Deleted Scenes
In the rehearsal script, Roger Marshall describes Soutar as the “leading light in his own modest estate agency”. He sits at his desk, “‘wheeling and dealing’ on the telephone”, occasionally consulting a file in front of him. “Although he’s successful enough to be wearing a suit, he’s shrewd enough to work only in a waistcoat and shirt-sleeves – his jacket is close by on a hanger.” (In the completed episode, his jacket is draped on the back of a chair.) Photographs and details of properties litter the walls, together with advertisements from building societies, ground plans and council maps. “Off the main office is a PBX switchboard where a girl, Tessa, sits typing,” resulting in “constant O.V. [out of vision] sounds of activity.” There are no such noises during the recorded version of this scene – in which we subsequently see Tessa sitting at an inactive typewriter, passing the time by reading a glossy magazine.
The estate agent originally had additional lines at the very beginning of the episode, when on the phone to a customer. “No, sir,” he tells the caller in the script, “it’s a made-up Public Highway; maintainable by the Local Authority.” Soutar pauses as the customer speaks, then replies, “That’s par for the course with these old properties, you know.” Another pause, then: “£30, I think, would cover it.”
After Soutar tricks his caller into thinking Marker is a rival buyer interested in the same property, the writer Marshall offers a delightful description of how well the estate agent’s sales pitch is going, stating that he is now “free spielling downhill”. In other words, it is downhill from here (the hard part is over) in terms of his spiel (his high-flown, persuasive speech). After hanging up, Soutar was to have explained his reason for using such trickery. “Six times he’s got to the point of buying,” he tells Marker in the script, “six times he’s backed off. Blue murder.” This was reduced to: “Sorry to keep you waiting.”
Soutar’s warning to Marker that Birmingham has a one-way system “that’d make Aintree look like a doddle” was added during rehearsals.
Perhaps because his London office had been situated in an attic, Marker’s new premises were not originally going to be upstairs. “It so happens that we do have a spare office at the back,” says Soutar in the script. This was revised to: “I just happen to have a spare office up at the back there.” The business with Marker arriving at the top of the stairs out of breath and Soutar assuring him that “We’re just waiting for planning permission before we get the lift put in” was added prior to recording. The promised lift would, of course, never materialise during Marker’s time in Birmingham.
* * *
As scripted, Marker’s new office is initially described as “a filthy, disused office littered with tea chests, stacks of old agent’s circulars, magazines relevant to estate agency and cobwebs.” In the final production, there are also ring binders and a filing cabinet, the latter of which would be mentioned by Marker later in the scene. As well as the newspaper headline “MONTY ENTERS TOBRUK”, the script includes another relic from the Second World War. Behind the pull-down blackout blinds, “the windows are covered with strips of sticky brown paper – wartime measure to prevent flying glass.”
In the script, Kane’s Timber Yard is called Ford’s Timber Yard. While negotiating for a lower price from Soutar, Marker was originally to have referred to the merchant as “your friend Ford”. The name change allowed Marker to make a cinematic allusion in the finished programme, describing the timberman as “Citizen Kane down there”.
When Marker explains his need for a sofa in his office, he was scripted to say, “When I miss the last bus. Can’t stand in the depot all night.” This was changed to: “Well, for when I miss the last bus. You don’t expect me to sleep in the filing cabinet, do you?”
Some dialogue was removed from the end of this scene. After Marker and Soutar have agreed their deal, Marker was to have added, “Just wanted to be sure.” Now he can start placing ads in local newspapers. “Tessa’ll do it for you,” offers Soutar. “It’s okay,” replies Marker, “Bit of exercise won’t kill me. Get to know the manor.” In the recorded version, Soutar instead leaves Marker alone in the office. Marker drops the old-fashioned candlestick telephone into the cardboard box from which it came, begins to take off his coat and winces as the circular saw in Kane’s Timber Yard whines again.
* * *
“Apart from the absence of practicals like easel and paints,” the script describes Mrs Jessup’s house as being laid out like an artist’s studio: “northern light, framed and unframed canvases, etc.” The lady of the house “sits reading a local paper and sipping tea – expensive china, etc. Suddenly her attention is caught by Marker’s advert. She thoughtfully plays with the wedding ring on her finger. Arriving at a decision, she picks up the telephone. She dials a number, chewing at her lip as she hangs on, newspaper to hand.” The opening of this scene was adjusted prior to recording, beginning instead with a close-up of Mrs Jessup’s left hand, as she drums her fingers on the newspaper, which has Marker’s advert circled on it. Having already dialled the number, she sighs impatiently as she waits for him to pick up.
While the completed episode shows less of Mrs Jessup at this point, it shows a little more of Marker, by way of an additional intercut to his office that is not in the rehearsal script. The extra cutaway begins as a close-up of Marker’s new telephone. The camera then pans up to Marker as he picks up the handset and states his number: “North 3899.”
* * *
Marker’s arrival at Mrs Jessup’s house was also rewritten. As scripted, “Mrs Jessup comes into the studio with Marker following. They are talking as they come in.” In the final production, a close-up of Marker’s hand, as it points to his wall-mounted street map at the end of the previous scene, mixes to the figure of Mrs Jessup standing at her window. She turns and comes forward as she delivers her first line, about Marker being new to Birmingham. The action then cuts to Marker, who is wearing glasses as he inspects an abstract painting.
In the script, Marker suggests the Salvation Army in addition to the police as a useful organisation to turn to with missing persons cases.
Mrs Jessup states a different time of year for her husband’s disappearance in the script than she does on screen. On the page, she says that he left her “At the end of last summer holidays… about the beginning of September.” This was revised to: “Last summer holidays… around the end of July.”
When Mrs Jessup gives Marker a photograph of her husband, the script specifies “Essential audience doesn’t see photograph of Jessup”. In the scene as recorded, we do see the photograph, but Mrs Jessup quickly turns it over, so we catch only a fleeting glimpse of it, not enough to identify him.
* * *
As he passes the school buildings and through the main gates of Cedars Road Junior, Marker was to have walked past stacked, empty milk crates, before talking to a couple of pupils, who point him towards Mrs Muncaster, the headmistress. This scripted action was not retained in the videotaped scene, but other business was built up instead. Whereas Roger Marshall’s script refers generally to children “whooping it up in the playground” while Mrs Muncaster supervises, the OB footage shows one boy trying to pull another from a climbing frame. In additional dialogue, Mrs Muncaster tells off the unruly boy, who is named Kevin. In the script, the school is a secondary modern rather than a junior school.
The scene was to have ended with Marker asking where Miss Olsen is teaching now and Mrs Muncaster replying, “Felstead Road Comprehensive.” The naming of the school was moved to slightly earlier in the scene, when Mrs Muncaster confirms that Miss Olsen is still in the teaching profession. This allows the conversation to end with Mrs Muncaster telling Marker the teacher’s married name – “It’s… er… Scott” – which forms a nice link to the next scene.
