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BBC Sounds. Music, radio,
0:50
podcasts. I think we follow
0:52
the trail because what else is there? Not following
0:54
the trail? Following the discussion
0:57
in the studio, Marcus Byron and Eleanor
0:59
Peck had gone their separate ways. Kennedy
1:02
and I, looking for a change of scene, had de-camped
1:04
to the coffee place across the road to talk things
1:06
over. Isn't this just following the yellow brick road to
1:08
more crazy, dangerous bullshit? Almost certainly. I
1:11
thought the plan was to bring these people to account. Yeah,
1:13
it is, but which people? To account for what? Well,
1:16
you have the next leader of the government involved in an occult
1:18
conspiracy that's as near to fascism as... We can't prove
1:20
it. We have Robert Blake's notebook. Yeah,
1:23
but even if there was a way to prove it was genuine,
1:25
which a decent lawyer would absolutely argue it wasn't,
1:28
what does it actually prove? To someone
1:30
who hasn't seen what we've seen, that book reads like the
1:32
ramblings of a lunatic.
1:33
They murdered Theo Martin to get that book. Yes,
1:36
but we can't prove that either. Look,
1:38
Robert Blake devoted his life to exposing
1:40
these people, as did Edwin Lillibridge, and
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neither of them got close. And they were respected journalists
1:45
at a time when that still meant something. We have
1:47
a podcast.
1:48
Okay, I mean, yeah, that's true. It's
1:51
out there, and however many thousand people will hear
1:53
it. Which does nothing, because I suspect a lot of our
1:55
listeners already believe some wild shit. Exactly.
1:59
And if it does have any kind of impact... We get sued for libel.
2:01
And we lose. Look, Robert
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Blake wanted to bring these people down, but at
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a certain point I think he gave up on that idea.
2:08
I think that's why he was looking for the church's
2:10
starry wisdom. I think he
2:12
got to the point that exposure was just never
2:14
gonna happen, and he realized he had to stop
2:16
them, regardless of whether anyone ever knew about
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it. And he got killed. I'm keen
2:21
not to leave that part out. We've already succeeded
2:23
in stopping them once. Yeah, entirely by accident.
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And you got sucked into God knows where for three
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years. Do you have a better idea?
2:30
Sorry, sorry, Kenneth.
2:34
I have a lot of better ideas. But they
2:36
all involve drinking, or being on a beach, or
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both. Fine.
2:43
We both know this conversation does not end with us walking
2:45
away. It did, and we would never show.
2:48
And literally dozens of people would be disappointed.
2:55
You really want to do this?
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I don't see that we have a choice if we're
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going to stop them. The next morning
3:00
we reconvened at the studio with Elena Peck
3:03
and Marcus Byron. Marcus
3:05
had brought along a friend.
3:07
Reality is going to stop them. Reality
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doesn't care. Oh God, not the catchphrase. Victoria
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Ness, who I had last seen posing as
3:15
a geography teacher in a private school.
3:18
I appreciate your skepticism, Dr Peck, although
3:20
I must say I am surprised by it, given
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all you've experienced. Someone has to maintain
3:24
some objectivity around here. You
3:27
all think you're off to battle goblins. You need
3:29
to be reminded that you're going up against
3:31
people who are extremely powerful
3:33
here in the real world. I think you'll
3:35
find they're extremely powerful in both worlds. Well,
3:37
whichever it is, we don't have enough evidence to go public,
3:40
so we need to find out exactly what they're up to and stop them. And
3:42
step one is to decode whatever Blake is saying
3:44
in his notebook about the Church of Starry Wisdom. Is this it?
3:48
Where are you securing
3:49
this? I locked it in my desk drawer overnight.
3:52
Are you serious? No one even knows we have it yet. They
3:54
will. They probably do by now.
3:57
This needs to be properly secured. It doesn't matter.
3:59
We made copies.
4:00
and I've photographed it all and uploaded the images
4:02
to three separate secure locations. When did you
4:04
do that?
4:05
Before we went home last night. Well, at least someone has their
4:07
head screwed on.
4:09
And so we sat down with the copies of the Blake
4:11
notebook and tried to pick our way along the
4:13
trail Blake was leaving. The
4:15
problem, which we discovered after a few hours,
4:17
was that the trail didn't seem to lead anywhere.
4:21
It's incomplete, isn't it? What do you mean?
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He's right. It doesn't go anywhere. Some
4:26
of the clues are okay, but they don't all join up, and
4:28
even where it's possible to fill in the gaps with educated
4:30
guesses... It doesn't lead anywhere. I mean...
4:33
As a
4:35
primary source... It's a real
4:37
mess.
4:38
You can't read Blake's handwriting most of the time. He
4:41
seems to have gone back over the text and annotated
4:44
it, referring to previous notebooks that we don't have.
4:46
If the clues weren't there, then Ashton Heath
4:48
and his cronies wouldn't be looking for it. Well,
4:50
they might.
