Ripper Street (2012) s04e02 Episode Script

1 [Indistinct voices.]
- (Mathilda) You are anxious.
- (Reid) No, I'm not.
I'm not anxious.
This work I am set to, my research in Whitechapel, - you do not wish me to undertake it.
- That I do not.
No.
You think I'll be set upon by wolves and demons.
But I told you before, I'm equal to them.
We are, none of us, equal to Whitechapel.
Then you are not only anxious for me, for today, you return to your duties at Lehman Street.
I am not anxious for that, Mathilda.
I am not anxious at all.
- Then I may go about my work alone.
- You know you may not.
It is your first day at it, and you will go with me or not at all.
And so you win yourself and hour or two's delay before you walk through those doors and become a policeman again.
Idle drinking violent.
I shall mark these houses lowest class, loafer, vicious.
I have my doubts that these categories of Mr.
Booth's.
They do not do justice to the human reality.
These people are not vicious or idle or violent.
They do not choose this existence.
And yet in but three words they are condemned.
Mr.
Booth's categories are none of your concern.
This is not your work.
It is mine.
I shall see to this house myself, alone.
[Knocks on door.]
[Groaning.]
I die.
Father, Father! Father, he's dying.
There, boy.
Open your chest.
What's your name? Where's your mother? I'm dying.
I die.
I am here.
You are not alone.
What is your name? - Tommy.
- Tommy, there, Tommy.
Do not be afraid.
I am here.
I'm here.
[Theme music.]
Where is it, my love? I shall be late.
Well, I'm quite sure I washed at least one of your shirts.
- And then there's so much linen.
- All right.
It's all right.
Here it is.
Yeah, a little damp, but, ah Here you go, Connor.
Here.
- No.
- Come on, Connor.
- No.
- All right, all right, all right.
- Connor.
- Give us a go.
Now, little fella, how are you gonna grow up big and strong unless you drink your milk? Connor Drake, I hereby arrest you for the criminal waste of milk and the destruction of police property.
Eh? Now what do you think about that? What you gonna do about that, young sir? Eh? [Laughing.]
(Man) He is safe.
He is loved, our boy.
Even now, your Rose holds him in her arms.
Do you find no comfort in that? You're free.
You're alive.
And we're together.
Yeah We are.
We are safe.
Let us delight in that.
900 days we were apart.
And I counted them, every one, and I bled each and every hour.
You can't leave.
900 days.
All the hours we have lost.
We must make amends.
[Ringing.]
[Ringing continues.]
Captain Jackson will be along shortly.
I have no doubt, sir.
It's a workhouse boy.
This red scalp is iodine.
Workhouse practise against ringworm.
Sergeant, Get on to the workhouses between here and Poplar.
See who's gone missing.
Find out who he is.
His name is Tommy, and he has a birth mark here behind his left ear.
And how shall I mark the case, sir? It is murder? It is not a case as such.
I mean to find his family, - give him a proper burial.
- But but I must log the action, sir.
It's how it is done now.
And what is your name, lad? Drummond, sir, Samuel Drummond.
Do not worry yourself, Samuel Drummond.
It is a matter only for me.
Very good, sir.
And if you'll come with me now, Mr.
Drake is expecting you, sir.
[Ringing.]
I, Edmund John James Reid, being appointed a constable of the police force of the Metropolitan Police district, do solemnly, sincerely, and truly declare that I will serve our sovereign lady Queen Victoria and in all respects to the best of my skill and knowledge discharge the said office faithfully and according to law.
Who'd have thought, eh? Welcome back, Inspector.
You have heard me speak often enough of this gentleman, Mr.
Edmund Reid.
We are lucky indeed to have him back with us.
I see this wall soon empty now he has returned.
[Applause.]
And if I may, a little something to east you back to work.
A curious case, a spate of attacks, the victims separated from their right hands.
I have other business I must attend to, but Sergeant Drummond will see you fitted with all the particulars of the case and show you to the suspect.
Give this silent fellow a stir.
See if you can't make him whistle.
[Telephone ringing.]
[Ringing continues.]