* * *
In the script, the desk of Mrs Scott (née Miss Karen Olsen) has a jam jar of flowers and a large apple on it. Marker glances at the apple and sees that it has a large bite taken out of it – evidently it has been confiscated from a pupil rather than being a gift for the teacher. In the finished programme, the desk contains a jug of daffodils, piles of books, a pot of coloured pencils and a confiscated water pistol. During his conversation with Mrs Scott, Marker picks up the pistol and fires it experimentally.
The business with Mrs Scott accidentally breaking the chalk when she hears the name Jessup was worked out during rehearsals. As scripted, she merely stops writing and turns to face Marker.
* * *
The shattering of the glass jar in the Scotts’ kitchen was originally to have been kept off screen. As written, the first scene in their flat begins with Mrs Scott cleaning the bookshelves – “a spurt of work-therapy” to take her mind off Marker’s visit – when there is a crash from the kitchen.
In the script, Scott refers to the woman who lives across the street as Fish-face rather than Quasimodo. His scripted plans for the school trip to Paris include “the Folies” (i.e. the Folies Bergère cabaret music hall) but not the Sacré-Cœur (the Basilica of Sacré-Cœur de Montmartre, a Roman Catholic church dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus), and he says the experience will make the lower sixth form see the Rotunda, rather than the Bull Ring, in a new light. “Instant gloom!” he adds, in the text.
Roger Marshall conceived the character of Scott as something of a joker, and this aspect was emphasised further during rehearsals, with the addition of a comedic “I say, I say, I say,” before his question about guide dogs and silver paper, his imitation of an old man’s voice as he reads the T. S. Eliot poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, and his use of an Army officer’s intonation when he tells his unamused wife that “In fact, there are a whole legion of legions about which I know nothing.” This contrasts sharply with Roy Dotrice’s downbeat delivery of the final line of the act, “Your coffee’ll be getting cold.”
The estate agent originally had additional lines at the very beginning of the episode, when on the phone to a customer. “No, sir,” he tells the caller in the script, “it’s a made-up Public Highway; maintainable by the Local Authority.” Soutar pauses as the customer speaks, then replies, “That’s par for the course with these old properties, you know.” Another pause, then: “£30, I think, would cover it.”
After Soutar tricks his caller into thinking Marker is a rival buyer interested in the same property, the writer Marshall offers a delightful description of how well the estate agent’s sales pitch is going, stating that he is now “free spielling downhill”. In other words, it is downhill from here (the hard part is over) in terms of his spiel (his high-flown, persuasive speech). After hanging up, Soutar was to have explained his reason for using such trickery. “Six times he’s got to the point of buying,” he tells Marker in the script, “six times he’s backed off. Blue murder.” This was reduced to: “Sorry to keep you waiting.”
Soutar’s warning to Marker that Birmingham has a one-way system “that’d make Aintree look like a doddle” was added during rehearsals.
Perhaps because his London office had been situated in an attic, Marker’s new premises were not originally going to be upstairs. “It so happens that we do have a spare office at the back,” says Soutar in the script. This was revised to: “I just happen to have a spare office up at the back there.” The business with Marker arriving at the top of the stairs out of breath and Soutar assuring him that “We’re just waiting for planning permission before we get the lift put in” was added prior to recording. The promised lift would, of course, never materialise during Marker’s time in Birmingham.
* * *
As scripted, Marker’s new office is initially described as “a filthy, disused office littered with tea chests, stacks of old agent’s circulars, magazines relevant to estate agency and cobwebs.” In the final production, there are also ring binders and a filing cabinet, the latter of which would be mentioned by Marker later in the scene. As well as the newspaper headline “MONTY ENTERS TOBRUK”, the script includes another relic from the Second World War. Behind the pull-down blackout blinds, “the windows are covered with strips of sticky brown paper – wartime measure to prevent flying glass.”
In the script, Kane’s Timber Yard is called Ford’s Timber Yard. While negotiating for a lower price from Soutar, Marker was originally to have referred to the merchant as “your friend Ford”. The name change allowed Marker to make a cinematic allusion in the finished programme, describing the timberman as “Citizen Kane down there”.
When Marker explains his need for a sofa in his office, he was scripted to say, “When I miss the last bus. Can’t stand in the depot all night.” This was changed to: “Well, for when I miss the last bus. You don’t expect me to sleep in the filing cabinet, do you?”
Some dialogue was removed from the end of this scene. After Marker and Soutar have agreed their deal, Marker was to have added, “Just wanted to be sure.” Now he can start placing ads in local newspapers. “Tessa’ll do it for you,” offers Soutar. “It’s okay,” replies Marker, “Bit of exercise won’t kill me. Get to know the manor.” In the recorded version, Soutar instead leaves Marker alone in the office. Marker drops the old-fashioned candlestick telephone into the cardboard box from which it came, begins to take off his coat and winces as the circular saw in Kane’s Timber Yard whines again.
* * *
“Apart from the absence of practicals like easel and paints,” the script describes Mrs Jessup’s house as being laid out like an artist’s studio: “northern light, framed and unframed canvases, etc.” The lady of the house “sits reading a local paper and sipping tea – expensive china, etc. Suddenly her attention is caught by Marker’s advert. She thoughtfully plays with the wedding ring on her finger. Arriving at a decision, she picks up the telephone. She dials a number, chewing at her lip as she hangs on, newspaper to hand.” The opening of this scene was adjusted prior to recording, beginning instead with a close-up of Mrs Jessup’s left hand, as she drums her fingers on the newspaper, which has Marker’s advert circled on it. Having already dialled the number, she sighs impatiently as she waits for him to pick up.
While the completed episode shows less of Mrs Jessup at this point, it shows a little more of Marker, by way of an additional intercut to his office that is not in the rehearsal script. The extra cutaway begins as a close-up of Marker’s new telephone. The camera then pans up to Marker as he picks up the handset and states his number: “North 3899.”
* * *
Marker’s arrival at Mrs Jessup’s house was also rewritten. As scripted, “Mrs Jessup comes into the studio with Marker following. They are talking as they come in.” In the final production, a close-up of Marker’s hand, as it points to his wall-mounted street map at the end of the previous scene, mixes to the figure of Mrs Jessup standing at her window. She turns and comes forward as she delivers her first line, about Marker being new to Birmingham. The action then cuts to Marker, who is wearing glasses as he inspects an abstract painting.
In the script, Marker suggests the Salvation Army in addition to the police as a useful organisation to turn to with missing persons cases.
Mrs Jessup states a different time of year for her husband’s disappearance in the script than she does on screen. On the page, she says that he left her “At the end of last summer holidays… about the beginning of September.” This was revised to: “Last summer holidays… around the end of July.”
When Mrs Jessup gives Marker a photograph of her husband, the script specifies “Essential audience doesn’t see photograph of Jessup”. In the scene as recorded, we do see the photograph, but Mrs Jessup quickly turns it over, so we catch only a fleeting glimpse of it, not enough to identify him.
