Inspector Morse is a British television crime drama, starring John Thaw and Kevin Whately, for which eight series were broadcast between 1987 and 2000, totalling thirty-three episodes. Although the last five episodes were each broadcast a year apart (two years before the final episode), when released on DVD, they were billed as Series Eight.
Anne Stavely, a fellow chorister and romantic interest of Morse, is found hanged at her home in Jericho. Her death is presumed to be a suicide but Morse investigates, despite not being assigned to the case. While searching for a suicide note at her home, he encounters Sergeant Lewis, beginning their long partnership.
Morse convinces DCS Strange that he is not involved in Stavely’s death and takes on the case. The suicide note was taken by neighbour George Jackson, who uses information from the note to extort money from Stavely’s former employers, Alan and Tony Richards. Shortly after Stavely's death the choir meets again, and Jackson is found to have been murdered at that time. At the choir rehearsal Morse is introduced to Alan Richards, providing Richards with an alibi.
Morse is distracted by the presence of the book Oedipus Rex on Stavely’s bedside table and theorises that Ned Murdoch, a local musical prodigy taken under Stavely’s maternal care, caused her death. Lewis is sent to find out whether Murdoch is, in fact, the son that Stavely gave up for adoption, and to take fingerprints of Tony and Adele Richards, but both come to naught; Stavely’s son lives in Wales and the Richards' fingerprints do not match any taken from the Jackson murder.
While reviewing his findings to Morse in front of the Richards brothers, Lewis inadvertently cracks the case by introducing himself to Alan Richards, revealing that the brothers had switched identities to avoid suspicion, and that Alan had killed Jackson to protect his brother and their firm’s reputation.
When Nicholas Quinn, a deaf member of Oxford’s Foreign Examinations Syndicate, is found dead at his home, Morse presumes murder and Quinn’s fellow syndics soon become suspects. Morse and Lewis investigate the movements of the staff on the Friday afternoon in question. The staff consists of Martin, Roope, Ogleby, Bartlett (the secretary) and the attractive divorcee Monica Height. Noakes, the caretaker, swears he saw Quinn leave the offices late on Friday evening, but he actually only saw a man in Quinn’s coat drive away in his car.
Ogleby seems the most suspicious under questioning, but Morse is delighted to discover the Ogleby is the crossword setter calling himself Daedalus, with whom Morse has matched wits for years. After this initial questioning, Ogleby is brutally murdered.
Morse and Lewis surmise that Quinn’s predecessor Bland leaked exam papers to the education department of a country called "Al-Jamara", that Quinn discovered this and told Ogleby, and that this was the motive behind at least one of the murders. Quinn was killed and Ogleby was murdered when he investigated.
Morse confidently but mistakenly arrests Roope for Quinn’s murder. Roope's alibi, that he arrived in Oxford late on the afternoon of the murder, is confirmed by a college dean he met on the train platform, and he is released without charge. Roope meets Dr Bartlett soon after, and Morse arrests both of them, suspecting that Dr Bartlett needed the illicit income to pay for treatment for his mentally unstable son.
Morse realizes that "Donald Martin" and "Doctor Bartlett" would be difficult for a lip reader like Quinn to distinguish, that Quinn made this mistake, and that Martin committed the murders with Roope as his accomplice. Morse confronts Martin at his home and ends up in a violent struggle, from which Lewis saves him.
Morse and Lewis are called to St Oswald’s where the churchwarden, Harry Josephs, has been seemingly stabbed by a local vagrant following a service. Max the pathologist informs Morse that the man had a lethal amount of morphine in his system when he was stabbed. While the hunt for the vagrant begins, the vicar, Lionel Pawlen, and his congregants are all eyed with suspicion.
Tipped off by another vagrant that the missing prime suspect may be, in fact, the vicar’s brother, Morse invites Pawlen in for questioning, but Pawlen throws himself off the church’s steeple. Meanwhile, Morse takes a romantic interest in the church caretaker, Ruth, who seems amenable to the attention, but is somewhat evasive. Soon Paul Morris, the organist, Brenda Josephs, with whom Morris had been having an affair, and Morris’s son are all found dead.
Ruth is one of the only congregants left alive and Morse, by chance, is scouting out the church once more when she enters and is confronted by a mysterious man, with whom she seems to be intimately acquainted, but who attempts to strangle her. Morse awkwardly attempts to intervene and a struggle ensues, resulting in a confrontation at the top of the church’s steeple. Morse is known to be afraid of heights.
While the man tries to kill Morse, Lewis rushes in to hit him over the head and the man stumbles over the edge to his death.
As they take away the body, only Morse has realised that the killer is Harry Josephs, who was thought to have been the original victim.
It is revealed that Lionel Pawlen and his congregants conspired in the original murder of Lionel’s brother, Simon Pawlen, the vagrant. Simon had been left out of a great inheritance from an aunt owing to his wayward lifestyle and had grown vindictive towards Lionel, spreading rumours that the vicar’s behaviour towards choir boys had forced him out of his previous parish.
The original murder was an elaborate way of getting rid of Simon. Lionel used an invented church service, The Feast of the Conversion of St Augustine, and a conspiracy of his congregants, with whom he would share his wealth, to execute the plan.
The congregants agreed falsely to identify Harry Josephs, who used this cover to exact revenge on his wife, Brenda, her lover, Paul Morris, and Morris’s son. Lionel’s death was suicide, spurred by the guilt of his brother’s murder and suspecting that his deceit would soon be uncovered by Morse.
A tour group of geriatric Americans descend on the Randolph Hotel, including a lady who is about to donate a priceless artefact, the ‘Wolvercote Tongue’, to the Ashmolean Museum. When she is found dead shortly after arriving, and the Tongue is missing from her hotel room, Morse suspects foul play, despite the doctor’s insistence that she died from natural causes.
The chief suspect is the woman’s husband, Eddie Poindexter, who soon disappears. Morse and Lewis’s attention is diverted to Theodore Kemp, the colourful museum curator whose naked body is found floating in the River Cherwell the following evening.
Morse is convinced that these are two murders connected to the theft, but he has no evidence. Kemp’s disabled wife commits suicide after learning of his death, and Morse stumbles into a fruitful line of inquiry by considering the movements of the other expert connected to the tour, Cedric Downes, and his wife, whom Morse and Lewis happen to intercept as she makes her way to London with a suitcase.
They confront Downes on the platform of Oxford station later that day. His account of his awareness of Kemp’s death does not match his wife’s and he is taken in for questioning. He bumps into Poindexter, who coincidentally steps off a train as Downes attempts to make an escape.
Poindexter and Downes confess. Poindexter admits that his wife’s death, unsurprising given her heart condition, occurred in his presence, and that he took the Tongue in order to throw it away and collect the insurance money. During his disappearance he connected with his long-lost daughter.
Downes claims that Kemp’s death was an accident and occurred after a confrontation when he had returned home to collect his notes for his lecture, only to find his wife with Kemp in flagrante. With some bending of the truth from Morse, Downes admits to subsequently killing his wife while she was disposing of Kemp’s clothing in London.
The Wolvercote Tongue is retrieved from the river and Morse admits that, despite his prior insistence, there were two cases here rather than one: the original death was simply of natural causes and the subsequent murders were not related to the theft.
Based on an original story by Colin Dexter, which he subsequently novelized as The Jewel That Was Ours.
Valerie Craven, the daughter of a local building magnate, has been missing for six months, and so an otherwise idle Morse is assigned the case.
When a letter arrives, purportedly from the missing girl, with a London postmark, initial inquiries take Morse and Lewis in the direction of a man named Maguire, a former boyfriend of Valerie. Guesswork from Morse surprisingly strikes home, and it is established that the girl is, or was, pregnant.
Valerie’s school is investigated. A headstrong headmaster, Donald Phillipson, and a former teacher, David Acum, become suspects.
When the deputy head, Cheryl Baines, is found dead at her home, both Lewis and Strange lash out at Morse, whose prior insistence that murder was involved now seems confirmed.