[Ringing again.]
Witness statements are included herein, sir.
You'll find 'em in dates order.
- None of the witnesses could identify - Riot, riot! Salvation Army, the show is on Buckle Street.
They are set upon! [Whistle blows.]
We'll see to this, Mr.
Reid.
I am Inspector Reid.
Your name and business, sir.
I told them slops before.
I don't talk to the police.
- Slops? - Hmm.
You've been accused of severing the hands of four men.
It's a most particular crime, in some cultures, the punishment for thieving.
Slops, coster speak for police.
You're a costermonger, a market trader.
And you serve your own justice on those who would thieve from you.
You part them from their light-fingered hands.
It's old coster practise, this.
What's your stall? These scars, you must need knives for your trade.
You are a butcher.
But the scars on the underside of your palm.
So you hold your work in your left, your knife in your right.
You are an oyster-shucker.
Mr.
Reid, you are asked for, sir.
The boy's mother is found.
You have my boy.
Where is he, sir? I was at my interviews down Durwood Street, and along comes this lady, knocking on all the doors just as I was.
Looking for her boy, she says.
Who but two streets from my Tommy, I thought perhaps he might be the boy she seeks.
Sir, I beg you.
Take me to him if he be here.
- Oh, dear God, sir, let me see him.
- Madame, be advised.
The boy that we hold is dead.
O God, save us.
O God, forgive me.
I lost my boy.
I couldn't keep him no more.
I must have put him in the workhouse.
I couldn't feed him.
I I thought he would be safest there.
Look at him.
O God, look what they did to him.
Poor boy.
The boy, sir, is Tommy Riggs, missing from Whitechapel Union Workhouse.
Go to the mother.
See she wants for nothing.
I have questions that must be answered at the workhouse.
I wish to know how a boy in its care may die in such abjection.
Sergeant, our suspect, he is a costermonger.
Oysters are his trade.
Seek out every seller in this square mile, for he's one of them.
We may know his identity and shuck his confession from him.
[Sobbing.]
Mr.
Wilde, I have in my morgue in Lehman Street a young boy, Tommy Riggs.
I am concerned, sir, at the state in which I found him underfed, neglected.
- Mortally, sir.
- Tommy Riggs? Yes, a runaway missing this week past.
I'm afraid I can not account for what became of him beyond these walls.
These poor souls whose parents have neglected them, so many feel compelled to run away.
They do not see that the workhouse is for their own safety.
It's our our greatest sorrow.
Nevertheless, sir, I should like to see for myself the conditions in which the children are kept.
Yes.
Let me show you, Inspector Reid, how we treat our children here.
Arthur here is one of our boys, trained now in clerical work.
Next year, he will leave the workhouse with all the skills needed to to build a life for himself.
This is our great purpose.
Come.
We mean to turn these destitute young people into viable members of society, self-sufficient, productive.
Here, you see we teach literacy.
Along here, domestic skills.
For too long, the workhouse has been a form of incarceration for the poor no hope of release, no hope of, er, future.
We must let go of this notion of deterrent, of threat, and instead give the poor hope and possibility.
I will not consign these people to despair, sir, nor to sickness.
We have separated the children's infirmary from the rest of the workhouse, er, a kind of cordon sanitaire.
We must take the spread of disease very seriously, even ringworm.
And this, what is this place? The casual ward for tramps and vagrants, those who stay only one night.
We're obliged to feed and water them and let them return to the streets.
We are, as you see, in the process of fumigating it, for they bring the filth of the world with them.
Salus populi suprema est Lex.
The health of the people is the highest law.
Indeed.
But I believe you are no stranger to this place, Mr.
Reid.
For was it not in a mortuary here to which Mary Ann Nichols was brought? The Ripper's first? Yes, it was.
Evil place, old Montague Street.
I hope you'll agree that the workhouse has much changed since you knew it.
It is indeed a marvel of order and hygiene, which leads me to wonder, sir, why Tommy Riggs should wish to run away from such a place.
Pauper spirit, Inspector Reid.
The spirit of the streets, it is it is too strong in some.