* * *
As he passes the school buildings and through the main gates of Cedars Road Junior, Marker was to have walked past stacked, empty milk crates, before talking to a couple of pupils, who point him towards Mrs Muncaster, the headmistress. This scripted action was not retained in the videotaped scene, but other business was built up instead. Whereas Roger Marshall’s script refers generally to children “whooping it up in the playground” while Mrs Muncaster supervises, the OB footage shows one boy trying to pull another from a climbing frame. In additional dialogue, Mrs Muncaster tells off the unruly boy, who is named Kevin. In the script, the school is a secondary modern rather than a junior school.
The scene was to have ended with Marker asking where Miss Olsen is teaching now and Mrs Muncaster replying, “Felstead Road Comprehensive.” The naming of the school was moved to slightly earlier in the scene, when Mrs Muncaster confirms that Miss Olsen is still in the teaching profession. This allows the conversation to end with Mrs Muncaster telling Marker the teacher’s married name – “It’s… er… Scott” – which forms a nice link to the next scene.
* * *
In the script, the desk of Mrs Scott (née Miss Karen Olsen) has a jam jar of flowers and a large apple on it. Marker glances at the apple and sees that it has a large bite taken out of it – evidently it has been confiscated from a pupil rather than being a gift for the teacher. In the finished programme, the desk contains a jug of daffodils, piles of books, a pot of coloured pencils and a confiscated water pistol. During his conversation with Mrs Scott, Marker picks up the pistol and fires it experimentally.
The business with Mrs Scott accidentally breaking the chalk when she hears the name Jessup was worked out during rehearsals. As scripted, she merely stops writing and turns to face Marker.
* * *
The shattering of the glass jar in the Scotts’ kitchen was originally to have been kept off screen. As written, the first scene in their flat begins with Mrs Scott cleaning the bookshelves – “a spurt of work-therapy” to take her mind off Marker’s visit – when there is a crash from the kitchen.
In the script, Scott refers to the woman who lives across the street as Fish-face rather than Quasimodo. His scripted plans for the school trip to Paris include “the Folies” (i.e. the Folies Bergère cabaret music hall) but not the Sacré-Cœur (the Basilica of Sacré-Cœur de Montmartre, a Roman Catholic church dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus), and he says the experience will make the lower sixth form see the Rotunda, rather than the Bull Ring, in a new light. “Instant gloom!” he adds, in the text.
Roger Marshall conceived the character of Scott as something of a joker, and this aspect was emphasised further during rehearsals, with the addition of a comedic “I say, I say, I say,” before his question about guide dogs and silver paper, his imitation of an old man’s voice as he reads the T. S. Eliot poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, and his use of an Army officer’s intonation when he tells his unamused wife that “In fact, there are a whole legion of legions about which I know nothing.” This contrasts sharply with Roy Dotrice’s downbeat delivery of the final line of the act, “Your coffee’ll be getting cold.”
Whereas Soutar’s telephone conversation at the start of the episode was shortened, Marker’s at the beginning of Act Two was extended. His lines prior to “Education Department? I wonder if you can help me…” are not in the script. His attempts at a Birmingham accent (during this call, and also earlier, when he mimics Kane shouting “Timber!”) were similarly added during rehearsals, as was Soutar’s disparaging remark, “You’ll never find him with that accent!”
In the rehearsal script, Soutar is more positive about the prospect of helping Marker track down Donald Jessup. On the page, the estate agent is excited rather than surprised when he says “Me?” and keen rather than uncertain when he asks “What do you want me to do?”
* * *
In the scripted version of the next scene, Mrs Scott has two pupils kept in after class, rather than just one. “She is marking some books and keeping an eye on the children.” The script notes that the sums Mrs Scott wrote on the blackboard in Act One are still there, but now the answers have been filled in. In the completed episode, however, phrases from a French lesson are now on the blackboard behind her. When her husband comes into the room, “The two children instinctively look up.” Mrs Scott warns them to get on with their work: “It’s nothing to do with you.” The students reluctantly obey. Scott walks up to his wife’s desk and quietly asks her how she is. “All right,” she replies, still cold and distant with him.
A little later in the scripted scene, when Scott asks her what’s wrong, she snaps, “Nothing’s wrong!” Following her outburst, Mrs Scott tells the children, “All right, that’ll do. Put your books away and go quietly.” As the youngsters move, she reiterates, “Quietly!” The children disappear out of shot. In the final production, Mrs Scott’s charge is a single boy, named Julian, and she gets rid of him as soon as her husband arrives. “All right, Julian,” she tells the child, “That’ll do. You can go now.”
* * *
More telephone business was added to the next scene, in the estate agent’s office, with Soutar asking the customer on the line if he can call back in half an hour, as he hands Marker a piece of paper detailing Jessup’s last known address. The scene as written begins with Marker already looking at the piece of paper and commenting, “Pretty good service… for the provinces.” Tessa’s typewriter, which had remained silent and inactive throughout the opening scene, can finally be heard during this scene.
* * *
Angie Gordon’s basement flat is described in the script as being “decked out for a party. Glasses galore, record player and stacks of LPs, bowls of nuts and olives, etc. Mixing a punch-bowl is Angie Gordon.” There is little evidence of this in the recorded episode, the only obvious sign of the imminent merriment as Marker comes in being Angie herself stirring the punch, with a collection of drinks bottles and glasses nearby (the glasses are almost out of frame). In the finished programme, the ‘punch-bowl’ is actually a plastic bucket.
As scripted, the problem with the record player is more specific than being “on the blink”, as Angie puts it in the televised version. “I wanted a plug changed,” she says, in the script, when Marker breaks the news that he is not from chappie from the hi-fi shop. “Might be able to manage that for you,” replies Marker. After they have introduced each other and Marker has zipped up Angie’s dress for her, the young woman crosses to the record player and shows Marker the two plugs. “We need a three-pin instead of a two,” she explains. Marker’s eventual diagnosis of a loose terminal is not in the text.
Marker’s reaction to the punch he samples was made stronger during rehearsals – as was the drink itself. In the script, he merely smacks his lips before declaring it to be good. On screen, he turns his head, reacting to the potency of the concoction. He exhales, then turns back, looking somewhat amazed. In addition to the scripted ingredients of cyder and fermenting pineapple, the ananas frappé now also contains a drop of gin.
When Angie tells Marker that he will have to stay until after the party before she can look for Jessup’s forwarding address, Marker doesn’t reply in the script, “but after a moment he merely takes off his coat.” In the recorded version, he says, “All right, all right,” before briefly re-adopting his Birmingham accent to ask, “Unzip me, will you?”, imitating Angie’s earlier request. When Angie asks Marker to answer the door, the scripted reason is because she is busy stacking records on the turntable. In the script, the doorbell is heard, rather than there being a knock at the door.
* * *
Following Angie’s scene (Scene 14), a page (page 40) is missing from the surviving copy of the rehearsal script. Page 41 begins partway through the exterior scene in which Marker interviews a woman through her open upstairs window, picking up the story with Marker’s line, “Excuse me.” This is presumably Scene 16, since the scene that follows it, in which Marker calls at the address of an Indian couple, is numbered 17. This means that the missing page may have included a deleted scene – Scene 15. The content of this scene is not known, but it could well have been another location scene, showing Marker trying yet another address previously occupied by Donald Jessup. ABC publicity material for this episode includes a synopsis, which states that the address given to Marker by Angie “leads him to several other flats, where Donald has stayed.” The use of the word “several” does suggest more than two. The reason for dropping Scene 15 may have been because, mathematically, it added up to more addresses than Jessup/Scott had lived at since leaving his first wife – in Act Three, it is made clear that he and Karen Scott have been forced to move on three previous occasions.
