Swansong – As the third episode of Ridley begins, Eve Marbury (Joanna Riding) sings at the club while Alex Ridley (Adrian Dunbar) walks into the club to listen to her. Annie Marling (Julie Graham) tells Alex that Jamie knew her and asked her to be their guest. Eve is back for a funeral and flew in from Chicago this morning. Liza Varnham (Lucy Robinson) looks at a dead body and says Jed (Bryan Dick) should be here because he needs to say goodbye. Simon Cranfield (Gary Pillai) tells her that he is not coming. Alex learns more about Eve and her relationship with Jamie. Once Eve finishes singing, she is promptly introduced to Alex before they sit down for a drink. He tells her that he is an enthusiastic amateur singer. She learns about him being a retired detective who does consultancy work now. His wife passed away 18 months ago. This is the first time Eve has been back since she moved to the states because her mother had a problem with alcohol and her brother left home when he was 15.

He has written to her over the years, but never with a way for her to contact him. She had even tried missing person sites. Alex offers to help her find her brother if she is interested. Eve reveals she is singing at Julian Varnham’s funeral later in the week. Alex recognizes him and says he was quite the impresario. Eve leaves moments later. Liza learns that they still haven’t been able to get in touch with Jed. He finally makes it and asks if they can just get this over with. Liza insists dad would’ve wanted him to say goodbye because it is time to let go of the past. Eve goes to the pub to look for Ridley who isn’t there. Annie tells her where she can find him. She meets with him to say she wants him to help find her brother. Simon tells Liza and Jed he thought it’d be wise to meet to discuss aspects of the will that might need further explanation. Liza is not happy to see Julie Conway (Hopi Grace) who says the housekeeper let her in. Simon admits their father made one request outside the family.

Julie Conway is a beneficiary. Eve shows Alex a picture of Luke when he was 14 before confirming she reported him missing. Their mom didn’t even notice that he was gone. Luke was already on the police’s radar since it wasn’t the first time. She isn’t sure they took it seriously and they thought he’d just turn up. Alex is given Luke’s letters. He wrote regularly until recently. In April, it’ll be a year since she heard from him and it’ll be the first time he missed her birthday. Alex says some people go off-grid and want to stay there. If he finds Luke, she may have to accept that he doesn’t want to see her. Eve is just happy to say she did everything she could. Simon explains that Julian wanted Julie to have Ravenstoop and all surrounding land as per the title deeds. She mockingly says she’ll invite them to the housewarming. DI Carol Farman (Bronagh Waugh) and Geri (Bhavna Limbachia) meet with a doctor to talk about having another kid. He tells them that procreating has become an ethical and moral issue because having more kids in the era of climate catastrophe is increasingly problematic.

Geri tells Seb (Gareth George) that she has already thought about that. She thinks how soon countries transition away from fossil fuels is more important. Carol says Geri is ovulating right now and she isn’t going to get any younger. In private, Geri wants to make sure Carol isn’t trying to sabotage this intentionally. Alex arrives at the door and learns from Carol that they’re interviewing possible sperm donors. He tells her about the missing person and that they’ll have to run it past DCI Goodwin to get access to the files. Carol believes she can be back at the station in an hour. Jed catches up with Julie to remind her that she swore she’d never see him again. Julie tells Jed that he said he loved her, but it won’t be long before she is out of his life for good. Jed learns that she is really ill. He doesn’t believe it because she must’ve lied about being pregnant once. Jed tells her to stay away from him. Julie says he’ll be seeing her sooner than he thinks when she tells the police what really happened. She needs to make her peace before it is too late. If she is going down, she is going to take everyone down with her.

