Terrible.
Mr. MacAllister. Anything I can do for you?
All good. Thanks, Kevin.
Your dinner jacket and shoes
have been cleaned and left in your room.
Let me know if you need anything else.
Actually, I have a guest arriving.
Have front desk send them up to my suite.
Of course. And enjoy tonight.
Uh, breakfast, usual time or...?
Usual time.
Hey, it's Rick MacAllister.
Just checking you got my message.
Look, I'm big enough to admit it when I made a mistake.
But I'm going to make sure everybody knows about this.
Just give me a minute.
Keep the champagne circulating.
And smile.
Any sign of our glorious benefactor?
No. The car's still waiting for him.
And reception are saying there's no answer from his room.
Shall I call him again?
Yes.
MacAllister Gallery.
I see you got what you wanted.
It's a significant collection of Titanic memorabilia.
It's an exciting day for the museum.
Quite. What price integrity, hmm?
Excuse me.
Free fizz.
Are you surprised to see me?
I got an invite from the man himself.
Well, there's no accounting for taste.
Excuse me?
You don't say that to my face.
Mr. Buchanan.
Thank you for joining us.
Wendy, you are looking divine.
I think some of the press were keen to speak to you.
Where is he? This is ridiculous.
He's not answering his phone.
Rich Americans.
He's probably decided to fly to Paris for his dinner.
Alright, well, we can't wait any longer.
We're gonna have to do it without him.
- I'm so sorry. - It's not your fault.
Bloody MacAllister.
Well, this is gonna be embarrassing.
Good morning, Mr. MacAllister.
Mr. MacAllister?
Emergency services? Custom House Hotel.
It's one of our guests.
I think he's dead.
*CREDITS*
It's like a bank with bedrooms.
You think we get to stay here?
I mean, MacAllister was minted, right?
- Sold his gambling app. - Betopia.
For an absolute stack
and spends his money doing up anything to do with the Titanic.
I mean, why would you?
- "Disasterabilia." - Not a word.
Should be, though.
Collectibles relating to major catastrophes.
Plane wrecks, wars, sunken ships.
But why the Titanic?
He reckons he had a relative on board.
Mind you,
if all the relatives that Americans say were on board
really were, it's probably why it sunk.
Come on.
Thank you.
D.I. Palmer, D.C. Malik? P.C.
White, Northern Ireland Police.
- Call me Rory. - Shazia. Cheers.
Good to meet you, Rory.
Well, this has caused quite a stir.
Who found the body?
Concierge. First thing this morning.
I've taken a statement.
Mobile phone and wallet were still in his room.
I've informed the family... well, his ex-wife.
D.I. Palmer. Raithlin, Pathology.
I shouldn't be here. Nothing suspicious.
Whole things screams natural causes.
Anyway, level of rigor mortis
suggests he's been dead a little over 18 hours.
Allowing for the air conditioning,
I'd put the time of death between 4:00 p.m.
and 6:00 p.m. yesterday.
MacAllister arrived back at the hotel around 3:00 p.m.,
so that fits.
Could it be a drug overdose?
No sign of injection marks, no drug paraphernalia.
Most likely heart failure.
But the autopsy will confirm.
Results tomorrow.
Blimey, it's a tip in here.
My student flat was tidier than this.
For a rich bloke, he's got a lot of cheap aftershave.
No heart medication or blood pressure drugs.
Doesn't look like he was dealing with any serious health issues.
Good taste in whiskey.
There's a faint circle here.
Maybe there were two glasses.
He had company?
Could be.
Smells like whiskey.
Let's make sure that we get this checked out.
Just move for me, will you?
There's indentations in the carpet.
This chair has been moved
and then put back in the wrong place.
It could... It could have been him, of course.
There's two trails.
Heel marks.
There was someone else here.
I think they were sharing a whiskey together.
And then something happened, and the chair got knocked over,
and they dragged him to the bed.
