Muse

Muse is episode one of season five of Endeavour.

Synopsis[]

April 1968. Ex-boxer Joey Sikes is killed on the night of a failed theft of the last Fabergé egg from the Oxford college where it is to be auctioned. Next day lecturer Robin Grey is also murdered and the link is prostitute and artists' model Eve Thorne, who was seen with both men. When the egg is stolen, suspicion falls on another of Eve's clients, latest victim Simon Lake. Morse, now a detective sergeant, discovers that Lake and Grey belonged to an elite club and were involved in a scam regarding the egg. In establishing whether the murders were linked to the club or the egg Morse must cope with a lazy new constable and the reappearance of Joan Thursday. As the episode closes, radio news announces the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King Jr. in the US.

Plot[]

Two Oxford dons spot an apparent robber on the roof of their college, soon after the Faberge egg, a long-lost Russian artefact, has been unveiled there. Meanwhile, in Cowley Police Station, Chief Superintendent Bright announces the creation of the Thames Valley Constabulary, while Morse works on a handbag snatch case.

In the morning, Morse and Strange, who are now flatmates, receive a phone call and go to the scene of a crime on Holywell Lane. The murdered man, Joey Sikes, is found by his car. He has been shot three times and had a metal spike driven into his ear. Lipsticked cigarettes point to there having been a woman in the car.

Morse goes to Lonsdale College to help Trewlove deal with what seems to be an attempted burglary, possibly related to the Faberge egg which is being kept in the college, waiting to be auctioned. Trewlove finds a rose on the roof, which is apparently the calling card of an international art thief known as the Shadow. However, Morse is sceptical of this.

Back in the police station, Morse meets the new Detective Constable, George Fancy. Strange tells Morse and Thursday that a woman in a white raincoat was seen on Holywell Lane last night. Thursday instructs Morse to bring Fancy with him to Joey Sikes' house, where Morse finds a magazine with filled with stripper adverts. Dr Robin Grey has the same magazine, and leaves a message for a woman to meet him at eight o'clock.

Back at the station, Morse tells Fancy to book in all of Joey Sikes' possessions. Strange tells Morse that Sikes' car was registered to Magdalen Cabs, which is a front for Eddie Nero's business. Morse and Thursday go to Nero's boxing club, and tell him that Sikes is dead. Nero tells him that he had nothing to do with Sikes' death.

Morse goes to the chemist's to try and match the lipstick on the cigarettes. While there, he meets Joan Thursday. Joan tells him that she is back in Oxford, but not living with her parents anymore. Morse asks about her fall last year, and Joan tells him that she just slipped.

Spencer Bell, a student, sees Dr Robin Grey with a young woman. In the morning, he reports Dr Grey as being dead. When Morse and Thursday attend, they find the body with a stab wound to each eye, the knife still in the left eye socket. Spencer Bell tells Morse that he found the body in the morning when he went for a tutorial. He also says that he thinks the woman that Grey was with was the model for his life art class.

Some of the dons tell Morse and Thursday that the current owner of the Faberge egg, Simon Lake, was a great friend of Dr Grey. Dr Adrian Croxley tells Morse that Grey's wife, Lucy, was admired by most of the dons in the college. Morse finds a coaster in Grey's room with a phone number and the name 'Delilah' written on it.

Morse meets Simon Lake at the airfield. He tries to find out who the owner of the Faberge egg is, as Lake is the estate manager, but Lake refuses due to the owner's privacy. Morse instead goes to Gerard Pickman's house, as he is the teacher in Spencer Bell's art class. However, Pickman is not home, and his wife tells Morse that he is likely out gambling. Pickman returns, and shows Morse around his studio. Morse finds a gun in Pickman's studio. Pickman gives the name of his life model as Eve Thorne, and says that she left his house at around midnight on the night of Sikes' death.

In the pub at lunch, Morse informs Thursday about Eve Thorne and the coaster with 'Delilah' written on it. They discuss Joan, and Thursday tells Morse that he has not seen Joan since she returned to Oxford. Fancy briefly joins them. Afterwards, Morse and Thursday go to see Mrs Grey, and tell her that Dr Grey had sex before he died. Thursday suggests that there is no connection between Sikes and Grey, but Morse says that the similarities between the murders must be more than a coincidence.