Phillipson’s wife Sheila is unexpectedly identified by a neighbour as being present at the scene on the evening of Baines’s death, and she is brought in for questioning. Insisting that all she encountered at the home was a body, she tells Morse and Lewis that she saw Acum as she left, waiting in a car around the corner.
Acum is brought in for questioning but, after Morse drinks a couple of pints, he seems content to let him go. He insists on driving Acum back to Reading and when Acum claims his wife is not home, Morse gladly accepts the invitation to wait for her.
Once inside Morse calls out for Valerie, and, sure enough, she emerges from upstairs, Morse having finally realised that he had already met Valerie when he had called at Acum’s house earlier on, but did not initially recognise her, as she was wearing a face pack at the time.
Valerie returns to find her mother in an altercation with Phillipson and his wife. Phillipson claims that he and Grace Craven were having an affair, and were together the night Baines died, and, despite initially confirming this to Morse, Craven now insists he is lying and that their affair ended months ago.
Valerie corroborates this version of events, explaining that she saw Phillipson as she was leaving Baines’ house on the evening in question.
Phillipson finally breaks down, admits to a struggle and her accidental death, and is taken into police custody as a result.
Morse is in a romantic relationship with Dr Jane Robson and is present at Oxford college when a foreign summer student is murdered. The Japanese man, Yukio Li, had excused himself from dinner and was discovered in his room in a ritual pose with injuries to his hands and feet and a dagger in his chest. Max, the pathologist, surmises that the cuts were made to hide marks from being bound and gagged, and that the lack of blood would indicate that the man had been dead for some time. A cassette tape in a jiffy bag addressed to Yukio is found in the back of the coach. The bag contains traces of heroin and Robson confirms that Yukio was a drug dealer who had been to the summer school previously.
Graham Daniels, another member of the summer school staff, is found dead and Morse begins to suspect that there is a wider plot and that his presence at the college dinner may have been contrived to provide alibis to the attendees. Morse’s suspicions grow, particularly towards Kurt Friedman, a German who another student claims is a ‘phoney’, and Sir Wilfred Mulryne, a don of the college. Superintendent Dewar tells Morse to drop the investigation but this only strengthens Morse’s resolve.
Morse pesters Dr Robson and finally establishes the truth. The man pretending to be Kurt Friedman is Dr Robson's brother. The two kidnapped and tortured Yukio Li, and possibly killed him, as revenge for the torture of their father in Japan during WWII at the hands of Yukio’s father. Mulryne had disclosed this family connection to Dr Robson previously. The plan went awry as Yukio overpowered and killed the double, then pretended to be the double and escaped.
Yukio used the cover of his apparent death to exact revenge on those complicit in the plot against him, starting with Daniels and then Michael Robson/Kurt Friedman, who is found dead in the showers. Morse immediately realises that Dr Robson is next and rushes to her aid, only to find that someone has rescued her already by striking Yukio in the head with a croquet mallet after he had attempted to strangle her. Morse finds Mrs Warbut, of the college bursary office, in the church, who confesses to turning a blind eye to the plot, and who it is implied finally killed Yukio and saved Dr Robson. Warbut grew up in Japan and was scarred and embittered by the knowledge of what happened to Dr Robson’s father and many others during the war.
Morse and Lewis are called to a pub outside Oxford where a young woman named Sylvia Kane has been found dead in the car park, seemingly run over, but with scratches on her face that suggest an attack. An envelope is found in Sylvia's purse, containing what Morse identifies as a coded letter addressed to Sylvia’s superior at work, Jennifer Coleby. Inquiries begin at an Oxford assurance company. Morse quickly presumes the envelope contained a large quantity of cash. The man Sylvia was meeting begins to spend money in an extravagant fashion, soon gets into trouble and is brought into the station. He admits that he took the money and Sylvia's necklace after discovering her but, despite this confession, Morse is not convinced that he killed her and lets him go.
Mrs Jarman, an elderly woman who recognizes Sylvia on a television appeal hosted by Morse, contacts the police and claims to have seen Sylvia get into a red car at a bus stop on the night in question. She eventually remembers the registration plate, leading Morse and Lewis to the home of Mrs and Dr Crowther, the latter of whom Morse has already encountered giving a lecture at an Oxford college.
It is established that Sylvia hitched a lift with Crowther and the connection between her and Jennifer Coleby is made when Max, who is related to the Crowthers, tells Morse that Sylvia was due to attend physio at the hospital the following day. Mrs Jarman had reported that another person was with Sylvia that night, but that person did not get into the car. Sylvia departed with the words “see you in the morning”. Morse and Lewis realise that the mysterious other person at the bus stop was not a colleague of Sylvia’s, but Jennifer Coleby’s lodger, Mary Widdowson, who works as a nurse at the hospital.
Crowther has a heart attack while disposing of evidence from his car, and Widdowson confesses the truth to Morse. She and Crowther were having an affair. As he was being considered for a senior post at the University, he sent her the money to take a holiday, so she would be absent for a while. It was to get to her via Coleby, but Sylvia Kane intercepted it. The coded message was ‘please take it’. When Sylvia was coincidentally picked up by Crowther at the bus stop, Mary Widdowson did not get in. Instead, she followed them to see what would happen between them. When Sylvia got out of the car, Mary confronted her and knocked her to the ground, and Crowther inadvertently ran over her as he reversed out of the car park. Although the death was not murder, Widdowson is led away by the police for her hand in it as Crowther regains consciousness in his hospital bed.
Morse and Lewis are sent to Hanbury House where an upper-class family has apparently suffered a break-in and the theft of a number of paintings. Sir Julius Hanbury is nowhere to be seen, which is particularly unusual since he is vying to be the next Master of an Oxford college and the vote is tied. Exploring the grounds of Hanbury House, Morse is shown into the family mausoleum, where the battered body of Sir Julius is discovered. Soon after, Roger Meadows, the boyfriend of the family's au pair, Michelle, overturns his sports car driving away from the house. Lewis notices that his brakes have been cut.
A new forensic pathologist, Dr. Grayling Russell replaces her predecessor Max, who was unwell and had a severe stroke.
Lady Hanbury, pressured by Morse, claims that Sir Julius's death was suicide and that she and the gardener, John McKendrick, made it look like murder to present a less shameful story to the watching world. The supposed theft was also part of the plan and the paintings are later recovered from their hiding place. Morse is not convinced by this confession and continues to investigate. The attic contains a photographic studio and Lewis notices that the pictures being produced are in the style of Sir Julius' classical paintings but feature the au pair Michelle. This supports the possibility that Sir Julius was being blackmailed.
Lady Hanbury's alibi for the night of Sir Julius's death soon falls apart under Morse's questioning. She claims to have witnessed Plácido Domingo featuring in Tosca in Covent Garden, but Morse knows this is not true, as he himself was present for the performance and Domingo did not perform. She confesses that she has been having a long-term affair with McKendrick and that she confronted Sir Julius in his studio. She discovered the paintings of Michelle, there was a struggle, and she killed him in self-defence. She then had McKendrick cut the brakes of Roger Meadows' car in response to his threats to sell the story to the tabloid press. Lady Hanbury, McKendrick, and Michelle are driven away in police cars, leaving the six-year-old daughter on the doorstep while Morse looks on and decries the tragedy the girl has inherited.
Oxford academic Dr David Kerridge is believed to be missing, and a decapitated body is found in the local canal. Morse, encumbered by a toothache, investigates. Lewis establishes that the clothes on the body belong to Kerridge, but Morse believes some reports that Kerridge is alive and well in London. Sir Alexander Reece, Master of Beaumont College, and known to Morse from his university days, tells of a bad-tempered rivalry between Kerridge and Dr Arthur Drysdale. Drysdale was recently diagnosed with brain cancer, has just months to live, and has gone to Rome. It transpires that Kerridge has indeed been in London, exploring the possibility of a television appearance that comes to naught, but is soon discovered battered to death in his flat. Meanwhile, the head of the canal man is found, and the bullet wound in the skull suggests to Morse that there are two murderers to be found. Lewis concludes that the canal man is Nicholas Balarat, a civil servant and honorary fellow of Beaumont College, who had exchanged professional criticisms with Kerridge.
