[audio recorder switches on]
No comment.
[Tony] Oh, Dr Fallon... I hate all this.
This little dance of ours. I do.
Us trying to get you to accidentally admit to something,
not because we know you'll eventually feel much better
for having finally gotten it off your chest...
though, of course you will...
but because it's all so predictable.
We know what we're doing, she knows what she's doing,
and you're doing what she's telling you to do.
But when a 14-year-old girl is found dead in the woods with no knickers,
and her shattered skull held in place with a bag-for-life,
then you can appreciate why we have to be so forensic.
Hence why you've been sat here, gone...
oh, almost 23 hours, now.
Not just your future that depends on the outcome of our conversation.
You can understand all that, can't you, Doctor?
No comment.
[sighs]
[Hugo] Why'd you take her knickers off?
- If she was your daughter? - Stepdaughter.
Stepdaughter, sorry.
Not a blood relative.
You can still answer the question.
No, no. Question withdrawn.
- [tense music playing] - [electrical buzzing]
[Tony] Do you think Nicky thought you preferred your other children to her?
No comment.
[Tony] It's only natural, isn't it? To love them a bit more, your real kids?
No comment.
[Tony] Your actual kids.
No comment.
[Ottager] Tea?
[Warren sighs]
[Tony] When you took Nicky to these events up and down the country,
these, erm, netball tournaments...
did you argue?
Did you have arguments?
[Fallon] No comment.
[Tony] Only that's what your wife says, or implies.
- She didn't tell you I was coming? - [Tony] "He'd have resented driving."
This is from her statement.
"After a stressful week of work,
those long trips on the motorway for netball would have shortened his fuse...
his already-short fuse."
Then, "Nicky was always late getting ready.
He was tired, got cross... cross about that, I know he did."
Do you lose your temper when you're tired?
No comment.
But you do lose your temper?
- [Fallon] No comment. - No comments all the way?
What's your feeling?
That he did it?
Tony's doing the Bic-trick.
The innocent tend to jump, shout, protest...
- [Ottager] Not always, but carry on. - Well, they're more active.
They grab, point, fidget and what-have-you.
The biro on the table,
it's been sat there for two hours and Fallon hasn't touched it once.
Do they not try things like that in West Midlands Police, then?
Well, they're old fashioned, aren't they?
They tend to want evidence.
At seven of the eight hotels you and Nicky stayed at during the tour,
a twin room costs the same as a double,
yet at all eight, you chose a double.
Why?
No comment.
In October alone, you were away for 11 nights.
Virtually living together.
Had to come to an end eventually, though, didn't it? Only so much...
netball a girl can play.
Real world came calling.
- Is that why you killed her? - No comment.
[Hugo] Back in the real world you couldn't live with her?
- No comment. - And you couldn't live with yourself.
No comment.
- [Ottager] How long left? - [Tony] I remind you that "no comment"...
- Less than two hours. - ...is not a legally neutral response.
It's going to be tight.
- [Tony] You do understand that? - [Fallon] No comment.
It's going to be fucking tight.
[high-pitched tone]
[haunting music playing]
And he came bearing gifts.
It won't be news to you that he's back, though, will it?
Because you'd have had to OK it.
He asked what kind of pressure you've been under.
And I asked him if he'd seen any of the papers this entire week,
as in, "How could anyone miss them?" and when he said he hadn't, I said,
"Put it this way: she's given up giving up smoking,
if that's any kind of clue."
Tell you what, though, a year working in Birmingham,
you'd expect him to come back dressed like it's 1993,
but he's not looking bad, you've got to give him that.
And you're telling me this because...
Don't worry, we all know that you were never officially an item.
But then again, we also know that it's before you're officially an item
that you have all the best sex.
"It's before you're officially an item that you have all the best sex, ma'am."
Yes, ma'am.
He's back on merit.
Yes, ma'am.
[clears throat] Yes, ma'am.
[beeping]
[buzzing]
[Tony] It's a difficult question, Doctor, I appreciate that,
so why don't we move on, OK?
OK.