They insist upon their freedom.
His mother blames the workhouse for his demise.
What say you to that? His mother? Why, sir, that cannot be.
- How so? - His mother is dead.
It is braided from my hair for remembrance of me.
And they had us make them for our loved ones that they might share their mourning.
Jesus, he's English.
And I'll grieve for you every hour, on the hour.
And you, oh my Caitlin, you will be watchful.
You will be vigilant.
You will stay within the bounds of this place, within these walls, and you will show yourself to none but Croker.
Promise me.
I promise.
I shall be close, and silent, and invisible.
And for that, Matthew, you must stay away from our boy.
You made a promise to Drake.
You must keep that promise, lest you ruffle his feathers.
For they'll not trouble us here.
I see you, American.
Heart heavy to part with her, eh? Do not fear, sir.
She will not want for company here.
Sergeant.
Ah, Mr.
Reid, sir, I've been seeking word of the coster.
Yes, yes, yes, the woman, the grieving woman.
- She's gone, sir.
- She's gone? She packed up suddenly, lit out.
Should I have held her, sir? No, no, you couldn't have known.
She's not the boy's mother.
Boy's mother is dead.
She left no word, she gave no sign, no clue to her identity? Indeed, sir.
It was found in the waiting room.
Bromide of potassium.
Grease paint.
She treads the boards.
I know how she may be found.
Sir, about the oyster seller.
I found three stalls on Hanberry Street, Midas Square, and Middlesex Street.
Middlesex Street, trader there some years ago charged with several accounts of violent fray.
Ah Orton, Orton, his name.
This may be his son.
Seek him in the archives.
Learn what you can of him.
And I would have an autopsy done on this boy, Tommy, though I do not imagine Captain Jackson is of a mind to work.
On the contrary, Mr.
Reid.
Work is my mind's only refuge, after the old oak smoke, that is.
Captain.
Captain.
You are not expected here.
Go home, man.
Riot victim, straight to the morgue, boys.
But it would seem I am needed.
Blessed murder.
What's the case, Sergeant Drummond? This riot we've had the Salvation Army shelters.
The Salvations are again set upon, and the captain is now dead, murdered, and strung up.
Captain Solomon Shaw, stabbed in the guts multiple times, head sheared, strung up like a piece of meat for all to see.
A statement.
This is the work of the Skeleton Army.
It's a ragtag army of the poor.
They've risen against the Salvationists and their so-called charity.
(Jackson whistles) Jesus, that's some kind of frenzy, huh? Nuts.
Mr.
Reid, who's this boy in our morgue? Tommy Riggs, workhouse runway.
I would request an autopsy.
I'm concerned it is negligence caused his death.
Well, you can see the work waiting to be done here.
You will get your autopsy, Inspector Reid, but we have a murder must be solved first.
Thank you, Mr.
Reid.
These are double wounds.
My guess is blades of some kind of shears.
See the lateral splits in the wound, most likely the impact of the hinge as the shears hit the flesh.
Mrs.
Drake, I wonder if you might be able to help me.
Ah, I seek to discover the identity of a woman who came to me and has since disappeared.
She is, er, I believe a fellow performer, an actress or a singer.
She's dark, perhaps your height.
She left this.
Recognise it? There is a handkerchief.
- It's embroidered with a swan.
- Um She wears a cluster of flowers in her hair.
Leda Starling.
She had a spot at Blewett's for a while, but they let her go.
Last I heard, she was singing for her supper at the Four Knives.
Come on, Connor.
[Rose sighs.]
He will eat for Bennet, but not for me.
Smile for Bennet, sleep for Bennet.
What am I to do with him? Well, you are grieving, both, it is only to be expected.
It's good to see you again, Mr.
Reid.
[Knocking on door.]
Who is that now? Augustus.
Hello, old friend.
[Rose sighs.]
Oh.
Commissioner Dove.
Er, Augustus and I were at the ragged school together.
He taught me to write the perfect R.
But Augustus, I don't doubt you've met Inspector Edmund Reid.
- Indeed, I have not.
- Sir.
The honour is mine, Mr.
