'The Marlow Murder Club' Recap: Season 2 Episode 5

The Marlow Murder Club airs Sundays at 8:00 pm and is available to stream via the PBS app and wttw.com. Recap the previous and following episodes.
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Judith may be retired, but when Mr. Eddingham finds an ancient ceremonial sword buried next to a skeleton in Marlow with his metal detector, she eagerly dives back into archaeology. (Mrs. Eddingham is less happy about her husband’s own interest in the dig – it’s taking him away from their social engagements.) 

The land is owned by the woman who runs the local pub, and she has granted a team permission to excavate the site. She was gifted the land by a pub regular, but it’s designated for grazing and so useless to her – even though she’s on the verge of having to close the pub due to lack of money.

Darius Gifford, an archaeology professor who knows Judith by reputation, is helping with the dig. He tried to send a drone up to survey the site this morning, but gusty winds knocked it off course.

That accident turns out to be a fortunate one, as a man was found dead across the river that morning at the Marlow sailing club. Kit Harcourt’s death appears to be an accident – he’s next to a boat and died from a hit to the head that seems to have come from the boom swinging in the strong winds. But it was a windy morning to try to sail, and you would typically wait to raise your sail until the boat was in the water. Plus, Kit has facial injuries consistent with a fight.

He often sailed early before going to the city for work, so it’s at least not unusual that he was at the club between 4 and 6:30 am, the window in which he died. Rear commodore Gregg Cooper was responsible for opening the club, but he typically didn’t show up until around 8, unless he crashed there overnight after drinking. Although Kit had only been with the club for just over a year, he was a big donor and had become a member of the leadership committee, which afforded him early access.

The club’s boat storage was also broken into – for a second time. A shipment of motors from Marlow Marine that had been delivered earlier that week was stolen. The storage’s alarm system has been broken; it was disabled at 2:09 am. 

Judith, Suzie, and Becks examine the footage from professor Gifford’s drone and see a person attending to the boat that supposedly killed Kit, as Kit’s dead body lies there, at 5:17 am. Someone seems to have made Kit’s death look like an accident. A yellow bag is visible in the river, floating downstream away from the crime scene.

The club’s commodore, James Wyckham, told the police that Kit was well-liked. But the honorary secretary Ursula Liddington seemed to disagree. She’s a regular churchgoer and so knows Becks, and explains to her that Kit was ambitious and ruffled some feathers. 

Becks plans to try to get more out of Ursula when she comes to church to arrange flowers later that day. Suzie heads off to speak to her friend Jackie Tynham, who rides the train past the club on her way to work around the time of Kit’s death, to see if she saw anything. And Judith points out a gold link on the ground near the crime scene that turns out to be from a vintage wristwatch before going to search for the yellow bag.

Thanks to an app and the insight of two men who fish the river for treasure, Judith finds the bag. Inside is Gregg Cooper’s watch, wallet, phone, and more. Neither Gregg nor his car is at his house, and there’s been no activity on his phone since the previous night.

Ursula tells Becks that Gregg was passed over for vice commodore at a club committee meeting the previous night. He was drunk and angry, and confronted Kit after most people left, telling Kit to leave the club; Ursula saw Kit punch Gregg. 

The two men had a history of animosity: after only sailing for a few months, Kit beat Gregg in an annual race that Gregg always won after Gregg passed out in the midst of it. Gregg is a known drinker, but he accused Kit of drugging him. It was that apparent episode of blackout drunkenness that prevented Gregg from being promoted to a higher leadership role at the committee meeting.

A broken bottle of Gregg’s favored alcohol was found near the crime scene. And his abandoned car is eventually discovered in the woods, with traces of blood and another empty liquor bottle inside.

Suzie’s friend Jackie says all she saw when she went past the sailing club at 5:22 am on the train was Gregg.

Jackie works for the boat building business of her dad, Harry, and also coaches youth at the sailing club. She says that Kit made her dad lose his job as the bar manager at the club, accusing him of stealing from the bar and messing with the accounts. That ruined Harry’s reputation, which is also affecting his boat business: James Wyckham now doesn’t trust Harry’s suggestion that his keel is actually rotten and needs to be replaced.

The police didn’t find anything useful in Kit’s house, but Judith wonders if they missed something. They did scuff up the floor and so had to call in cleaners. Judith grabs a smock from the back of the cleaners’ van and sneaks inside, finding a twenty-year-old photo of the sailing club executive committee slipped in between some books. 

She then returns to the club itself and borrows a UV light from the police. Oil for motors has a dye that appears in UV light, in order to detect leaks; Judith wonders if the motor thief stepped in an oil spot visible on the floor of the storage. Someone did; footprints show him or her moving towards where Kit died. The theft and murder may be connected.

Judith runs into James’ wife Hayley at the club. Hayley is the club’s house manager. Judith asks why Kit would have an old committee photo, and Hayley explains that he asked for youthful photos of club members for a fundraising event. But the event never happened, and Hayley suspects Kit was simply using it as an excuse to get the photo. It’s not the first time he manipulated the truth for his own benefit. 

James heads to Harry’s shop to check on his boat. No one is there, so he gets underneath the boat to look at the keel himself. He hears a noise in the shop, and then a support collapses and the boat falls onto him.

According to Jackie, rumor has it that there’s an inside man at Marlow Marine involved in the theft of the motors. So Judith sets a trap. She goes to Marlow Marine and places a large order while Becks loiters around the loading bay, making sure to tell the manager that Judith is buying an expensive motor and lives in an isolated spot. 

Tanika hears that her boss has been talking to the person she has replaced at the police station, and worries that he is returning from sick leave. This could be her last case. She has to solve it.