"Ellie Manning?" "You are Gregory Manning's wife?" "Your husband's car left the road and caught fire." "Did the police tell you there was a woman in the car?" "Simply Milena, party planner." "You think I killed them in a fit of jealousy." "No." "Because she was unfaithful to me almost all of the time." "Frances!" "Do you need some help going through Milena's stuff?" "Marjorie Sutton." "I was a client of your husband's." "Gwen, I want to introduce you to Johnny, our chef." "I told David about my affair." "Can I come and stay with you?" "I'm sorry, you can't." "Hello?" "I need an ambulance, please." "There's a woman and I think she's dead." "32 Tallster Road." "You need to come right now." "Leave a message for Ellie or Greg." "Leave a message for Ellie or Greg." "Leave a message for Ellie or Greg." "I need you." "Frances is dead." "I know." "My name's Ellie Manning." "I was with Greg for 12 years and one day he left the house and he never came back." "He was found dead in a car with Milena." "Gwen's the name of my best friend and I pretended to be her so I could get a job in the office because I needed to find out why they were together in the car." "I think the person that planted this, they wanted me to think that Greg was involved with Milena." "And whoever that person is, they murdered my husband." "Say something." "Frances is dead." "I know." "Frances is dead and you've discovered a menu card." "A woman is dead and you've got a little piece of paper that proves nothing." "Jesus Christ!" "We slept together, Gwen..." "Ellie, whatever the fuck your name is." "I walked straight into your little honey trap, didn't I?" "No, I promise, it wasn't like that, it wasn't." "Come on, you pretended to be somebody else, you lied to all of us, you flirted with me." "No, I didn't." "I didn't mean it like that." "I was prepared for this to go somewhere." "How do you think your boy would feel about you shagging me?" "I don't think he'd be best pleased, do you?" "It's not all right to have sex with someone to see if they're a murder suspect." "It wasn't like that!" "Stop lying to me!" "For all you know, I could be a murderer." "No, I don't think you are." "Frances was my friend." "She was a good person." "She never would have done any harm to anyone." "She was kind, she was sensitive and a little too bloody open for her own good and now she's dead." "And you know the way I see it?" "If you hadn't come knocking on her door, she'd still be alive." "Are you going to go to the police?" "No, I'll tell you what I am going to do." "I'm going to give you a head start." "So this proves it." "It proves Milena Livingstone and my husband never even met." "I want you to reopen the inquiry into their deaths." "You're a primary school teacher?" "Yeah." "Yeah, well, this is all well and good this..." "little craft project." "But... none of it amounts to hard evidence, does it?" "And in the meantime I have the small matter of a murder to attend to." "Mrs Frances Shaw." "Yeah." "And here you are, a primary school teacher with.. a talent for art and... well, also a talent for role play it would seem... impersonating a stranger, winning the confidence of Mrs Shaw, working" "for her under an assumed name then coupled with that, on the day she dies, you arrange to meet Mrs Shaw after hours, you 'find' the body Excuse quotation marks, just don't want to make any assumptions." "You tamper with the body..." "Then odder still, you abandon the crime scene." "No, I called for an ambulance." "Yeah, we found your mobile phone discarded nearby, by the way... again, odd." "You go home, you shower." "You wash the clothes you were wearing at the scene thereby destroying any evidence." "Well, if I were looking for a prime suspect" "I think I might think I'd just hit the jackpot." "What are you saying?" "You need to speak to her husband." "Frances had just told him that she was having an affair and he was furious." "You need to speak to David Shaw." "That's who you need to speak to." "You fancy yourself as a little bit of a Miss Marple, don't you?" "My husband and Milena Livingstone died in a car crash under circumstances that have not yet been explained." "They have been explained." "PC Wootten furnished me with the coroner's report." "And then Milena's business partner was murdered." "Can you not see there's a connection?" "Surely you must see that!" "Look, I know that what I've... what I've done seems a