same.
This cartilage not rotted? Breaks down slower than muscle and tissue.
It is then preserved by the same winter chill that has killed the wasps.
Quite so.
Although Mr Three there is somewhat better preserved.
Suggesting what? That he died a month or so later? That he was murdered a month or so later.
He has this correct? Hey, I wouldn't have picked it, but my brother is somewhat conspiratorial by leaning.
I am a man for patterns, Inspector.
This here is the thyroid cartilage.
Lives right above the trachea.
See these striations? They're minute - less than a millimetre in diameter.
But something very thin has cut all the way through with very great intent.
And these three share the same markings as these preserved thyroids? They do.
They do.
The force and conviction with which Mr Hinchcliffe was garrotted, it is an unusual feat, is it not, for the incision to penetrate so deep? It suggests an extreme relish for the task, yes.
And one might imagine a similar relish being brought to bear on the thyroid cartilages of these cadavers.
The same means of execution, by the same hand? One may.
Please sir, you are to arrest me.
What charge? Flight? What charge? Accessory to murder.
Whose? Whose? Mr Reid, no man curses me stronger You tell me, now.
Nathaniel Hinchcliffe.
Joseph Merrick.
But, er Joseph Merrick? But he fell asleep - he he was asphyxiated by the weight of his own body.
He was asphyxiated Sir, and with the weight of himself also.
But it was not he who removed the supports.
But you were there.
You were outside.
I was, Sir.
Who? Who, damn you?! Who?! Who? Inspector Shine.
How do you know this? He sent me here.
Knew you, Mr Reid, had your eyes on his activities and knowing that you could find no men to join you here, had me volunteer.
I was sent here to spy on you, sir.
Sergeant Artherton, throw that man in my office there into a cell.
yes, sir - on what charge, Mr Reid? Our betrayal.
Reid! Are you in command of yourself? Do you know what it is you do? I know precisely.
We wonder, do we not, if those skeletal remains were taken by the same man as killed Mr Hinchcliffe? Now, Flight's testimony gives me Jedediah Shine for that last murder, but if I might name those corpses, discover their histories and so join him with their deaths, then I can nail his coffin shut and put him in the earth for all time.
And so? Can you name them? Your timing is, as ever, entirely apt.
What might have been scandalous gossip is now made fact.
This journalist, Best - in due course, I shall see him drowned in the northern outfall, but for now, I ask your patience.
The three corpses that you discovered in that Basin Slum tenement - they begin to give up their secrets.
Secrets that may have great bearing on the research I undertook for you.
On the ownership structure of the slum? The family which, until early last year, owned the land.
The Vere-Lyons.
It was theirs from the 17th century.
The last descendents.
The old man? Augustus.
He was disabled, was he not? His bones grown large and deformed? He was indeed.
I believe his, one of the corpses - the others, therefore perhaps, his wife and son.
I believe them all murdered, and that in this documentation lie the trace-marks of those who would gain from that act.
The concern, who now takes ownership of the deceased family's holdings? Obsidian Estates.
Indeed, yes.
Here - April '89, the lands at St Paul's Wharfside transferred to their holdings.
Who is it hides behind their shield of bailiffs and lawyers? They hide themselves with some degree of skill, but Here, Edmund.
It is not solely the Limehouse dockside into which Obsidian develops.
It owns much of Whitechapel as well.
These streets - the preserves of opium dens and gaming houses and .
.
and brothels.
Brothels.
Edmund, wait.
You seem as if all else is forgot.
Jane, this, er length of twine that I follow, it pulls me towards evil men whose fell influence is spread wide and deep across the parishes of east London.
And I feel there the opportunity not solely to correct the darkness of the world in which I serve, but also that which abides in my own heart.
And that baleful force then eradicated, I might also find the strength to lead my own life.
Seek my own happiness.
And that strength being found, I would seek it with you.
Goddamn it.
Where is he? Cheers.
Daniel, this isn't your own private residence.
You can't be wandering about the place like you own it.
My brother can be an old woman when he chooses.
Ow! I told you - Reid has him awaiting retribution, he is of no use to us.
What is inside his evil, shiny dome, however, that is of interest.
Not here.
Friend Werner tells of a man he knows.
A man of both sufficient ready income and disregard for commercial authority that may be persuaded to buy such a rock.
Who? Captain - I believe I have these poor souls' stories, and you, perhaps, able to provide their final chapter.
These, I believe, are the last of the line - the mortal remains of one of this country's oldest landowning families.
Their portfolio - vast estates in rural Gloucestershire, a Regency mansion on Portland Place, and east London slum land, from which rents are raised.
Augustus and Clara Vere-Lyon and their only son, Stephan - Stephan who, in March of last year, reports that his parents, due to the sake of his father's health, are gone abroad.
