The Complete Inspector Morse

by David Bishop

  ‘Greeks Bearing Gifts’ was planned as the first episode of this series, but production was delayed for rewrites. When the story did appear, it marked the last appearance of Maureen Bennett as Val, Sergeant Lewis’ wife. The producers decided too much focus on the sergeant’s home life could detract from his relationship with Morse.

  Actor James Grout became a regular cast member as Morse’s long-suffering boss Chief Superintendent Strange in this series. Strange had been a recurring character in previous stories. He would appear in almost every Morse episode from this point, becoming nearly as much a part of the show as Lewis and the chief inspector...

  Produced by David Lascelles

  Executive Producer: Ted Childs

  REGULAR CAST:

  John Thaw (Chief Inspector Morse)

  Kevin Whately (Sergeant Lewis)

  James Grout (Chief Superintendent Strange)

  RECURRING CAST:

  Maureen Bennett (Val Lewis in ‘Fat Chance’, ‘Who Killed Harry Field?’ and ‘Greeks Bearing Gifts’)

  SECOND TIME AROUND

  ‘We leave no stone unturned on this one, Morse.’ The death of a retired policeman prompts the re-opening of an 18-year-old case of child murder, and painful secrets from the past are revealed.

  UK TX: 20 February 1991

  SCREENPLAY: Daniel Boyle, based on characters created by Colin Dexter

  DIRECTOR: Adrian Shergold

  CAST: Kenneth Colley (Chief Inspector Patrick Dawson), Pat Heywood (Mrs Mitchell), Ann Bell (Catherine Dawson), Oliver Ford Davies (Frederick Redpath), Jenny Laird (Mrs Keelan), Maurice Bush (Charlie Hillian), Mark Draper (angry policeman), Simon Adams (incontinent policeman), Christopher Eccleston (Terrence Mitchell), Peter Waddington (pathologist), Liz Kettle (WPC), David Bauckham (desk sergeant), Adie Allen (Barbara Redpath), Sam Kelly (Walter Majors), Claude Le Sauche (Frenchman), Pamela Stirling (Frenchwoman), Shahnaz Pakravan (doctor), Robert Goodale (Reardon), Helena McCarthy (Rose Lapsley), Graeme Du Fresne (photographer), Neale McGrath (Cowan), Peter Gordon (Parks), Simon Coady (street preacher), Russell Kilmister (John Mitchell)

  STORYLINE: Senior police officers in Oxford celebrate the career of former assistant police commissioner Charlie Hillian, Chief Inspector Patrick Dawson leading the plaudits. Morse and Dawson are old rivals from when Hillian was a chief inspector in Oxford. Afterwards Catherine Dawson drives Hillian and her husband to the retired policeman’s home. They leave Hillian asleep on his sofa downstairs. Later that night someone breaks into the house. Hillian grapples with the burglar and falls over, cracking his head against the fireplace hearth. The burglar leaves as Hillian lies dying.

  Next morning, Morse and Lewis begin investigating. A cast is made of a footprint found outside one of the windows. Dawson arrives soon after the police. He came round to say goodbye to Hillian before returning to London. The housekeeper says two people visited the house recently. Local resident Terrence Mitchell has been building an exterior fence and writer Walter Majors was helping Hillian write his memoirs. A constable sees a car drive away from the house at speed. He takes a note of the registration number.

  Lewis interviews Mitchell, who is dyslexic. Terrence’s mother says he was at home with her.

  The pathologist says Hillian had a weak spot in his skull. A slight blow to it could have killed him at any time. The police arrest Frederick Redpath, driver of the car seen accelerating away from Hillian’s house. He owns a bookshop in London and had a clipping about Hillian in his pocket. Redpath keeps altering his story. Morse recognises the suspect, but can’t recall from where. Redpath’s daughter, Barbara, demands her father be released immediately. The inspector refuses.

  Morse interviews Majors. The writer says Hillian’s book was going to devote a chapter to each of his greatest cases. But the notes for one are missing – the murder of Mary Lapsley, an eight-year-old girl who was slain 18 years ago.

  Redpath’s shoes fit the cast taken outside the cottage. Dawson, meanwhile, recognises Redpath instantly. He and Hillian interviewed Redpath for seven days on suspicion of killing Mary. Morse recalls the Lapsley case. Redpath’s daughter used to play with Mary. Mary’s body was found in a boathouse by a lake used by local fishermen. Morse found a knife in the boathouse belonging to Redpath; the suspect said he had lost it long before the killing. Morse also found the girl’s body. Redpath denied murdering Mary and was eventually released. No one was ever charged.