little bit odd, but..." "Odd, yes." "Unstable even." "I have heard enough of this." "I want you to investigate it." "'Investigate!" "' Right, is that what you've been doing?" "You know I could charge you with wasting police time, obstructing an investigation, tampering with criminal evidence." "You could get six months right now for dicking us around, you know that?" "Am I under arrest?" "Luckily for you I have a soft spot for primary school teachers." "Miss Jenkins." "I was seven years old and she smelt like strawberries." "Can I go, then?" "I've told you the truth." "I've told you everything I know." "I just want to go." "Thanks." "Right." "Thank you, Mrs Manning." "We'll be in touch, yeah?" "Barnaby!" "Barnaby boy?" "Where are you?" "Barnaby!" "Barnaby!" "I want to talk to you." "It's me, Ellie." "God!" "You scared the life out of me." "Gwen's here." "She's had the police round her house grilling her about her involvement in a company called Simply Milena." "I looked like a bloody idiot." "I'm sorry." "I've been your best friend for 15 years." "I tell you everything that's going on in my life." "I just don't get it." "We're all here for you." "We have been from day one." "We'd do anything for you." "I know." "I know you're upset, I know how hard this is for you." "But what you've been doing is insane." "And where has it got you?" "Nowhere." "Greg's still dead." "And now someone else, this woman's dead." "You didn't have anything to do with this woman dying, did you, Ellie?" "I don't know." "I mean, I don't know if what I did made someone..." "I don't know." "I'm sorry." "I'm so sorry." "I'm so very tired." "I don't care if you're tired." "You've got to drop this right now, do you hear me?" "You'll drive yourself mad and all the rest of us too." "Look what you're doing to yourself, you're falling apart." "All right, Joe!" "We miss Greg but we miss you even more." "The old Ellie." "We want her back." "I don't know who she is any more." "Yes, you do." "You do!" "I've spoken to the school, you're going back to school on Monday." "You need to start living a normal life." "Routine." "It's the only thing that can move you forward now." "We've had enough of this." "OK?" "You've got to pull yourself together." "OK." "Good girl." "You're not giving up on me, are you?" "You are... aren't you?" "So 'G' can have two sounds." "It can be a soft sound 'G' for Giant or Gymnastics!" "G-g-g-g..." "Can you say that?" "G-g-g-g." "And it can also have a harder sound." "'G' for going!" "G-g-g-g-g." "Going." "Going." "Gone." "Life is pretty simple when you're five, isn't it?" "Mum, Dad, house, cat." "My Mum's dead." "My Dad's dead." "My husband is dead and now my cat's missing." "I don't think my picture would fit on that wall somehow." "I don't know." "Schools are very inclusive these days." "I've been looking into your husband's death." "You have?" "Thank you." "That's..." "Thank you." "Did you have an argument with him on the day of his death?" "No." "We have records of a text that he sent to you that day..." " Sorry, sorry, sorry." " I'm a stupid fool." "Fergus Connor, a computer programmer, he was at your husband's accountancy firm that day." "You've spoken to Fergus?" "He was ironing out some problems with the software on your husband's computer." "He confirmed that he heard the argument." "How does he know Greg was speaking to me?" "Your husband told him." "They were good friends, were they not?" "Fergus is wrong." "We didn't argue." "He'd promised he'd come home early cos I was cooking a special meal and then he called to say that he was gonna be late." " Something's come up." " I've got to deal with it." "I shouted at him." "No, Greg, please don't say that." "You promised." "And you told him not to bother coming home." "Mrs Manning?" "Did you tell him not to bother coming home?" "But I didn't mean it like that." "Don't you think I've tortured myself about that?" "I should have said, 'Come home immediately." "' I should have said, 'You come home now!" "'" "But we... we didn't argue." "I can't believe Fergus would say that!" "So what time did you finish school that day, the day your husband died?" "3. 15." "The same as always." "And then I got home 4. 30... 4. 