Ludwig episode 2 sees John believe there’s been a murder when no one else does, while he makes a big breakthrough in tracking down his brother. Events are certainly taking a Line of Duty turn, which seems appropriate as of course star Anna Maxwell Martin was in Line of Duty! Here’s what happened in episode 2 of the David Mitchell show (spoilers ahead)…
There’s a shot of a spooky-looking mansion called Bryce Manor, which is a hotel. Someone is leaving in a hurry… and the distinctive title sequence begins…
Meanwhile, John is looking at a photo of the Chief Constable. John says he can’t crack the code of his brother’s notebook and needs a source — possibly another book — to crack the code. John is infuriated by the fact James covers his notebooks in wallpaper! Lucy ponders: “Why was James taking covert photos of his own Chief Constable?” She tells John he needs to find out what case James was working on when he vanished.
Lucy warns John not to get mixed up in another murder case and to claim he has too much paperwork if someone asks him to solve one. That seems unlikely to wash as an excuse!
John does another terrible job of parking and heads into the office. He runs into his boss DCS Carol Shaw (Dorothy Atkinson), who after a pause, he remembers to address as ma’am! She asks him how he feels about his new DI and isn’t impressed when he says “fine”. She then accuses him of being sarcastic and says she didn’t want to see DI Neville transferred anymore than he did. “But after all that Sinclair business, there was no other option,” she says. “It was you or him. You do know that?” Obviously, he doesn’t!
Who’s Sinclair?
A sobbing woman is in the office. John claims to have a “mountain of paperwork” and heads to his little office. His computer suddenly comes on and he’s surprised to see a message on the day that James vanished. He searches the system and finds a reference to Sinclair. But the file is restricted.
DI Russell Carter (Dipo Ola) walks in and says a woman has reported her husband missing after going to work at a hotel conference. The man checked out but strangely sent his wife a cryptic phone call. John tries to be disinterested in the case but then can’t help asking Russell how the message was crytpic.
John and Russell head to the hotel. John says: “He calls her up in the middle of the night, tells her he’s leaving, doesn’t say where, doesn’t say why, then rings off and never shows up, don’t you want to know what happened?” But Russell is clearly wondering why they’re bothering.
Russell tells the owner, Lady Bryce (Felicity Kendal), that they’re looking for Mr Peter Williams. She says the entrepreneur checked out last night. They head off to find Peter’s clients, who are baffled that two cops are looking into Peter leaving early. Ross, a motivational speaker, introduces himself and John isn’t impressed by him at all.
Russell still remains unconvinced, but John points to the phone call and the fact that no one saw him leave. Russell spots a security camera.
Meanwhile, Lucy is trying to track down James’s cop partner Neville. She visits his house but finds he’s moved out and left all of his stuff. Why?
Back at the station, John and the team inspect the camera footage. John takes over the computer screen after upsetting the computer expert by repeatedly asking her to click the camera footage back and forward. DS Alice Finch (Izuka Hoyle) says the missing man was involved in a luxury spa retreat project that was still to be built. The missing man has a history of setting up businesses that go under.
Over dinner, Lucy expresses her surprise that John not only failed to avoid a crime scene but also insisted on going to one. Lucy has her head in her hands as John shows her photos from the hotel’s security camera footage and insists something has changed between the two images. She tells John she’s discovered her husband’s cop partner Neville has vanished as well. John says he may have discovered something and asks Lucy about Sinclair, but she hasn’t heard the name.
John looks on as Lucy reassures Henry that his dad isn’t dead and she promises to find him. Heny breaks down on his mother.
The next day John brings up that James made a telephone call from his computer on the day he vanished and says he was hoping the number might be in the address book.
Lucy is stunned that John hasn’t phoned the number and asks for it. The number turns out to be for a fax machine (Google fax machine if you’re under 25!).
John bumps into the Chief Constable, and after an awkward chat, he sees the team, who reveal they’ve found the missing man’s car two hours away on the coast. They also break the bad news that DCS Carol Shaw (Dorothy Atkinson) wants to see him, it looks like Russell has grassed him up about his impromptu investigation but it turns out he’s praised John as the missing man was conning the people at the hotel, with them paying money upfront for jobs that don’t exist.
