Season 11 Episode 05

A corpse is found on a forest path with a Bible beside it and an invitation to a retreat at the bishop's palace in its pocket. The man is soaking wet although he is some distance from the river, and the Bible is a King James version, a more traditional translation than the one Alphy uses. Alphy did not receive an invitation.

At the palace Alphy finds the disgraced vicar David Lane showing off a new guitar, and the vicar John Planer, newly returned from missionary work in Tanganyika with a large number of converts. The bishop, Aubrey Grey, claims Alphy's invitation was lost in the post and tries to dismiss Geordie and Larry, since the dead man has barely any connection to the palace, and Geordie asks Alphy to stay and watch. Staying also puts Alphy in the same house as Meg, who is the bishop's daughter. John switches rooms with Alphy, taking the worse of the two the bishop had assigned, in a dig at the bishop. Alphy then sees the vicar Jerry asking to speak to the bishop privately and sees David call Andrew aside, follows them and finds the two of them arguing over a dripping priest's robe, and calls Larry and Geordie back.

Larry identifies the dead man from his time in custody after harassing local churches: Martin Mallon, a homeless alcoholic. He drowned, although he was found on land, and Larry proposes secondary drowning, in which water in the lungs kills a person after they have left the water. The bishop again tries to turn the police away. David reveals that Andrew fought with Martin. Martin approached Andrew on the way to the palace and Andrew refused to speak to him, despite a priest's obligation to help, and Andrew wanted back the money his congregation had donated to Martin without his knowledge, having overspent on gold objects for his church. Andrew did not drown Martin, since Martin was already wet when he pushed Andrew into the water, and Andrew asked his old school friend David to hide the soaking robe.

Jerry also had an encounter with Martin. He is the one who called the police on him, which put Martin in a cell for a night. Martin had come to Jerry's church for help several times, drunk, and Jerry handed the duty of care to the police because he was afraid of Martin, who he believes stole his invitation to the retreat. Jerry tells the police he regrets his cowardice and has asked the bishop's forgiveness. Alphy works out that the palace has an indoor swimming pool, and asks the police station for the reports of the Tanganyika drownings and for the composition of the water that killed Martin. It was chlorinated, as the bishop's pool is, and there were three unexplained drownings in Tanganyika and none since John left. John is found reading a Bible at the palace, and Alphy asks to see it: it is a King James version, matching the one found with Martin. John runs and Alphy catches him, John tries to strangle him and Geordie knocks him off. Under arrest, John sets out his fanaticism. Unlike the other vicars he did try to help Martin, by baptising him against his will in the pool to save his soul, as he had done to the three people who drowned in Tanganyika, and Martin walked away with the Bible John gave him and died later.

The episode's second subject is Alphy's standing in the Church. The bishop arrives at the vicarage to apologise about John, and Alphy tells him the Church needs better priests than the ones it has. The bishop refuses outright to find any role for Leonard, on the grounds that Leonard is a homosexual, and he also admits he did not invite Alphy to the retreat because of Alphy's past relationship with Meg. The bishop's position is that everyone is flawed, including the vicars at the retreat, and Alphy replies that the others get another chance and he and Leonard do not, because of prejudice about sexuality and race. He asks the bishop to leave.

Alongside, Geordie is invited to an event with his superiors and wants Cathy there to support him. She is at CeCe's with the accountant, Peter Switch, talking about her ambitions over wine, and misses the event entirely. Geordie is told at the event that the promotion is his. Cathy comes home drunk and says she was drinking alone. Miss Scott has still not told Larry she is pregnant and is worried the pregnancy will end her career. Leonard, who is helping the Hayes family at home, is crying at the vicarage when Alphy returns, having promised Marcus that Raymond will be looked after when Marcus dies. Alphy tells Geordie he is happy about the promotion, and Geordie explains that it means they will work on fewer cases together.

The episode puts a serial drowning priest at a retreat where every other guest is also a priest with something to hide, so the audience spends the hour suspecting the wrong clergy for the right reasons. The chlorinated water is the detail that moves the case from a forest path to an indoor pool, and it is found by asking a laboratory a question rather than by searching the building. The bishop's two refusals, about Leonard and about Meg, are what turn the episode from a whodunit into the case the series has been making for five seasons.