Going Wrong: Part Two

Guy Curran's obsession is worse in this second part, and now it has a theory behind it. He has decided that someone close to Leonora is poisoning her against him, filling her head with talk and turning her mind. Nobody has to prove any of this to him. He knows it the way he knows his own name, and that certainty is what makes him dangerous.

At a party with Celeste Seton, his suspicions come to a head with Leonora's brother Robin Chisholm. The argument turns into something more than words. Afterwards, Guy asks Danny Danilo to kill the man. Danny is the old friend who gets asked to do the things Guy cannot do himself. And he seems willing enough. Then comes the news of an impending marriage, and Guy understands that he has been aiming at the wrong person. The realisation should have stopped him. Instead it gives the obsession a new target.

Julian Bond and Ruth Rendell share the writing credit, with Matthew Evans directing. The episode first went out on 9 June 1998. James Callis returns as Guy, Daniel Caltagirone as Danny Danilo and Josephine Butler as Leonora. Inday Ba plays Celeste Seton, Jack Tanner is Robin Chisholm, Rebecca Craig takes Rachel Lingard, Kate Lynn Evans plays Susannah Chisholm and Sylvester Morand is Anthony Chisholm. Philip Locke appears as Magnus Mandeville, with Sara Kestelman as his sister Tessa.

The clever bit is how ordinary the trigger is. A row at a party, a piece of news, and a man decides that someone else should die. And what makes it unsettling is that Guy believes every step of it. His feelings have simply outgrown his judgment, and everyone around him can see it except him. There is no mystery about who is right here. The mystery is how far he will go before he sees it himself. The news of the marriage lands before Danny can do anything irreversible, so nobody dies, at least not yet.