The fraudster was declared bankrupt on the day he went missing and his assets were frozen. But John isn’t buying that the missing man has simply jumped off a cliff. Why, he asks, would he have phoned his wife and asked her to pack if he was planning that? And now the con means the people at the hotel have a motive.
In the lift, John thanks Russell for his backing. Russell’s mobile rings and it flashes up Ziegler, the Chief Constable, but Russell claims it was his niece. Can John trust Russell?
Back at the hotel, John continues to give the unfortunate motivational speaker a hard time over his nonsensical statements. The guests try and leave, but John hesitantly says they can’t as they are suspects. And he starts interviewing everyone.
They explain that Peter, the missing man, on the night of the disappearance claimed to be sick and that he was going home. They claim not to have left the dining room at any point. Turns out the advert for the conference was stuck to a lampost outside a probation office and the guests each have a criminal record.
Outside the hotel, John spots that one urn in the garden is cleaned and the other isn’t. Why?
The rest of the team finds the abandoned car but no suicide note. Back at the station, John is frustrated he can’t spot the difference between the two security camera photos from the hotel.
Lucy arrives at the office and tells John that she’s spotted that the first page of the notebook has been torn out. But via the pencil rubbing trick, she’s managed to identify that Sinclair and Zieg R were written on the missing page. John thinks the numbers on the page could reveal what’s been going on. Again cop Holly is watching John, like in the first episode, why?
On his brother’s computer, John uses Zieg R and the numbers to access the restricted Sinclair case file. We discover that Roger Sinclair was murdered! He prints out the file. He looks at the notebook again and seems to spot something important… John seems to have cracked the case and they head back to Bryce Manor.
John cracks the case… they all did it (except the motivational speaker!)
He’s spotted the wallpaper shifted in the two photos and believes he knows why! He tells Lady Bryce that the wallpaper has been stripped and reapplied, but it wasn’t lined up quite right. “This whole section of wall will have to be cut out,” says John. Lady Bryce: “And what if I say ‘no’.” John: “You’d rather pointlessly be delaying the inevitable I suppose.”
Cutting through the wall, the team exposes a door, which John declares will have the dead body of Peter Williams behind it. They discover a rotting body.
He gathers the suspects together and says to Lady Bryce that she was in for a lot more than £500, which is what the others had paid. She’d paid the victim ten grand so that Bryce Manor would be the location of his spa — but of course that never happened.
Lady Bryce explained that it was the last of her savings and in her desperation, she believed his scheme. John though doubts that Lady Bryce has the strength to be the killer. John admits he doesn’t know who the killer is and asks if anyone wants to confess. Which of course they don’t!
John believes they all confronted the victim over his failed businesses and he panicked. He checked out and tried to flee. John ponders if they attacked him or whether it was an accident. The shoplifter says it was a bit of both and Russell celebrates the confession. We flashback to the night and see them push Peter who strikes his head on the urn in the garden — thus explaining why one was cleaned recently and the other not.
Back on the night of the killing, we see Lady Bryce come out of the hotel and spot the body. She then unplugged the camera in reception and they all then removed a section of the wall, hid the body and replaced the wallpaper. “Fortunately for us not quite as accurately as you should have done,” says John. They then drove the victim’s car to the cliff. The only one who had nothing to do with the murder was the motivational speaker. “Sounds like they worked as a team,” he oddly boasts. “You must be very proud,” mocks Russell.
John and Russell go to break the news to the victim’s wife. He heads back to Lucy’s. John says to her that James’s disappearance was prepared in advance by him and that he left clues. “My brother isn’t dead,” says John. He fills her in about Sinclair, who was murdered after disturbing a burglar.
Lucy ponders who’s still got a fax machine and Henry says well we have, dad has one in his office. They search the victim’s name online and via a local newspaper report spot that the victim’s house is the same one the Chief Constable is outside in the photo James took.
The fax James sent is a copy of the Sinclair crime report but John notices there’s a difference between the two versions. The faxed version is dated a day earlier, James is down as the lead detective on the case, there’s no mention of a break-in or burglary and he describes the murder as appearing professional. And Shaw signed it off. Then 24 hours later there’s a different report and a different detective listed and suddenly there was a burglary and an arrest. And the Chief Constable signed it off. John recalls Ziegler phoning Russell and him pretending it was his niece…