The postmortem, done by our pathologist,
a highly respected member of the medical profession,
much like yourself, states...
and honest to goodness, Doctor, it gives me no pleasure...
states categorically that your stepdaughter was not a virgin
at the time of her death.
Did Nicky have a boyfriend, Dr Fallon?
No comment.
[Tony] Tricky to know what the word "boyfriend" means at that age, isn't it?
At 14.
And maybe not the kind of thing she'd share with you...
more something to share with Mum.
Which makes this interesting reading,
and not for the first time.
"Did Nicky, in any sense of the word, ever, at any time, have a boyfriend?"
That was my question, made the day after we received the postmortem.
Your wife's response, and...
I'll read it unabridged.
"No."
All of which left me very confused.
At all eight hotels, you chose a double bed over two singles.
Every time.
Dr Fallon, at the time of her murder,
were you conducting a sexual relationship with your 14-year-old stepdaughter?
[quietly] No comment.
[whispers] A bit louder, for the tape.
[lawyer] My client is upset, Detective Inspector.
I'd like to suggest we break there, at least for a couple of minutes.
[Tony] Interview suspended at 17:47.
[beeping]
- [ambient music playing] - [clock ticking]
[Hugo] OK, if you're ready, Tony.
[Tony] Yeah, thanks, Hugo. Let's continue.
[Tony] Right...
I notice you picked up one of our pens. I'll ask for that back before you go.
[Tony] Yep. OK.
[beeping]
Interview resumes at 5:53 p.m. Same persons present in the room.
Dr Fallon, if you weren't having sex with your stepdaughter, who was?
- No comment. - Who might that have been?
No comment.
The pathologist doubts that it was a boy her own age.
More likely a fully-grown man...
or men.
No?
The report says that Nicky died on October 28th, a Sunday,
the same day that you drove your flashy motor back from...
- Uh, Nottingham. - Nottingham.
This is you, leaving the underground car park in Long Eaton at 2:00 p.m.
[Tony] That's what? Three-hour journey back down the M1?
- [Hugo] Yeah. - [Tony] Quick stop at the services maybe?
Break the journey up.
Nearest services to where Nicky's body was found, incidentally.
[Fallon] No comment.
[Tony] No need to say "no comment". I wasn't asking you a question, was I?
- [Fallon] No comment. - [Tony] No.
[Hugo] Just a statement of fact.
On and through central London, call it four hours, and you're where?
Hammersmith roundabout?
Very close to where we're sitting now, in fact.
But no. You're nowhere to be seen.
It's not until six and a half hours after leaving your hotel in Long Eaton
that you finally return.
Roof down in this one.
Looking rather debonair, if you don't mind my saying so.
[Hugo] We couldn't help noticing, Nicky wasn't sitting in the car with you.
Not in any of the London shots.
[Tony] Why did it take you so long to get back, Dr Fallon?
They're not going to get him. It's not happening.
- Yeah, and she knows it too, this one. - [Hobbs] Yeah.
[Tony] Just seems an awfully long time, six and a half hours.
- Paul? - [Tony] Like I said earlier...
[lawyer speaking indistinctly]
- Who instead of? - Hugo.
Hugo's put in weeks on this.
Pulling him out would ruin him.
If Hugo had anything half-decent in that file of his,
he would have mentioned it hours ago.
The photo?
The photo shows the suspect not with the victim.
At best, it's irrelevant.
At worst... it's an alibi.
Yeah. You don't know the case.
The only one who can catch Fallon out now, is Fallon.
And to do that, he needs to start talking.
He's said nothing in, what, 22, 23 hours?
- That's not Hugo's fault. - Isn't it?
What else did you think he was doing here?
- [Warren sighs] - [Hobbs] Tony leads.
Uh... he doesn't know that you're here, so, whatever happens, Tony still leads.
It's his show, alright?
[Tony] ...in a hotel room, if that's what happened.
[door opens and closes]
Tell us about the injury Nicky received to her wrist.
- No comment. - Sustained to her wrist.
- Well, how did it happen? - No comment.
[Hugo] Meant she couldn't play netball, didn't it?
No comment.