Morse goes to the strip club at which Delilah is performing. He goes to the show, and talks to Delilah, whose real name is Paula Ellis. She tells Morse that the faces change, but the names stay the name, therefore the Delilah on the coaster must be a different woman. She tells Morse that her agent is Lefty Townsend, who Thursday takes him to see. Townsend gives them the address for a red-haired woman who looks like the model in the painting in Pickman's studio. They go to her house, and find that she is indeed Eve Thorne, a.k.a. Delilah.

They take Eve Thorne to the station, and she tells them that she went to the party on Holywell Lane the night of Sikes' death, and got a ride in Sikes' taxi, though she did not know his name. She also admits that she went out with Dr Grey on Monday night, but left his room at nine.

On the day of the auction, Simon Lake has not shown up with the Faberge egg. The Master tells Trewlove and Fancy that he lives on Holywell Lane, and Morse and Thursday go to find him. They find his decapitated body with the head on the dining table. Dr DeBryn arrives and gives his time of death as three-four hours ago. Fancy asks the neighbours if they heard anything, and learns that there was a shot heard around quarter to four, as well as a woman in a white raincoat leaving the house. They wonder what the connection between the three victims can be, except for the particularly gruesome nature of the murders. They also find a rose in the safe where the Faberge egg was supposed to be, and a menu in the wardrobe.

Morse and Thursday go back to the station, where Eve Thorne admits that she was in Simon Lake's house, and that is who she was with at the party on Sunday. After Thursday leaves, she attempts to seduce Morse, claiming that he has not been able to take his eyes off her. Thursday has to release her due to insufficient evidence, but wants her put under constant observation.

Morse takes Eve Thorne back to her flat. She tells him that Pickman knew Simon Lake. He meets Fancy outside, and asks him to take Eve's coat to the evidence room, and chastises him for forgetting to book in Sikes' possessions. Morse and Thursday go to the telephone exchange, and learn that the messages for Eve Thorne were picked up by Ruth Astor.

In the morning, Morse has the idea about Simon Lake, and goes to his airplane. In it, he finds a black balaclava, and suggests to Thursday and Fancy that Lake was the burglar on the roof of Lonsdale College, possibly to try and drive the price of the egg up. Strange tells him that the gas and electric at Lake's flat were paid for by Tancred Howlett, who Fancy tells them lives on the same stair as Dr Grey did.

Dr Howlett admits that he knew Simon Lake, and that they were old friends from their Oxford days, until Lake got sent down. Thursday shows him the menu that they found, and Dr Howlett says it was from Dr Grey's stag night, with the members of a club called the Beserkers. Meanwhile, Morse accuses Pickman of being at Lake's flat the day he died. Mrs Pickman tells Morse that Pickman was part of a con, wherein Lake would give the Faberge egg to Pickman and claim it had been stolen, as part of an insurance fraud. Pickman had already drafted the 'designs' for the egg, which Grey had signed off on to create false provenance - without this provenance, the egg would have been worthless. Lake had secretly had the egg since his National Service days. When Pickman found Lake's body, the egg had already been stolen.

Morse and Thursday go to see Dr Croxley, who admits to being a member of the Beserkers, and was at Grey's stag night. The Beserkers also included Dr Howlett and Simon Lake. Morse discovers that the stag night was held at the Shiplake Chase hotel; SC was engraved on some of Sikes' barbells, the knife that killed Dr Grey, and some silverware belonging to Lake. After Morse and Thursday leave, Croxley calls the telephone exchange and asks for Eve Thorne.

Morse and Thursday go to the Shiplake Chase hotel, where the manager agrees that the Beserkers were at the hotel, and that they were not a respectable dining club, but a crazy bunch of drunken dons. At the station, they ask Fancy if he the telephone exchange had given him the list of her messages, and he says that her bills go to 24 Tobacco Yard - the registered address of Magdalen Cabs, Eddie Nero's business. Thursday and Morse go to Nero and accuse him of running the prostitution business, which is why Sikes was the one to give Eve Thorne a lift.