4:51
They don't know what's in it any more than we do. A
4:53
kid died for this book. Right,
4:54
but that doesn't make the book valuable. It just makes the
4:56
people harass their assholes. There's no
4:59
obvious chronology to any
5:01
of this. The parts about Blake and Lilybridge make sense. But the rest
5:03
of it... I've got to keep trying. I
5:05
think this section is actually written
5:07
in some kind of
5:08
code. I mean... Have we spoken... Eleanor?
5:12
Yes,
5:12
yeah, yeah. Keep trying. But
5:14
this isn't GCSE code-breaking, Matthew.
5:17
We're not going to miraculously get to an answer just by... Ooh, ooh, trying harder.
5:21
Then what? Just give up.
5:23
Throw in the towel, go back to sneering at everyone
5:25
from cosy academia. Nah. These
5:28
people, they have to be stopped. They have to
5:30
answer for... fucking
5:32
people! Hey!
5:33
Fuck this! Is
5:42
he going to do something stupid?
5:44
Um, I'm going
5:47
to go back to... Eleanor.
5:50
Cosy-acting? Oh, and a... OK, wait, can you... You
5:52
want us to go after him? No,
5:55
obviously. I don't want to wind him up any more than he already
5:57
is. And that was out of character? Are you
5:59
just... He knocked all that stuff off
6:01
the table with his right hand. What does that mean? I'm
6:04
not sure. Either he's getting better or he's getting
6:06
worse. We'll keep an
6:07
eye on him. I'm sorry,
6:09
Kennedy, but...
6:15
You okay?
6:16
Yeah.
6:17
Yeah, I'm... I'm
6:20
okay. What is it? It's...
6:24
it's been really difficult.
6:28
Ma, since you came back, the
6:31
mood swings and this... this
6:34
anger all the time, no one
6:37
knows. I'm...
6:42
I'm sorry,
6:42
Kennedy. I
6:44
didn't say anything before,
6:45
but I didn't realise... You've
6:47
seen it too? I thought it was me. I
6:51
thought it was something about me and him. The
6:54
recorder goes on and it's old Matt,
6:57
but... The minute
6:59
he switches it off again... Exactly! We used
7:01
to record everything. That was our thing,
7:04
and now he goes nuts if he sees a recorder
7:06
in my hand. Everything
7:08
that's gone into the show so far, it
7:11
sounds like Matt, like old Matt,
7:14
but
7:15
it's
7:16
curated. It's a performance.
7:19
Well, that red light is still on, so I guess
7:21
the game's up now. He can't hide
7:23
in the gaps anymore. What is
7:25
it? Post-traumatic stress
7:27
or...? It's out
7:29
of my wheelhouse. I
7:31
mean, that would make sense, wouldn't it? He definitely
7:33
needs to
7:33
see someone. He won't. Not
7:36
yet.
7:39
I want to help him, but...
7:42
We need to get him to slow down. He's
7:45
on this mission to... You
7:54
said... Hide
7:57
in the gaps, you
7:57
said.
8:01
I think the gaps are the clue.
8:04
Well, that was a nice moment
8:06
while it lasted.
8:11
I didn't appreciate it at the time, but
8:14
I was out of control, and I had
8:16
been ever since I got back. The
8:18
first few days I think I was disassociated
8:21
from what had happened. I had no memory
8:23
of those missing three years, and like someone
8:25
in shock or grieving, I
8:27
was just trying to convince myself that nothing
8:29
had changed, that I could stop working
8:31
to my old life as if I'd never been away. And
8:35
then the dreams started.
8:38
I didn't tell Kennedy about them because I
8:42
think I was scared. They were
8:44
terrible dreams that would
8:46
see me waking in the middle of the night drenched
8:49
in sweat. I only remembered
8:51
fragments, snapshots of a world
8:53
that wasn't like ours in
8:55
any way, of creatures that
8:57
defied description, that
9:00
were more like... like feelings
9:02
than objects. But
9:05
unlike nightmares, I understood
9:07
that these were something else. I
9:11
had been to this place. I
9:14
had seen these things. These
9:17
were memories. I
9:20
started trying to stay awake. I
9:23
became scared of closing my eyes, and
9:25
so the lack of sleep contributed to my altered
9:27
psychological state. But
9:30
that wasn't the whole of it. I
9:33
was a different person. As
9:35
Kennedy and Eleanor witnessed, I was angry
9:38
now. Or maybe I'd always been
9:40
angry, and now I was just left able to filter
9:42
it. When Victorian
9:44
Ness told me that people who had come back from
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where I'd been often lost their sanity
9:49
as their memories came back, it scared
9:51
the hell out of me. Was
9:53
this already happening? Was the clock ticking?
9:56
Was I running out of time? Some
9:59
combination... of all that was running through my
10:01
mind as I switched on my recorder
10:04
and set about making one of the worst decisions
10:07
of my life.
10:14
Mr. Ashton, hey. I'm sorry, I'm afraid
10:16
I'm... Agh! Oh,
10:21
sorry. I know what you did. I
10:23
know everything
10:24
you do. I should be a such... You
10:26
had the department shut down. You had Theo
10:28
Martin's kills, I know all of it. I'm
10:32
sure I don't know what you're talking about, Mr.