The old couple thus departed, one month later, Stephan transfers his family's entire holdings at St Paul's Wharfside into the ownership of one Obsidian Estates.
Then Stephan himself, promptly disappearing from the face of the earth.
And you think this is all Shine's doing? To begin with, perhaps, yes, I thought so.
But, er No, he is a man far too happy inside his own evil skin to over-reach himself so.
However, he is a Limehouse man, and this slum that Obsidian now owns falling within his influence, he would make an exemplary associate for whichever vicious acts of disguise and persuasion and enforcement may be required.
And who is it makes him this associate? I hoped you would provide that information for me, Captain.
Obsidian owns Tenter Street.
You want to know who it is leases to Susan? Yeah, it's, er it's a man named Duggan, he has a barber shop over on Finch Street, he resides there.
He does not, Sir.
Not any longer.
Then where? I was going to tell you, Twink.
Come! If only he realised the depth of my deception.
Allow me.
Mr Duggan, does your new bitch not know to knock when gentlemen are at business? Everybody out.
Now! All I have done for you! And you would treat me with such little respect in front of my associates.
Do you know what I do to those that insult me? Then do it to me, Duggan, because I may live like this no longer.
I have given to what you demanded and so am obligated to you no more.
And yet I cannot.
I know what covenant we had, madam.
But another grows within me - within my heart.
I cannot be without you, dear Susan.
Do you say that, what? That you love me, Sir? I believe I do, madam.
If you say that you are mine, you may have every freedom your heart desires.
I swear.
So he sleeps there! Plenty of men have laid their head beneath that roof without doing so on your wife's bosom.
Daniel - not once in your life have you cared for any soul other than your own, but try to understand - I love her.
I need to kill him.
Those are the rules.
You kill him, you remove from this earth the one person who has it in their power to make us rich.
It's him - Duggan.
The man Werner believes we might sell our stone to.
Patterns, Twink - can you not see how our stars align? The very man we must exploit is both the quarry of your inspector and the enemy of your wife - your wife, brother - who, whilst her "lodger" suffers Reid's questions can be visited and persuaded of an entirely elegant logic that if Duggan can be made to acquire this diamond, you and she may then repay him with his own goddamn money.
It is a fine story, Edmund.
But your proof? Follow me, Fred.
There is a bugbear of mine I would return you to.
Your testimony as described to me by Edmund Reid - it is true? It is, Sir.
I brought you here, God damn you.
You volunteered to me and I brought you here.
And it is true - who you were in fact serving at that time? Say it.
I came to Leman Street to spy for Jedediah Shine.
I saw Jedediah Shine murder Nathaniel Hinchcliffe.
I waited beyond Joseph Merrick's rooms Enough! It is sufficient, is it not, Fred, to have Inspector Shine brought to book? Come tomorrow - you bring this man Duggan in.
And I shall fetch the other.
Bennet Drake! You let me in or I'll set a fire and smoke you out.
Wainwright has promise, and when timed correctly, his uppercut might punch holes in steel.
But he is young - lacks in confidence.
It would not hurt you to come to the semifinal.
Puff him up a bit.
You like this boy.
I do.
Then why is it you wish him to win? You know it is Jedediah Shine awaits him should he do so.
This life, Ben - all we may do is put one boot in front of the other, may we not? That's good, son! Again, again! Good lad - get down.
Good boy! And again! Come on, ref, start counting! Six, five, four, three, two, one! H Division! Welcome, Constable.
I am a man of greedy anticipation.
A greed for you, son.
Let us hope you make a better fist of it than the last finalist to arrive from the Leman Street ranks.
Chief Inspector.
It is a while since you partook of such sport.
They have changed the rulebook, Jedediah.
My day, anything went.
Had I fought you, I would have carried a knife in my britches, and - in my current mood - used it to cut your knackers off.
After you, Chief Inspector.
No, Mr Reid - it is your shop.
Sergeant Artherton, have this man booked.
Murder.
Multiple counts.
Mr Duggan, we are very grateful to have you today.
If you'll follow me, we'll get you some tea.
Name? Name? There you are.
Obsidian Estates.
A concern of mine.
It's a large concern for a barber.
Some days I'm a barber, some days I pursue other interests.
Ah.
Are you a policeman alone, Inspector? How is it Obsidian came by its holdings at St Paul's Wharfside? The Basin Slum? Hm.
It was yielded to me by a young man - Stephan Vere-Lyon.
Vast acreage of rented tenements, yielded for a peppercorn.
No, sir, no peppercorn - repayment for a debt.
Heavy debt.
He was a miscreant libertine, that young man.
You were happy to fund his pursuits? I do beg your pardon, Inspector, but is this a moral debate? You may say what you like about the ethics of my business practices.