Yet the team coach, he knew nothing about it.
"Fit as a fiddle, second highest scorer, ready and raring to go."
Her name was on the team-sheet the night before, yet, come match day...
no Nicky, no Dr Fallon.
Now, you were, he said,
"people with manners."
"I never had them down as the sorts to just do one like that.
It pissed me off, to be honest.
Especially when that woman at the hotel..."
He's referring to a Mrs Stewart, the owner.
"...when that woman at the hotel told us they had broken a coffee table,
left without paying for it,
and I now owed her 60 quid."
Nicky injured her wrist on that coffee table in your room, didn't she?
[beeping]
- [door buzzing] - Dr Fallon?
[Fallon] No comment.
[tense music playing]
[music builds in intensity]
[Tony] For the record, Detective Constable Hugo Duffy has left the room.
Detective Constable Paul Ottager has entered.
Inspector.
Apologies. Detective Inspector Paul Ottager has entered.
Actually,
if I remember rightly, Detective Ottager has a daughter himself.
Not too dissimilar in age, I think.
Twelve, 13?
A year or two younger than Nicky is. Was, anyway.
Come on, what is this? I want acknowledgment of this.
For the record, Detective Inspector Ottager
is looking across the table at the suspect.
According to the pathologist, highly respected,
the force required to smash a skull into 17 pieces in this way
would have been around 200 pounds per square inch.
- Simpler terms. - Couldn't manage it with your hand.
Could, say, with, I don't know, the back of a garden spade.
- It won't help, Detective. - Sorry?
Your attempts to impress.
Who am I supposed to be trying to impress?
Whoever's watching.
It won't do you much good, is all I'm saying.
CPS hates that sort of thing.
- You expect Dr Fallon to be charged? - No.
Then why mention the Crown Prosecution Service?
General career advice.
Oh, for me? Thank you very much.
But let's stick to the point.
To your question, you asked for a better description
of the force required to smash a skull in this way.
I'm just trying to find an appropriate frame of reference,
so your client knows what it took.
Have another go.
- Miss Baines... - Put it this way.
It's a fraction of the force you'd feel
if you had checked into a hotel room with my daughter.
You can charge him, just so you know. There's a consensus next-door.
They think you've got a good shot.
Decent grounds.
Especially as it's propped up by all the press interest.
The jury, they, erm...
they read the papers.
They're not meant to. We don't condone it.
But they do.
It's bluff.
We don't bluff.
They say they don't bluff, but that's just part of the bluff.
If we were going to bluff, Edgar, we'd have done it a long time ago.
- Dr Fallon... - Bottom line.
You either wriggle out from underneath your legal thumb here,
and tell us how you didn't do it,
or...
you keep schtum and get life.
"Life" being 14 years, by the way.
It's not life. Not really, not anymore.
Unless you're Nicky, obviously.
She's had her 14 years.
[ominous music playing]
If someone killed my little girl...
I wouldn't rest.
Do you know what I mean?
And that's what they'll think is weird.
The jury,
the parents on the jury,
when they see this tape.
That's the main camera up there.
At what my daughter would call the, erm...
the "selfie" angle.
But that one...
That's the one that's gonna get you.
[ominous music intensifies]
[Ottager] That's the man they're going to see.
[sighs] He's gonna.
He isn't.
He is.
How long left?
Forty-five minutes.
[lawyer] You don't have to say a word.
[Hobbs] Shh, shh, shh, shh...
[tense music playing]
I'd rather people knew.
[Tony] That you're innocent?
Then tell us.
Tell us what happened.
To be clear, taking Nicky to netball games
did not cause problems in my marriage, OK?
Far from it.
It was a means of avoiding the problems that were already there.
My marriage had run its course
and we had fallen, quite naturally, into ways of avoiding each other.
So I would work late, or I'd...
you know, just spend the evening seeing to the garden.
So Nicky's netball tournaments gave us an added excuse,
legitimised our desire to be apart at weekends...
I was happy to take her. It suited.
Let me tell you something about my wife. She booked the hotel rooms, not me.
Every time.
OK?