35." "And your husband died at approximately 7." "35pm." "What were you doing at that time?" "Like I said, I was cooking a meal." "Well, can anyone verify that?" "Did you speak to anyone during that time?" "No." "So you've never been to Portend Way." "The scene of the crash?" "No." "Actually, yeah." "I went there the day before Greg's funeral." "I wanted to see where he'd died." "Actually, I wanted to see the last place he was alive." "Did you go on your own?" "Yeah." "And what time of day was that?" "Three, four in the morning." "So you went out on your own in the middle of the night to Portend Way?" "Yeah, it was the night before my husband was cremated." "I wasn't thinking straight." "My God." "You think I had something to do with my husband's death?" "Then there's Mrs Shaw's death." "We found prints on the handle to the bathroom where Mrs Shaw's body was found." "And there were people in and out all afternoon." "I wasn't even there in the afternoon." "The only prints on the handle are yours." "I didn't kill Frances." "What if your husband was sleeping with Mrs Shaw too?" "This is ridiculous." "Why would I ask you to reopen the inquiry if I'd... if I'd..." "if I'd killed them?" "Well, that would depend on your mental state." "Sorry." "I couldn't face the tram." "I think he's trying to intimidate you." "This is out-and-out bullying." "I'll contact my lawyer." "No." "Of course you're going to want to visit the place your husband died." "It's completely natural." "What the hell are the police playing at?" "I don't blame him." "Maybe I deserved it." "You and Gwen were right." "I... don't know who I am without Greg." "I'm sorry." "It's just so unfair." "Greg was such a... such a prince." "I'm sorry." "It just hits you sometimes, doesn't it?" "It's all right." "Come on." "I'll get you home." "She smells so new." "Your Uncle Greg would have loved you." "So can we have a message for Ruby from her godmother?" "Never regret loving someone, Ruby." "Even if it ends badly." "Loving someone with all your heart can only be a good thing." "There you go." "You OK, love?" "Barnaby hasn't come home for five days." "Cats are like that." "He'll show up." "We could put posters up if you're worried." "I think the police are going to arrest me." "For what?" "Murder." "What are you talking about?" "Why don't you tell her, Fergus?" "He told the police that me and Greg were arguing the day he died." "What?" "You've turned me into a suspect." "Fergus!" "No." "No." "I told them that I heard Greg arguing." "I assumed it was with you." "I've got to tell them the truth." "You didn't even tell me that you saw him that day." "I'm sure I did." "No, you didn't." "Well, I..." "Look, I popped in to sort his computer for about half an hour and then..." "Fergus, you should have told us." "Don't you think I would have wanted to know everything about that day?" "His mood?" "The last thing he said?" "You were the last person to see him alive." "There is nothing sinister about this." "It was just a normal day." "I mean, I was at work." "And so was he." "He told me that he'd given up drinking bottled water and was only drinking water from the tap and we had a laugh because I tasted it and it tasted like shit." "I fixed his computer." "I heard him argue..." "TALK to you." "Then we arranged to go running the next morning." "That was it." "Honestly, Ellie, look, I'm not trying to shaft you." "I'm not on top of things." "I've become a dad at the same time as my best friend has died." "I mean, my head's all over the place." "She's almost asleep, Fergus." "I'm going to try and put her down." "All right, well, yeah." "Come on, I'll help you." "I don't know who to trust any more." "You can trust me." "Ellie..." "Ellie, look at me." "You know, if I was found dead, it would look like I'd killed myself, wouldn't it?" "Don't don't talk like this." "It would, though, wouldn't it?" "The police would think I was guilty and they would be able to close all three cases at the same time." "You just remember that I said that." "If anything happens to me, you remember that I said that." "I never wished anyone dead my whole life." "What do you want?" "I want my wife back." "I've made a lot of money in my life but none of it was anything compared to her." "I didn't care about the kids thing." "I only wanted her to be happy." "Why did you sleep with Milena, then?" "I slept with Milena because Frances didn't love me any more." "Because my Frances stopped loving me." "I slept with Milena because life is disappointing and nothing ever ends up the way you plan it, however hard you try." "And you know, Milena, she didn't give a shit about