Unconscious?
Yeah. And then they laid him out and took his shoes off.
You don't think he did that himself?
Well, looking at the bathroom,
MacAllister wasn't exactly big on tidiness.
But look at the bedroom. It's so ordered.
And the shoes are side by side.
Somebody else did that.
We need to get the SOCOs to process this scene.
And we need to get background on the phone records
- and the CCTV. - Already asked.
- Only CCTV is in the lobby. - Annoying.
We need to speak to somebody at the museum.
Who's our contact?
The head curator, Molly Gordon.
Great. Let's go.
Yeah.
We have the terms of the donation in writing.
We just need clarity on the situation.
What is the legal status of the MacAllister bequest?
Yes. Of course.
Thank you. Okay.
Ms. Gordon, heritage crime,
D.I. Palmer, D.C. Malik.
Hi. Sorry about that.
As you can imagine, it's been quite a difficult morning.
This is Wendy Boyle, my assistant and archivist.
It's just awful, I mean, what's happened.
No one seems to know.
That's why we're here. To find out.
- It's just such a shock. - We're just trying to establish
a timeline of MacAllister's movements.
Well, we were actually supposed to be in a meeting about now.
Should we start with yesterday afternoon?
Yeah. Sorry. Yes. Sorry. That's so stupid of me.
Um, so yesterday, he was supposed to be here around 6:00,
but he was late. Wendy called him, called his hotel.
But there was... there was no answer.
And it was too late to cancel.
And you were here all afternoon?
Well, between here and the museum.
We were dashing all over, weren't we?
It was quite a big deal for us.
Everyone was so excited.
We'll need a complete list of guests.
I can get that.
She's taken it quite badly.
Her mom died a few months ago, so it just brings it all back.
Is there anyone else that knew MacAllister in Belfast?
Uh, well, Alexander Buchanan, antique dealer.
He sourced most of MacAllister's collection.
- They go way back. - And he was at the launch?
Saw him starting an argument with a woman.
He had a knack for that.
When was the last time you saw MacAllister?
Uh, we gave him a tour of the museum a few days ago.
Showed him this space and the storage rooms.
And Wendy showed him her precious archives.
No greater privilege.
Press, trustees, plus the great and good of Belfast.
Thanks.
I'll get Rory to start checking them out.
Rory, tomorrow morning,
I want you to go through all the CCTV.
See if we can identify his roommate.
Will do, Boss.
Forensics are looking at the whiskey bottle and the glass.
Of course, it could still be natural causes.
His ex-wife said he didn't have
any underlying health conditions.
Something doesn't seem right, does it?
Concierge said he was expecting a visitor,
but I think there was somebody already in there with him
who got him to the bed and removed his shoes.
Still, we can't do anything until we get the autopsy report,
so we might as well call it a day.
So, Shazia, are you doing anything this evening?
I was thinking maybe I could show you some of the sights.
Sure, that'd be great.
Boss, you up for that?
No, no. You guys go. Go have some fun.
Right. See you in the morning.
Cheers.
Bali Glam.
Thought you should at least sample
the finest local mineral water.
- Cheers. - Cheers.
Amazing.
You can really taste the... water.
Right?
So, what do you think?
Be interesting to see what the CCTV throws up.
Ah, well, we can look at that tomorrow.
Yeah. I think if we can spot someone in the reception,
that'd give us a strong lead.
Sure.
So what do you reckon to Belfast?
It's great.
I'm still hoping to squeeze in the Titanic tour.
Love that film.
Hand on heart, I haven't seen it.
Get out! Seriously, get out.
Spoiler, ship sinks.
No. You're joking.
- Cheers. - Cheers.
Hi, this is Rosa Cunningham.
Hopefully I'm doing something interesting.
Please leave me a message.
Hey, Rosa. It's me.
Sorry. It's, um, Mick.
I'm here in Belfast on a case about the Titanic
that I thought you might find interesting.
