Beyond Paradise season 2 episode 2 showed us that there's more to life in Shipton Abbott than meets the eye, as a medium seemed to predict a spate of terrible luck striking one unfortunate resident. Meanwhile, DI Humphrey Goodman (Kris Marshall) and Martha Lloyd (Sally Bretton) were assessed as potential foster parents — but did they make the grade?
Here's what happened in Beyond Paradise season 2 episode 2...
We open at the home of medium Claire Moss (Murder In Successville's Cariad Lloyd), who's doing a reading for Martha — she claims to be in contact with Martha's dad, who knows she has something important coming up but she'll get through it.
Martha emerges and tells her friend Belle Hammond (Juice's Emily Lloyd-Saini), who's waiting in the next room, that it was amazing, just as Claire calls Belle through for her own reading. Claire tells Belle that she's getting energy from an older male — possibly her grandfather. Belle confirms that her grandfather died five weeks ago. Claire says she's seeing a "dreaming doll", and Belle says her grandfather used to call her Dolly Daydream ever since she was little. Claire says Belle's grandfather is showing her flowers as a sign of love, but then she gets another message, a more distressing one: fire. (Not surprising really, the number of candles she's got burning in that room.)
As Martha drives Belle home, the two remark on how impressively accurate Claire's reading was, but Belle suddenly notices something terrible in the distance as they approach her house: her garage is on fire.
Over at the Lloyd/Goodman residence, Anne Lloyd (Barbara Flynn) brings a bacon butty to Humphrey, who's busy giving the houseboat a fresh coat of paint in anticipation of their home visit from the social worker. Anne asks him if he's worried about it, and Humphrey says he's not so much worried as terrified, but she assures him that they'll see how strong he and Martha are together, and that they'll make wonderful foster parents. Anne concludes by telling him to just be himself — although the look on her face afterwards suggests that she's just realising this might not be the best advice.
At the police station, Margo Martins (Felicity Montagu) and DS Esther Williams (Zahra Ahmadi) are idly reading their horoscopes when PC Kelby Hartford (Dylan Llewellyn) gets off the phone from the fire service, who have finished their assessment of the fire at Belle's — it definitely started in the garage, but they couldn't find any traces of accelerants, so they aren't sure if it was deliberate or accidental. Esther points out that Humphrey will want them to do a good job on this one, as Belle is Martha's friend, and sends Kelby off to make enquiries with the neighbours.
Meanwhile, at Ten Mile Kitchen, Humphrey is reeling off the list of repairs he's made for the houseboat for Martha, as they both fret slightly about their upcoming interviews. Humphrey wonders why they have to be seen separately, and Martha supposes that it's to ensure that one of them isn't forcing the other one into anything. Humphrey's afraid that Martha will be brilliant and he'll be rubbish, but she assures him he'll be fine — as long as he doesn't tell the frogman joke.
Esther arrives and asks how her daughter Zoe (Melina Sinadinou) is getting on with her first shift working for Martha, and Martha assures Esther that Zoe has been brilliant. Esther offers to take Martha for a glass of wine after work as a thank you for hiring her daughter, and Martha gladly accepts.
Esther tells Humphrey that the fire service are done at Belle's — the garage is a write-off, but they got there before it spread to the house. Martha mentions that she spoke to Belle earlier and she was still very shaken. Humphrey tells Esther that the medium that Martha and Belle saw last night predicted the fire, and Esther is pretty cynical — she thinks it was either a lucky guess, or the medium did it herself and they should just go and arrest her.
As Humphrey and Esther inspect the charred remains of Belle's garage, Esther informs him that the fire service got a call at around 9:30pm the night before, and it had taken hold by the time they got here. Belle comes out to see them, and it turns out this is the first time she and Humphrey have met properly, despite their mutual connection through Martha.