After a trip to Whitehall to enquire about Balarat, however, Morse believes the Kerridge connection is a cover. He explains to an exasperated Chief Superintendent Strange his theory that it was Reece who shot Balarat. Reece had nominated Balarat for an honorary fellowship, and Morse believes he expected Balarat to return the favour in recommending him for the position of chairman in a new royal commission. When this did not occur, Reece exacted revenge and disposed of the body at Thrupp to implicate Kerridge. Before Morse can find any evidence of this, Reece himself is found shot dead in his lodgings. Lewis speaks to the college scout to gather more information, and discovers that not only did Drysdale have his disagreements with Kerridge, but also that Balarat had run off with Drysdale's wife.
Soon Morse and Lewis catch up with Dysdale, the Rome trip having been a ruse, and he confesses to the killings. Morse suspects that his brain cancer contributed to his desire for revenge as he settled old scores. Although admitting to killing Balarat for his betrayal and Reece for his professional fraud, he claims to have failed in murdering Kerridge, and, in fact, was convinced by Kerridge that he did not speak against him to deny him a prestigious academic post. He and Morse conclude that Reece must have indeed killed Kerridge, as Morse originally suspected, since he knew about Reece's dishonesty and was fearful of being exposed.
Anthony Donn, Morse's college roommate from twenty years prior, comes to Oxford for an annual cricket match. He calls Morse to get together and talk. They eat chips on a bench, but Donn never tells Morse what is on his mind, instead telling a zen story. Morse begins investigating a hate crime involving the fire bombing of a radical bookshop in which three people are killed. Donn turns up dead in his college lodging, appearing to have electrocuted himself. A gun is found in his luggage but his wife says that he hated guns. Lewis postpones his leave to go undercover as a college porter and replaces Donn on the cricket team, the Clarets. One of the team members, Vince Cranston, resents this as Lewis is not considered a gentleman. Lewis acquits himself well in the match between the Clarets and the Hearties, organized by another former college friend of Morse, Roly Marshall. Morse is present but sleeps through much of the match. Lewis had seen Peter Foster searching Donn's room. Both Anthony Donn's widow, Kate, and Peter Foster's apparent wife, Philippa, appear attracted to Morse.
During the cricket match, Peter Foster is found murdered in the changing rooms, stabbed in the chest with a pair of scissors. Morse confronts Philippa Foster, who admits that she is a customs investigator, and that Peter is not her husband, but her boss. Over the previous two years, they have traced regular exports of cocaine and heroin that correspond with the Clarets' tours to the Low Countries. They had not told Morse, as he might have been involved. She persuades Morse to permit this year's tour to continue. When the tour bus arrives at Dover, it is searched, but nothing is found. Meanwhile, Morse has tailed Kate Donn and seen her passionately kissing Vince Cranston. Morse realises that, contrary to E. M. Forster's advice to "only connect", he has to delink the two killings. He discovers cocaine hidden in the seat of the wheelchair used by Roly Marshall and deduces that Jamie Jasper, Marshall's nephew, killed Foster. Jasper's job in international finance gave him the opportunity to obtain drugs in the Far East.
Cranston had given Kate Donn a book on zen with a florid dedication, leading Morse to suspect that she wanted to leave her husband for Cranston but her husband threatened to kill either Cranston or himself (hence the gun). Morse goes to the radio studio where Kate Donn is hosting her chat show and arrests her for murdering her husband. The action takes place during the Test match, with commentary by Brian Johnston, which annoys Morse because it deprives him of his habitual music on BBC Radio 3.
A murder at a multistorey car park uncovers a crime of passion involving a jealous husband, his wife, and her lover. The dead man was Michael Gifford, an architect, whose diary indicates he was meeting someone there. Lewis finds Gifford's house ransacked and is knocked unconscious by the intruder. He and Morse investigate Brian Pierce, an associate of Gifford's, who has a number of expensive paintings that he seemingly could not afford. The telephone number of an insurance company is found in Gifford's diary but the insurance representative, Edward Manley, says Gifford does not have a policy with them. Morse meets Camilla, a prostitute Gifford became possessive of, who says he sent her threatening letters and tapes when she ended their association. Morse and Lewis deduce Gifford had had an affair with Rosemary Henderson, one of the insurance company's employees, and that her husband George had found similar letters and tapes. She says that she and Gifford had their liaisons in the car park but she had broken it off and they were not due to meet that night. She has an alibi for the time of the murder. An investigation of Gifford's finances show both he and Pierce were responsible for financial irregularities; Pierce had been stealing materials from the firm for private projects. Pierce commits suicide before the police can speak to him. Morse and Lewis visit Henderson's forest cabin and learn that he was the one that broke into Gifford's house. Henderson is found shot dead in the woods nearby, possibly a suicide. Morse realises the parking ticket in Gifford's car could have been swapped for one with a later time to disguise the time of death and give someone an alibi: Both Rosemary and Manley have solid alibis for the believed time but are vague about where they were half an hour earlier. Morse proves Rosemary Henderson tried to cover up the fact Manley was at the Hendersons' cabin and that she and Manley were lovers. Manley says he and Henderson fought after Henderson, having seen his wife go to the car park that night, realised that she was involved in Gifford's murder She had rung Manley to arrange an earlier meeting than the one in his diary. Manley claims the shotgun went off by accident as he and Henderson fought. Manley and Rosemary are both taken in for questioning.
Environmentalist and senior fellow Dr Julian Dear is on his way to give a rare speech at an Oxford debate when he is attacked, later dying in hospital. Morse and Lewis are encouraged by Chief Superintendent Rennie to wrap up the case quickly because the cause of death was a heart attack, and because Matthew Copley-Barnes, the Master of Beaufort college, is on the police oversight committee.
The fractious relationship between the Master and his mentally unwell daughter and her husband becomes apparent when Sylvie Maxton, a newspaper columnist who used to live with the Master's family, arrives to stay with them. As Morse begins to question the family about Dr Dear a series of unusual and disturbing packages arrive at the Master's lodge.
Mick McGovern, a worried undergraduate, attempts to avoid police detection and is later found in the bedroom of Dr Jake Normington. He is brought in for questioning but remains silent while someone burns down his flat and his mother lies dying in a hospital bed. When his mother passes away he begins to talk, insisting that he did not attack Dr Dear. He explains that he used to work for an industrial chemical company with financial ties to Beaufort College, and that Dr Dear planned to disclose that incidents connected to a cancer-causing fertiliser had been suppressed. Normington, whom Morse knows through musical connections, confides to Morse that Dr Dear had something important to say at the debate, and implies that he may have been stopped from doing so, but he soon leaves to his academic post in the United States.
As the Master's family situation unravels, the content of Dear's speech appears unrelated to the murder. When the Master is found dead in his lodge Sylvie Maxton reveals to Morse that he had sexually abused her as a child and that she sent the mysterious packages to remind him. The Master's daughter had been aware of her father's behaviour and confides in her mother, who kills him. Mrs Copley-Barnes prepares to throw herself from the chapel rafters but is talked down by Morse and taken away in handcuffs.
Lewis has vomit from the original crime scene analysed, leading to the conclusion that the culprit was the Beaufort College gardener, Phil Hopkirk. Hopkirk had discovered that his daughter, who took piano lessons at the Copley-Barnes' home, was also being abused and attacked Dear in a drunken stupor, mistaking him for the Master.
Morse investigates a family business after the managing director, Trevor Radford, is found murdered in a brewery. He had been working late, preparing a defence against a takeover bid from a rival brewery, Farmers. Suspicions naturally turn to those who stand to benefit, who include the family members as well as two Radfords directors, Norman Weekes and Victor Preece. While both directors have alibis, Trevor's brother Stephen's seems particularly thin.