At the station, Carol tells Alex that there is no missing persons report for Luke Marbury, but they found his criminal youth record. DC Darren Lakhan (George Bukhari) says it was mostly theft of cash, wallets, and jewelry. Carol explains that not all files before 1985 made it into the database, but Darren can check the archives for him. Carol learns about Eve and how she asked Alex to search for her brother. After Alex asks if Goodwin is okay with this, Carol says she can be very persuasive. Alex goes to Ray’s Sound Palace where Ray Trevice (George Costigan) tells him about some of the records. Ray reveals he is a host for the Allerton Bridge Community Radio now. Alex shows him a photo of Luke that was taken outside the shop about 30 years ago. Ray remembers Luke who he calls a nice kid. He was a bit light-fingered so you had to watch him like a hawk. Alex suggests putting out something on the radio to see what’ll show up. Ray agrees to do it and reveals they’re doing a tribute for Julian tonight. Alex learns that Julian used to own many of the businesses.

Ray points out Julie Conway in the photo before calling her a piece of work. Once Alex goes back to his vehicle, he begins calling numbers in hopes of getting in touch with Julie. He eventually gets the right number. Darren scours through the records. Alex goes to the pub where he tells Annie about his decision to help Eve find her brother. She reminds him that he barely knows her so it’d be wise to tread carefully. He is supposed to be dealing with what happened instead of dealing with other people’s problems. Eve goes to his house later that night for dinner. Although they’ve found Luke’s criminal record, they haven’t been able to find his missing persons file just yet. If they can’t find the file, Alex believes the Evening Report might be able to help. When Eve is asked about Julie Conway, she says she didn’t know any of Luke’s friends. Alex mentions getting a DNA sample before they spill wine. Eve didn’t know Julian personally, but his organization awarded a bursary for Outstanding Northern Talent.

She couldn’t have gone to music college without it. Eva thinks she owns Julian her career and that is why she agreed to sing at his funeral when his daughter called to ask. Carol and Geri tell Jack (Tareq Al-Jeddal) about Seb who is a potential donor. He seems fine with it. Carol and Geri try to explain how the process would work to him. Eve didn’t start thinking about finding Luke seriously until her husband filed for divorce. He is the only family she has left and she sometimes can feel him in the ether. Although he was cheeky, they were desperately sad deep down. That kind of neglect made her selfish so she took her chance to get out. She feels like she let him down so she wants the opportunity to tell him she is sorry. Alex insists they’ll find him before Eve decides to go home. Ray mentions Luke on his radio show. The next day, a man walking his dog finds Julie’s body. Dr. Wendy Newstone says it looks like she fell back onto her bag which contained a glass vodka bottle.

The bottle shattered and glass severed the carotid artery in her neck. Alex is surprised to learn the victim is Julie since she is the lead in his missing person case. A group of teenagers was here all night and heard raised voices around midnight before seeing someone hurry away from the scene. The victim’s system is Donna Wellingfield (Tupele Dorgu). Wendy believes anyone she was with would’ve known that Julie was in trouble. They speak to Donna who tells them Julie had a problem with alcohol and never married. She was with Jed Varnham off and on for years. Jed was more damaged than her back then, but he managed to get himself clean. Donna reveals that her sister called her yesterday to tell her she had inherited Julian’s house in the will. She recommends talking to Jed if they want to find out why Julian left her the house. They can find him by the old barge on the canal by Bilton Lane lock. They visit his sister Liza when they can’t find him at the barge. She tells them about Julie inheriting Ravenstoop up on Bilton Moor.

When asked why he left it to her, Liza says he was vulnerable after his second stroke and Julie has a manipulative person. She works full time so she never saw them together. She doesn’t know how Jed felt about it since they don’t speak often. Jed went off the rails and met Julie. They tried to reach out to him, but Julie had poisoned him against them. He wouldn’t even say goodbye to his father. At the station, Carol tells everyone about Julie being found dead at Allerton Bridge Park. Evidence now indicates that she was deliberately pushed. There was a heated argument a few hours before the body was found. Alex tells everyone how he thinks Luke’s case is connected to Julie’s murder. Luke could be a person of interest in the case. Liza is as well since she thought Julian would leave the house to her. Darren points out that they’re checking security cameras to see if they can find out who Julie was with.