Reid.
White Chapel rejoices at your return.
Hmm.
Shall we never meet again, luv, As we used to in the past? And the bright links in love's chain, luv, Be rudely snapped at last? Yet my heart will still be thine, luv.
And its thoughts still cling to thee, Like the tendrils of the vine, luv, Around the old oak tree.
[Applause.]
Ah, thank you.
- Thank you.
- Madame.
You do not remember me? I'm Inspector Reid from the police station at Lehman Street.
You are Leda Starling.
This is yours, is it not? Oh, er, you must excuse me, sir.
I am, as you can see, a little mops and brooms.
There was a boy.
You came to see him.
No, he was not my boy.
Madame, you must explain yourself.
You had me believe that you were the mother of the boy in my morgue.
No, I am the mother of a boy who is lost.
How is he lost? I gave him up.
God bless him.
Er, I would have kept him, but you see what I'm reduced to.
So I put him in the workhouse.
Oh God, what has become of him? Do you believe some harm has come to him? - Sir, I do fear it.
- In the workhouse? It's a fearful dark place.
But they say he's not there, but if he were not there, he would be here with me.
Where else in the world could he be? Shall we not go there, get to the heart of this matter? And find my boy? The master is not in his office, sir, at present.
Then find him.
I'm here for a boy, Starling.
What's his Christian name? Um My boy.
My boy.
Ma? Yes.
Yes, your ma's here.
- Come to me.
My boy.
- Ma! No, you're you're not my boy.
This this is my boy.
Come to your ma now.
Are you my ma? Ms.
Starling, you must come away now.
What is this now? Please remove her.
She is disturbing the children.
I know I left him.
I know I left him.
My office, if you please.
She seeks her son.
She is much distressed.
Inspector Reid, is this woman the origin and cause of your earlier visit? For you must understand, sir, she is deranged.
Do you not see? She has lost her wits.
I do not doubt that it was she claiming to be the mother of Tommy Riggs.
She is distracted.
I own.
But she is driven to it by the absence of her son.
And I grieve for her, but she comes here twice, often three times in a week, to ask after him.
And every time, I must tell her that she is mistaken.
We have no knowledge of her son.
He has never been an inmate here.
I cannot help her.
It is a harsh truth, I understand.
But these incursions into my children's peace must stop.
She is unwell, sir.
Provision must be made for her.
- I will call the Marland Asylum.
- No, no.
No, do not trouble yourself.
I will see that she's taken care of.
Very well.
- Will you take me away from this place? - Yes.
- Come.
- Please.
I see now, Inspector Reid, how it is that you take such an interest.
You insinuate, sir? I merely remark that it is not a criminal case you pursue here, is it? I do not doubt you have more pressing police matters to attend to.
[Jackson whispers.]
I have something for it.
Take one more.
[Distant type writing.]
Loss of short term memory, neurasthenia, insomnia.
She's taken bromide of potassium.
Tertiary syphilis.
It's in her brain.
At one moment, she'll be lucid, rational.
The next, she'll be scattered, maniacal, bewildered.
The asylum's her only future now.
Dear God.
What a road.
What sanctuary is that? I will take her home for tonight.
Ah She needs rest, and I would know more of this story of her boy and how he is missing.
And perhaps she will be calmer when she has rested.
- Perhaps she will remember more.
- You cannot take her home, Reid.
She is suffering the general paresis of the insane.
For that I will find someplace for her tomorrow, somewhere better.
She's not your concern.
Morning, ladies.
Drake Carter, otherwise known as Redskin Jake, chief of the Skeleton Army, and soon to be convicted of the murder of Captain Solomon Shaw.
Caught him trying to shear a Salvation Army lad with these little beauties.
It's the black cap for you, my friend.
Come on.
Hallelujah.
Look at him now.
He's a proper little workhouse boy, ain't you, lad? Come here to my sergeant.
- Can you tell me what happened? - Wilfred Higgins That man, he grabbed me You sheared this boy.
I have two other such assaults, or am I wrong? This is your practise, is it not? Explain yourself.
Ah, I was teaching him a lesson.