I broke no law of yours.
I should, in all conscience, congratulate you.
No.
You have concealed yourself with great skill from my view.
But I see you now, sir.
Your lands extending from Whitechapel to the Limehouse docks.
Whatever you choose to buy there, to sell, to distribute, all and everything aided by your alliance with another man I currently hold in this station house - Inspector Shine.
I believe he murders for you.
A family whose estate you would absorb.
A craftsman who tenaciously pursues a long firm deception you sponsor.
How do you expect to prove that, sir? I can incriminate Shine and he, in turn, can do the same to you.
You seem a fine fellow, Mr Reid, but I feel for you.
I do.
This force of yours is what - a notch over 60 years of age? And this great city? Almost 2,000 years.
So there - do you follow? This here - between you and I, it is an uneven contest.
Your roots are shallow, Reid, your laws improvised to fit a modern world still in its birth pains.
You say that I did fix one man to cause another's death? Maybe I have.
But you can't demonstrate that as a fact.
All you can do is bring witness.
One man's word against another.
And words are unreliable signifiers of the truth.
Your world will advance.
I am certain that men like yourself will make sure of it.
I will have returned to London clay before that day dawns.
Till then, you are a child.
And I am a man of old stone.
You will stay here.
As you please.
Chin up.
You are to be released from your purgatory.
Gentlemen.
I have been kept waiting.
Other cattle to herd, Inspector.
And now my time is come? So let us cut to it.
I do not believe I need go through performances of astonished outrage for you both.
I am incarcerated here due to your suspecting foul deeds of me.
So, elaborate, Inspectors.
And I shall offer rebuttal.
This man, he is known to you? He is indeed familiar to me.
Yes.
I remember all.
Albert Flight.
Irish.
Sold gin, mixed with sulphur and turpentine, did you not? Men and women went blind, Inspectors.
And here he is now.
Reinvented as a CID man.
Can you imagine the scandal, sir if you bring this case against me? All accusations based on the word of a poisoner who has successfully lied his way into the Whitechapel police.
What this man says, there is truth in it? Please, Chief Inspector! He is no use to us dead.
No use to you alive, neither! Never mind your inevitable failure, but the glaring light you will throw on our work, our livelihood, our uniform, the fragile position we hold in this city.
You were a Bloomsbury man - you had a record.
Those records were true, sir.
But before then? You were this? The man I was, is abhorrent to me, sir.
Forgotten.
By you, perhaps.
But your past has guided your present.
No, sir, the work I have done for you, here.
It was good work.
And that work was proper work.
I fought to outrun my shame, sir.
No man may do that, Flight.
Am I to be detained here any longer? There is a championship final for which I must train myself.
And it is your man I face, is it not, Inspector? What's his name? Wheelwright? I do hope he's resilient.
Men have died in that roped ring before now.
Mr Duggan.
Mr Shine.
Susan, hear me out.
I came because I still hope to save you from him.
And so tell.
How am I to be rescued by you? The diamond.
The diamond.
The worthless rock you have shown to me already.
You may call it worthless, but it's not.
There are men that intend to kill for its recapture.
Kill who? My brother, myself.
Then perhaps I should lead them to you.
No! No, no god damn it.
You love me still, I know it.
I assure you I do not.
This stone, it may be all and everything we need to get clear of that sack of shit.
Please.
I have it on authority that Duggan can be led to the purchase of this stone.
Led by me, you imagine? The debt is then repaid with his own money.
Must I draw you an anatomical sketch, husband? The debt is paid.
Try it.
I have no more pain to be felt.
There may yet be joy, however.
Look, whatever it takes, darling, till my blood be spilt, I will find what it takes to make you smile again.
Only allow it.
Allow me the opportunity, this opportunity.
Joy is passing.
Vengeance, however that is a pursuit for which I'd see blood spilt.
You say there are men of vicious and murderous intent who wish to reclaim this gem? I do.
Flight.
He must feel the whip, Edmund.
Why, Fred? To what end? We may not strike at Jedediah Shine or Silas Duggan through him.
We may not strike at those men at all.
What, then? Say, imagine, we might, you and I, walk into a chophouse on the Commercial Road and in that chophouse we lay our hands up on the shoulder of the man the world made The Ripper, know him unequivocally for that killer, what would we do? There is what I would like to do.
And there is what I am permitted to do.
And so instead of pinioning his head to the wall through his eyeball, we would show him our irons then go about the process of proof.
We would.
I would.
Evil men do as they please, men who would be good .
.
they must do as they are allowed.
I did not wish to speak of it.
But you must know, this, er, matter with the Councillor.
There are ructions at The Yard.
You a married man.