I hated that movie, but the museum's cool.
But if you like the film, then pay no attention to me.
I probably misjudged it, and I'd be totally up for a re-watch.
Um, anyway, I'll call you when I get back to London.
See ya.
Here's MacAllister arriving.
3:00.
So if he had a visitor,
it would be from this point onwards.
See if you can find out who he's calling.
Palmer. I come bearing gifts.
Results within.
Apologies. I was hasty.
Cause of death was a drug overdose.
Toxicology report shows a high concentration
of a synthetic opioid.
Self-administered?
We didn't find anything in the hotel.
It can be prescribed as pain relief,
but the quantities ingested suggest something else.
- How much did he take? - Four milligrams.
Just two would be fatal for most people.
Oh. Forensics asked me to give you this.
- Thanks. - Initial findings.
Best of luck.
Here we go.
So the prints on the whiskey glass were MacAllister's,
but they found traces of liquid opioid.
So somebody spiked the drink
and then waited for him to pass out
and then dragged him to the bed.
Reckon so.
And then took his shoes off.
Okay. Got something.
This is an hour later.
- Who is it? - Don't know,
but I'm pretty sure I recognize the face.
It's her. Isn't it?
The woman arguing with Buchanan.
That's good work, Rory.
See if you can find a name and dig out an address.
Ms. Wallace, do you have a moment?
Make it quick. I'm up to my eyes.
D.I. Palmer, D.C. Malik. Heritage Crime.
Heritage what?
Crime.
Yesterday morning, Rick MacAllister was found dead
in his hotel room.
What's that got to do with me?
How well did you know him?
I didn't.
I tried to sell him something from the Titanic.
What was that?
A dinner plate from first class.
Mint condition.
Must be worth a bit.
Six figures easy.
My great-great grandfather was one of the waiters.
He smuggled the plate onto the lifeboat.
It's been in the family ever since.
So MacAllister was interested in buying it?
No, he said it was a fake.
So how come you were at the press launch?
He invited me.
Why would he do that?
When was the last time you saw him?
A few days ago, when I showed him the plate.
So you weren't at the hotel at 4:00 p.m. on Thursday?
Because the CCTV caught you.
I was going on a date up to the first floor bar.
At 4:00 in the afternoon?
What, are you telling me when I can and can't have a drink?
No.
Anyway, the bastard never showed.
- Now he's ghosting me. - Got a name?
Can't remember, luckily, for that prick.
Alright, Ms. Wallace.
Well, thank you for your time.
Dreadful business.
News travels fast.
Belfast is a small city, Inspector.
So, you knew him well?
We did the odd bit of business over the years.
I mainly dealt with his people.
So you hardly knew him?
But you were at the museum reception.
As I say, it's a small city.
Are these books anthropodermic?
Indeed.
Well spotted, Inspector.
Bound in human skin.
In this instance, the notorious highwayman John Burke.
You're not serious?
It was his own final request.
Highly sought after.
Much like John Burke himself.
Please.
No?
Sorry. Back trouble.
What else was MacAllister interested in?
Anything and everything.
Paintings of the Titanic. Posters.
But of course, the real prize
was anything that came from the wreck.
I sourced several items
that came directly from the ocean floor.
Immaculate provenance.
Now, if there's nothing else...
Did he invite you to his hotel room
on Thursday afternoon?
No. I was here.
Do you know why MacAllister decided
to donate his collection?
Who knows the ways of the incredibly rich, Inspector?
Of course, with his passing,
I assume the donation will now be reversed.
Well, Molly Gordon's optimistic it won't be.
Well, that would be great news for the museum and the city.
Of course, it can't have been easy for Molly.
Why's that?
Dealing with MacAllister.
Betopia. His gambling empire.
Blood money.
Something of a moral dilemma for her, wouldn't you say?
I thought him and MacAllister were meant to go way back.
He acted like he hardly knew the guy.