  Redpath denies killing Hillian and Dawson believes him. Redpath says he went to the cottage to discover what Hillian planned to write about the Lapsley case. He then tries to commit suicide by hanging himself in his cell. He is taken to hospital to recover.

  Barbara says her father was persecuted for five years after Mary died. Dawson persuades Strange to re-open the Lapsley case. The detectives re-examine a diary extract sent to the police five years after the killing. It was posted from Reading, and three different typewriters were used to write the extract.

  Morse tells Lewis to trace Mary’s grandmother, Rose Lapsley. The sergeant discovers the Mitchells live next door to Rose Lapsley’s old house. She now resides in a nursing home.

  Barbara says the day her father lost his knife, he went back to the lake to look for it. Redpath saw Terrence Mitchell and the lad’s father John there. John Mitchell walked out on his wife and son several years later.

  The detectives interview Rose, who reluctantly lets them borrow a photo of Mary and her mother sitting on a man’s jacket. Morse can’t understand why Dawson and Hillian didn’t pursue Mary’s father with more vigour after the murder. The photo was taken at Blackpool in 1969. Visible on the jacket is part of a badge. Rose still has the badge. It was given to Mary by her father on the day the photo was taken. Morse looks at the badge, then goes home. He has an identical badge labelled Delegate in a drawer.

  The detectives learn John Mitchell gave up a career as a draughtsman after Mary’s murder, and became a nightshift cleaner at a firm called Cowan’s. The company used to clean offices in Reading. Morse invites Dawson to help question Mrs Mitchell. Dawson orders the police to smash the front door in. He accuses her of protecting her husband and almost punches her. She breaks down and admits John killed Mary. Morse notes Dawson never asked where John is now.

  When Morse tells Redpath about suspicions that John murdered Mary, Redpath laughs. John was in bed at the time, ill with the same virus as Barbara. The inspector talks to Terrence, who confesses to killing both Hillian and Mary. He only wanted to touch her. He wrote about it in his diary to remember what he had done wrong. His father found the diary after Terrence had a breakdown and was committed to a psychiatric hospital. Terrence overheard Hillian and Majors talking about the book and broke in to steal Hillian’s notes. Terrence says his father sent in the diary extract to make the police think the killer was dead, in case Terrence said something incriminating while in hospital. John Mitchell typed the extract because Terrence’s dyslexic writing would have been recognised.

  Morse and Lewis confront Dawson, arresting him for the murder of John Mitchell. Dawson was Mary’s father. He and Morse were at the same police federation conference at Blackpool in 1969, on opposite sides of a debate about hanging. Dawson wanted Redpath cleared because he persecuted the innocent man for five years after Mary died.

  Dawson admits beating John Mitchell to death and burying the body. He says Mitchell confessed to killing Mary. Morse believes Mitchell was simply protecting Terrence.

  THE MANY CAMEOS OF COLIN DEXTER: Morse’s creator sits behind the inspector when he talks with Barbara in a pub. Dexter reads a book and drinks beer.

  DRINK UP, LEWIS: Lewis says Hillian knocks back so much drink, it’s amazing he lived to collect an OBE. Morse points out the white wine in his sergeant’s hands. Lewis says it’s only his second glass. The inspector is drinking brandy.

  Morse orders more white wine when he has lunch with Catherine.

  Lewis begins a search for Morse by looking in every pub in Oxford.

  M
orse drinks a pint of beer at home while reading the diary extract.

  The inspector meets Barbara in a pub. He is just finishing a pint of beer. She declines a drink. Morse has a well-stocked wine rack in his kitchen.

  Morse and Lewis have a glass of white wine each in a wine bar.

  LEWIS’ KITH AND KIN: The sergeant says his spelling’s none too hot. Lewis envies those who work with their hands. The sergeant looks at his young daughter while studying the diary extract about Mary’s killing, imagining losing one of his own children.

  SOPHOCLES DID DO IT: Morse is convinced Redpath murdered Hillian.

  ONE FOR THE MORGUE: Charlie Hillian dies as a result of struggling with Terrence Mitchell. Mary Lapsley was murdered by Terrence Mitchell with a knife 18 years earlier. John Mitchell was beaten to death by Chief Inspector Dawson five years after Mary’s murder.

  MURDERS: three. BODY COUNT: three.