me." "She was doing it to get back at Frances." "And now Frances is dead." "They're both dead." "I'm sorry." "I liked Frances very much." "You're sorry?" "You stupid little bitch." "My instincts were right about you." "I should have thrown you out of that office the minute I saw you." "Six hours they questioned me ..." "the police ... because of you and your pointing finger." "Six hours when I should have been with my poor dead wife asking her for forgiveness." "I don't know who your husband was but I pity him." "Poor bugger, being married to you." "I want you to go now." "I didn't kill my wife." "Do you hear me?" "Do you hear me?" "You have to go now or I'll call the police." "Call them." "The police are my friends." "Call Ramsay." "He released me without charge." "The night my wife died, you see, I went to the dogs." "I was at the greyhound track and there's CCTV footage to prove it." "I went to the fucking dogs!" "So the only person that leaves is you." "And they're coming for you." "Believe me." "They're coming for you." "Barnaby!" "Barnaby!" "We've got a search warrant." "What are you doing with that?" "Please don't take that, I need that." "It's just procedure." "It's a child's toy." "What do you think I did?" "Clubbed him to death with a rocking horse?" "We spoke to Mrs Marian Styles, your counsellor." "How did you know I was seeing her?" "She said you described having 'episodes' in which you still saw your dead husband." "Is that true?" "That's supposed to be confidential." "Do you still 'see' your dead husband?" "You even said to Mrs Styles that your dead husband was urging you to put yourself in dangerous situations." "To act on his behalf, even." "She was very struck by that." "You see how hard it is for me right now?" "Talk to me." "Ellie?" "They killed you and I think they've killed my cat." "I'm going to prison." "I don't think I killed you." "But maybe I have forgotten." "Ellie!" "I'm doing the recycling." "You told me to." "I want to die." "I want to be with you." "Come with me." "You just need to sleep." "Yeah?" "It'll be better after some sleep." "Please." "Please." "I have something for you." " Dear Mr Manning." " You don't know me but" "I need to talk to you as a matter of urgency about some irregularities in the account of Mrs" "Marjorie Sutton." "Yours, Milena Livingstone." "You're not the only one to play detective." "It was among her emails at home." "The only place I found your husband in fact." "And I looked, believe me." "Milena sent it to Greg at 7." "15 in the morning on the day they both died." "That's why they met." "Why would you do this for me?" "David told me you were under a lot of pressure." "Actually, you have always struck me as a good person." "Besides, I owe it to my wife." "Thank you." "How are you doing?" "I'm doing much better thanks." "I'm writing thank you cards to everyone who came to the funeral." "Can you give me Marjorie Sutton's address?" "Sure." "I'm actually pretty busy, Ellie." "Please." "I thought you'd given me up for Lent." "Well, I tried my best to get some new friends but..." "No, I bet none of them would hold your hair out your face when you were sick down the toilet after too many rum and cokes." "Lightweights." "I'm going away for a few days." "I think I need to." "That's a great idea." "Do you want some company?" "No." "I'm going to go see my cousin." "Good idea." "Yeah, well, I'm..." "I'm up to my eyes at the moment anyway so..." "Can I borrow your car?" "Knew there'd be a catch." "Thank you." "It's ridiculously big for me, of course." "But I have help." "And the fact is, I'm very sentimentally attached to it." "It's the home I shared with my husband." "You know, I feel him here still, his energy." "I stand on the landing sometimes and suddenly all the hairs on my arms stand up." "I hear him, shouting up at me, 'I'm home, darling!" "'" "Is that a mad thing to say?" "No." "I know exactly what you mean." "I can't think what this would mean." "I don't know this woman." "I've never heard of her." "Have you had any problems with your accounts?" "Well, no." "I mean, I have various savings accounts." "I'm really not sure I should be divulging all this information." "I should speak to my accountant." "But Greg was your accountant." "Well, Gregory used to deal with me sometimes." "But he wasn't your principle accountant?" "No." "My husband always dealt with Mr Lipton." "Joe?" "I am so sorry." "Joe looked