And he's done well out of MacAllister over the years.
I can't see a motive for him to kill him.
He clearly knows his stuff
and has some really interesting things in his showroom.
Creepy, you mean.
And he was quick to throw Molly Gordon's name out there.
Her moral dilemma?
Yeah, I noticed that. We'll deal with it soon as.
But firstly, I am starving.
Good shout. I'll find somewhere.
Nice.
Straight in with the Ulster fry.
Strong game. Belfast's contribution to world cuisine.
Love me a bit of potato bread.
You're missing out, Inspector.
That is Cheddar's contribution to world cuisine.
So I ran a background check on Wallace's garage.
Looks like she was in a bit of trouble.
You think she needed the money from selling the plate?
Definitely. And if MacAllister was going to tell the world
it was a fake, she'd have been shafted.
- Nice work, Rory. - Have a chip.
I think I've found out why Molly Gordon
had beef with MacAllister.
It's an article in the Belfast Herald about her brother.
Inspector. Any news?
Everyone's desperate to know where the museum stands.
Does this mean you're going to have to call off the exhibition?
You'd be happy with that, though, wouldn't you?
What? Of course not. It's been years of negotiating.
A huge donation, all built on the proceeds of gambling.
Can't sit easy with you.
We know about your brother.
Yeah. Yeah, Dez had it bad.
I mean, hardly surprising.
They made it easy for him.
You know, one touch of a button on your phone,
and out goes £1,000.
It's like a portable casino.
Thanks to sites like Betopia.
No, addiction is a disease.
I know that now.
They say it was suicide, but...
it was gambling that killed him.
You must have hated MacAllister.
No. I live in the real world.
I hated when MacAllister stood for,
but I didn't hate him.
His donation was incredibly generous.
It's an exceptional collection.
What was he interested in?
The usual.
His mythical relative.
The one who was on the ship.
Boss? Got something.
Fingerprints from inside the hotel room.
Mostly MacAllister's, some they can't trace.
Two fingerprints from outside of the door.
They've got a match.
What were you doing in MacAllister's hotel room?
I've already told you I wasn't.
I was in the bar, and my date was a no show,
so I went to the press lounge.
We've got your fingerprints
on the door handle of MacAllister's hotel room.
Can you explain why your prints are on file?
Oh, come... It was from years ago.
It was a pub fight and pissed up clothes. And it was nothing.
None of this has anything to do with me, okay?
I-I swear, I never entered his room.
We know you needed money.
We know you needed to sell the plate.
MacAllister found out it was a fake.
Jesus. It's not a fake.
That came from Buchanan.
So you tried to sell it to him first?
Yes. And he said it was a fake.
So then I went to MacAllister,
and he wasn't having none of it, neither.
Part of them just looking down on me,
what, because I don't sound like them.
Why, but the American, the American is happy
to buy three plates off of Buchanan.
Right. So why did you go to his room?
MacAllister changed his mind. He phoned me.
He told me to come up to his room before the press thing.
So I went up, but he never answered, so I left.
We've had a call reporting a burglary.
And?
Only it's Ms. Wallace's business.
- What? - Where'd you keep the plate?
No. Wait here.
Rory, you go round the back, see if there's another way out.
Ah, shit!
Little shit.
See you later.
Wee shit.
They didn't get into the safe. They didn't get it.
Somebody obviously thinks your plate's worth something.
Are you gonna arrest me, then?
No. But I need to borrow your plate.
MacAllister's first class plates.
According to Buchanan,
recovered directly from the wreckage
and verified by the museum archives.
Amazing to think these were lying at the bottom
of the sea all that time.
So, Wallace's plate, carried off by a relative.
Now, they should be the same weight.
But hers feels a little lighter.
No salt damage, obviously.
But there is something different.
- Take it. - Okay.
They're both Spode.
Both have the White Star branding.
And the garland stenciling.