I am to tell you to break it off.
If I do not? Take your pension.
Find other work.
It is in the rough.
And it is stolen.
That is an impediment.
Such fripperies cause me disquiet.
I'm sorry, Susan, but that is my sense of it.
And I am sorry that you consider £30,000 a frippery.
Or is it myself you consider to be nothing but your tinsel trapping? Madam, please, you know that not to be true.
Yet that is how I'm made to feel.
The transaction is to take place in a music hall.
Enough.
Is this all my life holds, for ever having to listen to your cowardice and evasion? Will you furnish me with this gem or no? The man Duggan, he knows you.
He hates you.
He lays eyes on you, we may consider the jig up.
Which is why he must not until the deed is done.
So you are to meet he and my wife where you exchange the rock for the stipulated spending.
They are now synchronised.
Nine o'clock is the time you must be holding the bag of bills and Duggan the diamond.
You have me? I don't know, Twink.
You ask me, it's complicated.
The jeweller, Finkel, betrayed you to those De Graal bastards.
We can count on him doing the same favour to me.
That betrayal enacted, I will lead them to Duggan.
As you can see, it's today's date.
Whatever its provenance, it is a jewel and I am a jeweller.
I must see it, however.
You bring it to me here.
Here? Indeed.
Not here, Mr Finkel, some place I might feel safe.
It is prepared? The full amount, madam.
It is.
He cannot win, Mr Reid.
Are you happy to watch Jedediah Shine put him in the morgue for the pleasure of 100 baying policemen? I am not.
Then what are you prepared to do, Sergeant? We wish to combat him.
It is all that is left to us.
Lafone Cup provisions no man may be replaced unless in the event of incapacitation through injury.
You think it's best, Sergeant? I do.
Do it, then.
Drink this.
I shall do it.
Hold fast, son.
Well, girl, do you wish to sing or do you not? There is someone that I wait for, Mr Blewett.
Oh, you are waiting, are you? And yet the house cannot wait for you.
Here at last, then, are we? And so the men of H Division arrive.
Must these assembled men go un-entertained, therefore? They must not.
Bennett Drake.
Such sport.
We are blessed! Boxers .
.
touch gloves.
Sergeant, I have not had opportunity to offer my sympathies for the loss of your wife.
Though it is said, at the point of her death, she had returned to the servicing of other men.
Who's to blame you, therefore, now that you seek comfort with yet another Ladies and gentlemen, I would ask you now to give your full attention to the voice of gaiety, Miss Rose Erskine.
I'm a young girl and I've just come over Over from a country where they do things big And amongst the boys I've got myself a lover Since I've got a lover, why, I don't care a fig Come on, that's it.
Hit him! Why does he not fight? He waits.
He rides the blows until the man's arms tire.
Ben.
Ben! You either lift your guard up or there'll be nothing left of your face for men to know you by.
Now, Ben! His pocket! I have it, brother.
What's this? Where's our diamond? Wait, please, I know where he is.
Where?! I'll take you.
I'll take you.
If I were a duchess and had a lot of money I'd give it to the boy that's going to marry me But I haven't got a penny, so I live on love and kisses And be just as happy as the birds on a tree The boy I love is up in the gallery The man, he's here.
The boy I love is looking now at me There he is, can't you see? Waving his handkerchief As merry as a robin that sings on a tree As agreed? As agreed.
Not near enough for two.
I'd give it to the boy that's going to marry me Nice seeing you again, Twinkle.
But I haven't got a penny, so I live on love and kisses And be just as happy as the birds on a tree I know what it is you do.
You believe yourself owed this punishment.
You are not.
You have taken enough.
It is time now to fight, you hear me? Fight! Fight him! Why will he not go down? The boy I love is up in the gallery The boy I love is looking now at me There he is, can't you see? Waving his handkerchief As merry as a robin That sings on a tree The fat man in the monkey suit.
The item you hold.
We will have it from you, sir.
You will not, sir.
It is acquired.
It is stolen.
From the house of De Graal.
You have what you came for.
You can leave us now.
We do not have the thief.
He stole from me also.
He was ever a liar and ever a cheat.
Now, you men clear out before you, too, die in this place.
Know this, Duggan.
Every moment I felt your foul breath on my face, your murderous fingers on my body, I thought of this.
Dreamt of it.
Your lawyers, your estates and holdings - all will now be made to work for me.
Everything that you have built, I will make it mine.
Darling Do not be confused, husband.
Everything I have said remains the case.
I want none of you.
I want none of any man.
Inspector Shine? You think this world can exist without men such as you and I who feel retribution? There is balance, sir, in all things.
Another one! Again! Once more, Ben! No, no, no! You let them finish! No, Sergeant! You kill him! KILL HIM!