after you?" "There's nothing wrong with my accounts." "Nothing whatsoever." "No, I'm..." "I'm sure there's not." "Mr Lipton is the senior partner." "He's been handling our affairs for the past fifteen years." "My husband chose him." "I trust him implicitly." "Besides, we're in the middle of a recession." "Of course there's been a fluctuation in our stocks and shares." "Mr Lipton told you that?" "He said there was nothing to worry about and things would right themselves eventually." "I get very tired, you know." "I'm on pills." "When was the last time you talked to Mr Lipton?" "You have no right to ask me these things." "I have angina and I shouldn't be upset like this." "I'm..." "I'm going to have to ask you to leave now." "I'm sorry." "I really did not..." "I didn't mean to worry you." "If there was anything wrong, Mr Lipton would have told me." "Joseph would have told me." "Ellie." "Ellie." "Help me, I'm on the ropes here." "Smash it!" "Alison said I could come through." "Hi, Ellie." "Yeah, of course." "I need to go to the police again." "It's becoming a habit with you." "I was wondering if you could come with me." "Okey doke, I'll get me coat." "Mummy will give you your tea, boys." "I would have driven." "Is this Gwen's car?" "Yeah." "Mine got totalled, remember." "You gotta learn to laugh about it, haven't you, Joe?" "Yeah." "This isn't the way." "Bear with me." "OK." "OK, Ellie." "You know I'm your friend but I've got to be straight with you now." "You've stopped making sense." "I had a client on the phone half an hour ago, a nice old lady with a weak heart, saying you've harassed her." "What's happened to you?" "It's not right, sweetheart, and I'm not the only one who thinks it." "Gwen's talking about putting you on antidepressant drugs and Fergus thinks you're crazy." "But not me." "I'm the one who's kept the faith with you all this time." "Me." "I've been your strongest ally." "I've stood up for you." "Don't you realise how hard that's been for me?" "You're pushing it now, Ellie." "I'm under a lot of pressure here and you're at me all the time, driving me nuts." "I love you, sweetheart, but I can't keep faith with you any longer." "Do you understand?" "Do I have to spell it out for you?" "Greg is dead." "It was an accident." "It's over." "You've got to try and get hold of this now." "It was just an accident." "Even if it WERE true, no-one's interested." "No-one's listening to you." "They all think you're mad." "Even if what were true, Joe?" "Portend Way." "Why have you brought me here?" "Do you know this place, Joe?" "What is this?" "What are you doing?" "How does it make you feel to be here?" "You were like a brother to him." "It was always 'Joe' this, 'Joe' that." "'Joe makes me laugh', 'Joe watches my back. ' He loved you." "My life's over." "I should have died in that car with Greg." "You can section me." "You can do what you want because" "I don't care." "I've got no fight left in me." "But I want the truth." "Did you love Milena?" "There was a... a wildness in her that I recognised." "It was some restaurant opening in town ... that's where we met." "It was like there was no-one else there." "Just me and her." "You can spare me the love story." "It wasn't love." "I know that." "Milena lost her charm very quickly." "So I ended it." "At least I tried to." "She was very hard to shake off." "So you took up with Frances." "Frances was full of light." "She listened to me." "I felt calm when I was with her." "I felt loved." "She loved you too." "She told me that." "I could have loved her too, in different circumstances." "If you didn't have a wife and two children?" "Alison can be very unforgiving." "Life is black and white to her." "But I love my kids." "I could never lose my kids." "I don't know." "I..." "I really thought I could make it work." "I thought I could hold all the different balls in the air." "I was trying so hard, but everything was falling apart, Ellie." "I couldn't stop it." "Problem was, I told her too much." "Milena ..." "I'd confided in her, about the business, about Alison." "She was going to bring me down." "We're the same, you and me." "I stood to lose everything." "My kids, my home, my business." "I've told your colleague." "He knows what you've been doing." "And more than that, I was going to lose myself." "The person I'd become, all the years of grafting, of pulling myself up, pretending it didn't matter where I came from." "Alison