As Belle talks Esther through what was actually in the garage at the time of the fire, Humphrey finds the remains of a padlock outside (smearing ash across his face in the process, classic Humphrey). When he returns, he asks if the back door was working properly, and Belle says yes, she checked everything properly after last time — referring to the time about a month ago when she got home and found the patio doors open. Someone had forced their way in, but didn't take anything, so she didn't see the need to report it.
As they're leaving, Belle wishes Humphrey luck with his interview — a comment which catches Esther off-guard, so Humphrey explains to Esther that the interview is part of his and Martha's application to be foster parents. Esther is surprised he hadn't mentioned it before now, and Humphrey admits that he was a bit wary of doing so in case they didn't get accepted. Esther tells him that she's sure they'll be fantastic foster parents.
The conversation turns to the matter of Belle's fire (not to be confused with early 2000s Irish girl group Bellefire): Humphrey thinks it was deliberate because it looks like the lock on the garage's back door was forced open. Esther thinks it's odd that a burglar would ignore the car on the driveway, break into the garage and start a fire — maybe the door was broken by the fire service when they were putting it out?
Over at Ten Mile Kitchen, Anne is still getting lots of messages on her dating app — she's currently being wooed by a stamp collector, who seemed nice on their first date but was also quite dull, and she's looking for a way to reject him politely. Zoe tells her to just "ghost him and move on", but Anne's unfamiliar with the term and thinks it means she's supposed to send him a ghost emoji. Luckily Zoe intercepts before she actually sends it, and explains that "ghosting" means not replying until they get the hint that you're not interested. Anne thinks this seems rather mean.
Zoe asks what Anne's looking for, and Anne isn't entirely sure. Martha mentions that Anne used to say that when she met Martha's father, she knew he was right for her in the first 10 minutes. Zoe scoffs at this, saying that even if she met Timothée Chalamet tomorrow, she'd want to know he respects her ambitions before she made him her bae. She walks off to serve some customers, and after she's gone Anne asks Martha who "Timothy Chalomey" is.
At the police station, Humphrey is still wondering why someone would set fire to Belle's garage on purpose. Esther suggests it could be kids, but Humphrey thinks that doesn't fit the profile here: kids are more opportunistic and would have been more likely to stick around and watch it burn. Esther suggests it could be an insurance scam — if Belle was struggling for money, a small fire somewhere contained and low-risk like a garage might be worth a few grand. Humphrey gets Margo to look into Belle's finances, but he's still curious as to where Claire's prediction fits into all of this. Esther wonders if perhaps the reading gave Belle the idea, but Humphrey scotches that: Martha was with Belle all evening and the garage was already ablaze when they got home. Esther puts forward the theory that the psychic was in on it, which Humphrey thinks is a stretch, although Esther reckons the idea that the psychic could actually see the future is far less plausible.
Meanwhile, Belle pays a visit to Claire, who's heard about the fire — she explains that the way her gift works is that the spirits show her things and she doesn't always know what it means. Fire can sometimes be associated with cleansing, anger or passion — it's hard to know how to interpret it without further context. Belle tells Claire that she always used to say her grandfather was her guardian angel, and now it's really come true. She asks Claire if her grandfather is here now, and offers to pay for another reading, but Claire tells her not to worry about that. She channels Belle's grandfather again and says he is acknowledging that she called him her guardian angel, but he seems to be tutting and showing her a list — Belle says she always used to write him lists of jobs to do, and Claire says that now she's added 'guardian angel' to it he won't get any peace. Claire gets another slightly distressing message: Belle's grandfather is showing her an old car and saying it might let her down. She warns Belle to be careful.
At Ten Mile Kitchen, social worker Hannah Owen (Amalia Vitale) is conducting Martha's interview. She reminds Martha about next week's home visit, and tells her not to do anything special to prepare for it — it's just about them assessing that the home environment and the practicalities of how it will work during the fostering period, so definitely no need to repaint everything or anything like that. (Oops.)