The woman at the window was given more to say in the final production. In the script, her final line, after Marker has asked her if she knows where Donald Jessup went, is: “What do you think this is?” This was expanded to: “Ooh, I’ve got better things to do with my time than chat to you all day. This house doesn’t clean itself, you know!”
* * *
An element of grim social realism was added to Marker’s visit to the Indian landlord’s house. The business with Marker noticing a burnt wooden cross on the pavement, and the matching scorch marks on the front door (indicating that the burning cross had been nailed to the door, apparently as a means to intimidate the landlord and his wife), is unscripted. The rehearsal script instead simply has Marker approaching the last in a row of villas, checking the address (which he has obtained through a furniture delivery) as he does so. Then he knocks on the door – which has a doorbell in the transmitted version.
* * *
More was also made of Marker’s arrival at Jessup/Scott’s current address. In the script, he just rings the doorbell and then goes around the corner of the house. Roger Marshall may have intended this as a studio scene, like Marker’s arrival outside Angie’s flat, as the scene heading, “18A. EXT. BLOCK OF FLATS. DAY.”, does not include the words “O.B.” On screen, in a more elaborate scene shot on location, Marker approaches a large house situated next to a church. After looking around the front of the property, he spots something off screen to the left of the house – presumably Mrs Corby working in her greenhouse. Structures that might be additional greenhouses can be seen in the background of the shot. The church may be symbolic of Mrs Corby’s moral sensibilities – which are about to be offended…
* * *
The script has Mrs Corby working at a bench, potting some cuttings of plants. She wears rubber gloves and has a fan heater close by. Neither of those items was retained in the completed episode, but an unscripted addition was Mrs Corby talking to her potted plant. “Now, my little beauty,” she says, eagerly, “It’s your turn.”
When Marker startles Mrs Corby, Roger Marshall describes her visualising a headline in the evening newspaper: “WIDOW ATTACKED IN POTTING SHED”.
After Marker has established that Mrs Corby rents flats, but not to anyone called Jessup, the dialogue was to have taken a slightly different turn. “Well, I’m sorry to have troubled you,” says Marker, in the script.
“Not at all,” replies Mrs Corby.
Marker starts to leave, but then stops, dissatisfied. “This Jessup character left a forwarding address,” he says, “yours. Why would he do that?”
“He probably saw my advert in the paper,” guesses Mrs Corby. “Perhaps he didn’t want to be traced.”
“Perhaps,” agrees Marker.
“You a detective?” asks Mrs Corby.
Marker nods. “Private.”
In the finished programme, Mrs Corby is less savvy about the world of private detectives and missing persons. After asserting that she has never let a flat to a man called Jessup, she adds, “Now, go away, please.”
“Are you sure?” asks Marker, dissatisfied. “I mean, have you never had a tenant called Jessup?”
“Well, of course I’m sure,” insists Mrs Corby. Then she wonders why he is asking. “Are you a policeman?”
“No, no, no,” Marker assures her. “I’m an inquiry agent.”
“Oh,” says Mrs Corby, reflectively. “A private detective?”
Marker nods. “Mm, yes.” The scene then continues as scripted, with Mrs Corby asking if Jessup has left home.
In the script, Mrs Corby says she has three flats. In the broadcast episode, this was increased to six.
As described by Roger Marshall, when Marker reaches for his photograph of Jessup, “Mrs Corby almost passes out, imagining it would be a knife. He shows it to her, smiling at her nervousness.” Scripted directions specify that “Mrs Corby and [the] audience look at the photo” at this point and see that “It’s Scott.” However, the recorded scene does not include a close-up of the picture. Instead, the camera focuses on the landlady’s bewildered reaction.
The end of Act Two was tightened up slightly during rehearsals. In the script, when Marker asks her if she has seen the man in the photograph, Mrs Corby declares, “Course I have. That’s Mr Scott.” Marker reacts with surprise. “Scott?” he asks. “Yes,” replies Mrs Corby, “He lives on the second floor with his wife.” In the completed episode, the name Scott is not mentioned until the very end of the act. “Well, of course I have,” declares Mrs Corby, “He lives on the top floor with his wife. That’s Mr Scott.” Both the scripted and televised versions of the act conclude with realisation dawning on Marker: “Scott…!”
In the rehearsal script, Soutar is more positive about the prospect of helping Marker track down Donald Jessup. On the page, the estate agent is excited rather than surprised when he says “Me?” and keen rather than uncertain when he asks “What do you want me to do?”
* * *
In the scripted version of the next scene, Mrs Scott has two pupils kept in after class, rather than just one. “She is marking some books and keeping an eye on the children.” The script notes that the sums Mrs Scott wrote on the blackboard in Act One are still there, but now the answers have been filled in. In the completed episode, however, phrases from a French lesson are now on the blackboard behind her. When her husband comes into the room, “The two children instinctively look up.” Mrs Scott warns them to get on with their work: “It’s nothing to do with you.” The students reluctantly obey. Scott walks up to his wife’s desk and quietly asks her how she is. “All right,” she replies, still cold and distant with him.
A little later in the scripted scene, when Scott asks her what’s wrong, she snaps, “Nothing’s wrong!” Following her outburst, Mrs Scott tells the children, “All right, that’ll do. Put your books away and go quietly.” As the youngsters move, she reiterates, “Quietly!” The children disappear out of shot. In the final production, Mrs Scott’s charge is a single boy, named Julian, and she gets rid of him as soon as her husband arrives. “All right, Julian,” she tells the child, “That’ll do. You can go now.”
* * *
More telephone business was added to the next scene, in the estate agent’s office, with Soutar asking the customer on the line if he can call back in half an hour, as he hands Marker a piece of paper detailing Jessup’s last known address. The scene as written begins with Marker already looking at the piece of paper and commenting, “Pretty good service… for the provinces.” Tessa’s typewriter, which had remained silent and inactive throughout the opening scene, can finally be heard during this scene.
* * *
Angie Gordon’s basement flat is described in the script as being “decked out for a party. Glasses galore, record player and stacks of LPs, bowls of nuts and olives, etc. Mixing a punch-bowl is Angie Gordon.” There is little evidence of this in the recorded episode, the only obvious sign of the imminent merriment as Marker comes in being Angie herself stirring the punch, with a collection of drinks bottles and glasses nearby (the glasses are almost out of frame). In the finished programme, the ‘punch-bowl’ is actually a plastic bucket.