Stephen himself is soon found murdered, however, in an almost identical manner, prompting Trevor's widow, Helen, to confess to an affair with him. Lewis's investigations into the brewery also suggest Trevor had been 'cooking the books' and that Radfords' financial situation is precarious, with Trevor having taken out a £1-million loan three years earlier, which hasn't been repaid. It is later revealed that he had paid a solicitor to give an inflated value of the company's assets to secure this loan, a fraud that would come to light if the Farmers deal went through.
Despite the deaths of Trevor and Stephen, the brewery’s board, led by their father Charles (and very much against the wishes of their mother, Isobel), vote to reject the takeover bid. They appoint Weekes as the new managing director and task him with turning around Radfords.
The third murder is that of a solicitor, Nelson, who had previously been shown anxious and flustered upon hearing the news of the Radford murders. Lewis belatedly remembers bumping into him when visiting Victor Preece's mother at her home. The folder on Nelson's desk is labelled "Knox", which Lewis discovers was the name of the original Radford's partner when the brewery first began. Morse's questioning of Charles reveals that Knox was banished from Oxford under a cloud in 1850 while Lewis adds that a descendent of Knox is none other than Victor Preece.
Suspecting that he murdered the Radford brothers as revenge for being swindled out of his inheritance, which his mother essentially confirms when Morse and Lewis arrive on her doorstep, Preece is arrested. His mother is initially arrested, too, for the murder of Nelson, but it turns out that this is a mistake. Morse, reflecting on the diction of the woman who called Nelson's office, realises that Nelson had been swindling the Preeces and blackmailing Isobel Radford, and that it was the latter who battered him to death in retaliation.
When two women are murdered in similar circumstances Morse, Lewis and Sergeant Maitland, an expert in violence against women, set out to catch the killer before he strikes again.
Both the deceased, Maureen Thomson and Jackie Thorn, owned cars and attention turns to the local garage and its owner Jeremy Boynton. After Jackie’s neighbour, Angie Howe, is threatened by Boynton not to reveal his connection to Jackie, she does so anyway and he is arrested.
Despite Morse’s certainty that Boynton is the killer he has no evidence against him and Superintendent Strange steps in to release him. After Morse implies to Tim Ablett, Jackie’s boyfriend, that her unborn child may not be his, he attacks Boynton at his car showroom. While Boynton is taken to hospital Morse seizes the opportunity to rifle through the company records in search of incriminating evidence against him. This outrages Lewis who refuses to be involved.
After Morse and Maitland work through the night they finally have a breakthrough. Philippa Lau, who was attacked though not killed some months earlier, had also previously bought a car from Boynton’s garage. Strange is not impressed however and throws Morse off the case. The killer then strikes again and since Boynton is in hospital Morse’s theory is finally disproved.
Lau is questioned anyway and reveals that her driving instructor, Whittaker, had bought the car for her. Lewis realises the car connection with the victims is him, not Boynton, after all and rushes to arrest him. Morse happens to be in the car with Whittaker at the time and simultaneously makes the same realisation when he notices a roll of tape in the glove box. Whittaker confesses to acting out of twisted jealousy after his wife was taken into hospital long term. He attacks Morse with a knife as they drive at high speed and after the ensuing struggle it is Whittaker who is impaled on the knife when they come to a dramatic stop.
Morse, in his own words, becomes the hunted rather than the hunter, when he is framed for murder.
The victim, Beryl Newsome, is an acquaintance of Morse and a co-performer in a production of The Magic Flute, which is a recurring theme throughout the episode. After exchanging tense words with Morse on the way to rehearsal, Newsome receives a telephone call, during which she is stabbed. When Morse is first to find her body and picks up the knife lying beside her, he becomes the primary suspect.
DCI Bottomley is given the case, and Morse is quick to point out his Freemason connections. Fearing he has been set up, Morse takes Lewis to see his old colleague and mentor McNutt. When Morse returns to his car, he finds Masonic symbols scratched into it and then is later stopped and breathalysed on the way home by an officer who also happens to be a Mason.
Morse suspects that a villain called Hugo De Vries is behind the set-up and goes to see Marion Brooke, who worked with Newsome, and was also involved in De Vries' conviction. Brooke describes how large sums of money had been disappearing and reappearing in their charity's account, and, when Lewis takes a look, it transpires that, on the day Newsome was murdered, the money was deposited in Morse's bank account.
Bottomley rules out Newsome's former husbands, and Swedish police records confirm De Vries is dead. When he visits her flat, and Morse's clothes, beer and photo are present, Morse is arrested. While he sits in a police cell, Bottomley and Lewis arrive to search Morse's flat and find music blaring from the sound system. They then discover the body of McNutt in the airing cupboard.
When Bottomley discovers a violent attack committed by Morse in the police computer records, Lewis suspects a computer hacker is behind the set-up. He disproves the record from an archive copy of the Oxford Mail and Morse is released as a result. His ordeal isn't over, however, as he narrowly escapes a fire in his flat that evening and his suspicions are confirmed when Swedish police confirm that De Vries is alive: he has absconded from parole and he recently completed a degree in computer science.
When Morse and Lewis try to follow up the now missing Marion Brooke, high quality wine in her house confirms to Morse that she is De Vries' accomplice. The wine leads Morse to another address where he comes face to face with De Vries. After holding him at gunpoint, De Vries fools Morse once again and escapes in Lewis's car. He reunites with Brooke, but, as police surround them, he shoots himself. Brooke confirms her complicity in De Vries' schemes and their shared desire for revenge against Morse, who had brought him to justice years before.
The character of McNutt is referenced and Marion Brooke appears in episodes of Endeavour.
Morse and Lewis attend a celebratory function for the retiring and recently honoured senior policeman Charlie Hillian OBE, who dies later the same evening after a break-in at his home.
DCI Dawson, an old colleague of Morse, is keen to help with the investigation, and attention turns to the old, unsolved case of a murdered child, Mary Lapsley, when it is discovered that notes from the case were taken from Hillian's home. The notes were for a book Hillian was writing about his old cases with the help of the eccentric Mr Majors, whom Morse visits at his chaotic home. Suspicions, however, are turned not to Majors but to a bookseller called Frederick Redpath, who is spotted in the vicinity and who visited Hillian's house the day he was killed. When Dawson returns to the police station to question Redpath, he immediately recognises him as Briers, the prime suspect in the Mary Lapsley case.
Despite maintaining his innocence in both cases, a stance that Dawson accepts but Morse does not, he attempts to take his own life in custody but survives. Morse takes the opportunity to question Redpath/Briers' daughter about the Lapsley case. She describes how her father was persecuted for five years, losing jobs and receiving nuisance phone calls, and that on the day he lost his fishing knife, which turned out to be the murder weapon, he saw John Mitchell and his son Terrence by the river. As it happens, Terrence is Hillian's gardener, and has already been questioned about the break-in. He and his mother become increasingly evasive as Morse and Lewis continue their enquiries.
The Lapsley case becomes central to the investigation. Dawson draws attention again to typed pages from a diary that were sent five years after the death as an apparent deathbed confession. They had been dismissed as a hoax at the time by Hillian, a view that both Lewis and Morse maintain. Morse is more interested in asking why the identity of Mary's father was not properly investigated by Hillian and Dawson, who was Hillian's sergeant at the time. He visits Mary's grandmother and, after analysing a picture of Mary and her mother, comes across a badge that apparently belonged to Mary's father. Morse, it appears, has one just like it.
Lewis thinks they are close to tracking down the missing John Mitchell, who he suspects was Mary's killer. Mitchell was working as a night cleaner at an office at the time and so had access to the typewriters used for the diary extract, which Lewis suspects was sent to stop the police looking for the killer. Mitchell disappeared soon afterwards, walking out on his family. Morse tells him no[clarification needed] and to take leave instead, a suggestion that Lewis angrily refuses. Morse also suggests Dawson should question Mrs Mitchell about the whereabouts of John, but instead of doing so, he dramatically barges into their home and accuses her of knowing John was Mary's killer, which she confesses. Nonetheless, Morse again visits Redpath, who explains John Mitchell could not have killed Mary, as he was sick in bed, as his daughter was at the time. He then visits Terrence, from whom he extracts a confession. He killed Mary when he was only a child himself, a fact that his father later discovered and hid, sending the diary extracts years later to suggest that the killer was about to die. He also killed Hillian.