  MORSE DECODED: Morse and Dawson worked alongside each other as detective sergeants in Oxford under Hillian. The two men often argued on opposing sides at police conference debates. Dawson believed in longer sentences and capital punishment. They were delegates on opposing sides of a debate about hanging at the 1969 police federation conference in Blackpool. It was Morse’s first public speech. He was on the losing side. It’s never explicitly stated, but events in this story imply that Morse developed his aversion to corpses after finding Mary Lapsley’s body.

  QUOTE-UNQUOTE: Morse sarcastically asks the pathologist if ‘lights out’ and ‘whammo’ are medical terms. ‘I prefer to keep things simple, Chief Inspector. Especially when dealing with policemen,’ the pathologist replies archly.

  Catherine sums up her husband’s feelings about Morse: ‘Patrick thinks you’re a good detective. A poor policeman and a very good detective.’

  Morse passes judgment on Redpath’s feeble explanations: ‘I’ve never heard so many lies. It was like sitting through an election campaign.’

  Dawson reveals his anguish at not being the one to find his dead daughter’s body: ‘She should have been held by me, just once. Not sent to lie on some – slab. She should have been held.’

  SOUNDTRACK: Lewis gives money to four musicians playing Hoffstetter’s String Quartet in F major at Oxford train station. The same piece is heard later in the story. The aria ‘Senza Mamma’ from Puccini’s opera Suor Angelica plays in the background while the detectives study the diary extract. Different parts of the aria are heard several more times during the story.

  IDENTITY PARADE: Kenneth Colley made a cameo as Jesus in Monty Python’s Life of Brian but is probably best known for playing Admiral Piett in two of the original Star Wars films. This episode of Inspector Morse was one of Christopher Eccleston’s first acting jobs. He’s since featured in Cracker, films like Shallow Grave and 28 Days Later (both directed by Danny Boyle), and in 2005 starred as the title character in the BBC’s hugely successful revival of Doctor Who. Sam Kelly is best known as a comic actor, appearing in such hit series as Porridge and ‘Allo ‘Allo.

  RATINGS: 15.57 million. Most of the fifth series was screened opposite minor shows on BBC 1, helping sustain the audiences Morse had attracted during 1990.

  THE VERDICT: ‘Second Time Around’ is a sad and mournful story, as befits any work of fiction about a child murder. New writer Daniel Boyle crafts an intriguing mystery full of subterfuge, well worthy of Colin Dexter. Tragedy is layered upon tragedy, setting Morse and Lewis at each other’s throats before the solution is finally revealed. Despite all this blood and thunder, there is a surprising amount of humour. Sam Kelly steals his three scenes as the booze-addled writer Majors. In contrast, Kenneth Colley is utterly compelling as the driven Dawson. The whole production purrs like a high-performance car in peak condition.

  FAT CHANCE

  ‘There’s a lot of hate in this one.’ A theology student dies in mysterious circumstances during a case where the ordination of female priests is a hot topic.

  UK TX: 27 February 1991

  SCREENPLAY: Alma Cullen, based on characters created by Colin Dexter

  DIRECTOR: Roy Battersby

  CAST: Maurice Denham (Lance Mandeville), Zoë Wanamaker (Emma Pickford), Maggie O’Neill (Hilary Dobson), Kenneth Haigh (Freddie Galt), Peggy Mount (nun), David Gant (Geoffrey Boyd), Julian Gartside (Desmond Kelly), Caroline Ryder (Dinah Newberry), Sarah Carpenter (Victoria Hazlett), Una Brandon-Jones (Nadine Stacy), Arbel Jones (Jane Barnes), Nicholas Selby (Dr Corder), Eileen Dunwoodie (Mrs Gardam), Tilly Vosburgh (Irene Saunders), Alan Starkey (Rowlands), Ben Onwukwe (doctor), William Roberts (Hank Briardale), Dorothea Alexander (Mrs Hulme), Badi Uzzaman (chip van owner), Josephine Welcome (Judy)

  STORYLINE: A group of female clerics take Holy Communion at St Saviour’s College. Male priests at the service are hostile towards them. One of the women, Dr Victoria Hazlett, has her left arm in a sling and bruises on her face. After the service she goes to sit an exam alone. Meanwhile her room is ransacked by an intruder. Victoria collapses to the floor, dead. It transpires she’d fallen from her bike on the cobbles outside college a week earlier. She spent three days in hospital, forcing her to sit the exam alone. She was trying for a qualification in Divinity.