As scripted, the problem with the record player is more specific than being “on the blink”, as Angie puts it in the televised version. “I wanted a plug changed,” she says, in the script, when Marker breaks the news that he is not from chappie from the hi-fi shop. “Might be able to manage that for you,” replies Marker. After they have introduced each other and Marker has zipped up Angie’s dress for her, the young woman crosses to the record player and shows Marker the two plugs. “We need a three-pin instead of a two,” she explains. Marker’s eventual diagnosis of a loose terminal is not in the text.
Marker’s reaction to the punch he samples was made stronger during rehearsals – as was the drink itself. In the script, he merely smacks his lips before declaring it to be good. On screen, he turns his head, reacting to the potency of the concoction. He exhales, then turns back, looking somewhat amazed. In addition to the scripted ingredients of cyder and fermenting pineapple, the ananas frappé now also contains a drop of gin.
When Angie tells Marker that he will have to stay until after the party before she can look for Jessup’s forwarding address, Marker doesn’t reply in the script, “but after a moment he merely takes off his coat.” In the recorded version, he says, “All right, all right,” before briefly re-adopting his Birmingham accent to ask, “Unzip me, will you?”, imitating Angie’s earlier request. When Angie asks Marker to answer the door, the scripted reason is because she is busy stacking records on the turntable. In the script, the doorbell is heard, rather than there being a knock at the door.
* * *
Following Angie’s scene (Scene 14), a page (page 40) is missing from the surviving copy of the rehearsal script. Page 41 begins partway through the exterior scene in which Marker interviews a woman through her open upstairs window, picking up the story with Marker’s line, “Excuse me.” This is presumably Scene 16, since the scene that follows it, in which Marker calls at the address of an Indian couple, is numbered 17. This means that the missing page may have included a deleted scene – Scene 15. The content of this scene is not known, but it could well have been another location scene, showing Marker trying yet another address previously occupied by Donald Jessup. ABC publicity material for this episode includes a synopsis, which states that the address given to Marker by Angie “leads him to several other flats, where Donald has stayed.” The use of the word “several” does suggest more than two. The reason for dropping Scene 15 may have been because, mathematically, it added up to more addresses than Jessup/Scott had lived at since leaving his first wife – in Act Three, it is made clear that he and Karen Scott have been forced to move on three previous occasions.
The woman at the window was given more to say in the final production. In the script, her final line, after Marker has asked her if she knows where Donald Jessup went, is: “What do you think this is?” This was expanded to: “Ooh, I’ve got better things to do with my time than chat to you all day. This house doesn’t clean itself, you know!”
* * *
An element of grim social realism was added to Marker’s visit to the Indian landlord’s house. The business with Marker noticing a burnt wooden cross on the pavement, and the matching scorch marks on the front door (indicating that the burning cross had been nailed to the door, apparently as a means to intimidate the landlord and his wife), is unscripted. The rehearsal script instead simply has Marker approaching the last in a row of villas, checking the address (which he has obtained through a furniture delivery) as he does so. Then he knocks on the door – which has a doorbell in the transmitted version.
* * *
More was also made of Marker’s arrival at Jessup/Scott’s current address. In the script, he just rings the doorbell and then goes around the corner of the house. Roger Marshall may have intended this as a studio scene, like Marker’s arrival outside Angie’s flat, as the scene heading, “18A. EXT. BLOCK OF FLATS. DAY.”, does not include the words “O.B.” On screen, in a more elaborate scene shot on location, Marker approaches a large house situated next to a church. After looking around the front of the property, he spots something off screen to the left of the house – presumably Mrs Corby working in her greenhouse. Structures that might be additional greenhouses can be seen in the background of the shot. The church may be symbolic of Mrs Corby’s moral sensibilities – which are about to be offended…
* * *
The script has Mrs Corby working at a bench, potting some cuttings of plants. She wears rubber gloves and has a fan heater close by. Neither of those items was retained in the completed episode, but an unscripted addition was Mrs Corby talking to her potted plant. “Now, my little beauty,” she says, eagerly, “It’s your turn.”
When Marker startles Mrs Corby, Roger Marshall describes her visualising a headline in the evening newspaper: “WIDOW ATTACKED IN POTTING SHED”.
After Marker has established that Mrs Corby rents flats, but not to anyone called Jessup, the dialogue was to have taken a slightly different turn. “Well, I’m sorry to have troubled you,” says Marker, in the script.
“Not at all,” replies Mrs Corby.
Marker starts to leave, but then stops, dissatisfied. “This Jessup character left a forwarding address,” he says, “yours. Why would he do that?”
“He probably saw my advert in the paper,” guesses Mrs Corby. “Perhaps he didn’t want to be traced.”
“Perhaps,” agrees Marker.
“You a detective?” asks Mrs Corby.
Marker nods. “Private.”
In the finished programme, Mrs Corby is less savvy about the world of private detectives and missing persons. After asserting that she has never let a flat to a man called Jessup, she adds, “Now, go away, please.”
“Are you sure?” asks Marker, dissatisfied. “I mean, have you never had a tenant called Jessup?”
“Well, of course I’m sure,” insists Mrs Corby. Then she wonders why he is asking. “Are you a policeman?”
“No, no, no,” Marker assures her. “I’m an inquiry agent.”
“Oh,” says Mrs Corby, reflectively. “A private detective?”
Marker nods. “Mm, yes.” The scene then continues as scripted, with Mrs Corby asking if Jessup has left home.
In the script, Mrs Corby says she has three flats. In the broadcast episode, this was increased to six.
As described by Roger Marshall, when Marker reaches for his photograph of Jessup, “Mrs Corby almost passes out, imagining it would be a knife. He shows it to her, smiling at her nervousness.” Scripted directions specify that “Mrs Corby and [the] audience look at the photo” at this point and see that “It’s Scott.” However, the recorded scene does not include a close-up of the picture. Instead, the camera focuses on the landlady’s bewildered reaction.
The end of Act Two was tightened up slightly during rehearsals. In the script, when Marker asks her if she has seen the man in the photograph, Mrs Corby declares, “Course I have. That’s Mr Scott.” Marker reacts with surprise. “Scott?” he asks. “Yes,” replies Mrs Corby, “He lives on the second floor with his wife.” In the completed episode, the name Scott is not mentioned until the very end of the act. “Well, of course I have,” declares Mrs Corby, “He lives on the top floor with his wife. That’s Mr Scott.” Both the scripted and televised versions of the act conclude with realisation dawning on Marker: “Scott…!”
The rehearsal script makes it clearer what Scott’s wife is doing at the beginning of Act Three: “Mrs Scott, still wearing street clothes, is at the table, unpacking a paper carrier of groceries and checking off the items against a supermarket bill. She holds a packet of tea and searches for the item on the bill. Finds it and crosses it off.” When the doorbell rings, “She’s scared.” It takes her a moment to pull herself together before she answers it. On screen, Mrs Scott is simply unpacking items from a wicker shopping basket and she answers the door without hesitation.
