Tim McInnerny credited as playing...
Stephen Fisher
- [spoiler]
- Stephen Fisher: I need Renfield's original report, all the documents you've used, every note you've made, the physical samples of Gleick's handwriting...
- Det. Supt. Sandra Pullman: We have evidence here...
- Stephen Fisher: Of a crime that was committed a century and a half ago, and as you've all taken great pains to point out, that's hardly relevant today.
- Brian Lane: Yes it *is* relevant. That information could stop this Ellis-Finch deal with the Chinese.
- D.A.C. Robert Strickland: He doesn't want it stopped. He wants to make sure it *can't* be stopped.
- Brian Lane: And like Jack said, this is a pension fund they're interfering with. It's people's lives.
- Jack Halford: He doesn't care about that, Brian.
- Stephen Fisher: I serve the national interest.
- D.A.C. Robert Strickland: I think it's time you left, Stephen.
- [hsnds him his coat]
- Stephen Fisher: By all means.
- D.A.C. Robert Strickland: Empty-handed, I'm afraid.
- Stephen Fisher: Ah.
- D.A.C. Robert Strickland: It's one thing to come in here and requisition this team for your own private investigation. It's quite another to make us all complicit in the destruction of evidence in a murder investigation. Especially one which may have implications in the present day on the international stage.
- Stephen Fisher: You've been rehearsing that speech.
- D.A.C. Robert Strickland: The evidence will stay here, pending a conversation I'm going to have with the Commissioner.
- Stephen Fisher: How do you envisage that conversation playing out?
- D.A.C. Robert Strickland: Well, we'll have to see, won't we?
- Stephen Fisher: I can tell you, if you're interested. The conversation ends with you handing over to me everything I've asked for, just prior to writing your letter of resignation.
- D.A.C. Robert Strickland: I won't be threatened by you, Stephen. I know you'd like us all to think that your power extends that far.
- Stephen Fisher: [angrily] Not *my* power, Robert. The power of the British Government, brandishing the Official Secrets Act - to which you are all subject. and the contravention of which brings with it consequences far graver than you seem to be considering. Those of you who still *have* careers, consider what you will do without them. Those of you who don't, consider how your loved ones will cope while you live out the twilight of your lives at Her Majesty's pleasure. Now, I suggest you put the documents in the bag, and put today's events very firmly out of your minds.
- [spoiler: after bullying Sandra and her team into handing over the information, Stephen Fisher makes a phone call to his superiors]
- Stephen Fisher: It's me. Yes, it's done. The information will be in the papers in the next day or so. No, I've no idea which one of them leaked it. I think our Mr Ellis will have plenty to worry about without stringing up some retired policeman. Exactly.
- [chuckles]
- Stephen Fisher: I suggest it gets put down to yet another careless civil servant leaving his homework on the train. Mission accomplished. We should let sleeping plods lie, I think, don't you?
- [Strickland and Sandra are annoyed to be kept in the dark and ordered around by Stephen Fisher. Sandra goes into her office, which Fisher has commandeered, and starts to put on her coat]
- D.A.C. Robert Strickland: Where are you going?
- Det. Supt. Sandra Pullman: Crime scene.
- Stephen Fisher: No.
- Det. Supt. Sandra Pullman: How did I know you were going to say that?
- Stephen Fisher: Everything you need is in the documents I provided.
- Det. Supt. Sandra Pullman: If you're such an expert in criminal investigation, why are you wasting our time?
- Stephen Fisher: [ominously] No-one leaves this building.
- Det. Supt. Sandra Pullman: We think that one of Renfield's witnesses was lying.
- Stephen Fisher: How do you know?
- Det. Supt. Sandra Pullman: Apart from being good at our jobs, you mean? We don't think he physically could have seen what he claimed to have seen.
- D.A.C. Robert Strickland: And you want to check that on the real location?
- Det. Supt. Sandra Pullman: Yeah.
- Stephen Fisher: It will have changed too much.
- Det. Supt. Sandra Pullman: That is how we work. Now you either let us do our jobs or there's the door.
- Stephen Fisher: Miss Pullman...
- Det. Supt. Sandra Pullman: Detective Superintendent Pullman. Back in a hour.
- [Sandra leaves the room]
- Stephen Fisher: This is how you let them speak to you?
- D.A.C. Robert Strickland: [grinning] No, Stephen, it's how I let them speak to *you*.
- Stephen Fisher: This is a burn bag. At the conclusion of your investigation, everything you've discovered - any notes you've made, documents you've sourced - together with the original copy of Renfield's report, and the various other items in the case file will be placed in here to be incinerated by me.
- Jack Halford: Shove it. We don't take orders from you.
- D.A.C. Robert Strickland: Jack.
- Jack Halford: And we don't take orders from you, either; Sandra does. We're all retired. So you can shove it.
- D.A.C. Robert Strickland: Jack, if I decide this is a UCOS case...
- D.A.C. Robert Strickland: No, no, Robert. Mr Halford makes a perfectly fair point. Mr Halford, Mr Standing, Mr Lane, you are excused.
- Gerry Standing: Fine by me.
- Stephen Fisher: If you could just leave behind a cheque for seventeen thousand four hundred and thirty-three pounds, Mr Standing, I'll see it gets to the Inland Revenue.
- Gerry Standing: You'll what?
- Stephen Fisher: The tax due on your undeclared earnings over the past thirty years.
- Gerry Standing: Are you threatening me!
- Stephen Fisher: Actually, perhaps it would be best if you all stay after all. We wouldn't want any of our guilty little secrets coming to light, would we? Mr Lane? Mr Halford?
- Jack Halford: Bollocks!
- Det. Supt. Sandra Pullman: Nothing we've discovered so far would explain your interest in this case.
- Stephen Fisher: Ah.
- Det. Supt. Sandra Pullman: So?
- Stephen Fisher: Abigail Padua was my mother's great grandmother.
- Det. Supt. Sandra Pullman: Abigail Padua didn't have any children.
- Stephen Fisher: Well, it can't be that then.
- Stephen Fisher: If you understand what makes someone tick, they become predictable.
- D.A.C. Robert Strickland: I wouldn't call anyone out there predictable.
- Stephen Fisher: Oh, but they are, Robert. You wait and see.