Thursday meets Joan outside her flat, and they have a minor argument, where Joan accuses Thursday of being too overprotective. Meanwhile, Morse goes to Eve Thorne's flat to relieve Trewlove of observation duties. Eve comes outside and asks him in.

Eve enquires as to Morse's sexual life, and offers to sleep with him. She tells him about a girl she knew who got in with the wrong crowd after becoming a dancer, and ended up getting roughed up by a gang of men. Morse looks through one of her books, to do with Christian art. In it are several paintings depicting particular gruesome murders of men at the hands of women; among them: a man getting a spike driven into his ear; a man getting his eyes gouged out; and a man getting his throat cut. The inscription in the book reads 'Eve Throne R.A., XX Weibermacht' - 'Weibermacht' meaning 'the power of women', which is an artistic theme. Eve denies the connection between the paintings and the killings. When Morse says she is a common prostitute, she accuses him of planting evidence and getting confessions the hard way, as all coppers do, which Morse vehemently denies, and tells her to go to bed. She throws her drink at him.

In the station, Thursday looks at the list of Nero's agency staff. Among the names is Ruth Astor, who also works at the telephone exchange. In Eve's flat, Morse finds a note saying 'A.C. 0000'. Thursday comes to the flat at Morse's request, and Morse tells him that he thinks Eve was the entertainment at Grey's stag night, and Thursday says that Ruth Astor also worked at the agency with Eve. They head off for Dr Croxley's house.

Croxley, after getting dressed up and putting on makeup, answers the door to Ruth Astor, who says that Eve could not come. Meanwhile, Morse suggests that both Ruth and Eve were the entertainment at the stag night, and that Sikes was their driver. At the stag night, the Beserkers likely gang-raped Ruth, after which Nero gave her the job at the telephone exchange by way of a payoff. Ruth hits Croxley on the head and tells him that she murdered Sikes, Grey, and Lake. Afterwards, Eve comes to Croxley's house and finds that Ruth has slit her wrists, having finished her revenge spree. Morse and Thursday arrive and find that Croxley is dead, with Ruth almost dead herself.

They take Eve Thorne in, although Bright says that it is unlikely they can charge her with anything. After looking through some of Eve's possessions, they find the Faberge egg in an Easter egg sent to Eve by Ruth, after she stole it from Lake's flat. They return it to Lonsdale College. As they leave the college, an announcement plays on the radio, asking for information on a young white man who shot Dr Martin Luther King Jnr. in America that evening.

Cast[]

Main Cast[]

Recurring Cast[]

Abigail Thaw - Dorothea Frazil
Sara Vickers - Joan Thursday
Caroline O'Neill - Win Thursday
Mark Arden - Eddie Nero

Guest Cast[]

Tom Durant Pritchard - Simon Lake
Tom Wisdom - Gerard Pickman
Nathalie Buscombe - Cassie Pickman
Robin McCallum - Master
Victor Gardener - Joey Sikes
Charlotte Hope - Eve Thorne
Roger Barclay - Dr Robin Grey
Rhys Isaac-Jones - Spencer Bell
Antonia Clarke - Ruth Astor
Tanya Fear - Jasmine Grenouille
Emily Barber - Lucy Grey
David Newman - Dr Adrian Croxley
Samuel Crane - Dr Tancred Howlett
Cassie Clare - Paula Ellis
Geoffrey McGivern - Lefty Townsend
Hazel Ellerby - Mrs Grenville
Harry Gostelow - Ron Piven

Trivia[]