Martha asks if it will be a problem that they live on a houseboat, and Hannah says she doesn't see any reason why it would be — they'd just have to make sure it would be safe for a child. She says that Martha will be listed as the main carer because of Humphrey's job, and checks that that won't be an issue with her also running a business. Martha assures her it won't, and says they both really want it to work — they'll do whatever it takes.
Esther is just finishing a call to the fire investigators over at the police station when she gets a smell of something distinctly unpleasant in the room — it turns out Kelby, who's getting ready for a fishing trip, has brought a load of bait in with him, so Esther makes him take it outside.
She tells Humphrey that the firemen didn't break the garage door down, so it must have been forced — possibly by the same person who tried to break in four weeks ago. Margo says she's done a check on Belle's finances, but there's nothing there to suggest she's got money troubles. Humphrey thinks this rules out Belle as a likely suspect, which makes Claire's prediction more impressive, though Esther still vehemently disagrees. But as Belle is driving home, one of her tyres suddenly blows, sending her car screeching out of control.
Hannah arrives at the police station to interview Humphrey, and says she hopes this isn't interrupting his day too much. Humphrey replies "no comment", and explains that was a little icebreaker joke — it was either that, or the frogman joke that Martha forbade him from telling. (Spoiler: we will not be finding out at any point in this episode what the frogman joke actually was, so we can only assume it's so filthy that it wasn't broadcastable in a show that's normally in a pre-watershed timeslot.)
Hannah mentions that Martha said they had no age preference and asks if Humphrey feels the same way, at which point he babbles about how he was assuming they'd be operating in the range of 0-18 years, which would be fine, but he's not sure they could cope with a 43-year-old, before realising that the joke hasn't really landed that well and frantically correcting himself. Hannah tells him to try to relax: they won't be making any decisions today, she just wants to find out who he is. Humphrey says in a small voice that he's not very good at these things; Hannah suggests he just tell her about himself, and Humphrey replies that he's even worse at that.
Despite his misgivings, Humphrey does his best to appraise himself honestly: he says he's clumsy, and can knock an ornament off a mantelpiece at 10 paces. He adds that his father used to say Humphrey had been given someone else's hands and feet, and had no control over them whatsoever. He continues by explaining that he has a terrible memory for important things, but can often remember things of absolutely no importance. He can drive, but is too easily distracted to be good at it. His swimming is best described as floundering, and he once got his tie stuck in a cash machine until a passing midwife cut him free. He's awkward, and disorganised, but he likes people and cares for them. He had a father just rubbish enough to teach him how to be a better one, but thinks that the main reason for Hannah to go back to her colleagues and recommend that they "rush back with an armful of children" is that Martha will be doing most of the hard work, and is the sweetest, kindest human being on Earth, and while Humphrey flaps around knocking things over, she will be amazing. (This entire monologue was an absolutely first-class piece of acting from Kris Marshall, by the way. Genuinely heartbreaking.)
Humphrey exits the room and gently bangs his head on the wall. Esther asks him how it went, and he says "terribly — I panicked and told the truth." He thinks he'll be lucky to be allowed to take care of a gerbil now, let alone a human child. Kelby has just returned from his door-to-door enquiries, and none of Belle's neighbours saw anything — and none of them called the fire brigade either. Esther adds that during Humphrey's interview, Belle phoned and explained Claire relaying the message from her grandfather about taking care in her car, right before she lost control of it on the way home.
Humphrey and Esther go to see Claire, with Humphrey pointing out to Esther as they arrive that this is now two accurate predictions — although Esther, understandably, considers "be careful in your car" to be a prediction so generic that it's bordering on useless. Humphrey admits that he's sure there are plenty of charlatans out there pretending to be psychics, but he doesn't want to rule out the possibility that Claire has a genuine gift.