But the gold on the Charlotte Wallace plate is not the same.
It's subtle, but it's visibly different.
So it is a fake.
So where does that leave us?
Well, she has a motive,
and we can put her at his hotel room at the time of death.
But what we can't prove is whether she went in or not.
It's Rory. He says he's at a loose end.
What should I say?
Whatever you want. Don't let me get in the way.
Okay. Uh, "chase down
MacAllister's phone records."
I'm not sure it's a work assignment he's after.
Oh. Yeah. I suppose it is a bit late.
You know he likes you, right?
What? No. He's just being friendly.
- You think? - Yeah, totally.
We should talk to Molly Gordon again.
She clearly hated MacAllister's business.
Yeah, but she got over it pretty quickly
when she saw the size of the donation.
And besides, where's she gonna find a bunch of opioids?
Prescription pain relief?
You're thinking about the shoes again, aren't you?
Why did they take them off? Why are they next to the bed?
I mean, what are we missing?
Why is everyone still so hung up on that ship?
It's the human element, isn't it?
The stories of all the passengers.
It's... It's the ship going down while the violin played.
It's the brother taking that last-minute ticket.
It's the crocodile bag floating on the water.
Thought they were going to a new life in America.
Never happened.
You know,
my dad never sold a painting without a story attached to it.
How he'd found this amazing new work.
How it had been missing for all these years.
Why he needed to sell it.
They'd buy the story as much as they would the fake.
He sounds like a right character.
That's one way of putting it.
He's back, by the way.
Your dad? Really?
Have you seen him?
He came round. He...
brought one of my old comic books.
Way to a man's heart.
He says he wants to reconnect.
Maybe that's true.
Maybe he's getting sentimental in his old age.
He wants the portrait back that he painted of my mum.
Maybe he misses her.
Yeah.
Maybe.
Are you going to give it to him?
It's all I have of her.
Okay. Let's have a look at the opioid angle.
Where can you get them?
Hospitals, doctor surgeries, pharmaceutical companies.
- Dark web. - Yeah.
Chased down MacAllister's phone records, as requested.
- Thanks. - Day he died,
he had a bunch of missed calls
from Wendy Boyle and Molly Gordon
trying to get ahold of him.
But he only made two calls.
One to Charlotte Wallace?
Exactly. 3:00 from the hotel lobby,
the other to a lawyer.
She'd been engaged by MacAllister.
Scheduled a meeting with Molly Gordon for the next day.
She mentioned that. Do we know what that was about?
That's the thing. MacAllister wanted to stop his donation.
What? He wanted to cancel his donation,
but he hadn't canceled the press launch?
The lawyer said MacAllister contacted her
earlier in the week. Uh...
Here. Five days ago at 14:09.
That's around the time he was at the museum
and visited the archives.
So the question is, what did he see in the archives that day
that made him want to stop his donation?
These are the records MacAllister was looking at.
I think he spied something in here that spooked him.
Is Boyle not here?
No, she's off sick.
She and Alex Buchanan seem pretty close.
Yeah, he's here all the time.
Wendy's got a bit of a crush on him.
Which I let pass, even though...
- Go on. - No, nothing. Nothing.
You don't like him, do you?
Well, I don't like them cooing in the archives together.
But, you know, she had a hard time.
Her mom had cancer.
So, like I say, I turned a blind eye.
These are the items relating to Buchanan's plates.
This is the original letter from Spode.
They made the porcelain.
They confirmed the design for the first class dinner plates.
And the serial numbers match Buchanan's.
This is from Ocean Deep.
They're the only authorized salvage company,
and they confirm that the plates were brought up
from the sea floor.
Bizarrely, they even mention the same serial numbers.
So Buchanan's items all check out.
That's wrong, though.
- What? - Look at the date.
What about it?
15/06.
15th of June.
This is an American company. Look.
- So the date... - Is the wrong way round.
Right. Let's have a look at the Spode letter again.