You ever had a Salvation Army breakfast? 'Cause they make you beg for it.
[Chuckles.]
I've had many a Salvation breakfast.
Never once was I made to beg.
Good people, merciful, who filled my belly, and I was glad of it, grateful.
They want your soul in return.
'Cause that ain't charity.
A bone to the dog is not charity.
Charity is a bone shared with a dog when you are as hungry as the dog.
I sheared the boy just to show he's one of us, human.
And for that, you sheared Solomon Shaw and all.
It was not for this you killed him.
He came upon your territory, threatened your criminal dominion, and you made him answer for it.
Stabbed him in the guts and strung him up.
Do you think me stupid? I began my days in a prison, a workhouse? What? Do you think I meant to end them, locked up and all? We, the Skeleton Army, are the army of the free poor.
We've known the pauper's punishments.
You may leave, but if you're worthy, you may live, if you're deserving.
We defy 'em.
We will live as we choose, - without shame of our poverty, - - without apology! - Beef, good beef! Beer, good beer! - Banger! - Shut your noise! Yes, miss? I'm here to help Mrs.
Starling home.
Ms.
Reid, oh, good evening.
Ms.
Reid, how do you do? Good evening, Captain Jackson.
Oh, erm young Mr.
Drummond, you you wanted some more of my miraculous beard serum.
I do believe, though, I must say you, ah you do me credit with that, er, fine animal.
Don't you drink that all at once.
Mathilda, come.
There is soup, should you be hungry later.
Thank you for this care of her.
It's only for tonight.
Tomorrow, we'll find the right and proper place for her.
[Knocking.]
Inspector Drake, given the late hour, I assume this is not a social call.
It is not.
Oh, I think you know it.
You overstepped the mark.
And I cannot help but wonder why this is so.
When I ask you to pursue one task for me, this amputating costermonger, yet I must find you inventing quite another, a bewildered actress and her imaginary lost son.
The coster, I have him.
His name Percy Orton.
Sells oysters from a stall on Middlesex Street, as his father did before him, his father convicted of the severing of a hand some 20 years since.
The son continues the tradition.
Ah, now, you see, that is why I need you.
Inspector Drake, I do not act in opposition to you.
I mean no disrespect.
It is it is only my doggedness that drives me.
I think you know that well enough.
Oh, I know that, Edmund Reid.
What of this lady, hmm? This Leda Starling? Jackson tells me you've brought her home.
And no doubt that I've lost my judgement in this matter.
But she is ill, And she will be given proper care, but first she must rest so that I might pursue my inquiries of her.
And these inquiries are? She's lost her son.
She says that in dire straits, she gave him up to the union workhouse, but he has since gone missing.
She haunts the union for news of him, but the master there claims no knowledge of the boy.
But she is, is she not, in the grip of some kind of dementia? There is some unravelling of the mind, yes, but why make up this story of the workhouse if it were not so? Why haunt the place? Some instinct drives her there.
This and the boy Tommy, the workhouse runaway, I have some sense, a sickening thrum that there is some kind of malice at work here.
The master, this Cornelius Wilde, he has a needling, deflecting way about him that resists all inquiry.
I wish to talk to the Redskin.
He was a workhouse boy.
I should like to hear what he has to say of the place.
I, ah, must say, Mr.
Reid, I have my doubts for this.
Well, I fear this case is food for the pigs with that many scraps.
You are working on a say-so of forgive me a lunatic.
Workhouse boys? I mean, they run away every day.
What is there to see in this? Your boy Tommy is dead.
I grieve for him, but you forget, this is Whitechapel.
For all that we have done here, she is still the merciless bitch of the east.
And it gives me to ask, what possessed you to come back here? You've seen Hampton, the promenade, the Paris halls, the polite conversation amidst the tea cups.
There is nothing of it that breathes.
There is nothing of it that is alive, and quick, and stinking, and bright.
Whitechapel is life, in all its wild and rotten splendour.
Beside it, the rest of the world seems a tomb.
It is rotten and wild.
It is heaving, and pitiless, and ignorant.