Carol confirms to Darren that they’re pausing the search for the missing persons file right now although the cases could be linked. Alex has managed to track down Duncan Darwin who is the last person to see Luke before he went missing. Darren learns that there were a series of abusive text messages between Julie and Jed. They manage to find Jed who invites them in. He says he loves Julie more than anything, but he couldn’t stop her from destroying herself. She could never be honest about anything including the mess she was in. When he decided he couldn’t take anymore, she told him she was pregnant and had lost it. Although he wanted that baby, it never existed. He could never completely cut her off. Liza called him out of the blue saying she had found Julie with their father. Liza went mental, but Julie claimed she was making it up. Jed doesn’t think she’d lie about something that so she told Julie was over for good that time. When asked about the abusive texts, he says he turned his phone off to make it end only for her to start writing letters.

He gets the letters that tell him how much she hated him. Jed agrees to let them hold onto the letters for a while. Alex meets with Duncan (Jack Deam) who claims he didn’t know Julie Conway. Back then, Duncan was regularly getting into trouble. Luke followed him around like a puppy and wanted to get involved. He kept asking until Duncan eventually said yes. The last time he saw Luke, he had a big fight with his mom and said he couldn’t take it anymore. Luke went to the scrapyard over in Craydale because they used to take kids without asking questions. Duncan never saw him against after that. Ray calls Alex to say a caller told him he’d spotted Luke in a pub in Craydale called The Shepherds Rest. It was a man who sounded like a mature local, but they wanted to remain anonymous. Alex goes back to the station to tell the others about the sighting about two months about. Carol believes he could be a suspect in Julie’s murder. Alex agrees although they must get the sighting corroborated first.

Darren is asked to see if they can trace the call. Carol tells them what Jed said and the fact that he seemed genuinely sad. Ridley thinks Julie’s death might’ve been a violent response to extreme provocation so that implicates both Varnham siblings. Jed claimed Liza saw Julie with their father at the house while Liza said that never happened. One of them has to be lying. Alex meets with Eve to tell her about Julie’s murder and the possible signing at the pub in Craydale. Eve remembers the Alderford’s scrapyard since she dragged Luke home from there a couple of times. She offers to go with him to the pub tomorrow, but Alex isn’t sure that is a good idea. He relents and says okay when she says she is aware it might not be good news. When they visit the pub the next day, they find that it is boarded up. They decide to visit the scrapyard. Darren finds security footage from the camera across from Julie’s house. The footage shows Liza visiting Julie. Liza leaves alone while Julie leaves around 8:07. Another camera picks her up at the end of the road walking towards town before they lose sight of her.

Despite finding cameras on Halton way, Julie isn’t on any of them. Julie and whoever was with her must’ve taken the pedestrian gate on the other end of the park. Carol says Liza has some questions to answer. Alex and Eve meet with a man at the scrapyard. Once he looks at Luke’s picture, he tells them they better come in. He says kids like Luke got fed and put to bed for the night without any questions asked. Some would steal. Luke never did so Tony (Ian Talbot) liked him. Tony insists Luke never contacted him. He didn’t know what he was doing up there and he didn’t want to know. This was the closest thing to family most of those kids ever had because they looked out for them and made them feel safe. Tony is adamant that Luke never arrived. As they leave, Ridley tells Eve he thinks they’re going to have to face the possibility that Luke has passed on and someone wants them to believe otherwise. He isn’t sure why, but he thinks Eve’s arrival might’ve been a trigger of some kind. He wants to find out who made the call while Eve needs more time to process everything.

When they reach Alex’s house, Eve talks about how Luke felt so cut off that he had to go up there to feel like he belonged. They didn’t know what family was. When her husband said he didn’t want kids, she went along with it. One day, he told her that he had a lover who was six months pregnant and he was leaving her. Alex knows how it feels to have no connection with anyone. Eve asks what happened. She learns about the fire that was started deliberately and how it was too late when he got there. Alex admits he was the target. Although they offered him counseling, he didn’t see the point. He lost everything that made sense. Darren and Carol visit Liza who admits that she visited Julie’s house. She made her an offer for Ravenstoop, but she refused. Liza admits she was angry when she said she would never sell it to her. Carol asks if she was as angry as she was when she found Julie with her father. She wants to know why Liza is lying to them.

