As the bible says, "Bear ye one another's burdens
and so fulfil the law of Christ."
To do this, Charles Williams promoted the concept of Coinherence
which held that we are all spiritually connected and can, through ritual, share suffering,
ease one another's burdens.
For example,... guilt.
But not intellectually or theologically,
something much more real, practical.
No, no, honestly, no need to help.
- What do you want with all this junk anyway? - Not sure.
Forgiveness is not a solitary affair.
It can be and is a shared experience
because through active engagement with the Holy Spirit,
it's not only Christ who can forgive sins so can we!
Don't be so naive! I mean, how is it literally possible to become as Christ?
Well, because we are made in God's image --
- Mumbo-jumbo! - In your opinion. Not one the rest of us happen to share.
Really, Williams was a minor theologian, no academic --
It's in his favour, then -- less arrogant and patronising.
- Coming from you, a tattooed freak! - Come on, guys. Come, come. Let's just calm it.
So much for forgiveness.
Come here, give us a hug.
See you later.
"Please leave your message after the tone."
Gina!
The victim is a college dean, Phil Beskin.
What's a college dean doing right out here?
He must have got here late. He was giving a talk in town on one of the Inklings.
Oh, aye, which one this time, Tolkien or Lewis?
Charles Williams, the third Inkling. Baskin was a bit of an authority.
Blunt trauma to the back of the head, skull crushed.
One fell swoop by the look. Round four or five o'clock.
- SOCO found a mobile phone on the ground and... - Maggots!
Yup.
If this happened just a few hours ago, there's no way that the maggots come from the corpse or the raven.
Well, it's staged, intended to be found.
"And know this that the summit of art is the raven,
who flies without wings in the blackness of night and the holiness of the day.
That's a new one on me.
Are they making a statement or a warning maybe?
A kind of ritual killer.
I think this might have something to do with alchemy.
Turning lead into gold.
More than that, it's the precursor to modern science.
It's understanding the secrets in nature to unlock the mysteries of the universe.
Ambitious, then.
Or it's a spiritual thing converting the lead of ignorance into the gold of enlightenment.
Gentlemen, on my way in. How's it going?
Ah, good. We just started.
- So, what have we got? - Body.
A body?!
Well, that's all we do have... ish!
Don't wind Moody up. That's my job.
- How's your dad? - Well, he's not getting any better. Is he?
Go and see him.
- What happened to you last night? - I was burning the midnight oil.
Phil's talk inspired me so I thought I'd make some changes to the text.
- Phil won't be happy. - Phil doesn't bother me any more.
- Why do hangovers get worse the older you get? - Too long between sessions. The trick is to keep drinking.
- Phil Beskin? - Yes, so I spoke to the landlord at the Waterman's.
He confirmed that the usual group were in there after their talk.
There was trouble but it was hardly Battle of Helm's Deep.
You were right about alchemy. That quote is from a 17th Century German alchemist.
The question is what's it got to do with murder?
Or Charles Williams? Did Charles Williams write about alchemy?
No. Theology, supernatural novels. He was a mystic.
Details of the phone found at the scene. Belonged to the victim.
The text came through at 4.37am.
"At Boar's Hill. Going to end it all."
Suicide or a threat to...?
From someone called The Lioness.
- Let's get onto the service provider and get a real name. - OK.
Lioness, what's that, a girlfriend?
There's quite a few on here -- "the butterfly, the serpent, the eagle."
As long as they're not all pubs.
New Zealand was Laura's idea to be on hand for the birth of her niece's baby.
Mine to see a bit of the world while we're still young enough to enjoy it.
- Far, far too late for you. - Less of that, thank you.
Is it just you two or family, as well?
Just the two of us, I hope.
So, what do we know about Phil Beskin's wife? Is she expecting us?
No. Grace Beskin works in the college library. Beskin is an engineering science lecturer.
Very popular with the students on account of his late-night drinking.
Pastoral care at its best.
Yeah?
OK.
That was Maddox. She's got a lead on our Lioness.
Local girl Gina Doran, goes out with a student from Phil Beskin's college -- Nate Hedeson.