And I have yet seen nowhere to match it.
It is our heartland, Bennet Drake.
It is our life's work, Edmund Reid.
(Leda) No.
no! [Sobbing.]
W William.
William? William, William.
Leda.
Where's William? William is your boy? Where's Barnabas? Where's William? Where's Barnabas? Where's William? Are they missing? Now you must listen to me.
My mind is so often clouded, but it is clear now for a moment.
Hear it, please.
M-my little boy was afraid.
His friend William and his friend Barnabas, they disappeared.
- Disappeared? - From the house, from the workhouse.
He was afraid for 'em.
Well, I'm afraid.
You do believe me, do you? Yes.
Yes.
O God, and now my boy's such another.
You will find him for me, hmm? Say you will find him.
If he be dead, I do not care who, or, why, or how.
I do not even ask for justice.
Only that my boy be not alone in the world, and forgotten, and unknown.
I will find him.
I vow it.
I will find your child.
[Sobbing.]
[Sobbing continues.]
Is she mad? She is on that path, yes.
My mother, was she so? She was very like.
I should not have brought her here.
Leda, forgive me.
I have wondered at it so often, my mother's madness.
I could not imagine it.
I dared not.
But I know it now.
I have seen it.
I am no longer so so afraid.
And to have her here It's almost to be near her again.
[Matilda sobbing.]
[Matilda sniffs and sobs.]
You brought Lady Luck with you, sir.
Ah, this winning is too easy.
[Chuckles.]
You mean to make me generous? You think me some feeble-headed girl - with her brains in her tits.
- No, sir.
No, indeed.
[Chuckles.]
I will give the job, the man who offers me the best price.
For three, four we'll do it for half your fee.
Well, then make yourself useful, luv.
I am dry.
Not cripple, I think.
There is the wine, and there are your legs.
Now, forgive me, my dear.
You have not been introduced.
This is Jenny.
I bought her to pretty things up.
How much? How long have you been waiting in dock, while you float around for this cheap price? And all the while paying in port fees and interest? What is interest on your cargo? It is not for this that you are yet unloaded.
It is not the best price that you seek.
It is discretion.
Clever, little whore.
If you mean to do business with us, you will learn to keep a civil tongue.
Bo Nystrom? [tsks.]
Yeah, you have a memorable name.
You have not traded in the port of London for many years, sir.
Not since the steamship Gustovas went down with all hands.
An unwarranted wreck in a calm sea.
Nevertheless, the insurance was paid handsomely, fraudulently.
Our friends at Lloyds would be interested to know of your return to the London docks.
These are our terms.
The job is ours and no others.
The price is double.
And there is a premium to pay for my silence.
One minute and the offer is closed.
If you betray me, I will carve you like scrimshaw.
Jenny's a wild cat.
Inspector Reid, is it not? Ah, we've never met, but I feel I know you.
Your name travels ahead, sir.
My name is Castello.
Castello of the Star.
Yours travels too, miss.
And who is this wonderful girl, this hair? I am Matilda Reid.
Miss Castello, you have some business with me? Er your marvellous return to us here, it is owed to the fate of Isaac Bloom, I understand.
You understand how? We have a mutual friend.
And who that? Deborah Gorn, of the orphanage on Worcester Street.
- Come, Matilda.
We'll be late.
- She asks herself why it is you have not sought her out since your return, wonders if that return is motivated by the execution of your other mutual friend Mr.
Bloom, if the murder of the rabbi Ratovski still occupies that restless mind of yours.
As you know, that case is now closed.
And yet so much of its detail still stands injuncted, withheld from the public by the unseen hand of police officialdom.
Why is that, sir? If indeed that case is closed? Will you now leave us, Miss Castello? Or allow us to leave you? Be my guest, Mr.
Reid.
And a good day to you, Miss Matilda Reid.
Cornelius Wilde told me this boy had been missing for a week.
Can a mere week out of the workhouse reduce a child to this? Fingernails missing, sores in the mouth and the tongue.
And this cracking about the lips, that's severe dehydration.
I'd say that's chronic in nature, a matter of months.