The end of the scene was reworked slightly. In the script, after Mrs Scott asks Mrs Corby, “How do you know we’re not [married]?”, she adds, coldly, “We’ll leave. Is there anything else?” “No,” replies Mrs Corby, who then turns and walks out. Once she is alone, “Mrs Scott suddenly breaks down. This is the fourth time this has happened to her and it’s too much.” In the finished episode, she does not give in quite so easily. After Mrs Scott’s question, “How do you know we’re not?”, Mrs Corby gives a look that says she doesn’t believe that for one second. For a moment, nothing is said. Then it is Mrs Corby who states, “I’m afraid you’ll have to go.”
* * *
The next scene was to have opened with a close-up shot of Mrs Jessup. After she asks, “Have you spoken to him?”, the camera was then to pull out to show Marker sitting opposite her. The staging was rearranged prior to recording, with the camera on Marker as Mrs Jessup (out of shot) asks her question. Marker is on his feet, pacing. He stops to look at a modern art bust on a shelf as he begins to reply, then turns to Mrs Jessup as the vision mixer cuts to a two-shot of them.
The end of this scene was also rewritten. In the script, after Mrs Jessup demands, “I want to know every single thing they do, every place they go –”, Marker interrupts. “Mrs Jessup,” he says, “I’ll get you evidence for a divorce. But I’m not going to become a one-man Gestapo.” Mrs Jessup smiles, rather sheepishly. “You’re right, of course,” she admits, “Forgive a ‘crossed lady’. What will you do now?” “Start getting evidence,” replies Marker. The scripted scene ends with Mrs Jessup remarking, “Funny how married men can do so much better than married women.” As recorded, Mrs Jessup wants to know “every move they make, every place they go. I want to know everything about them.” Marker shakes his head. “Mrs Jessup,” he tells her, “I’m not going to turn myself into a one-man Gestapo. You’re paying me to get evidence for a divorce and that’s what I’ll get.” Then he turns and walks out of shot.
* * *
The next scene in the script starts with the Scotts having their evening meal, rather than lying on their bed as seen on screen. “Watched by his wife, Scott picks at his tea then pushes the plate away, untouched. She’s obviously told him about the visit from Mrs Corby. He looks around. The axe has fallen and both of them are very low.”
The tears that were cut from Mrs Scott’s previous scene come now in the broadcast version, as she tells her husband that she doesn’t think she can go on like this. In the script, she adds, “When will it end? Or won’t it?” When the doorbell rings, “She almost jumps out of her skin.”
After Marker asks Scott why he changed his name, the slightly hysterical Mrs Scott was to have interrupted with: “Don, nobody believes us. Not Mrs Corby, not him. Nobody’s ever going to believe us.” This was revised to the more on-topic: “Don, it doesn’t matter. Nobody believes us.” Marker was scripted to ask, “What do you mean?” This became the beginning of an apology: “Look, Mrs Scott, I’m very –” “What’s it matter to you?” replies Mrs Scott, bitterly, on the page, “Do you care? Does anybody care?” This was changed to: “Why don’t you mind your own damn business for once!”
The subject of Scott’s remarriage was originally raised in a less subtle way. “My brief was to find you,” says Marker, in the script. Scott snorts, contemptuously, then asks, “What do you do when you’re not busting up marriages?” Marker’s line was updated to “I was hired to do a job”, making it less similar to a subsequent line, “But she hired me to find you.” Scott’s response was replaced with “Yes, well, you’ve succeeded. Congratulations. My sincere thanks also for what you’ve just done to my wife.”
Scott’s reason for not taking out a restraining order against his ex-wife – “She can afford the finest lawyers money could buy” – was added during rehearsals, as was Marker’s question, “Look, what are you frightened of?” After Scott’s explanation that divorce and adultery are not social cachets for a schoolteacher, Marker was to have said, “I’m sorry.” “That makes it all right, does it?” replies Scott, in the script, “You’re sorry – what the hell do you think we are?”
The most substantial rewrite occurred at the end of this scene. After Scott asks, “You surprised I left? I’d have been eaten alive. She leeches off people,” Marker indicates the door through which Mrs Scott has departed, wondering where she has gone. “Probably in the garden,” reckons Scott, “having a weep.”
“Let’s go and find her,” suggests Marker.
“Then what?” asks Scott, sarcastically, as they move towards the door. “Wave your magic wand, Fairy, and everything’ll be all right?”
“We’ll talk about it,” says Marker.
“Talk!” sneers Scott. “It’ll take more than talk this time.” They go outside to Mrs Corby’s garden. It is evening by now, but still quite light. They look around, with Scott shouting “Karen”, but there is no sign of her. “The stupid woman,” says Scott. “Where’s she gone?”
“Any ideas?” asks Marker.
“You’re the detective,” replies Scott, sardonically.
“She any relatives?”
“The nearest are in Oslo.”
Marker looks at Scott, questioningly. “Would she?”
“She might,” admits Scott. “She’s been pretty hysterical.”
Marker comes up with a plan. “You go to the airport. Wait there till you hear from me.”
“Where are you going?” asks Scott.
“Coach depot and the railway stations,” replies Marker. They hurry away.
Ultimately, the garden scene would not appear in the completed episode. Perhaps Roy Dotrice was not available for location shooting (this would have been Scott’s only exterior scene), or maybe there was not enough time for the Outside Broadcast unit to capture this sequence. For whatever reason, the end of Scott and Marker’s conversation was rewritten. “She just leeches off people,” says Scott, on screen. “She’d have eaten me alive. You surprised now that I left?”
“No, no, I’m not,” says Marker. “As a matter of fact, there are one or two things I’m not surprised about now.” Then he thinks of something. “Where’s your wife?”
“Oh, poor love,” replies Scott, more sympathetically than he does in the script. “She’ll be down in the garden, having a weep.”
“You sound very sure,” notes Marker.
“I am,” says Scott. “It’s the only place here you can get any privacy.”
“Well, you don’t think she might have… gone for good?” wonders Marker.
“For good?” asks Scott. “Where to?”
“Well, how should I know?”
“You’re the detective,” points out Scott, as he does in the script.
Becoming exasperated, Marker makes a more specific reference to Mrs Scott’s relatives than he does on the page: “Well, all right, then, to her parents!”
Conversely, whereas Scott was initially scripted to refer to the capital city of Norway (Mrs Scott’s maiden name of Olsen being of Scandinavian origin), in the broadcast version he makes a more general reference to overseas. “Be a long swim,” he quips. “They’ve emigrated.”
Marker thinks for a moment, then decides to have a word with Mrs Scott alone. He heads for the door, then turns back, telling Scott to get a coat on and follow him down, “because if she’s not in that garden, we’ve got to start searching. Bus depot. Stations. Everywhere!”
* * *
The scene at the coach station is described rather summarily in the script: “Marker hurrying around from bus to bus, looking for Karen. No luck.” The sequence was expanded on location to open with a shot looking up at the Rotunda (see Nobody Wants to Know) and Marker hurrying down some steps. The action then mixes to Marker running down a street (with a different set of steps in the background) and into the bus depot.