You do Gina. I will do Grace Beskin.
I'm here to see Grace Beskin.
Mrs Beskin, my name is DI Hathaway.
Very sorry to hear of your loss. I'm afraid I have a few questions for you.
It's not a great time right now.
Who are you?
His sister. Any idea who killed him?
Not yet, hence the need for questions.
Dax and Annapurna Kinneson. If we can help...
- Really, anything. - Thank you.
- We should postpone this evening. - No, Phil would have wanted it to go ahead.
- Would he? He might not have approved of your changes. - He would've been fine.
The point is, as he said in his talk,
it worked for him and you've waited long enough.
We had an early supper and then he went to do his talk.
That was the last I saw him.
- And you weren't aware that he hadn't come home? - No.
He was always out all night. I was at the talk and the pub.
They were still going strong about midnight when I left.
- So, you weren't at the talk, is that correct? - I'm not a great Williams fan to be honest.
My faith is rather simpler than my husband's.
Butterfly, lioness, serpent and eagle are all characters in Charles Williams' The Place Of The Lion.
Yeah. I'm the serpent, apparently. Phil's idea of a joke.
- Have you any idea who the others are? - No.
I gather your husband got on very well with his students.
Phil wasn't great with boundaries.
In other words, the students ran rings around him.
There's a fine line between sainthood and being a mug... What? It's true.
Are you familiar with a Nate Hedeson?
Phil was worried Nate's love life was interfering with his studies.
- They'd had words. - Recently. - Er, the last couple of days.
- Your husband's talk. - Please help yourself. - Thank you.
Oxford students and a local girl. I thought that wasn't allowed.
Where there's a will there's a way, Lizzie.
<Mr Hedeson?
Hello!
Miss Doren?
Gina?
- Phil's dead? - Someone killed him up at Boar's Hill last night.
He was responding to a text that you sent him.
You said that you were there and you were going to harm yourself.
I don't think I can remember and I can't find my phone.
How did you get the cuts on your arms?
Er, climbing through the window, I guess.
- Was your boyfriend with you? - No.
- Where did you go? - College bar from about eight and The Hopper later.
Gina!
Gina?
Look, she crashed out in her shoes but I don't see any mud or grass on them, do you?
Where we found Phil Beskin was muddy so they'd be covered.
- She could've cleaned them. - What, in her state?
- She managed to climb through a window. - Yeah, but cut herself to pieces in the process.
- Gina! - Nate Hedeson by any chance?
Yeah.
- Shall we all get some fresh air? - Yeah.
Phil was a brilliant bloke. Everyone thought he was great.
Except you apparently?
I gather you had words with him about your love life, your relationship with Gina.
- Was that a problem? - No, I got that he was doing his job.
To be honest, we just ignored him anyway.
- So, where were you last night? - At a friend's, Sam's.
- I was with you all night. Wasn't I, Sam? - Yeah, sure.
- Sam? - Langton. - Me and Gina had a row. I went to Sam's to let off steam.
- What was the row about? - Usual stuff.
I knew she'd come back. I couldn't face another slagging match.
And you were here in college all night? You didn't go out?
I wish. No money.
Not very good for you, you know, binge drinking.
What are you, my dad?
Why did Phil Beskin have your number on his phone? You're not a student.
Phil was on my case because he thought I was getting in the way of Nate's coursework.
It still doesn't explain why your number was in his phone.
Or why he has a pet name for you. "Lioness."
I dunno.
But he was concerned about me as well as Nate.
- Why? - No particular reason.
Just because he was a nice guy.
College barman confirms Gina was in there.
The porter escorted her off the premises around about 10ish.
Barman at The Hopper recalls her there. Both mention she'd had a skinful.
- Don't judge me, all right? - Yeah? - Believe me, I'm not.
I am going to need to take your top to establish for definite whose blood that is.
A college dean doesn't immediately strike me
as the most obvious person to have a tattoo like that somewhere like there.
I don't know, I like a man with a tattoo.
Is that alchemical?
I don't know, three in one, Holy Trinity?