Claire's husband Mike (Kevin Bishop) lets them in, and mentions that he works in the same building as Belle — it was actually him who suggested she come for a reading with Claire when he found out she'd lost her grandfather. Claire comes in to see them and explains that she saw flames when she was doing Belle's reading, but she wasn't entirely sure what that meant. Humphrey points out that she also warned Belle about her car today, and Claire corrects him: it wasn't her who said any of this, she was talking to Belle's grandfather. Esther asks if she saw how the fire started, and a frustrated Claire says they clearly don't understand what she does, so she demonstrates: she takes a deep breath and does a reading for Humphrey, saying she has the spirit of an elderly lady who has been here since he arrived. Claire says the woman is very elegant and straight-backed ("Nanny Bird," an awestruck Humphrey mumbles), very tall ("6ft7," Humphrey confirms) and wants him to know that she's happy that he's settled. Humphrey explains to Esther that she always said she didn't know what would become of him.
Esther, it has to be said, has absolutely zero time for any of this, and attempts to go back to her original line of questioning: "so, when you told Belle Hammond her car would crash..." Claire corrects her once again that she didn't say that, she just foresaw an issue with Belle's car. Esther asks if it was Claire who saw this, or Belle's grandfather. Claire says it was Belle's grandfather, and adds that she senses Esther doesn't approve of what she does. She tries to do a reading for Esther, saying that there's a young man here — but that's as far as she gets before a furious Esther shuts her right down and leaves. Humphrey follows, stuttering a goodbye to Nanny Bird.
Outside, Humphrey is impressed that Claire spoke to Nanny Bird, but Esther has her own explanation: Claire made a reasonable guess that someone of Humphrey's age has a dead grandmother and that like him, she was probably tall and a bit posh. As they're leaving, Mike is opening up his garage — he tells Humphrey that he always said Claire should work with the police and use her gift to help find people. Humphrey notices a pair of skis in Mike's garage as they're leaving.
Martha returns home, where Anne is all dressed up and reluctantly admits that she has another date: his name is Richard, and he's taking her for a cream tea and an afternoon stroll in the park. Martha has come to tell her about the interview, which she thinks went really well — if the home visit is successful, they'll have a panel meeting, and then there'd be a couple more checks before they'd potentially go on the list. Of course, she still has to talk to Humphrey, which Anne thinks might be more of a sticking point. The doorbell goes, and it's Richard (Peter Davison) who tells Anne that her profile photo doesn't do her justice. Anne tells him she used one from 10 years ago, but thanks him for pretending otherwise. He sees her out and into his snazzy vintage car.
Kelby goes to the local garage to check up on Belle's car. The mechanic, Quinn (Charlie Baker), says it could have been caused by any number of things — although a pothole is probably the most likely explanation, in combination with Belle having the wrong pressure on her tyres. He and Kelby swap their plans for the upcoming karaoke competition — Quinn's got three Elvis songs on his setlist, while Kelby is preparing some Ed Sheeran, though Quinn recommends he go for 'Someone You Loved' by Lewis Capaldi instead. (In case you're wondering, this ends up having absolutely no relevance to the case but it's quite a fun character moment nonetheless.)
Back at the police station, Margo has spoken to Grace Walters, an old family friend of Belle's, who told her that Belle was essentially raised by her grandfather after her mum died when she was young, stopping her from being taken into care. Belle and her grandfather lived together until his death five weeks ago. Kelby gets back with his report from Quinn, and Humphrey is still wondering how Claire managed to predict the fire and the blown tyre before they happened.
Anne returns to Ten Mile Kitchen after a very successful date with Richard. Martha asks why Richard didn't take her home, and Anne says she was worried it would be awkward, so she lied and said Martha needed her at the restaurant — she wasn't sure about the etiquette, because she was thought he might have misconstrued if she invited him in for coffee. Martha leaves Anne to lock up for her, because she's going for her drink with Esther. Humphrey approaches, nervously, to confess that things didn't go well with his interview, but Martha tells him that Hannah's already called her and described Humphrey as "refreshingly honest" and thought he was great. She's recommending them both as good candidates — now they just need to pass the home visit.