10:35
Heywood, is it? I do, however,
10:37
know the penalties for assaulting a member of His Majesty's
10:40
government. It's no rather
10:42
a great mistake, I'm afraid. Oh,
10:45
it's going to know what you did. Is that right? Everyone,
10:49
or just a dozen or so Jim
10:51
Wits and conspiracy theorists who listened
10:53
to your little radio show. I know
10:56
about the hunter of the dark. I
10:59
don't care what you think, you know. I
11:02
care what you can prove. If you
11:04
had any evidence to back up these wild
11:06
allegations, I'd be throwing
11:08
punches in the street.
11:12
What was it like in there, Mr. Heywood?
11:14
A glorious,
11:18
long, slow day.
11:26
You draw this unpleasant little encounter
11:28
too close. I have an appointment to
11:30
keep, so... Oh,
11:33
instead, would you? I
11:35
wouldn't want anyone to say I don't feel as good
11:37
as I get.
12:02
I came to on the pavement. Ashton
12:05
Heath and his goons were long gone. I've
12:09
just got back to the studio and there's
12:12
no one here. I don't know where they
12:14
are. Kennedy and Eleanor aren't answering their
12:16
phones. I don't really blame
12:18
them. It
12:21
was stupid to think we could win this one. Stupid
12:25
to think we could take on the British establishment
12:27
and achieve anything better than nothing
12:30
at all. They have the media,
12:33
the lawyers, the power. Nothing
12:35
sticks. Even
12:37
when it looks like one of them might finally,
12:40
in whatever minor way, have to
12:42
face the music, some light
12:44
entertainment presenter gets involved in a scandal
12:46
and all the attention immediately goes to them. Ernest
12:51
Bradwin was a fascist
12:54
who rose through the ranks to the top of the pyramid.
12:57
No one ever told the world who he really was and
13:00
now his grandson is following suit. Fascism,
13:06
occult beliefs, murder. These
13:09
people can do what they want, hurt
13:12
whoever they want and
13:14
we don't hold them to account. Ever.
13:19
This
13:22
is all I know. A big waste
13:24
of time to spend this whole thing. No
13:29
one's who we call a break. No, not once have
13:31
we made a dent. Caroline.
13:40
I hear you had an altercation with my brother.
13:43
I did. He came out of it rather better.
13:45
He should probably put
13:47
some ice on that. So
13:52
this is where it all happened. It's
13:54
not exactly glamorous is it? I was
13:56
rather hoping it wouldn't be.
13:58
Why did you confuse me?
13:59
I don't know, it was stupid.
14:02
It wasn't therapeutic, never. Oh,
14:05
we found Robert
14:06
Blake's notebook. It doesn't help. Help
14:08
with what? I
14:09
mean, it's useless. There's background information on your grandfather,
14:12
but we thought it might lead us somewhere. There
14:15
were clues Robert Blake left, but it doesn't. And
14:17
so, out of frustration. Yeah, I let my temper
14:20
get the better of me. Tell me you at
14:22
least got one good puncture. Yeah, I did. Well, it
14:24
wasn't bad. Good for you. Is this it?
14:28
It is, yeah.
14:29
I've got it! What?
14:33
Matthew, hey, we've been here by C-52. Wait.
14:36
The equipment on these books is under the right to order to order by
14:38
the Broadway singers of 1996. What's
14:41
going on? Take everything. Wait,
14:45
please. What?
14:47
You were being
14:49
seated. Not so
14:51
well done for thinking that idiot brother
14:53
was pulling the strings. Yes,
14:57
the women can hide in plain sight,
14:59
you see. My grandmother
15:01
taught me that. She let
15:03
Grandpa run around making all the noise while
15:06
she quietly got on with the business of corrupting
15:08
the 20th century. I'd
15:10
say she was rather effective, wouldn't you?
15:14
Your grandmother? Abigail
15:17
Gladwin. Although you knew
15:19
her as Abigail Fisher.
15:22
Insmouth? Insmouth,
15:24
indeed. What a dump,
15:27
by the way. Kennedy's account of that place
15:29
was far too kind. My grandmother left
15:31
in 1928 when the FBI raided the town. She
15:34
was 28 years old. She
15:36
was born in 1900. January the
15:38
1st. Abigail Fisher was the object
15:41
of the Melatine ritual. She came
15:42
to England and married my grandfather. An
15:45
occultist, her fascist leanings, was perfect
15:47
cover for what she needed to do.
15:48
And he didn't care that she didn't want his children.
15:50
But she had... My mother and
15:53
my aunt, yes.
15:55
Obed Marsh's children. The man
15:57
you consigned to oblivion.
15:59
We tried to bring him back,
16:01
no easy task by the way, and
16:03
we got you instead. So
16:06
really the least you could do is find that notebook
16:08
for me. And what's to stop me telling
16:10
everybody about this? Nothing. Apart
16:13
from the fact that every shred of evidence you ever
16:15
had is currently being packed up and taken away.
16:18
Are
16:19
you recording this? No
16:22
I'm...
16:22
Oh Mr Haywood.
16:24
Oh,
16:26
nice try.
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