'Whitstable Pearl' Recap: Episode 3

Whitstable Pearl airs Saturdays at 8:00 pm and is available to stream. Recap the previous and following episodes. 

A war reenactment is underway, as the two sides, everyone in period garb, march solemnly toward each other. The “soldiers” load their muskets, wait for the command, and fire. The ammunition is supposed to be fake, but apparently it isn’t – one “soldier” is hit in the head and chest and falls down dead. As his wife, marching behind him, rushes forward and lets out a bloodcurdling scream, confusion reigns.

As investigators scour the area around the dead man as his widow passively watches with another man comforting her, Mike and Nikki are greeted by nerdy accountant Keith Boyle, one of the actor-soldiers, who is prompted by Mike’s gruff “What happened?” to launch into a detailed history of the second English Civil War. Pointedly, Nikki interrupts: “What happened today?” Keith has no idea, explaining that while the guns are always loaded with real gunpowder, the barrels are stuffed with toilet paper, as are the cannons. The victim, he tells them, is recently retired DCI Brian Armstrong, and his widow is Heidi – this was their first (and obviously last) reenactment.

One of the investigators finds a bullet casing in the bushes: it’s from a sniper rifle, not a musket. Nikki surmises that the killer waited for the reenactors to fire their muskets and simultaneously shot Brian. They conclude that this was a professional hit on an ex-policeman with a 40-year career with lots of arrests. But Mike zeroes in on the widow’s odd behavior – she was smiling, has changed her clothes, and is now sipping tea under a tree. Nikki accuses him of misogyny. “When your partner is shot, you scream and cry your eyes out,” counters Mike angrily. “You don’t drink tea.” (Maybe he has personal experience with this.) One look at Heidi suggests that Mike may be right…as Brian’s sheet-covered corpse is being taken away, Heidi watches thoughtfully, nibbling on a biscuit.

At the restaurant, Pearl has succeeded in tracking down the thief of a garden umbrella – a strong windstorm. “Not exactly cutting-edge detective work, is it?” she wryly asks her mother Dolly. Dolly would rather talk about Pearl’s upcoming “date” with Mike. Pearl denies that it’s a date, but Dolly thinks dinner with a “single male friend” is exactly that.

Nikki has taken Keith’s card to call him later. “Sad loners playing dress-up,” Mike says dismissively. “Oh, and your life’s just one big A-list party,” Nikki retorts. She grudgingly invites Mike out for a pint with the investigators, but he has other plans. Not a date, he is quick to add.

That evening at the Old Neptune, a significantly glammed-up Pearl waits for Mike at the bar with two Oyster Stouts. Outside, Mike arrives but is conflicted, watching her through the window before walking away; he needs a moment. Pearl, believing she has been stood up, notices a man in a nearby booth sketching her. Thinking it’s weird, she confronts him and then gives him the other bottle of Oyster Stout before striding out. At the same time, Mike enters the pub through a different door. Not finding Pearl, he does spot the man’s sketch of her left on the table. He carefully saves it. Later, we see the same man at a different table sketching Mike.

Pearl returns to her restaurant and cooks herself an elegant dinner while sipping a nice white wine. Mike, on the other hand, stands outside a carryout place, scarfing down a sandwich still in the wrapping. In mid-bite, he gets a call from Nikki. Three distraught women have descended on the police station – all of them had been sleeping with Brian, and all are adamant that Heidi had him killed.

At her darkened restaurant, Pearl gets a visitor: Heidi. Pearl had met her in a cooking class; Heidi was a fellow restaurant owner. She tells Pearl that Brian had a lot of enemies, and that when she returned home after his death, someone had been in the house. What if they’re after her, too? Pearl urges her to go to the police. Heidi demurs – she is aware that Brian had been cheating on her, and that the police consider her a suspect. Pearl is certain she didn’t kill Brian – in their cooking class, Heidi couldn’t even bring herself to boil a lobster. The next day, Pearl installs a surveillance camera and burglar alarm at Heidi’s house.

The next day, Pearl informs Mike that Heidi has hired her. He insists he didn’t stand her up. “You changed your mind,” Pearl tells him. He admits as much, but says that he “changed it back again” and showed up after all. Pearl doesn’t know how to respond. Shifting back to the case, Mike thinks Heidi hired someone to murder Brian so she could get her hands on his police pension. Pearl doesn’t buy it – Heidi’s restaurant had been very successful and she vastly outearned her husband. Mike thinks Heidi is playing her, and that Pearl should “leave this to the professionals.” That goes over about as well as you’d expect. “I know her, and you don’t,” she snaps, before handing him a folded piece of paper and leaving.

Later, Mike and Nikki examine the paper, which is a newspaper article containing Brian’s obituary. The scathing comments on the story were all left by the same person, “Kid Armstrong.” They go into a dimly lit social club to meet with Kid, who is the dead man’s estranged brother, and had also been a cop but resigned because Brian broke up a strike, betraying the workers. Kid is going to the funeral “to spit on his grave.” He claims he doesn’t know Heidi well – only that she was Brian’s third wife. After Kid leaves, the female bartender corroborates his alibi – he was in the bar at the time of the shooting.