Then no more delay.
An autopsy must be done on this boy.
Well, my work's done here anyway, so.
Got a, er, fragment of steel lodged in the vertebra.
Broken blade.
Redskin's your man.
You wished to have words with him, Mr.
Reid.
Do you come, then? Redskin Jake, murderer.
These your shears.
The missing piece found in the backbone of Solomon Shaw.
What say you now? We have you, boy.
Your motive, sir, what drove you to this act? My protest, my defiance against the disposing of the poor.
I charge you with the murder of Captain Solomon Shaw.
Inspector Drake, if I may.
You were a workhouse boy, sir.
Here is another fine institution.
I should have killed him.
The master, should have killed him first.
For it is he that started this pretty business, peddling the lives of the poor.
This pretty business, expound it.
Well, he shut down the casual ward, pays the Salvation Army a penny a man for the vagrants he now turns away.
Shut down the casual ward when? - Two months since.
- There is a lie told.
This Cornelius Wilde.
He claims he shut it for disinfection.
It's cheaper to pay of these souls at a penny a go, than to keep 'em.
And he is managing his costs.
Here are boys, one dead, three missing, and here is a man obsessed with his books, his accounts, disposing of the casual wards.
What else is he disposing of.
Your name, these these markings? I'm a Redskin and proud.
A Redskin, these are the infirmary boys shaved and painted.
This is iodine.
My badge of honour.
You think the workhouse is the lowest of the low, hmm? Wrong.
It's the workhouse infirmary.
That's the lowest.
The sick and the weak.
You're just a burden, ain't you, left to rot or better yet, they give you the old black potion.
What is the black potion? Poison.
This old black potion it is folklore.
You ask at any workhouse, you'll hear them talk of it.
It is a pauper's myth.
Scarring in the intestinal tract, severe bleeding in the lower intestine, dehydration, blood in the faeces.
Caused by? Well, it's many possible causes, erm excessive ingestion of iron or lead, but equally it could be hog's cowhage.
It's a savage son of a bitch.
It's found in dust heaps and bad meat.
You do not rule out that Tommy Riggs was poisoned? - I do not.
- That's reason enough for me.
Bring him in.
Bring in Cornelius Wilde.
We will not bring him in.
We do not have enough to justify it.
We will go there.
We will make a full and thorough search.
Then, I may at least take your reigns.
Find Cornelius Wilde.
Detain him here.
Scour this place.
Seek out any hidden place, any locked cupboard.
Bring me whatsoever you may find there.
Do you see it? There's something inhuman here.
All is neat and correct, orderly.
This order, this marvellous efficiency, this systematisation, I believe that here yet attends some unforeseen evil, some coldness to humankind, some conscience lost.
This way.
What is this you give them? Cod liver oil, sir.
- This? - An outbreak of Scarlet Fever.
You may not go in, sir.
It's quarantined.
Mr.
Reid, it's quarantined.
You cannot go in there.
Mr.
Reid, you are going beyond here.
[Child coughing in background.]
Where to now? The casual ward.
It was recently fumigated.
Some poor kind of building work.
Ceilings in the wrong place.
Stinks of carbolic.
Mr.
Drake, sir, Cornelius Wilde is found.
You see me here, Inspector Drake, an innocent man shackled.
You will not hear the end of this.
Here is a man with a vision.
He means to invest in his young inmates, teach them skills, build them up ready for life.
It's a worthy vision, but it costs money, a great deal of money, and he has only limited resources.
And we see here busy accounts indeed, money moved from here to there, robbing Peter to pay Paul.
You pay a small fee to the Salvation Army to rid yourself of the great cost of the casual ward.
There's nothing illegal in that.
The casual ward was a drain on my resources.
I freely own it.
These men, the-these loafer paupers, they are the lazy, the indolent, the residual.
They are irredeemable.
Undeserving of sympathy, of kindness, undeserving of life.
Tommy Riggs, a boy in your care, and yet he died in abjection in my arms.
Tommy Riggs ran away.
Tommy Riggs escaped from you.
He he fled for his life! Mr.