Alex meets with Ray who doesn’t have a lot of time to talk. Ray shows him his call log. Alex tells him that the pub was already shut. Ray says there are many crazy people out there and he is only the messenger. Ray hopes he’ll give his sister the best since it must be hell for her. At the station, Alex tells Carol that the call had to be a hoax because the pub couldn’t have been open months ago. Carol says Liza claimed she lied to them to prevent the police from pointing the finger at her. She isn’t sure she believes her though. Alex shows her the letters Julie sent to Jed and the letters Luke sent to Eve. He believes the handwriting is identical, but they need an expert to confirm it. Since the caller was a man, Julie isn’t the only one who wants them to believe Luke is dead. Alex argues they need to find the missing persons file. They decide to visit Jed to see what he can tell them about Luke and Julie’s relationship. He says he didn’t know Julie back then.

They tell him that Julie might’ve written the letters from Luke to his sister. He didn’t know Luke and he doesn’t know anything about her letters. Ray gets a call from a man calling himself Luke who says he knows exactly where he is calling from. Ray is told to share it with everyone and get it off his chest. If he does, the caller will. Ray quickly ends the call. Seconds later, Michael Flannery (Aidan McArdle) gets a call from Alex and tells him that the doctor says his mom is dying from stomach cancer. He wants to see his mother, but Alex doesn’t think they’ll approve him for a visit. Before Alex leaves, he tells Michael that he knows how he feels now. Eve calls Alex to see if he is free tomorrow because she has been asked to sing at Marlings again. After he agrees to come, Alex meets with Carol who says tech got a result on Ray’s phone records. There was no call to that number at 9:47 so it must’ve been manually alerted. Ray must be a hoaxer. Alex listens to the caller who calls himself Luke. Tech traced the number to Duncan Darwin.

They decide to visit Duncan who tells them Ray isn’t someone you wouldn’t want near your kids. Back in the day, his shop was a hotspot for teenagers who idolized him. That was the way Ray wanted it. He started by giving them free records before holding parties above the shop. Ray would measure the kids on the walls from tallest to shortest. It was an excuse for Ray to get closer to the kids. He picked the right kids since they were neglected. Duncan insists he tried to warn Julie, but she wouldn’t listen to him. She got Luke involved. Duncan admits to lying about not knowing Julie because he has never told anyone this. He knew it was time once he learned about Julie’s death. Ray wouldn’t have liked then asking questions about Luke. He would’ve wanted to make sure Julie kept her mouth shut since her drinking would’ve made her a liability. Duncan has to leave to pick up his daughter because he doesn’t let her walk anyway alone. They burst through Ray’s door seconds later.

When they look through his property, they find marks on the walls where Ray must’ve measured the heights of various kids. They also find pictures of kids around Jack’s age and one of Julie. Ray’s phone is found as they continue looking for him. After they find him hanging in the stairwell, they head back to the office where they learn that Darren is still missing. They sit down and go through the files with Goodwin and others. They tell everyone about Ray and how Duncan led them there. They suggest Ray killed Julie to make sure she kept her mouth shut. Goodwin believes that is the end of it, but Ridley says they found pictures of Julie in another location so there were others involved. Goodwin orders them to pause all other lines of inquiry and focus on proving Ray killed Julie. Darren finds something. Carol learns that Julian’s will hasn’t been amended since 1989 so the house was always going to Julie. Darren shows them Luke’s report that he found in a box of RTAs from 1989 after it was signed out by a DCI.

It was missing because Luke visited this station to make a serious claim against Julian Varnham the day before he went missing. Alex believes Ravenstoop is central to the case and Duncan knows a lot more than he is letting on. They return to Duncan to see what he knows about the house. They accuse him of trying to silence Julie and Ray to prevent the truth from coming out. After saying he was the last person to see Luke, Duncan asks them to start the car. Duncan takes them to Ravenstoop and bashes the backdoor open. They begin searching the building. Ridley says this is every parent’s worst nightmare since it is the bedroom in the photograph. They return to Duncan who helps them uncover a hidden door. Once it is opened, they find a skeleton sitting upright in front of them. At the station, Duncan is interviewed and continues maintaining his innocence. He tells them that they knew Julian as JV and never Julian.