[Hobbs sighs]
So there were three other parents on the tour... all of them mothers...
two of whom made passes at me...
one of them seriously.
The first I laughed off, the second...
uh, I considered, briefly, then declined.
The other girls on the tour did not have parents with them
as they were at boarding school together, so they were far more used to being away.
The only other man on the tour was Andrews, the coach...
the man who killed Nicky.
I'm certain of it.
[quietly] I can no longer... I can't.
I cannot just sit here saying nothing when it is... it's patently clear to me,
from everything you've been asking me, or even saying,
that it should be him sitting here instead of me.
It's impossible.
The day you dread, as a father,
is the day you discover someone has had sex...
with your little girl.
OK, so...
be in no doubt, when that day comes early... years early...
years early...
let me tell you, that is a nightmare made real.
Were I to have killed anyone... [inhales sharply]
And when we came back from breakfast on the Sunday morning, on the 28th,
Nicky told me that she had been seeing him.
- Andrews? - [Fallon softly] Andrews, yes.
Going to him, liaising with him...
Not even in his bed... Not even in his bed, for Christ's sake.
In the back of his foul, dog-stinking estate car.
I just pushed her in the hotel room, as hard as I could.
We fought. I swore.
I hit her.
I never hit her. I wouldn't. I wasn't brought up that way.
You don't hit girls. Old fashioned.
But I did.
I pushed her across the room and she put her arm, her wrist,
reaching back as she went over,
through the glass coffee table as she fell.
So your colleague was right. That's how she hurt her wrist.
It was my fault, my temper.
And you were right too, about getting angry. I can.
I do.
I... I love Nicky,
and I could see that her wrist needed treating,
and, bad-tempered bastard though I may well be, I thought,
"Well, I can at least help you with that. I can patch you up."
I had my Doctor's bag. I brought it with me in case of injuries on tour.
You know, erm...
"Is there a doctor in the house?" That kind of thing. So...
Even though I knew... I knew...
that all hell would break loose when I got her home.
But there was a second...
in the bathroom,
when I was applying the plaster and she was watching me treat her...
that everything seemed fine again.
Was calm.
I thought it would all be OK.
But then, erm...
as soon as it was done, she left the room.
Straight away, ran off to him.
Said she was going to tell her friends they were in love...
she and Andrews.
Of all the horrendous things to hear.
As soon as she was the right age, she said they were gonna...
broadcast it to the world, the pair of them.
She got that idea from him, you know. [mutters]
They'd... They would "walk out together," I suppose...
as people used to say.
Sorry, I do... I talk like a man twice my age.
That's what she used to say. [sniffles]
[eerie music playing]
[Tony] Then?
Then, I did something I'll regret for the rest of my life.
Erm...
I went home without her.
Guilty.
Innocent.
[Tony] So you fought. She ran out of the room.
- [Hobbs sighs] - [Fallon] To see Andrews.
- [Tony] Where was he? - [Fallon] In his room.
You're sure she went there?
I went there too. I followed.
- I thought you drove away. - I did both.
I knocked repeatedly on his door, but he wouldn't open up.
I'd have smashed it down.
Well, then you're a fool.
Nicky had enough difficulty
befriending those boarding schoolgirls as it was.
Last thing she needed was Dad making a scene.
I called through the door. I said there had been an accident.
That Nicky put her arm through the table, that she needed to rest,
that she needed to let it bruise properly, let the body do its work.
[Fallon sighs]
And then Nicky opened the door,
only very slightly, and...
she told me to leave them alone.
After all, hadn't I caused enough trouble?
That was the last word she ever said to me.
Stupid...
It struck me then, actually standing outside that door...
he'd picked her to play on the team because of what happened between them,
not because of any sporting prowess.
She was never much cop, bless her.
Yeah, her selection had been a pleasant surprise.
- But she was second highest scorer. - Yes, I thought that too.
Only two players on a netball team are allowed to score goals.
Huh.
When Andrews learned she was planning on...
telling people about their relationship,
knowing what that would mean for him personally and professionally...
he would have stopped her.
- [Ottager] Stopped her? - [Fallon] That's what I think.