Humphrey asks Martha how well she knows Belle, and whether she's trustworthy. He thinks that, unless Belle and Claire are in cahoots for reasons he can't work out, he's going to have to believe that Claire is genuinely psychic. Martha assures him that Belle is "as straight as a die" and would never get involved with anything dishonest.
At the Kitty Jay, Martha and Esther are already several drinks in and being eyed up by some men across the bar. Esther says she wishes she'd brought a chilli with her: back in the day, her main tactic for getting rid of unwanted male attention was to rub it around the rim of their beer glass when they weren't looking, and their lips would go so numb that they wouldn't be able to speak. (And if they got it on their hands and went to the loo — ouch.) Martha asks her how her love life is now, and Esther says it's non-existent. Martha tells Esther that Zoe is amazing and a total credit to her, and asks about Esther's father. She's heard from Humphrey that they weren't together long, and Esther tells her the story: when she found out she was pregnant, she didn't think it would be fair not to tell the father, so she tracked him down. He was lovely and said he'd support her however she wanted, and that she'd be a great mum. They met up a few times to discuss the logistics and became good mates, then a bit more than mates. But one day, he was riding his motorbike when he got clipped by a transit van and went over the central reservation, and he didn't survive.
The two men from the other side of the bar choose this, the absolute worst possible moment, to make their introduction, and Esther shuts them down instantly by flashing her warrant card at them. When they disperse, she asks Martha if they can change the subject and asks about the fostering. Martha says that she's trying not to jinx it before it's official, and Esther warns her gently that some of the kids in the foster system can be a bit of a handful. Martha says she's been told about this by Hannah, but she knows she just has to provide them with somewhere they feel safe and cared for — and if that doesn't work, she's going to bring them to Esther. She says if she can be even slightly as good a foster parent as Esther is a mum, she'll be very happy. Martha gets up to get some shots, and when her back's turned, Esther wipes the corner of her eye. (Absolutely stellar work from Zahra Ahmadi here too — honestly, the whole cast are really nailing all the emotional beats tonight.)
That same evening, Belle is out walking and looking a little nervous. She starts to pick up the pace a little bit — but then someone shoves her over.
Esther and Martha have clearly had a good evening because they're now lying on the roof of the houseboat and giggling happily while eating chips and talking to Selwyn the duck. Their laughter wakes Humphrey, who clambers outside wearing what we assume is Martha's dressing gown, and Esther apologises for waking him up, saying they got chucked out of a cab because their chips were smelly. The two of them chuckle at his choice of dressing gown (Martha, helpless with laughter: "He's trying to tempt us!") and Humphrey offers to call Esther a cab.
The next morning, Esther is very much the worse for wear, and Margo places a disgusting looking hangover cure on her desk. She pinches her nose and downs it while Kelby looks on in horror, and Humphrey pops his head in to inform her that Belle Hammond was assaulted last night. Esther throws him the keys to the police truck, telling him he has to drive.
At Belle's house, she says she felt a push from behind and fell forward, hitting her head on the pavement. When she tried to get up, her bag wasn't there — she saw someone wearing a balaclava and a hooded top running away from her. Esther asks what was in her bag, and Belle hands her a list that she wrote after speaking to a police officer in A&E: some valuables, and a medal of her granddad's that was mostly of sentimental value. A bit of cash was taken too, but she's cancelled her cards.
Over at the police station, Kelby has been trying to bolster Shipton Abbott's prospects when the station is officially reviewed by starting up a Neighbourhood Watch project, which means he's had some leaflets printed up reading "Stay Vigilante. Stay Safe." Thankfully Margo is on hand with a Sharpie to change the extraneous 'E' in "vigilante" into an exclamation mark, although she does suggest that this whole thing is a transparent plan of Kelby's to impress Chief Superintendent Woods, given his obvious crush on her.