Ray was the middleman who got the kids to trust him before bringing them to Ravenstoop. He wasn’t actively involved in the abuse. Ray was a sleaze who idolized JV. He recruited Julie who would hang out at JV’s venues, get young kids drunk, and invite them to a party. Nothing happened at the beginning because JV needed to make sure nobody was keeping up with them. He’d eventually spike their drinks. He did whatever he wanted and got away with it. Since he had friends in high places, he knew about Luke making a complaint. Julie tricked Luke into going back to Ravenstoop by telling him JV was away for the night. JV was there though. Luke was brave so he threatened to tell the newspapers if the police didn’t do anything. JV came at him with a heavy ashtray and smashed his skull. Duncan didn’t say anything because JV had videos and photos that he threatened to show to their parents. Duncan was told to tell everyone that Luke had run away and he saw him leave.

Carol says Goodwin wants them to keep Duncan in custody until the remains have been identified. Wendy thinks it could be a while. Alex isn’t going to tell Eve anything until they’re positive the body belongs to Luke. Alex goes to the club with Eve later that night. She admits she isn’t sure if she wants him to continue anymore because it is hard stirring up the past. She just wants to go home now. This place doesn’t feel like home without her brother so she is going to leave after the funeral. Eve invites Ridley to come with her. She thinks they could be good today. Eve isn’t saying they should get married, but she isn’t ready for this to end. Annie sees them kissing. Later, Alex talks to his wife about moving on. The next day, Wendy checks the body and confirms the victim was hit over the head many years ago. They’re checking the serial number on his watch and a few strands of hair to see if it is Luke. Alex and Carol talk about the investigation and telling the family if the body is Luke’s.

Alex notices Eve talking to two men. He tells Carol there is something he needs to do. Wendy calls Carol to say the watch matches one that was stolen in 1988 by Luke. Alex goes to the motel where he learns Ms. Marbury returned to the motel around 11 because they had to issue her another room key at 11:07. There was someone waiting for her. Carol learns that the DNA from the hair didn’t have a direct match in the database. It is a 50% match to a DNA sample found on a shard of glass at the scene of Julie Conway’s death. She tested it against Eve’s DNA and it matched. Alex finds evidence that she was responsible too. The detectives arrive at the funeral as Eve prepares to sing for the audience. Eve says she can’t sing for the man who killed her brother. She talks about Julian picked his victims and how he damaged all those young people. Her 15-year-old brother went to the police to expose the truth, but Julian’s powerful friends made it all disappear.

Her brother paid with his life. After that, Alex is given a few minutes to speak to Eve alone. He tells her he knew it was her when she wasn’t wearing that dress to the funeral. She said home just wasn’t the same without her brother like she already knew he was dead because she did. She promises she didn’t plan this because Julie came to her. Julie told her everything before saying he was dead. The Bursary was leverage and Julie had written all the letters. Julie reminded her that sisters were supposed to protect their brothers. Eve pushed her causing her to fall on the bottle. Eve panicked and ran. She couldn’t tell Alex because it would’ve been over and she didn’t want that. Alex thought she was someone he could let into his life. Eve is taken away in a police car moments later. Goodwin tells Alex that there will be a full investigation into this case and any officers involved.

Luke will finally get the justice he deserves. Duncan is released from the jail. Alex goes to the pub and plays the piano while remembering Eve singing there.

 

Ridley Review

The third episode of Ridley was okay even though some aspects could be better than others. For starters, the episodes are still too long. I’d rather see this cut down to 45 minutes or an hour and have more episodes instead. The runtime is one of the main reasons I have been hesitant to watch and recap the episodes because it just drags. The performances are good as usual and the soundtrack is enjoyable.

The twist wasn’t that surprising, but it was still well done. Ridley isn’t groundbreaking, but it doesn’t try to be either. It gets the basics right and always provides a simple storyline that can be enjoyed without any pressure. The episode scores a 6.5 out of 10. While it was decent in all categories, it just doesn’t do enough to set itself apart from other shows in the genre.

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