Two: Into the Shadows
There isn't a reprise of the important events of part one. Instead we see the policemannys listening to a tape of Ronnie describing Emma's murder from his point of view, and then Ronnie listening to a radio news programme reporting on the current state of the murder inquiry, which together combine to cleverly recap part one while at the same time presenting it to us in a new way.
The episode kicks off with a little moment of Bondesque action as Ronnie loses the policemanny who has been sent to follow him around, so that he can secretly visit his contact Carlisle. He asks his friend to check out Emma's gun, and also asks if he can use Carlisle's computer to look at MI5 files. We get our first sense of the true seriousness of the plot when Carlisle replies
"That's more than my life's worth."
Is this hyperbole? Probably not, as things will turn out.
Ronnie visits Terry Shields (Tim "Lord Percy Percy" McInnerny), an academic lecturer and Emma's boyfriend, who is the nearest equivalent to Professor Jones in this story. He is heavily involved in "socialist" politics, and he and Ronnie immediately don't get on. When Ronnie asks him what Emma was involved in that might explain the meaning of her last words
"Don't tell..."
Terry writes the word "AZURE" on his mirror as a clue - they may not like one another, but they both want to solve the mystery.
When Ronnie leaves, Emma appears to him in a brilliantly directed shot that makes it appear as if she has just... er, appeared to him. This trick is used several times and each time it is simple but effective. She asks
"What does the word 'azure' mean?""The word 'azure' is a police intelligence term. It means the room is bugged or under some sort of electronic surveillance."
but this scene turns into a flashback of when Ronnie told Emma this once before, so we are led to presume she told Terry in turn, which is how come he knew the word, and how he knew that Ronnie would know the word.
Next Ronnie meets Pendleton who takes him to meet his partner Harcourt (Ian "Harcourt" McNeice). After some preliminary chat, Harcourt comes out and asks Ronnie if he knew that Emma led the Gaia raid on "the nuclear waste planet at Northmoor." Bob Peck underplays Ronnie's response beautifully. He only says
"No."
but you can see him swallow as the implication of this sinks in. They reveal a bit more about how well-connected they are when they produce Emma's gun, given to them by Carlisle, and Ronnie very quickly adjusts to this revelation and realises he has to be more honest with them.
They "are interested in anything that goes on at Northmoor" and Harcourt reiterates what Pendleton told Ronnie at the end of episode one, that they want to know if the murderer was after Ronnie or Emma. Harcourt is quite frank that they "have no intention of putting [Ronnie] in the picture" but they still want Ronnie's help and are prepared to give him some clues.
They reveal that Godbolt, the manny that Ronnie was investigating before the murder happened, was connected to Northmoor, and that "the Northmoor management" might have had a motive for committing the election fraud. So this seemingly unrelated plot strand, that looked as though it was only there to (at best) introduce our main character, or at worst to misdirect us from the real plot, turns out to be relevant after all. A bit like the Doctor's trip to Metebelis 3.
Ronnie goes to the police headquarters at New Scotland Yard (ironically this is in London, not in Scotland, mew), where the policemannys think they know who the murderer's accomplice and getaway driver was - a manny called Lowe, who Ronnie once arrested. They then make Ronnie get interviewed about the murder on TV... on TV.
Ronnie gets another telephone call in his hotel room. This time it is from Darius Jedburgh, who wants to meet Ronnie at a restaurant even though it is late at night and Ronnie wants to have sleeps. But he wants to solve the mystery more, so he goes.
We quickly get an idea of Jedburgh's humour from his dialogue, such as the following exchange:
"You ever been to Dallas, Craven?""No sir.""It's where we shoot our presidents."
Jedburgh talks about country music and brings up Willie Nelson and The Time of the Preacher, which of course we heard playing in the key scene of episode one. He almost goads Ronnie into singing it by getting the words wrong, and then they sing part of it together.
"You know what 'the time of the preacher' signifies, don't you Craven?""Gun.""Yeah, gun. The time of the preacher is the time of the gun."
What is being strongly implied here, only just stopping short of being stated outright, is that Jedburgh knows that Ronnie listened to that song after Emma's death.
Ronnie deduces that Jedburgh W-words for the CIA, and Jedburgh proudly admits it. They go back to the CIA house where he lets Ronnie see a secret file about Northmoor, IIF (the company that owns Northmoor), Gaia, and Emma.
This prompts another flashback scene to when Emma was still alive that reveals to us, the viewers, that Ronnie did know about Northmoor before, and that he at least knew that Emma was thinking about going in because she told him
"The only way to find out is to go down there."
He then warned her off by saying
"Northmoor is a nuclear waste plant. Anyone who breaks in there will be met with ultimate force. It's the most dangerous business in Britain - don't even think of it."
We don't see how Emma responded, but it seems that she thought of it, did it, and just didn't tell Ronnie about it.
Jedburgh's file puts forward the CIA's theory that Emma and her Gaia team were trapped in Northmoor and soaked by radioactive water, although even they don't know if this was done deliberately by IIF to try to murder all the Gaia mannys, or if it was a mistaik. The file also suggests that Terry Shields informed the police about the Gaia raid before it happened, who in turn informed IIF so that they knew they were coming.
Ronnie returns to his hotel room, alone except for Emma's ghost, who tells him that she loved Terry. This only makes Ronnie even more sad, because he knows that Terry betrayed Emma to her death. The episode ends on this downbeat note, with some questions answered by the file, but many more still remaining.
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