That's your department.
Are you looking forward to your trip?
Imagine six months with no corpses. Whatever will I do with myself?
But you shall have Robert.
My family can't wait. They've always wanted to go to South-East Asia.
Joke.
- Thanks for covering. - No problem.
- Anything you want to tell me? - Don't think so.
- Very enigmatic. - Learnt that from you.
Hi.
I'm so sorry about Phil.
- What are you doing with this? - He told me to read it.
Any good?
Not for me.
Charles Williams believed in a living, breathing spirituality in which we could all become as Christ.
Turn water into wine? Save me a few quid.
Stop it, Maddox. It's about forgiveness.
Because we are like Christ, we too can forgive all of the sins of the world.
Interestingly, Phil Beskin claims to have direct experience of how that works.
- Interesting? - By implication, he was guilty of something he knew he was being forgiven for.
He also had this tattoo in the middle of his chest. I want to know what it means.
Does it have to mean anything? Maybe he just liked the image and put it where he fancied.
I'll see you later.
- Have you ever thought of getting a tattoo? - No, I have not.
- One for the travels maybe. - I'll bear that in mind.
Er, a word.
DI Lewis. Do you recognise this by any chance?
Are you sure because it belongs to somebody you know.
Phil Beskin. You were at a talk he gave last night.
He didn't get his tattoo out.
- Are you a Charles Williams fan? - Yeah. Not all tattooists are Pagans.
We gather you had a bit of a barney with a Wouter Eisler last night.
- Was Phil Beskin involved? - Yeah, we all were. It was nothing to write home about. Why?
Because Phil Beskin was murdered last night.
James.>
- What are you doing here? - I work here.
What is it?
I've just... lost my brother.
I think there's something else.
You wouldn't understand.
Try me.
I want to know everything about you.
No. Best not.
Yeah, that's great. Thanks very much.
- Seen one you fancy? - No, I'm more of a piercing man, myself.
So, Nate Hedeson goes out with Gina Doren who works in a shop run by one of Phil Beskin's mates.
Does that not strike you as at all a coincidence?
Not necessarily. Small world and all that.
Says the intrepid traveller.
How was uni?
Ah, Dr Wouter Eisler, as part of his History Of Religions course,
he runs a module Rationality Versus Gullibility In Comparative Religion
and, guess what, it covers Alchemy.
Alchemy,...
.. the sacred art.
Seemingly torturing nature to extract her secrets.
Beautiful.
You'll consider that our chemical images were unconscious archetypes,
keys to unlocking our psyche.
Surely they have meaning. Certainly they are profound.
Or do they just give the illusion of meaning?
You decide in your essays.
One clue --
.. this is Jabir,
an 8th Century Arabic alchemist.
From his name, we get the word gibberish.
Police officers attending lectures?
I've had a dead body covered in maggots and ravens.
Who? Phil?
Phil Beskin, that's correct. How do you know?
Well,... word spread after his wife notified the college.
We understand you had a difference of opinion with Mr Beskin after his talk last night.
Not really. It was a bit of heated debate, that's all.
- I'm not a great fan of amateurism. - To what extent?
I'm an academic, Inspector, not a murderer.
I'd hope it took something more than intellectual discord to make me a suspect.
This was found beside his body too.
- Can you think of any connection between alchemy and Charles Williams? - There isn't one.
It symbolises Nigredo --
- the blackening associated with earth. - What about maggots?
Decomposition -- the body being broken down in readiness for spiritual regeneration.
Nigredo being the first stage of the great work, the Magnum Opus.
So, how many stages are there?
It varies but conventionally four.
So this could be just the beginning.
You're telling me Phil Beskin's murder might be the first stage
in some warped spiritual process that might play out in four stages?
Yes, sir.
It sounds vague and nebulous to me.
- This is Oxford, sir. - If there's a possibility of further murders, I want to know about them,
and I want to deal in tangibles.
Lizzie?
Er, Gina Doren -- the blood on her top was hers and hers alone.
No traces of Phil Beskin.
Anybody else?