* * *
As scripted, after Marker gets out of the taxi outside New Street railway station, the camera pans with him to the station and up to the departures notice. Marker then runs down a set of stairs and on to a platform. “He looks around. No luck! Marker belts back up the stairs and down the next flight on to another platform,” where he sees something off screen. The camera “zooms in on Karen Scott pacing up and down. Marker comes up behind her.” The action was rewritten to accommodate extensive rebuilding work then underway at New Street. In the recorded footage, the departures board is not seen, and, when Marker descends to platform level, he spots Mrs Scott almost straight away – but on the opposite platform. To reach her, Marker goes back up the stairs from platforms 8 and 9, takes a detour through a part of the station that is currently under construction, then dashes down the stairs to platforms 6 and 7. He looks around, and sees that Mrs Scott is now leaving the platform. Marker runs after her to another platform and finally manages to catch up with her.
After declaring that Mrs Jessup has finally won, Mrs Scott was originally to have added, “Game, set, match – everything.” A little later in the script, she interjects, bitterly, “We didn’t have a lot of chances left. What we did have, you finished. Thank you.” When she tells Marker that he’s done his job, she was to have added, “And very successfully.” The essence of this line was transferred to her husband in his previous scene: “Yes, well, you’ve succeeded. Congratulations.” However, Mrs Scott’s next utterance, “Now go and get paid”, was kept in, while a similar sounding speech from Scott was dropped. “Paying you, isn’t she?” he was scripted to ask Marker in the earlier scene, “Is the money good?”
Mrs Scott’s meaning when she talks about big gestures not working is made clearer in the script. She pulls out the pockets of her coat to show that they are both empty.
* * *
As written, the final scene begins with Mrs Jessup, “as self-possessed and calm as ever,” leading Marker to her lounge. “She is wearing a housecoat over her night clothes, but carefully made up. A radio plays O.S. [off screen]” The opening of this scene was adjusted to show Mrs Jessup, in her night clothes, her hair in disarray, dashing downstairs to answer the door. After she admits Marker, the dialogue continues more or less as scripted, except that, on the page, Marker says, “You’ve been less than frank with me, haven’t you?” Perhaps in view of the inquiry agent’s first name, the word “frank” was changed to “honest” in the final production.
The business with Mrs Jessup having already made out a cheque for £50 and laughing off the expense was added during rehearsals.
In the script, Marker is alerted to Rodney’s presence in the house when the distant radio is switched off. There is no radio in the completed episode – instead, Marker hears Rodney’s voice calling out, “Pussycat!” Rodney is described in the text as “a young, tousle-headed man … dressed in pyjamas and dressing gown, with a towel round his neck.” As Marker and Mrs Jessup watch, the young man “makes his way myopically to the mantelpiece.” His dialogue reveals that he has just come from the bathroom: “That immersion heater’s a godsend,” he exclaims, “Haven’t had baths like this since I don’t know when. Talk about Four Stars for comfort.” As he says this, he picks up a pair of spectacles from the mantelpiece and puts them on. It is only then that he notices Marker. In the finished programme, Rodney is not short-sighted and he seems to have come from the bedroom. “There you are, naughty!” he grins when he sees Mrs Jessup, “Shouldn’t run away from Big Tom, you know. It’s bad for his ego.” It appears that Pussycat and Big Tom are the lovers’ pet names for each other.
After telling Rodney that he is not here to ask questions, in the script Mrs Jessup commands him to “Kiss me.” She then pulls him down to her, making him bury his face in her neck. “She holds him – vampire-like – her hands in his hair. She is almost shaking with rage and frustration … as we hear the first few bars of title music, then mix to [the] end title sequence.”
The end of the scene was reworked slightly. In the script, after Mrs Scott asks Mrs Corby, “How do you know we’re not [married]?”, she adds, coldly, “We’ll leave. Is there anything else?” “No,” replies Mrs Corby, who then turns and walks out. Once she is alone, “Mrs Scott suddenly breaks down. This is the fourth time this has happened to her and it’s too much.” In the finished episode, she does not give in quite so easily. After Mrs Scott’s question, “How do you know we’re not?”, Mrs Corby gives a look that says she doesn’t believe that for one second. For a moment, nothing is said. Then it is Mrs Corby who states, “I’m afraid you’ll have to go.”
* * *
The next scene was to have opened with a close-up shot of Mrs Jessup. After she asks, “Have you spoken to him?”, the camera was then to pull out to show Marker sitting opposite her. The staging was rearranged prior to recording, with the camera on Marker as Mrs Jessup (out of shot) asks her question. Marker is on his feet, pacing. He stops to look at a modern art bust on a shelf as he begins to reply, then turns to Mrs Jessup as the vision mixer cuts to a two-shot of them.
The end of this scene was also rewritten. In the script, after Mrs Jessup demands, “I want to know every single thing they do, every place they go –”, Marker interrupts. “Mrs Jessup,” he says, “I’ll get you evidence for a divorce. But I’m not going to become a one-man Gestapo.” Mrs Jessup smiles, rather sheepishly. “You’re right, of course,” she admits, “Forgive a ‘crossed lady’. What will you do now?” “Start getting evidence,” replies Marker. The scripted scene ends with Mrs Jessup remarking, “Funny how married men can do so much better than married women.” As recorded, Mrs Jessup wants to know “every move they make, every place they go. I want to know everything about them.” Marker shakes his head. “Mrs Jessup,” he tells her, “I’m not going to turn myself into a one-man Gestapo. You’re paying me to get evidence for a divorce and that’s what I’ll get.” Then he turns and walks out of shot.
* * *
The next scene in the script starts with the Scotts having their evening meal, rather than lying on their bed as seen on screen. “Watched by his wife, Scott picks at his tea then pushes the plate away, untouched. She’s obviously told him about the visit from Mrs Corby. He looks around. The axe has fallen and both of them are very low.”
The tears that were cut from Mrs Scott’s previous scene come now in the broadcast version, as she tells her husband that she doesn’t think she can go on like this. In the script, she adds, “When will it end? Or won’t it?” When the doorbell rings, “She almost jumps out of her skin.”
After Marker asks Scott why he changed his name, the slightly hysterical Mrs Scott was to have interrupted with: “Don, nobody believes us. Not Mrs Corby, not him. Nobody’s ever going to believe us.” This was revised to the more on-topic: “Don, it doesn’t matter. Nobody believes us.” Marker was scripted to ask, “What do you mean?” This became the beginning of an apology: “Look, Mrs Scott, I’m very –” “What’s it matter to you?” replies Mrs Scott, bitterly, on the page, “Do you care? Does anybody care?” This was changed to: “Why don’t you mind your own damn business for once!”
The subject of Scott’s remarriage was originally raised in a less subtle way. “My brief was to find you,” says Marker, in the script. Scott snorts, contemptuously, then asks, “What do you do when you’re not busting up marriages?” Marker’s line was updated to “I was hired to do a job”, making it less similar to a subsequent line, “But she hired me to find you.” Scott’s response was replaced with “Yes, well, you’ve succeeded. Congratulations. My sincere thanks also for what you’ve just done to my wife.”