Finally, Morse and Lewis arrest Dawson for the murder of John Mitchell, and in the ensuing conversations he confirms Morse's unspoken suspicions: that he was Mary's father and that he had killed John Mitchell when he had confessed to killing her, after Dawson came to the same conclusion as Lewis. What Dawson did not know was that John was only covering for his son. Believing any jail term that he would serve would be insufficient, Dawson beat him to death and buried the body. He was behind the persecution of Redpath and, feeling guilty, wanted the case reopened to clear his name.
When a young woman dies during an exam at an Oxford college, Morse and Lewis are thrust into the midst of an ecclesiastical feud.
The woman, Victoria Hazlett, had been part of a Christian, female collective called Pax that run a house to support vulnerable women and was sitting the exam on her own after having injured her arm falling off her bike.
Another member of the group, Hilary Dobson, claims that the bike was hers and that the brakes had been deliberately cut. Her room at the college was burgled too and she is adamant that the chaplaincy team at St Saviour’s, particularly Geoffrey Boyd, are to blame for the incidents. Dobson explains to Morse that she has applied for the chaplaincy post at the college, an audacious move for a woman and one that is vigorously opposed by traditional churchmen like Boyd. Neither Lewis nor Morse can track him down however.
Meanwhile, the cause of Hazlett’s death is reported to be a chemical reaction that produced a heart attack, from the painkillers she was on, the alcohol in the wine and one other substance that can’t be identified. The pharmaceutical expert drawing this conclusion, Hank Briardale, is also shown advising the owner of a weight-loss programme, Think Thin, although the connection between this and the goings on at the college is initially unclear.
One of the women served by Pax, Dinah Newberry, is terribly upset about Hazlett’s death and runs away from the house. She chaotically confronts various people, one of them a Mrs Gardam, who is keen to get Morse’s attention after several unsuccessful visits to the police station, but Morse shrugs her off.
Morse is much more interested in another member of the Pax group, Emma Pickford, who seems amenable to his romantic advances. As ever, this does not develop as Morse hopes when Lewis discovers she had been less than honest about staying with Hazlett, as she should have done, the night before she died.
With Lewis’ help, Morse eventually realises that Dinah Newberry, unbeknown to Pickford, had visited Hazlett during the night, showing her a dossier of research and diet pills stolen from Think Thin that she believed were dangerous. Newberry had previously been a champion slimmer, as had Mrs Gardam, but been unsuccessful in keeping in shape subsequently.
Her theory was not strictly accurate but tragically the outcome she feared was, as when Hazlett accidentally took the pills instead of the painkillers that night, the chemical mix caused her death the next day. As Morse and Lewis piece this all together, Newberry confronts Think Thin’s owner with a knife but is halted in her attack by Pickford, with whom Morse reconciles with as the episode ends.
The body of a local artist and restorer, Harry Field, is found dumped in woodland and despite his wife’s claim that he had left her a message just the other day, he seems to have died almost a week earlier. Morse and Lewis begin their questioning among Harry’s drink-sodden friends including Tony Doyle, a secondary school art teacher who had apparently been lending Field money.
Several of Field’s paintings seem to depict the same woman who Lewis manages to track down, but despite seeming to be his muse, is little help with the case. Lewis also suspects that Doyle and Field’s wife were having an affair, but Morse dismisses the thought that Doyle is a killer.
After Field’s bike is found at a pub a short distance from a country estate, Morse connects a latin phrase on the back of Field’s final unfinished painting with the historic family who own it. The current owner, Paul Eirl, is in the process of trying to loan some priceless artwork for display in Britain for the first time. An art expert friend of Morse’s reveals that a portrait of Giovanni Bellini by Albrecht Dürer is the real jewel of the collection.
After further conversations with Mrs Field, Morse begins to suspect that forgery, perhaps by Field, has played a part in his death, but then the prime suspect Paul Eirl is also found murdered. A recently burned out hut and a disinfected car in his garage all but confirms his guilt over Field’s murder, but his staff are uncooperative and it cannot be proved.
When Morse’s art expert actually looks through Field’s paintings in his studio, he tells Morse that one is surely not by the same artist as it is vastly superior in quality. Morse shrewdly deduces that the proud Field would only own work by another artist he genuinely loved and therefore go and see Field’s father.
Sure enough, Harry Field Senior reveals that he is the true artist of the family and confesses to forging the Dürer painting in Eirl’s secretive collection. He suggests that Eirl asked his son to restore it, but that Field must have refused on principle and been murdered by him in the ensuing struggle. Continuing the conversation down at the police station, Field Snr further confesses to killing Eirl in retaliation.
But Field’s version of events may not be the whole story, as before the episode ends, Field’s muse turns up again to tell Morse that she had been to see Eirl, on the pretence that he wanted to buy some of Field’s work, but instead paid her to sleep with him. She implies that Harry had ridden to see Eirl in a jealous rage the night he died and so the exact circumstances behind Field’s death are left ambiguous.
19
4
"Greeks Bearing Gifts"
Adrian Shergold
Peter Nichols
20 March 1991 (1991-03-20)
Morse and Lewis investigate the murder of a Greek chef from a local restaurant with not much to go on apart from a few photographs. One shows a family with a baby and another an impressive Greek ship.
Coincidentally, Morse meets an expert of ancient Greek naval architecture, Randall Rees, soon after at a university function hosted by an old friend. Rees tells of a TV programme that he had recently done, which Lewis happens to have taped, about a reconstruction of an ancient Trireme. His wife, Friday, whom Morse also meets, is a famous TV personality.
The Trireme project has direct connections to the murder as the restaurant’s owner, Basilios Vasilakis, is trying to prevent it being brought to Britain. The man behind that scheme, Morse discovers, is Digby Tuckerman, who Nicos worked for previously and seems to have emerged unscathed from a series of failed business ventures. His alibi for the evening in question seems flimsy.
Meanwhile, the couple with whom Nicos lodged, Mr and Mrs Papas, are unhelpful, even despite the efforts of a translator. Their son, Dino, seems equally evasive, giving the impression they have something to hide. Nicos’ sister, Maria Capparis, arrives from Greece for the funeral but despite caring for a newborn goes missing after giving the translator the slip when out shopping. As a result of her disappearance Dino reluctantly reveals that her baby was fathered by someone who lived in England who was already married, a secret Nicos was aware of before his untimely death.
Studying the TV programme further, Morse realises that Rees, Vasilakis and Tuckerman were all in Greece together at the same time, frequenting Nicos’ restaurant and undoubtedly therefore met Maria too. Any one of them could have fathered her child and/or have reasons to want Nicos dead.
The case takes a twist when the baby is snatched from the care of Mr and Mrs Papas and soon after Maria is found dead in the river, seemingly killed in a similar manner to her brother. Morse puts pressure on Tuckerman who reacts angrily and storms off to confront Vasilakis who cooly disarms him and has him arrested.
Reflecting on the TV programme once more, Morse finally connects the seemingly perfect but childless marriage of Randall and Friday Rees with the missing baby and turns up unannounced at their house. Sure enough, Friday is holding the baby and confirms Morse’s latest theory by explaining that Randall fathered the child with Maria and that he killed both her and Nicos. But in a dramatic finale, Randall, Lewis and the translator all turn up and correct the story, revealing that it was Friday who committed the murders and took the baby, fuelled by her jealousy and desperation of not having a child of her own. As everyone closes in Friday panics and accidentally falls over the bannister to her death while Lewis catches the baby from her arms.