- Nate Hedeson? - Oh, yes, had an argument with Phil Beskin about his relationship with a local girl,
- lied about his movements last night. - Told us he was in college
but he had a stamp of a rope on his wrist as if he'd been to a night club.
Blue Ronda. That's their stamp. It's an S and M club.
I could give them a call later on, see if anyone saw him.
- What about the wife? - Still in the frame, obviously, sir.
He's got a lot on his plate, that's all.
A lot on my plate, like what?
Like your dad.
- It's got nothing to do with my dad. - I'm not saying it is.
If you don't want to see him, that's fine.
- You've got nothing to feel guilty about. - I don't feel guilty.
Good. I'm just trying to explain why you're even more rude than usual.
Does this mean anything to you? "Chen." It's everywhere.
- Grace -- - I thought I told you to leave me alone.
No stamina, that's your problem. It's all that arguing with Gina.
- Hark at the thin man. How is your girlfriend? - Fine, thank you.
- What have I done now? - Told us you were with your mate Sam there last night.
But the stamp on your wrist is from the Blue Rondo.
And even allowing for student levels of hygiene,
- I don't think that would have lasted more than one night and a day. Do you? - So I went clubbing.
- What time did you leave? - You saw me return to my rooms.
- So, why lie earlier? - Didn't want to say in front of Gina.
You weren't in front of Gina. You were talking to me.
You might have said something. She doesn't approve.
- Tell me, what course do you do? - PPL.
Psychology, philosophy and linguistics.
- And where does alchemy fit in? - I have to do a subsidiary and alchemy is a doss.
- I wasn't sure whether you'd be here today. - There's only so many condolence calls you can take.
Anyway, this is where Phil and I did most of our courting if you could call it that.
(May I?)
In his paper, your husband seems to reference a guilt, a need of forgiveness.
- Does that mean anything to you? - Sorry, no.
The reason I ask is just with reference to his issues with boundaries.
- Did he mention a Gina Doren? - He was fond of her.
Thought she was a breath of fresh air.
If you're asking me if Phil was sleeping with her, I don't think so.
His boundaries may have been loose but his morals weren't.
Williams again, you see.
And about his tattoo?
His, what?
He had a tattoo on the centre of his chest. You're not aware of this?
No.
We hadn't been intimate in a long time.
What is it of?
Three angelic tear-shaped forms within a circle.
- Does that mean anything to you? - 'Fraid not.
Oh, erm, just one other thing.
When did you inform the college about your husband?
I didn't. I presumed you would.
Essays in by Friday, please, at the latest.
And no gibberish.
Dr Eisler, why are all your books dedicated to somebody called Chen?
No reason. It's just an old mentor of mine, that's all.
When I asked how you heard about Phil Beskin's death,
you said word spread after Grace informed the college. She didn't.
And seeing as you say that you're a lecturer and not a murder,
the question remains -- who told you Phil Beskin had been killed?
Grace.
I bumped into her. It must have slipped my mind.
As someone who dislikes amateurism, do salient pieces of information often slip your mind?
- I'm just finishing up. - It's Gina we want to talk to.
Your boyfriend lied about where he was last night. He was at a S and M club.
- Is that why you rowed? - No, I'm cool with it.
- Don't knock it till you've tried it. - Why weren't you with him? - We're not chained at the hip!
- Everything all right? - Yeah, they're just giving me grief about Nate.
What's he done now?
What's he done before?
They fight like cat and dog, those two.
We're fine, OK? Will everyone just back off?
There's pictures of you in this.
The tattoos on your neck match this picture here. The face is obscured but it's...
Maybe somebody has the same neck tattoos as me.
Would you open your shirt for us, please?
Come on, you weren't shy posing for the photographs.
We could take you down the station and strip search you but it seems a bit of a faff, doesn't it?.
It's a tattoo, an image. What of it?
You said earlier you didn't recognise it. You've got it right in the middle of your chest.
Phil Beskin had the same and he's dead!
I did Phil's and I thought it was cool.
Look, I've got hundreds. I'm a magpie like that.
But it's Christian in meaning, right? Something to do with the Trinity?