Esther and Humphrey return, and Esther is back to her insurance fraud theory, but Humphrey puts a lot of stock in Martha's assessment that Belle isn't a dishonest person. Besides, he thinks if this was insurance fraud, surely she'd just stage a burglary rather than three separate events. Reviewing the contents of Belle's handbag, he thinks it seems a little excessive: three bracelets, two necklaces, four watches and so on. Esther places a call to Belle to ask for more information while Humphrey asks Margo to check the CCTV in the area of the attack — and it turns out Belle has been speaking to Claire again, who passed on a message from her grandfather saying that someone was going to take her possessions, so Belle was on her way to a friend's house to deposit them for safekeeping. Margo jokes that Kelby should ask Claire to tell him how many fish he's going to catch on his trip, and Kelby protests that he doesn't need help: it's all about skill, and picking the right fly to lure out the fish.
At this point, Humphrey has a brainwave: looking at the picture of Belle's grandfather's medal, he remembers seeing a curious combination of books at Claire and Mike's house: half of them were about the afterlife, and the others were all about old coins. Mike is a numismatist — a coin and metal collector. Esther points out that Belle said the medal was worthless, and Humphrey thinks it's likely Mike told her that. He asks Margo get a valuation of the medal from a local auction house, and explains his thinking: when Belle mentioned to Mike that her grandfather had died recently, she also mentioned the medal, not realising that he was a collector. Mike, having told her it wasn't worth much, did some research and discovered it was worth even more than he thought. Margo's valuation comes back in: the medal is a George Cross with detailed provenance, and a similar one recently sold at auction for £190,000.
Humphrey thinks that the break-in at Belle's house a month ago was Mike Moss, trying to get the medal. He hadn't found it when she came home and interrupted him, so he left empty-handed and had to come up with another plan. He enlisted Claire to convince Belle that her grandfather was watching over her. Humphrey doesn't know whether Claire really has supernatural powers or not, but he does believe she agreed to help Mike by putting ideas into Belle's head: so while Claire was talking to Belle and predicting a fire, Mike slipped away from the party and set fire to her garage. He's almost certainly the mystery caller who rang 999 was Mike too, because he didn't want Belle's house to actually burn down.
Then, when Belle went to see Claire the next time, Mike let the air out of her tyres to increase the likelihood of Claire's prediction about a car accident coming true. Thus, having seen two of these predictions come true, when Claire warned Belle about her valuables being taken, she readily believed it: and since Humphrey saw skis in Mike's garage, it's likely he would have a ski mask too. With the bait set for Belle, Mike was waiting for her when she left the house to steal her bag.
Mike and Claire are arrested, and Kelby recovered Belle's stolen bag. Claire wails "I told you this would happen!" at Mike, prompting Esther to snark that perhaps Claire does have psychic powers after all.
Belle meets Esther and Humphrey on the seafront and tells them the story of her grandfather, whose ship was torpedoed in September 1940 when he was 19. He saved an officer whose clothes were on fire, and swam between the wreck and the lifeboat eight times to save as many people as he could. He told her that the whole experience left him so cold that he could never get warm again. Humphrey hands Belle her grandfather's medal, and tells her that he sounds like an amazing man. Belle says she's going to donate the medal to the War Museum, and they're going to print up his story and display it in a case with some photos so that nobody will ever forget him. She thanks Humphrey and Esther for getting the medal back to her, and says that maybe her granddad was looking down on her after all.
Back at the police station, an anxious Esther is hovering in the corridor near the cells. Kelby comes in and invites her to the Kitty Jay for karaoke, where apparently Humphrey will be singing "Mick Astley" (an absolute scandal that this scene wasn't televised). Esther says she'll join them in a minute. She opens the hatch on Claire's cell door and looks in. She wants to know if it was all a lie, and Claire tells her it wasn't: the bit with Belle's grandfather was stupid and evil, but everything else is true. She gets up and walks to the door, telling Esther she can help her talk to the boy if she wants. Esther slams the hatch shut and walks away.