As the episode concludes, Morse gloomily reflects by quoting Virgil, the baby presumably the Greek ‘gift’ that innocently brought tragedy to everyone involved.[nb 1]
20
5
"Promised Land"
John Madden
Julian Mitchell
27 March 1991 (1991-03-27)
Morse and Lewis take a trip to Australia to follow up a supergrass after a man he helped convict, Peter Matthews, dies in prison and a public inquiry is launched. Morse believes the witness, Kenny Stone, held something back from his confession and needs to firm up the evidence to stop members of an Oxford gang being released.
When they reach New South Wales however Stone, now named Mike Harding, is missing. His mother-in-law’s room at her care home has been ransacked and Lewis soon realises the Oxford mobsters are after Harding too, locating his whereabouts through her subscription to a local Oxford newspaper.
While initially trying to hide their true identities from the local police, Morse and Lewis make little progress in tracking him down. They are pretty sure Harding’s wife, Anne, is lying to cover for her husband but it’s not until her daughter, Karen, is kidnapped and her mother dies from the shock of the earlier attack that she goes to the police herself. Morse and Lewis explain who they are and are cast to one side as a result.
However Harding’s son, who Morse had visited previously, comes back to him with an idea of where he might be. They trace him down to a caravan, but when they arrive Harding is already dead. Anne then admits that the evidence Harding originally gave was false and that Peter Matthews was innocent after all. Harding killed himself perhaps because he thought he would be found out, or maybe because of his knowledge of the affair Anne was having with the local policeman, Scott Humphries.
Karen’s kidnapper makes contact again, demanding to see Harding. Morse tells him he will bring him and sets up a meeting. Morse, weighed by the guilt of helping to convict an innocent man and the two deaths that have followed, attends the meeting unarmed, attempting to save Karen by sacrificing himself and perhaps making amends.
By this time they have worked out that the kidnapper is Peter’s younger brother, Paul, and despite Morse’s attempts to reason with him he ends up shooting Humphries and is then killed by a marksman himself. As the episode winds down, Anne agrees to return to England to set the record straight and a dispirited Morse then traipses up the steps of the Sydney opera house.
The bank robbery referred to in this episode is depicted in the Endeavour episode, ‘Coda’.
Morse comes face to face with Susan Fallon, a woman to whom he was once engaged when her husband is found shot dead at his home.
The dead man, Henry Fallon, suffered from a degenerative illness and the assumption, confirmed at the inquest, is that he committed suicide. It is only when his doctor, John Marriat, returns from holiday to inform Morse that he would have been incapable of pulling the trigger given his condition that suspicions turn to Fallon’s son-in-law, Peter Rhodes.
Rhodes claims to have arrived at the house at 6pm and found Fallon's body, immediately alerting the police, but this was only minutes after Fallon’s nurse had left after having waved goodbye to Fallon through the window. He also claims that Fallon had called him at 3pm the same day to arrange the meeting but according to the nurse the phoneline had been out all day and only reconnected just after 5pm. Since his story doesn’t stack up, Morse charges Rhodes with murder.
Morse however cannot navigate the case objectively as he attempts to rekindle a relationship with Susan Fallon, who is tentative but amenable and encouraged into it by her brother, William Bryce-Morgan.
Meanwhile the doctor’s wife, Helen Marriat, reaches out to Morse and tries to persuade him of Rhodes’ innocence but offers no evidence. As Rhodes, in custody, continues to protest Lewis begins to believe him. The detectives realise that someone could have slipped out of the house before Rhodes found the body.
Morse turns his attention to the deaths of Rhodes’ wife and child, the Fallons’ daughter and grandson, some years before. Injuries to Helen Marriat’s hand lead Morse to suspect she was involved somehow and after he provokes her about her guilt, she confesses that this is indeed the case. She had been having an affair with Rhodes and taunted Henrietta about it, causing her to catch them together, which led to the accident in which she and her son died, after Rhodes grabbed the wheel when Henrietta was driving them home.
Since John Marriat knew of this Morse suspects he told Henry Fallon who then planned to use his suicide as a way of setting up Rhodes and getting revenge on him for their deaths. Morse still can’t see it straight though and jumps to the conclusion that Marriat, an advocate of euthanasia, assisted Fallon in killing himself, firing the fatal shot with his consent. After getting permission from Strange to investigate the possibility Susan was involved, which has not occurred to Morse, Lewis has a more plausible theory. Having visited the Fallons’ London flat where Susan supposedly was at the time of his death, he takes possession of an answerphone message of Henry pretending to speak to Susan, a call that she had previously claimed to have received in order to give her an alibi.
Her involvement is confirmed by her tragic decision to take her own life. Marriat, despite being a euthanasia advocate, tries to persuade her not to but she insists that she must keep her promise to her husband, essentially a suicide pact, and stop Morse finding the truth. Morse is heartbroken over Susan once again and remains convinced Marriat was involved but is unable to get a confession from him. Out of kindness to him Lewis throws away the answerphone tape that incriminates her, allowing Morse to continue to believe she had nothing to do with her husband’s death.
Morse and Lewis investigate one of the country’s richest and most powerful families after a leading industrialist is discovered murdered in his palatial home.
The deceased is Sir John Balcombe and neither his wife, Lady Emily, nor his sons, Harry and James, seem particularly devastated by his death. As the sons bicker in an infantile manner and Lady Emily breezes about aloofly, the murder weapon, a stone mason’s hammer, is found. The only other clue is a pen, originating from Montreal, that was in Sir John’s hand.
Back at the station Morse has to answer to Superintendent Holdsby, covering for Strange who is on leave. Very keen to enhance his reputation, Holdsby courts the press and it isn’t long before one tabloid makes Morse the story, much to his annoyance.
Morse and Lewis speak to those connected to the family including two friends of Lady Emily. Margaret Cliff stays on the estate a few weeks a year and has care of a troubled teenager called Jessica. Alfred Rydale is Lady Emily’s personal lawyer and initially misleads them into thinking the Balcombes were planning to take their company public, which set the brothers at odds with each other.
Morse’s Oxford connections and Lewis’ diligent police work establish a slightly different story which involves underhand dealings by James that have led to his removal from his role in the company. When Harry is found dead soon after, suspicions for both murders fall on James. However, when Morse surprises him with the detail of the initials ‘SF’ on a knife that was stuck into Harry, he becomes extremely agitated and Morse begins to suspect there might be another story that has yet to be revealed.
James is then killed too and despite Morse making some progress by finding a body buried in the same location Holdsby loses his nerve and takes him off the case.
An aggrieved Morse then attends the police fete and casually picks up a book which happens to be written by Margaret Cliff. When he reads that she studied for her doctorate in Montreal he suddenly realises her connection to the killings. The buried man was her brother, Stephen Ford, who had gone missing twenty years ago when working for the Balcombes. She had discovered, from Lady Emily, that he had been her lover and that the Balcombe men had killed him as a result. Margaret therefore enacted revenge by killing the three of them in turn.
She had needed Lady Emily’s help, however, and so lied to make her believe that Jessica was her daughter, by Stephen, who had in fact died in infancy - a reality Lady Emily never fully accepted. This deception has tragic consequences however, as Lady Emily can’t keep this secret from Jessica. When she reveals it to her, Jessica immediately stabs her to death, completing the demise of the entire Balcombe family.
Morse and Lewis investigate the apparently accidental death of a wealthy tourist in Italy and uncover an antiquities' smuggling racket. Author May Lawrence was found dead after her neck was impaled on a spike. The Italian police considered it an accident but at an inquest her husband Kenneth spoke of threats. Since he has returned to Italy, Morse and Lewis are sent after him. May was attending a self-improvement course run by Russell Clark, who Morse once had jailed for fraud and who Morse blames for the suicide of a witness against him. Lewis discovers the local police chief, Battisti, already has Lawrence under surveillance. Morse befriends Nicole Burgess, an opera singer who had a breakdown and was one of Clark's clients, and learns from her that May was having an affair with another member of the course. Lewis works out it was Andreas Heller, who disappeared in the aftermath. The Italian police track down Heller, whose real name was Louis Picard, but he has an alibi for May's death. Lewis learns two of the other attendees, Alistair and Judith Haines, already knew May: She wrote an unflattering caricature of them in one of her books. Clark goads Judith into committing suicide to end Morse's investigation. Alistair signed up to the course to try and shame May; both he and Judith believed the other had killed May but her death was an accident. Lewis learns someone removed evidence that Nicole burnt a scroll made by her estranged husband, Guido Ventura. Morse is knocked out after finding a scroll at the couple's house. Battisti fills Morse in on his investigation: Clark, Lawrence and Ventura sold a genuine Renaissance manuscript to a buyer in the UK and are now trying to sell him a forged one. Morse works out that the manuscript is hidden inside a mirror that another attendee, Patti Wilcox, bought from Lawrence, which Clark's girlfriend Maureen was meant to retrieve when they both went to the USA. The three men are arrested; Lawrence had wrongly believed that May was killed as a threat against him. Morse and Lewis attend Nicole's successful comeback appearance.