- Is it connected to Charles Williams? - I don't know. Is it?
Are you good?
OK. See you there in a bit. Yeah?
- Any developments? - Nothing tangible. No, sir.
Hey, Nate. Are you seeing Gina or clubbing again?
- It's just if I'm going to cover, I'd rather know. - Actually I've got other plans.
Enjoy.
- Hi, Lambton, have you seen Nate? - Faculty cheese and wine.
Nice try, Sam. Nice try.
Hathaway says Phil Beskin's emails contain a reference
to some row he was having with Dax Kinneson about publishing something.
Also several references to companions, whatever they are.
So Phil Beskin and Jay Fennell have the same tattoo.
You're the resident expert, Lizzie.
They could be lovers. That would explain the secrecy, wouldn't it?
- Fancy a drink? - You're pushing the boat out a bit.
- You know what it's like -- when the cat's away... - Nah, I've got my alchemical homework.
And Laura's working late. I promised to keep her company.
No fun, you, are you?
Don't worry, it'll be fine.
The first day of the rest of your life.
Sister, you come to us in a state of sin and contrition,
asking that, by God's grace and in the name of Jesus Christ,
your burden might be lifted from you.
I, Dex Kinneson, desire to take your sins upon me,
to substitute them for love so that you may be released from your suffering.
We offer your transgressions up to Christ for substitution
in the hope of blessing and redemption through His grace.
- Come on, we've got to go. - I'm going to catch you up.
- I've got to do some work. - Dad's expecting us.
Is he?
- Yeah, James. - I know what the tattoo is.
Charles Williams set up a mystical order -- the Companions of Coinherence.
What, a sort of secret society that dabbled in alchemy?
"Nothing to do with alchemy but the tattoo is their symbol."
The order only existed for a few years.
What if Phil Beskin, Jay Fennell, Dax Kinneson and others revived it?
I mean, it would make sense in the companions mentioned in the emails between Beskin and Kinneson.
Any link to Beskin's death?
Don't know.
How's the Great Work coming along?
Ah, don't ask. Listen to this --
the second stage is known as Al-be-do, Albedo,
the whitening or sometimes washing,
associated with the moon and the female.
Does that mean the next victim is a woman?
- Carina! Do you want a drink? - Hey. No, thanks.
- No Dax? - No, he's working.
We're celebrating.
Oh, my God!
- You did it, didn't you? - It works, Carina.
- You have to do it. - No.
Lizzie, come in.
Seeing as no-one wanted to play out with me,
I thought I'd do a bit of homework too.
Well, I phoned the Blue Rondo.
Turns out Nate Hedeson is lying to us again.
He said he was there until dawn but it was early closing.
Do you fancy a drink?
"Please leave your message after the tone."
Sorry, I'd like to but I just can't make tonight.
Hey, Lizzie! Back again? Cool!
- I thought you said your man was away. - Er, no, this isn't Tony. This is James.
He's a colleague. We're here for work.
- Yeah, he's in all the time. - Is he in tonight?
- I've only just got on. - He was in last night. I want to know what time he left.
- He's called Nate Hedeson. Maybe he had a bar tab? - I'll take a look.
- I'm not actually a regular -- - Shh-shh-shh.
Paid with a credit card last night at 11.56.
If he left at midnight with his girlfriend's phone...
Then, he would've had time to text Phil Beskin and get himself over to Boar's Hill.
You watch out front. I'll stay here.
- Do you want a lift? - No way, it's a beautiful night in all respects.
I'll walk.
Is he out there?
Maddox?
Where?
Washing.
Whitening.
Two down, two to go.
Double first and then, eight years ago, it all just unravels. Now you need to tell me why.
- Don't know anything about alchemical images. - I didn't say it was.
- Why are you talking to my father? - That's between me and him, really.
Once is a coincidence. Twice is a vendetta.
When I said I was at the club with him, I wasn't.
Either you're guilty of multiple murder or you're in real danger.
What did you mean, you were carrying your wife's guilt?
I don't know.
There's one more stage -- Rubedo, meaning completion and blood.
Great(!)