Have you got anything that I could use to...
- Yeah, magnify it? - That would be great.
Sure.
- Here. - Excellent. Thank you.
See, it's good, but it's not good enough.
Look at the text. You see the edge?
It's too crisp. It's too precise.
This wasn't written on a typewriter.
This has been printed on an inkjet.
Quite a trick for 1912.
- Both these letters are fakes. - No, there's no way.
We don't let anything into the archives
unless we're 100% convinced.
Unless they had unauthorized access.
Buchanan.
We've got this all wrong.
We thought Wallace's plate was the fake,
but it's the others. Buchanan has been leaving a false trail,
bread-crumbing the archives for years
- in order to fool MacAllister. - Yeah.
So that explains the break-in at Wallace's.
Buchanan didn't want the genuine article knocking about.
And if MacAllister found out...
Buchanan would have to silence him
before he could go public.
I can't believe this. I mean, this can't be true.
I've seen this before.
You said Wendy's mom died of cancer.
Yeah. She was in a lot of pain.
Wendy was her sole carer.
She did what she could to make her comfortable.
I don't think Buchanan killed MacAllister.
See that?
Inspector. Thank God.
You have to do something. It's Wendy.
She's hysterical. She's completely lost it.
She phoned me and said if I didn't come over,
she'd kill herself.
Said she's in love with me.
It's terrifying.
If you could come back in with us?
It's okay, Wendy.
It's over.
- We know. - I did it for him.
I love him.
You did what for me?
I was going to tell everyone.
You would have went to prison.
I couldn't bear that.
I have no idea what she's talking about.
Why on earth would I go to prison?
For fraud, Mr. Buchanan.
We know you accessed the museum's archives,
created false records for the stuff you sold to MacAllister.
That's complete nonsense.
You knew Charlotte Wallace's plate would expose you,
which is why you arranged the break-in at her business.
When did you realize what he'd done?
When I showed MacAllister around the archives.
Did you think he was going to confront Buchanan?
I got him to hold off till I'd looked into it.
But he was furious.
He said he was going to tell everyone at the press launch.
He wanted to publicly humiliate you.
You would have been ruined.
And then you went to his hotel room
with your mom's leftover meds.
I don't understand.
Are you trying to tell me that she...
I told him I found more evidence of the fraud.
I took a bottle of whiskey over there.
I put...
this stuff, Mom's stuff, in his glass.
He was so angry with Alex. He necked it.
- And then... - You're pathetic.
How did you get him to the bed?
He was heavy.
But Mom was heavy, too.
So Charlotte Wallace was just in the wrong place
at the wrong time.
And then you went back to the press launch
as if nothing had happened.
It was the shoes, you know,
tucked away neatly at the end of the bed.
I couldn't work out why, and then I realized...
you wanted to make him feel comfortable, didn't you?
Like you had with your mother.
I had nothing to do with this.
This was all her.
I did it for us.
There is no us.
Rory.
Alexander Buchanan,
I'm arresting you on suspicion of fraud
and for perverting the course of justice.
You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defense
if you do not mention when questioned something that...
Can I grab my jacket?
Please.
I'm sorry.
How did it come to that?
One man dead, and Boyle's lost everything.
Job. Relationship. Family.
Her mom died, and she was vulnerable,
and Buchanan took advantage.
What a mess.
Your lift to the airport awaits.
Cheers, Rory.
So, Shazia, you've my number, right?
Uh, yeah. It's on the police database.
But all the paperwork's done now.
Jeez, Shazia, for such a good detective,
you're not exactly picking up many clues.
You're in serious danger of missing out
on Belfast's biggest catch.
You mean, uh... Yeah.
Well, if you're ever in London, then give me a shout.
Yeah. I mean, maybe I could sample some of the local water.
Yeah.
Maybe you can draw me like one of your French girls.
I'm sorry. What?
Watch the film!
Dad?
*CREDITS*