'Sit Pax in Valle Tamesis' is indeed the motto of the Thames Valley constabulary, at least according to the Inspector Morse book 'The Dead of Jericho'.
A previous Endeavour episode, 'Arcadia' is referenced when we are told that Gerard Pickman recently designed the label for Richardson's Own Brand Vegetables, and again with a bunch of flowers at Eve Thorne's flat bought from Richardson's.
Another previous episode, 'Game', is referenced when we are told that Gerard Pickman is designing the cover for the latest Kent Finn paperback.
Gerard and Cassie Pickman's son Alec is a reference to Alec Pickman from the Lewis episode 'Falling Darkness', who, like his father, grows up to be an artist.
The assassination of American Civil Rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr in Memphis, Tennessee had occurred on the evening of the 4th April 1968. At the time of his assassination in Memphis, Dr King was voicing his support for African American sanitation workers who were taking part in the Memphis sanitation strike that occurred on the 12th February 1968 following the deaths of workers Echol Cole and Robert Walker who were both crushed to death in the back of their garbage truck while trying to seek shelter from a heavy rainstorm on the afternoon of the 1st February 1968. Their deaths were overshadowed by the newspapers report of the birth of Elvis Presley's daughter, Lisa Marie who was born about 40 minutes after the deaths of Cole and Walker.
- The same radio announcement had also broadcasted that King's assassin fled the scene in a white Ford Mustang. A joint Memphis Police-FBI Investigation into the assassination revealed that the gunman, James Earl Ray (who was identified through Ray's fingerprints found on the package containing the murder weapon (a Remington 760 Gamemaster .30-06 pump action rifle, fitted with a scope) and a pair of binoculars found near the motel where Ray fired the fatal shot from) was on the run after escaping from Missouri State Penitentiary on the 23rd April 1967 where he was serving a 20-year sentence for armed robbery. After killing Dr. King, Ray fled the scene in a white 1966 Mustang (bearing Alabama registration plate, registered to Ray's alias, Eric Starvo Galt) and drove non-stop to Georgia, arriving in Atlanta 11 hours after the assassination where he abandoned the Mustang and took a Greyhound bus to Detroit, Michigan and then a taxicab across the Canadian border. While hiding in Toronto, Ray had acquired a fake Canadian passport under the name of Ramon George Sneyd. Using the fake passport, in late May 1968, Ray travelled from Canada to Europe, arriving in the United Kingdom first, then heading to Portugal where he stayed briefly in Lisbon and had obtained a second fake Canadian passport under his original alias, before returning to London. On the 8th June 1968, Ray was arrested at Heathrow Airport while trying to board a flight to Brussels where he planned to travel to the African country of the Republic of Rhodesia after the ticket agent found Ray's alias on the Royal Canadian Mounted Police watchlist. After discovering the second passport, he was taken in custody by detectives from Scotland Yard. At Scotland Yard, Ray admitted his real identity to detectives who then informed the FBI. On the 19th July 1968, Ray was extradited from the United Kingdom to Tennessee. On the 10th March 1969, his 41st birthday, Ray pled guilty to King's murder and was sentenced to 99 years imprisonment and was then taken to the former Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary in the town of Petros, Tennessee to serve his sentence. On the 10th June 1977, Ray and six other prisoners, bank robber Larry Hacker, murderer and rapist Earl Hill Jr, armed robber Donald Caylor, murderer and serial prison escapist Doug Shelton, murderer David Powell (also serving a 99-year sentence) and bank robber Jerry Ward had escaped from their cells at Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary. During the breakout, Ward was shot and wounded by prison guard, Lynnwood Butler and promptly recaptured, before being sent to the hospital. The six remaining prisoners including Ray managed to escape but were recaptured three days later. For his part in this second escape, Ray had a year added to his 99-year sentence, increasing his prison sentence to a full century. At the US Senate Special Commission on Assassinations held in 1978, Ray had testified that an unknown midwestern lawyer, operating on the behalf of unknown third party had offered to pay $50,000 to have Dr. King killed. Ray's claims of the involvement of the unknown lawyer were backed up by a former car parts dealer named Russell Byers who had also testified that his brother-in-law, John Spica (who was serving a life sentence for murder in the Missouri State Penitentiary the same time as Ray) had received the same offer from the same lawyer, Spica had turned the offer down. On the 23rd April 1998, Ray died of complications from a mixture of kidney disease and liver failure caused by hepatitis C at the Columbia Nashville Memorial Hospital in Madison, Tennessee.