  Her friend, Hilary Dobson, discovers the burglary. She sees one of the priests, Reverend Geoffrey Boyd, rushing away from the room. Victoria’s work has been stolen, along with files on the PAX group, a collective of female clerics that runs a hostel for women. The stolen material is given to Freddie Galt, managing director of the Think Thin slimming organisation. He burns all the papers but retains a bottle of pills taken from Victoria’s room.

  The college chaplain, Lance Mandeville, is retiring. He says Victoria was the youngest-ever fellow of the college and wanted to be ordained as a Church of England priest. Mandeville does not approve of women priests.

  Boyd returns to his room. The walls are plastered with a vast collage of photos he has taken of the female clerics, interspersed with pornographic pictures. The word harlots has been painted on the walls.

  The porter at St Saviour’s says Beaufort College sent over a scout with a suitcase to deliver. But Beaufort representatives have no knowledge of the scout. Morse believes that man was the burglar, but the inspector still wants to talk to Boyd.

  The pathologist says Victoria died from a chemical reaction caused by a combination of painkillers, communion wine and a third, unknown substance found in her body. Expert outside help is needed to identify the substance. The detectives visit the hostel for women. It emerges Victoria was counsellor to Dinah Newberry, an overweight woman with self-image problems. Victoria was chaperoned from the time of her accident until her death, to prevent her seeing the exam paper in advance; the chaperones were Hilary and another female cleric, Emma Pickford. Emma says she took the last shift, sleeping on a camp bed in Victoria’s room. The police find an exam paper under Victoria’s mattress. The communion wine was finished off as part of the service – no trace remains for analysis.

  Hilary is on a shortlist to replace Mandeville. She says the PAX group had been a target for persecution. Victoria was riding Hilary’s bicycle when she had the accident; it looked like the brake cables had been tampered with, but the bike disappeared. Hilary believes the sabotage was an attempt to injure her.

  Emma remembers Victoria mentioning taking extra painkillers during the night before the exam. There were two bottles in Victoria’s room in the morning. Emma is a widow with two young sons, one of whom has been unwell with tonsillitis and is confined to bed. The doctor who treated Victoria says she should have had only one bottle of pills. Dinah Newberry goes missing.

  The inspector believes Mandeville is hiding Boyd, and is frustrated at the lack of progress. He goes to the laboratory of Hank Briardale, the expert contracted to analyse the mystery substance. The building was broken into a week ago, but Briardale says nothing was taken. He cannot explain the third substance.

  Morse goes to Boyd’s house late at night. He finds Mandeville and several others st
ripping the walls of the collage-decorated room. A thumb print on the exam paper found under Victoria’s mattress matches prints taken at Boyd’s house – he planted it. Mandeville says Boyd is ill, but refuses to reveal where he is.

  Briardale meets with Galt. The scientist says Dinah has been approaching his staff. Galt dismisses her as a threat. They have a deal to clinch.

  Morse seeks another opinion on the substance found in Victoria’s body and Lewis sees Dinah outside the Think Thin promotional event. She tries to attack Galt, then runs away. The sergeant learns Dinah is a former Think Thin pound-shedder of the year. She is building a file about Think Thin’s activities.

  Morse learns Boyd is in a rest home, having suffered a breakdown. Hilary, meanwhile, is made chaplain of St Saviour’s College.

  Briardale is a consultant for Think Thin. The company holds a press conference to announce it is being acquired by another firm. Lewis discovers Emma lied about being with Victoria all night before the exam. In fact she went home to check on her sick son. Morse realises Dinah visited Victoria late at night with her file and a bottle of pills stolen from Briardale’s lab. Victoria woke during the night and mistakenly took the slimming pills instead of the painkillers. A new analysis shows the mystery substance in Victoria’s body was a metabolic stimulant.

  The detectives arrive at the health farm, followed by Emma. Dinah sneaks in too. She threatens Galt with a kitchen knife but Emma persuades her to surrender the weapon. Emma admits lying to protect Victoria from accusations of cheating. Morse thinks Galt and Briardale will face minor charges, if any. The death of Victoria was an unfortunate accident.

  THE MANY CAMEOS OF COLIN DEXTER: Morse’s creator appears in passing, dressed as an academic, when Hilary goes in to her interview for the chaplaincy.

  DRINK UP, LEWIS: Early in the case Lewis buys the inspector a pint of beer and himself an orange juice, which they drink in a beer garden.

  Morse fetches a bottle of white wine while having dinner with Emma. They’ve already been drinking red wine.