Lawrence Cryer, convicted of real estate fraud, is found dead in a cell at a minimum security prison, Farnleigh. Morse, Lewis and D.S. Cheetham question various inmates, including Cryer's former partners, Bailey and Thornton, who are also incarcerated at Farnleigh and various victims of the fraud. The Farnleigh governor, Hillary Stevens, is also questioned. An inmate, Charlie Bennett, incarcerated for murdering his wife, is suspected of being the perpetrator.
Teen suicides, one of which is Morse's niece, are being linked to the local rave scene. As part of his preparation for the inspector exam, Lewis is temporarily assigned to another inspector who works strictly by the book.
Matthew Brewster, owner of a private clinic, is found dead in his garage with the car engine running. The pathologist discovers that he was murdered. Morse and Lewis question the dead man's wife and son. They uncover that Michael Steppings threatened the victim; Steppings' daughter was declared brain dead after undergoing simple surgery at the clinic. Steppings is interrogated for the murder and is released when Morse substantiates his alibi. Meanwhile, Lewis discovers that Wendy Hazlitt, a nurse at the clinic, had an affair with Matthew Brewster. He also uncovers a set of anonymous threatening letters, using words clipped from newspapers and magazines, which have been sent to the victim. Forensic examinations reveal that one of the letters has been tampered with, and that an extra death threat has been added, using different glue. Morse's investigation leads to the victim's son, and his belief that the son was blackmailing the victim. Morse accompanies Steppings to visit his comatose daughter in hospital, where she is on life support. Morse begins to like Steppings on learning from observation and staff that Steppings devotedly visits her daily, while Steppings is moved when Morse brings her flowers; however, Lewis discovers that Steppings' accusations of medical incompetence against the Brewsters were correct: Mrs Brewster's developing illness made her take time off to rest or visit hospital, and the Brewsters let the not fully qualified Hazlitt act as anaesthetist. Hazlitt was acting in place of Mrs Brewster, who was in hospital on the day of Steppings' daughter's operation. Hazlitt administered the incorrect anaesthetic dose, leading to the daughter's brain damage; however, Dr Brewster spurned Hazlitt's advances, and so Hazlitt decided on revenge: she contrived contact with Steppings and confessed how his daughter's operation was mishandled, hence the earlier unexplained break-in at the clinic, which was Steppings checking the files to verify the dates of Dr Brewster's absences against ops. Hazlitt and Steppings drew up a plan to murder Dr (Mr) Brewster, which involved blackmailing the son, requiring Steppings to forge threatening letters and the son to reveal them to Morse. Meanwhile, Dr (Mrs) Brewster dies after suffering trauma from being told her son has confessed to the murder and been arrested. After Morse realises and proves the son is lying to cover up for the murderer, the son then murders Steppings before Steppings can flee the country. Steppings writes to Morse, confessing, and saying his ex-wife will look after their daughter, which she does by having the life support switched off.
John Peter Barrie, a convicted rapist and devil worshipper, escapes from a prison infirmary by eluding the authorities with several disguises. Morse and Lewis begin a manhunt in an attempt to track him down. They question his prison therapist, Dr Esther Martin, and Humphrey Appleton, a priest and an expert in the occult, who provides them with information on Barrie's state of mind. Meanwhile, Barrie abducts Holly Trevors, wife of Steven Trevors, an odd-job man working for Oxford college, but releases her. Barrie then demands to meet with Dr Martin on Lammas day, a pagan day of ritual fire. Lewis visits an Occult bookshop, where he finds that one of their regular customers is a colleague of Steven Trevors. Morse begins to suspect that someone is helping Barrie, after witness statements reveal that his disguises involve professional theatrical make-up. Meanwhile, Steven Trevors's fingerprints are discovered, previously unidentified, on the police database from an earlier unsolved crime, which is linked to Barrie. On Lammas Day, a group of devil-worshippers are celebrating a Black Mass, when they are suddenly surrounded by a ring of fire, and Steven Trevors is burned alive. The mystery deepens when Barrie's much earlier connection to his prison therapist is revealed.
Neville Grimshaw, an investigative journalist, is found shot dead. Opera diva Gwladys Probert is shot by a sniper during an academic procession, which is witnessed by Morse and Lewis. Morse and Lewis discover that Grimshaw was investigating Andrew Baydon, a prospective major benefactor of the college. An investigation finds that the two shootings are related. Baydon, a survivor of a Nazi concentration camp, is revealed as a collaborator and guard, and Morse suspects that he ordered the killing of Grimshaw, which leads him to realise that Victor Ignotas, a survivor of the same camp, may have unintentionally shot Probert whilst attempting to kill Baydon.
Stephen Parnell, who confessed to murdering five people was due to stand trial, is killed in prison, but, in his dying declaration, he claims that he did not kill the last victim, Karen Anderson. Morse learns that the murders were first investigated by DCI Martin Johnson and Lewis the previous summer, but that Karen Anderson's body has never been found. Morse becomes convinced that Johnson overlooked key evidence, and that Karen Anderson's body has been buried in Wytham Woods, and not in Blenheim Lake, as Parnell had stated in his confession. Morse questions George Daley, a witness who found Anderson's overnight bag a week after she disappeared, and turned it over to the police. A confrontation breaks out between CS Strange, Morse and Johnson about the disappearance of Karen Anderson and the fatal stabbing of Stephen Parnell in prison. The next day, Daley is found shot to death in one of the gardens at Blenheim Palace, and Morse is put in charge, because Strange feels as though Johnson may have cut corners in the investigation. Morse and Lewis then interview Dr Alan Hardinge, the bursar of Lonsdale College; Dave Michaels, the groundskeeper of Wytham Woods; and Margaret and Philip Daley, the wife and son of George Daley. When they question Mrs Daley and her son, they touch upon some photos found on Karen Anderson's camera. Lewis identifies the location in one of the photos as Park Town, which leads them to Alisdair McBryde, a local resident. McBryde identifies Dr James Myton, a South African doctor, who seems to have fled the country mid-way through his rental of a local flat and appears in two of the photos. Morse and Lewis discover that McBryde and Myton had encouraged Karen Anderson to pose for nude photographs for them on the day before she went missing. A search of Myton's flat leads Morse to convince Strange to let him search Wytham Woods. When the search turns up some skeletal remains, Morse is convinced that Karen Anderson has been found.
Dr Felix McClure, a retired university don, is found stabbed to death in his apartment. The phone number of "K" is found in McClure's notes. Morse and Lewis begin investigating McClure's college associates and students. These include Ted Brooks, his former scout, who was sacked by McClure for apparent drug dealing; Matthew Rodway, a student who died in questionable circumstances; and Ashley Davies, another student and friend of Rodway, who trains racehorses at Seven Barrows near Lambourn, and was rusticated by McClure. They discover that Ted Brooks has physically and emotionally abused his wife, Brenda, for years. Brenda's daughter, Kay, who is a high-class escort and is engaged to Ashley, had also been abused by her stepfather, Ted, when she lived at home. Morse interviews Kay about her relationship with Felix and Ted. Morse also questions Julia Stevens, a school teacher and very close friend of Brenda, who is dying of a brain tumour. Morse suspects Ted Brooks killed McClure, because McClure had discovered Ted was selling drugs to the students again. Ted disappears from his house, and his body is found in a nearby river. Brenda Brooks confesses to destroying evidence that incriminates her husband in the death of McClure. Morse and Lewis disagree on whether to search for a possible accomplice, who they suspect must have helped Brenda dispose of the evidence. Morse is convinced that Kay, Julia and Brenda were involved in Ted's disappearance and murder; there's just one hitch – no evidence to prove his theory.