Scott’s reason for not taking out a restraining order against his ex-wife – “She can afford the finest lawyers money could buy” – was added during rehearsals, as was Marker’s question, “Look, what are you frightened of?” After Scott’s explanation that divorce and adultery are not social cachets for a schoolteacher, Marker was to have said, “I’m sorry.” “That makes it all right, does it?” replies Scott, in the script, “You’re sorry – what the hell do you think we are?”
The most substantial rewrite occurred at the end of this scene. After Scott asks, “You surprised I left? I’d have been eaten alive. She leeches off people,” Marker indicates the door through which Mrs Scott has departed, wondering where she has gone. “Probably in the garden,” reckons Scott, “having a weep.”
“Let’s go and find her,” suggests Marker.
“Then what?” asks Scott, sarcastically, as they move towards the door. “Wave your magic wand, Fairy, and everything’ll be all right?”
“We’ll talk about it,” says Marker.
“Talk!” sneers Scott. “It’ll take more than talk this time.” They go outside to Mrs Corby’s garden. It is evening by now, but still quite light. They look around, with Scott shouting “Karen”, but there is no sign of her. “The stupid woman,” says Scott. “Where’s she gone?”
“Any ideas?” asks Marker.
“You’re the detective,” replies Scott, sardonically.
“She any relatives?”
“The nearest are in Oslo.”
Marker looks at Scott, questioningly. “Would she?”
“She might,” admits Scott. “She’s been pretty hysterical.”
Marker comes up with a plan. “You go to the airport. Wait there till you hear from me.”
“Where are you going?” asks Scott.
“Coach depot and the railway stations,” replies Marker. They hurry away.
Ultimately, the garden scene would not appear in the completed episode. Perhaps Roy Dotrice was not available for location shooting (this would have been Scott’s only exterior scene), or maybe there was not enough time for the Outside Broadcast unit to capture this sequence. For whatever reason, the end of Scott and Marker’s conversation was rewritten. “She just leeches off people,” says Scott, on screen. “She’d have eaten me alive. You surprised now that I left?”
“No, no, I’m not,” says Marker. “As a matter of fact, there are one or two things I’m not surprised about now.” Then he thinks of something. “Where’s your wife?”
“Oh, poor love,” replies Scott, more sympathetically than he does in the script. “She’ll be down in the garden, having a weep.”
“You sound very sure,” notes Marker.
“I am,” says Scott. “It’s the only place here you can get any privacy.”
“Well, you don’t think she might have… gone for good?” wonders Marker.
“For good?” asks Scott. “Where to?”
“Well, how should I know?”
“You’re the detective,” points out Scott, as he does in the script.
Becoming exasperated, Marker makes a more specific reference to Mrs Scott’s relatives than he does on the page: “Well, all right, then, to her parents!”
Conversely, whereas Scott was initially scripted to refer to the capital city of Norway (Mrs Scott’s maiden name of Olsen being of Scandinavian origin), in the broadcast version he makes a more general reference to overseas. “Be a long swim,” he quips. “They’ve emigrated.”
Marker thinks for a moment, then decides to have a word with Mrs Scott alone. He heads for the door, then turns back, telling Scott to get a coat on and follow him down, “because if she’s not in that garden, we’ve got to start searching. Bus depot. Stations. Everywhere!”
* * *
The scene at the coach station is described rather summarily in the script: “Marker hurrying around from bus to bus, looking for Karen. No luck.” The sequence was expanded on location to open with a shot looking up at the Rotunda (see Nobody Wants to Know) and Marker hurrying down some steps. The action then mixes to Marker running down a street (with a different set of steps in the background) and into the bus depot.
* * *
As scripted, after Marker gets out of the taxi outside New Street railway station, the camera pans with him to the station and up to the departures notice. Marker then runs down a set of stairs and on to a platform. “He looks around. No luck! Marker belts back up the stairs and down the next flight on to another platform,” where he sees something off screen. The camera “zooms in on Karen Scott pacing up and down. Marker comes up behind her.” The action was rewritten to accommodate extensive rebuilding work then underway at New Street. In the recorded footage, the departures board is not seen, and, when Marker descends to platform level, he spots Mrs Scott almost straight away – but on the opposite platform. To reach her, Marker goes back up the stairs from platforms 8 and 9, takes a detour through a part of the station that is currently under construction, then dashes down the stairs to platforms 6 and 7. He looks around, and sees that Mrs Scott is now leaving the platform. Marker runs after her to another platform and finally manages to catch up with her.
After declaring that Mrs Jessup has finally won, Mrs Scott was originally to have added, “Game, set, match – everything.” A little later in the script, she interjects, bitterly, “We didn’t have a lot of chances left. What we did have, you finished. Thank you.” When she tells Marker that he’s done his job, she was to have added, “And very successfully.” The essence of this line was transferred to her husband in his previous scene: “Yes, well, you’ve succeeded. Congratulations.” However, Mrs Scott’s next utterance, “Now go and get paid”, was kept in, while a similar sounding speech from Scott was dropped. “Paying you, isn’t she?” he was scripted to ask Marker in the earlier scene, “Is the money good?”
Mrs Scott’s meaning when she talks about big gestures not working is made clearer in the script. She pulls out the pockets of her coat to show that they are both empty.
* * *
As written, the final scene begins with Mrs Jessup, “as self-possessed and calm as ever,” leading Marker to her lounge. “She is wearing a housecoat over her night clothes, but carefully made up. A radio plays O.S. [off screen]” The opening of this scene was adjusted to show Mrs Jessup, in her night clothes, her hair in disarray, dashing downstairs to answer the door. After she admits Marker, the dialogue continues more or less as scripted, except that, on the page, Marker says, “You’ve been less than frank with me, haven’t you?” Perhaps in view of the inquiry agent’s first name, the word “frank” was changed to “honest” in the final production.
The business with Mrs Jessup having already made out a cheque for £50 and laughing off the expense was added during rehearsals.
In the script, Marker is alerted to Rodney’s presence in the house when the distant radio is switched off. There is no radio in the completed episode – instead, Marker hears Rodney’s voice calling out, “Pussycat!” Rodney is described in the text as “a young, tousle-headed man … dressed in pyjamas and dressing gown, with a towel round his neck.” As Marker and Mrs Jessup watch, the young man “makes his way myopically to the mantelpiece.” His dialogue reveals that he has just come from the bathroom: “That immersion heater’s a godsend,” he exclaims, “Haven’t had baths like this since I don’t know when. Talk about Four Stars for comfort.” As he says this, he picks up a pair of spectacles from the mantelpiece and puts them on. It is only then that he notices Marker. In the finished programme, Rodney is not short-sighted and he seems to have come from the bedroom. “There you are, naughty!” he grins when he sees Mrs Jessup, “Shouldn’t run away from Big Tom, you know. It’s bad for his ego.” It appears that Pussycat and Big Tom are the lovers’ pet names for each other.
After telling Rodney that he is not here to ask questions, in the script Mrs Jessup commands him to “Kiss me.” She then pulls him down to her, making him bury his face in her neck. “She holds him – vampire-like – her hands in his hair. She is almost shaking with rage and frustration … as we hear the first few bars of title music, then mix to [the] end title sequence.”