At her restaurant’s post-funeral gathering, Dolly tells Pearl that like Kid, she loathed Brian – he tried to arrest her once and she pepper-sprayed him. “Does that make me a suspect, too?” she asks bitterly. Pearl watches as Heidi slips out the back door. Following her, Pearl catches her son Charlie and Ruby canoodling, and unseen, catches sight of Heidi and Kid in the alley, also in a compromising position. And according to Dolly, apparently Heidi isn’t the “sweetheart” that Pearl thinks she is – having been unable to boil the lobster during their cooking class, Heidi grabbed a hammer and smashed its head instead.

That night, Pearl receives an alert: there’s an intruder outside Heidi’s house. Pearl rushes to the house with Charlie, Ruby, and Dolly.  As Heidi watches anxiously from an upstairs window, the surveillance camera catches a hooded man lurking outside the glass patio doors. He tries the lock which trips the alarm, then draws a gun and takes off running down the gangway. Pearl, over everyone’s objections, gives chase but the man scales a fence and escapes in a car.

Later, scrutinizing the surveillance footage on Pearl’s computer with Mike and Nikki, Heidi gets a good look at the intruder’s face, but claims not to recognize him. Mike and Nikki recognize him from the social club and the reenactment (he was the man comforting Heidi) and assume he’s the hit man. Pearl reveals to Mike that Heidi and Kid are having an affair. Incensed, he asks her why she didn’t tell him before, and they argue heatedly – she’s an amateur, he’s a professional, she’s uncovered more evidence, etc. Nikki leaves them to it. “Just get a room,” she tells Mike, outside, handing him Keith Boyle’s card and suggesting he become a reenactor himself. Disgusted, Mike tears the card in half and drops it to the ground where Pearl later finds it.

Pearl goes to see Keith at his home where he evidently lives with his elderly mother, and he guides Pearl down to his disturbingly creepy basement full of war miniatures, memorabilia, and antique weapons. Does he recognize the man on the surveillance footage from any of the reenactments? He doesn’t think so, but suggests they search through the archives on his computer. Relishing her attention, he eagerly shows off some of his weapons to Pearl. Is Keith the killer?

Meanwhile, Mike goes to Kid’s home to question him about Heidi and finds him in the gangway, unconscious. Anguished, Heidi stays with Kid in the hospital as Mike watches. Nikki has news: facial recognition has identified the intruder: Aaron Emperor, whom Brian had arrested on numerous petty crimes. Nikki concludes that Brian’s murder, the threat to Heidi, and the attack on Kid are all revenge crimes. Mike is skeptical. But watching Heidi and Kid together, he realizes that Brian wasn’t going to leave Heidi for another woman; Heidi was going to leave Brian for Kid.

As Mike pays a visit to Aaron who is refereeing a soccer match, Pearl and Keith are replaying the video of Brian’s murder and using Keith’s miniatures to recreate the crime, discovering that Brian spotted the shooter in the bushes before he was killed. And as Aaron showers in the locker room, Mike and the SWAT team raid Aaron’s locker where they find several guns and a journal filled with photos of and info about Heidi. Independently, Mike and Pearl come to the same conclusion: Aaron was the shooter – he had become obsessed with Heidi and would kill any man to have her. Aaron slips out before they can apprehend him, and Mike and Pearl rush to the hospital, guessing that Aaron is headed there.

As she waits outside Kid’s hospital room, Nikki is distracted by a faulty vending machine as Aaron slips past her in doctor’s garb and facemask. He enters Kid’s hospital room and confronts Heidi – he wants her, but she doesn’t remember him. Enraged, Aaron pulls his gun on Kid as Heidi tries to shield him. Suddenly, Mike bursts into the room, coldcocks Aaron, and puts him under arrest. Case solved.

Later, outside Pearl’s restaurant, Mike and Pearl raise bottles of ale, toasting “Heidi and Kid, and a job well done.” Mike asks Pearl what the plaque outside her restaurant means; she says it’s a tribute to her dad, a good man and important in Whitstable. “He was everyone’s best mate,” she recalls. Mike comes close to smiling. “Sounds like you.”

Inside, she shows Mike a photo collage behind the bar that includes a shot of her dad with the drowned fisherman Vinnie Lowe – she reveals that Dolly likely had an affair with Vinnie while her dad was still alive. Pearl steps away and while she’s gone, he receives a text from her: “Revenge.” Mike stood her up and now she’s returning the favor. Ruefully, he supposes he had that coming. Removing the folded drawing of Pearl from his coat pocket, he adds it to the collage. While doing so, he notices a photo of a much-younger Dolly with Vinnie. Taking it down to get a closer look, he tears it in half.