Reid, here is something you must see the boy, Starling, marked here.
Jabas Starling, lost to his mother.
She dying of grief, and you denied all knowledge of him.
You denied her her boy.
You told her she was mad.
That woman that woman, she she gave him up to the house.
- She is a prostitute, a lunatic! - You bluster, sir.
You could not acknowledge him for you could not produce him.
What have you done with him? What have you done with him? How have you - disposed of him? - Mr.
Reid, Mr.
Reid.
I will find you out, sir.
You've taken leave of your senses, Mr.
Reid.
You accuse me of killing the boys in my care! Inspector Drake, will you allow this obsession, this this mania? You stop your yapping now and be silent! The money from the casual ward then.
Yes, here.
You pay the salaries of three school teachers, and yet you are still in the red! Now let me see.
Where is the greatest expenditure made? I will warrant it is in the infirmary, the children's infirmary.
Costs full month-on-month this last quarter.
Says the children are dispatched.
How much does a sick child cost, Mr.
Wilde? How many do you need to be rid of before you balance your books? Why would I want to kill my boys when my only purpose is to give them life? A locked cabinet, Mr.
Reid.
Inside, these.
Blaud pills, treatment of anaemia, sulphate of iron.
Huge cupboard, full of them.
Hundreds of bottles.
Tommy Riggs died from scarring of the intestinal tract and dehydration caused by the excessive ingestion of iron.
He's killing the sick.
For it's cheaper than keeping 'em.
Dear God, he is killing children.
Tommy Riggs ran away.
Jabas Starling ran away.
Inspector Reid has taken leave of his senses not for the first time.
Deaths.
They are not marked here.
He is not taking them to the pits, or he must document them.
Where's he putting them? The casual ward.
It was not the ceiling there was too low.
It was the floor.
It was too high.
Sweet Jesus.
You will dig up every single one of these boys that you have buried, and you will identify them! You will identify this boy, or you will join him in the earth! This, Jabas Starling, you you you do not understand.
You cannot.
This place, the waste of life, it is it is intolerable.
This this this boy this Jabas, himself blighted with syphilis, his mother deranged, his his father absent.
There there is no hope for him, only poverty and degradation.
These these these others, polio, rickets.
I only hasten the inevitable.
And there is there is a kindness in it.
There is a kindness in it for them.
Their sufferings, their pitiful lives are shortened.
These useless boys, I have given a hundred children, a hundred children, the start in life they deserve.
At what cost, hmm? Deserving poor, the undeserving poor, who are you to judge? Connor.
Come.
Come.
Connor, calm yourself.
Rose.
All day it is like this.
He will have nothing of me.
Why don't you quit your fooling, little man? Huh? You gotta behave for your mum.
[Connor giggling.]
[More giggling.]
Little girl, little girl, don't you lie to me.
Tell me where did you sleep last night? In the pines, in the pines, where the sun never shines, Shiver.
The only kind of song I know.
W You will come see him again.
You have him under your spell.
Say you'll come again, Jackson.
I don't think Mr.
Drake will care for that very much.
Well, he need never know.
Well, we won't tell him, now will we, little man? Never let it be said Abel Croker does not deal.
[Sighs.]
Ah, forgive me, Madame.
There are no ladies in my life down here, and my manners are rough.
Huh? There.
Your share of the Viking loot you won for me.
- And this? - Ha Some graft for you, if you would.
Tell me how my business stands, for I confess it, I have lost count.
There is every barrel, every spice, every last cotton bale of the Empire forgotten somewhere in here.
Yeah? [Sighs.]
10 years past, my blood would have roared for you.
Proud, old lion you are now, though.
Aye, but blunted claws.
I lost my boy.
I know where he lies.
It's a bright spot beside the trees, where birds sing.
I know where he lies.
Why do you weep, sir? The comfort you have for your son, I could not give to my wife.
Our girl was lost to her forever.
You're a good man, Mr.
Reid.
Do you not know it? You're a mighty heart.
I lost my boy.
But I know where he lies.
Beside the trees, among the birds.
Edmund Reid, you are forgiven.