The Secret House of Death: Part Two

Part two finds Susan Townsend in real danger, and the source of it is someone she tried to comfort. Unaware that Bob and Magdalene are the adulterers who murdered their spouses and faked the suicide pact, Susan offers her neighbour Bob comfort over his wife's death. He pretends to accept it, because what he actually wants is to find out how much she knows.

The episode tightens around her from there. With her son away on holiday with his father, Susan does some sleuthing of her own, and the trail leads her to a troubling link between Bob and Magdalene. The connection clicks into place just as Bob comes after her, and the rescue, when it comes, arrives from an unlikely source. Amanda Redman's Susan has spent the story being underestimated, and the final act proves it was a mistake to underestimate her.

John Harvey and Ruth Rendell wrote it, and Jim Goddard directed. It was first shown on 15 March 1996, a week after the opening part. Like that episode it is one of the series' standalone adaptations, with no Wexford in sight, and the investigation stays with the local detectives who began it. The cast is the same tight ensemble as part one: Sarah Parks' Louise North, Adam Welsh's Paul Townsend, Amanda Royle's Dawn, Sally Kinghorn's Rebecca, Owen Teale's Bob North, Ian Thompson's Det Insp Ulph, Nicola Redmond's Det Sgt Mary Janes, Robert Burbage's pathologist and Jonathan Linsley's Carl Heller.

The conclusion lands with the double killing's full scope finally visible. The suicide pact was a stage prop, the grief was an act, and the killer has been accepting Susan's sympathy while planning her end. The episode keeps the focus fixed on the people involved rather than the machinery of the investigation, and the result is a domestic thriller that earns its chill. The secret house of death has given up its residents' secrets at last, and Susan, against the odds, is still standing.