Rachel James, a physiotherapist, is shot through a window of her own home while drawing the blinds one Friday morning. Meanwhile, Dr Julian Storrs and Denis Cornford are two candidates locked in an intense rivalry for Master of Lonsdale College, to replace Sir Clixby Bream who is about to retire. Morse and Lewis begin the investigation by interviewing her neighbours and the clinic where she worked. Morse soon establishes that Julian Storrs gave Rachel a Valentine's card found in her possession, and was having an affair with her at the time of her death. Morse also learns from Storrs that Denis Cornford and Adele Cecil, a neighbour of Rachel, were once lovers. Julian and Angela Storrs travel to Bath for an overnight stay at the hotel. The following morning, Geoffrey Owens, Rachel's neighbour, is found shot dead in his house in similar circumstances. Because there is no Number 13, Morse concludes that Rachel James is mistakenly killed and Geoffrey Owens had been the intended victim. Morse also uncovers that Owens supplemented his reporter's income by blackmailing unknown victims. Among Owens' papers, Morse finds a slip of paper in a file with an article he had written about the retirement of Bream. Morse's trawl through the archives leads him onto a case where housewife Alice Martin and her daughter Debra shot Alice's husband Kenneth, a wealthy businessman, and then burned him on his yacht, because he was going to run off with a younger woman. Lewis had to leave work in the middle of an investigation to find out his son's disruptive behaviour with his classmates at school. Morse finds out that Alice and Debra changed their names to Angela and Diane Cullingham, to avoid the stain of their past following them – and that Angela Cullingham has since become Angela Storrs. Morse and Lewis meet Sir Clixby Bream to talk about the upcoming banquet at Lonsdale College. Following the death of Denis Cornford's wife Shelly after an angry altercation, Denis Cornford became the first candidate to withdraw from the role of Master of Lonsdale College. The same night, Morse meets his long-suffering girlfriend Adele Cecil to discuss the previous day's events about the deaths of Rachel James, Geoffrey Owens and Shelly Cornford. The next day while Julian and Angela are having breakfast at the hotel, Morse and Lewis travel to Bath to interview the hotel staff and later they meet Julian and Angela Storrs to talk about the couple's stay at the hotel. A small confrontation breaks out between the Storrs couple, Angela Storrs is arrested by Lewis for the murders of Rachel James and Geoffrey Owens. Back at Lonsdale College, Morse and Lewis had informed to Sir Clixby Bream that both candidates Denis Cornford and Julian Storrs had withdrawn their roles as Master of Lonsdale College as Sir Clixby Bream soldiers on unless he steps down from his position for good. Morse and Lewis meet Adele Cecil at the pub for the first time and they discussed the anagram 'AROUND EVE' and the answer is 'ENDEAVOUR'. In the end, Morse and Adele Cecil arrive at Bath for an overnight stay at the hotel.
Note: This episode features guest actor from Inspector Morse spin-offs. Roger Allam of Endeavour as Denis Cornford.
Morse and Strange attend an exhibit entitled "Criminal Oxford". During a lecture by Dr Millicent Van Buren, a visiting professor from Boston University, Morse starts to feel ill, and is later found by Strange collapsed on the lavatory floor. While hospitalised, Morse is diagnosed with a bleeding ulcer, which his doctor ascribes to his excessive consumption of alcohol. To pass the time in his recovery, he reads Van Buren's book on Victorian investigation techniques, which details the 1859 murder of Joanna Franks, whose body was found floating in the Oxford Canal. Rory Oldfield and Alfred Musson, two boatmen on a fly-boat on which Joanna was travelling, were convicted of the murder and hanged. Another, Walter Towns, received a last-minute commutation to transportation for life. However, Morse comes to believe that the men did not kill Joanna, and were victims of a miscarriage of justice. While Lewis is away on an inspector's course and with the assistance of Adele Cecil and Constable Adrian Kershaw who is on temporary secondment, Morse uncovers several inconsistencies in the trial. For instance, Joanna had accused the boatmen of being rude and drunk, but was later seen drinking and smiling with them. A fourth boatman on the fly-boat, a teenager who was not charged, testified for the prosecution. Consulting Dr Hobson, Morse discovers that Joanna's shoes were not appropriate for walking outdoors and would not have fit a woman of the height indicated by the length of her dress, which had been altered, and the coroner's report. Her drawers, which had been described as torn or ripped, were actually cut with a knife deliberately. Kershaw investigates the insurance payment to Joanna's husband Charles Franks and discovers that she had insured herself, and that payment of £300 was made in full to Charles. Morse figures that Donald "Don" Favant, a passer-by when the body was found, and Charles Franks, are aliases derived from Frank Donavan, Joanna's first husband who was a magician and was believed to have died. Don Favant is an anagram of F. T. Donavan. Although Morse is unable to exhume Joanna's body, he travels to Bertraghboy Bay, on the west coast of Ireland, to open the grave of Frank Donavan. When the coffin is opened, there are no human remains. In the end after a final check-up with the doctor, Morse is finally discharged from an outpatients surgery.
Notes: Colin Dexter, the author of the Inspector Morse novels, wrote this story based on the actual true crime case surrounding the death of Christina Collins which occurred in June 1839.[2] This is the only episode not to feature Kevin Whately as DS Robbie Lewis.
Yvonne Harrison is murdered in her bed and found by her husband, Frank, her body having been left in a sexually compromising position. Morse, after no progress, is taken off the case after two months, and it remains unsolved. A year later, an anonymous letter sent to the police suggests Harry Repp, who is to be released from prison, may be the perpetrator. Back from sick leave, Morse's failing health has Lewis assuming a more active role. While Morse has a doctor's appointment with Sandra, Lewis meets Debbie Repp to talk about her husband's release from prison. Paddy Flynn, the cab driver who drove Frank Harrison to his home on the night of the murder, is found dead in a local rubbish dump. Harry Repp is also found dead, in the boot of a stolen car. A local lothario, John Barron, is killed in a fall from a ladder. It is speculated that the three men had been blackmailing whoever killed Yvonne, and that Barron killed the other two so that he could keep the blackmail money for himself. Yvonne's son, Simon, is questioned in Barron's death, but then a teenage boy admits to having caused Barron to fall off the ladder by crashing into it with his bicycle. The police deduce that the Harrison family conspired after Yvonne's murder to stop the blackmailing. The teenage boy is actually Frank's illegitimate son, Roy, who lied to the police in order to get Simon off the hook for killing Barron. Morse, Lewis and their three widows attend a series of funerals. Yvonne's daughter, Sandra Harrison, a doctor who had seen Morse a few days earlier, had killed her mother in a jealous rage over John Barron, who'd seen her arrive last at Yvonne's home. Just after uncovering the truth, Morse collapses from a heart attack at Exeter College and later dies in hospital.[4] Lewis gets a phone call at the airport in Heathrow, where he has gone to intercept Sandra, who is attempting to flee to Canada. Then, as Lewis takes Sandra into custody near Heathrow Airport, she tries to explain her motivations, but he rebuffs her; she tells him Morse will understand, and he shouts, "Inspector Morse is dead!". Wagner's Parsifal accompanies the final scene and in the end after CS Strange had retired, Lewis bade an emotional farewell to Morse as he is resting with his eyes closed on the mortuary bench and left for the final time. The episode ends with a foggy scene around Oxford.
^ This episode caused a question to be raised in Parliament by Lord Jenkins of Putney regarding the legality of employing a baby, and how it was induced to cry at the right moment.[1]