- Killed her? - That's what I think.
In his hotel room?
Well, that... That I couldn't tell you.
[breathes deeply]
Was it bruised, the arm?
Yes.
There's your answer. There you go, Detective.
Your pathologist will tell you, dead bodies don't bruise.
That rather rules me out.
How do you arrive at that one?
[Fallon] She was fine at breakfast. I think the others will tell you that.
It was only once we got back to the room, we fought, I left the hotel an hour later.
I think that's supported by your photographs, yes?
She can't have died in the hour
between breakfast and me leaving the hotel.
It's not enough time for the bruises to develop.
Does that make sense?
[sinister music playing]
[sighs] Jesus, I ought to have thought of that earlier.
That would have saved you a lot of time...
and me a lot of pain.
[scoffs]
Shit.
[door opens and closes]
[ticking]
[plane engine roars in distance]
[Warren] Now they've got him talking, they can't shut him up.
Not a helpful thing to say. Sorry.
[door closes]
Erm, I need a word with Tony.
I'd rather you let him get on with it, to be honest.
- It won't take two minutes. - Yeah, well, we've only got 15 as it is.
Why didn't you tell us this before?
- It only just occurred to me. - Any of it.
You talk of... wasting time, causing pain.
You could have saved yourself the pain by telling us all that from the start.
Well, like you said, this... all this,
you doing your job, my solicitor doing hers,
me following her advice, in here, all these...
This is how these conversations go.
Ms Baines says she knows what you're like.
Oh, yeah? What are we like?
That you'd try to manipulate my story.
- "Story"? - See?
Detectives on the inquiry visited your house
the day after your stepdaughter's death,
and your wife gave us...
a photo to share with the media.
And I looked at this photo and I thought...
"Who'd want to take the life of a young girl like that?
And then I thought, "I'd like to find out who."
I wasn't meant to be on this interview when it first came in.
I volunteered.
I wanted to have some influence, you see,
in my own small way.
[papers fluttering]
[ping]
[whirring]
Excuse me.
[door opens]
Look, I put Post-it notes inside. I know you don't have long.
OK.
You know what she's like.
She doesn't not rate you if that's what you think.
- She's just changing things up. - OK.
- OK? - Mm-hmm.
[whirring]
[ominous music playing]
[music intensifies]
[Hobbs] Come on, Tony. What are you playing at?
[door closes]
Leave it.
[Tony breathes deeply]
You filled up at the services on the way home.
Hmm? Seventy-five quid?
- That's a lot to spend in a garage. - Not these days. Not for a full tank.
On an Audi S3?
Can't be more than 60, can it? Even if you were running on fumes.
Yet you spent 75, according to the receipt...
because you also had the car cleaned.
You had the car cleaned.
[inhales deeply]
- I don't recall. - No, I'm telling you, not asking you.
Let me refresh your memory.
You had just found out that your 14-year-old stepdaughter
was having a sexual relationship with a man your own age
so, you thought...
"Ooh, I know, I'll leave them in a hotel room together,
go get a full valet done on the motor, take my mind off things."
Did they clean the boot?
Of the car, sorry. Simple question.
Did they clean the boot of the car?
- They do do that, don't they? - Whenever I've had it done, yeah.
Nothing like having the rubber matting from the boot of your car pressure washed.
Take your mind off all that... abuse.
Would have meant taking your stuff out of the boot, of course. Your bags.
- I'm not sure I had a bag. - Of course you did. You're forgetting.
"Is there a doctor in the house?" and all that.
You said you had your bag. Said it rather proudly, in fact.
That's OK. That's OK. Everybody's tired. It's been a long day.
But don't worry. Nearly over now.
Three minutes, Tony.
See? Three minutes and then it's home time.
Look, we know you had your bag with you, because we have that bag in Forensics.
It's leather, it's expensive. It's nice, I like it. I want one.
But the most interesting thing about that bag, Dr Fallon,
is that we found it on the back seat.
- [Fallon] It would have been in the boot. - Would have been, but wasn't.
Why?
Shall I tell them, or will you?