and the kids." "Want me to get to the kids, as well?" "You're a bastard, Joe!" "All I had was my bare hands." "Her screaming face and my bare hands." "Get off me!" "You don't frighten me!" "The first hit felt so good." "Knocking the words out of her mouth." "What about Greg?" "Did killing him feel good?" "How can you say that?" "I loved Greg." "You know that." "I want to know how." "I want to know every detail." "The look on his face." "The last thing he said." "I want to know everything." "He didn't suffer." "How do you know?" "How can you say that?" "It was over in an instant." "He'd called, he wanted to meet me." "What did he say?" "He asked me who Milena was." "He asked about Mrs Sutton's account." "I've sorted it, there's paperwork in the back." "Grab it for us, will you?" "That was it, I'm afraid." "No sentimental last words." "Joe?" "Did he struggle?" "No." "No." "My aim was good." "He was strong and fit ... he could have outrun you in a heartbeat." "He didn't struggle, he didn't run." "Because he didn't see it coming." "Did he know?" "Did he know what?" "That he was going to die?" "That it was all over for him and me and our hopes of a future and children and a life together?" "Was he scared?" "Did he beg you to stop?" "Did he?" "Tell me." "Did he know?" "Did he even have an instant of knowing?" "It's OK." "It's OK." "We can sort this out." "Joe." "I'm sorry, mate." "He had no idea." "His back was turned to me." "I promise you." "Don't you touch me!" "Don't you touch me." "I didn't want to kill him." "You didn't want to get caught." "Don't pretend you cared." "You didn't, you didn't care all this time." "You've been pretending." "What about that email?" "When did you delete that?" "Was that before or..." "or was it after you offered to call his parents to tell them that their son was dead?" "Leave it, Ellie." "And the menu card?" "That drove me mad." "Did you plant that there and was I just too stupid not to find it?" "And Frances..." "She didn't need to die." "If you hadn't pushed it she'd still be alive." "Three murders, just like that." "And it's me next, isn't it?" "No." "I understand." "But I'm not scared." "(And I wouldn't give you the satisfaction. )" "Ellie?" "Ellie." "Ellie." "It's OK, love." "It's OK." "You're in hospital." "There was a car crash." "But you're OK." "Joe?" "Now, come on, you need to rest." "Close your eyes." "Good girl, close your eyes." "It must be hard for you as a teacher?" "Having to learn everything all over again." "Well, you know me, Inspector." "I'm a very determined person." "Tell me something I didn't know." "Thank you." "You managed to piece it all together yet?" "Now, if I was your teacher, and you were me, would you put up with that sort of cheek?" "No." "We've spoken to Hugo Livingstone and Mrs Sutton." "You won't be surprised to hear she's not the only client of Lipton and Co with financial worries at the moment." "The administrators are sorting through the mess." "And rest assured the files on all three murders have been well and truly opened." "All we need from you now is a statement about the crash in which Mr Lipton died." "It will go something like this." "You had your suspicions of Mr Lipton and there was some sort of struggle at the wheel." "He may even have reached his foot over and slammed it on the accelerator." "And you crashed." "Accidentally." "I really don't have time for another murder enquiry, you see." "The thing is, Inspector ... the accident, I don't remember any of it." "That'll do." "Well, go on, keep going." "No slacking, Mrs Manning." "Those poor little children are depending on you." "Right." "One, two, three..." " Hiya." " Sorry we're not in." "Leave a message for Ellie or Greg and we'll call you back as soon as we can." "Hiya." "Sorry we're not in." "Leave a message for Ellie or Greg and we'll call you back as soon as we can." "Hiya. sorry we're not in." "Leave a message for Ellie or Greg and we'll call you back as soon as we can." "I'll always love you, Greg." "Your greeting has been deleted." "You're back." "You dirty stop-out cat." "Shall we get you some dinner?" "Here." "You sure?" "Do you want to say something?" "I don't have to say anything." "He knows." "Big Nutbrown Hare settled Little Nutbrown Hare into his bed of leaves." "He leaned over and kissed him good night." "Then he lay down close by and he whispered with a smile," "'I love you right up to the moon... and back. '"