Because...
because Nicky was in the boot.
That's why the roof is up in all those shots.
To make space for Nicky. That's why you needed the car cleaned.
How many times? Dead bodies do not bruise.
But she wasn't dead, was she?
So, she was bruising, wasn't she?
No comment.
[ominous music playing]
[ticking]
You beat your daughter to within an inch of her life in your hotel room,
when she threatened to expose your sexual assault on her.
Your best bet of getting away with it, you decided,
was to frame the only other person
who could conceivably have been sleeping with her.
I say "sleeping"...
I mean raping. Yes?
No comment.
- Plastering her arm was the alibi, yes? - No comment.
An alibi you held in reserve. It acknowledged the fight.
And by extension, it explained the blood in the room,
the damage to the table, the blood on you and on your clothes.
You managed to get her to the car, barely breathing,
but breathing nonetheless, and you put her in the boot.
And as you drove south, her arm began to bruise, and the plaster began to set.
You turned off Junction 15, put a bag-for-life over her head,
and finished off the job.
Please stop me if I'm getting any of this wrong, by the way.
Incidentally, did you put the bag over her head
to protect yourself from blood-splatter
or so you didn't have to look in your stepdaughter's face
as you were thumping it with your heel?
That's a disgusting fucking story.
Oh, it's disgusting, I agree,
but it's not a fucking story.
The most interesting piece of evidence
is highlighted by my colleague, DC Duffy.
You remember DC Duffy, bloke with the coffee?
Sat here for several hours. Put a lot of work into this.
Now, he asks here,
and he's put it in nice big letters in case I couldn't find my specs:
"Why does one side of Nicky's plaster have faint little hexagons along it?"
There they are, look. Three of them, on the right.
Ever so faint.
Is that better?
What have we got, 45 seconds?
Any thoughts on that? No? Don't worry.
Duffy's done the hard work for us. "Go to page 32." Nice big letters.
There they are. Hexagons.
Once you've spotted them they're all you can see, aren't they?
So, as Nicky was lying there in the boot of your car,
alive and unwell, her arm busy bruising,
the rubber matting was leaving an imprint on her still-setting plaster.
And on this Post-it, Duffy's put,
"Boot mat unique to Audi S3."
I like that. That is helpful.
[Ottager] It's 6:30 p.m.
Edgar Fallon, we will be charging you with the rape and murder of Nicky Fallon.
You will be taken downstairs, where you will be read both charges in full,
then either remanded in custody or released on bail.
- [audio recorder switches off] - [Ottager] My money's on the former.
[tense music playing]
[door opens]
[indistinct radio chatter]
[indistinct conversation]
Detective...
you might not thank me for saying this, but she's lucky.
- Who? - Your daughter.
Chap like you as her father.
I don't have a daughter.
[elevator chimes]
[door beeping, buzzing]
[Tony sighs and chuckles]
[Hobbs] The Rose and Crown, apparently.
- Paul Ottager's buying the first round. - Oh?
- Says who? - [chuckles] Paul Ottager.
It's my birthday, so...
Not that anyone else remembered.
- Oh, go on. - Fine, OK.
But Duffy doesn't buy a drink all night.
He did well.
He did, he did. You should tell him.
[Hobbs] I will.
That doesn't mean it was wrong to throw Paul in.
- No, I'm not saying that. - He shook things up.
Yeah, I know. I was there.
Right.
- See you down there? - Alright.
Good.
- [Hobbs] Hey. - [Warren] See you down there.
[Tony] Yeah?
- The kitty. - Oh, right, no.
There you go.
Drinks on me, mainly.
Do you want me to give it to her?
Just 'cos he's back, doesn't mean they'll get back together...
or that you'll have less of a chance.
If a chance is what you're after.
I don't know what you're talking about.
[Warren chuckles softly]
Have you ever told her how you feel?
You don't have to answer that.
It's just, it has got to beat keeping your mouth shut, hasn't it?
Hasn't it?
No comment.
[chuckles]
See you down there.
[sighs]
[whirring]
[melancholy music playing]
[melancholy music continues]