Beyond Paradise season 3 episode 2 offers us a little switch-up to the usual formula as DI Humphrey Goodman (Kris Marshall) takes the day off, giving DS Esther Williams (Zahra Ahmadi) the opportunity to step up and lead an investigation — ably assisted by PC Kelby Hartford (Dylan Llewellyn), who turns out to have a personal connection to the case.
Meanwhile, Martha Lloyd (Sally Bretton) attempts to bond with new foster daughter Rosie (Bella Rei Blue Stevenson) and Anne Lloyd (Barbara Flynn) opens up to a confidante about her health worries.
Read on to find out what happened in Beyond Paradise season 3 episode 2...
It's late at night in Shipton Abbott, and Emily Buswell (Showtrial's Abra Thompson) is saying her goodbyes after a night out with friends at Kenny's Wine Bar. As she's walking down the street in the dark, wearing a red coat, her phone pings with a message from an unknown sender: "Nice coat." She looks around, alarmed, but can't see anyone, so she carries on. Her phone goes again: "I love red." She tries to ignore it, and carries on, but gets yet another message: "You smell nice!" Another message: "See you in 30" — followed by another message every second, gradually counting down. Emily panics and breaks into a run, and she's so distracted that she runs out into the road without looking and is hit by a car. As Emily lies on the ground, her phone continues to ping eerily with more countdown messages.
As DI Humphrey Goodman (Kris Marshall) comes down the stairs in the morning, he finds Martha Lloyd (Sally Bretton) snoozing on the sofa. He goes into the kitchen to make coffee, and Martha appears in the doorway, saying she was only dozing. It seems that their foster daughter Rosie (Bella Rei Blue Stevenson) has been experiencing night terrors, and she didn't get off to sleep until 3 am. There was no mention of this in her file, so Martha says she'll ring Hannah the social worker later.
We then see DS Esther Williams (Zahra Ahmadi) asleep until a man's arm reaches out to gently wake her — it's Archie Hughes (Jamie Bamber), handing her a coffee. Esther accepts the coffee, but after Archie goes out again, there's a slight look of morning-after regret on her face. She dresses and attempts to make a swift exit, but Archie is downstairs in his (stunning, by the way) living room, reading his tablet with a cup of coffee and a plate of delicious-looking pastries on the table in front of him. He asks Esther if she wants breakfast, and she politely declines, saying she needs to go home and get ready for work; Humphrey has the day off, so she's covering. Archie asks if she's just going to go without talking about last night. Esther: "What do you want — marks out of 10?" She tells him she's always found it's best not to discuss it, and goes to leave. Archie calls after her, "out of interest...?" and she yells back "Seven!". Archie, to his credit, seems fairly happy with that score.
Esther attempts to sneak back into her home — unsuccessfully, because her daughter Zoe (Melina Sinadinou) is already up. Zoe asks her playfully if she's been out for a morning run, and Esther brushes her off, saying she's got to get to work.
Meanwhile, Emily is brought home by her mum Jane (Becoming Elizabeth's Alexandra Gilbreath) and boyfriend Danny (Spent's Joseph Ollman). Emily is insisting she's fine, but Jane is worried that she might still be concussed. Danny goes ahead to open up the front door, while Jane tries to get Emily to consider contacting the police: Emily's reluctant because she didn't actually see anyone, but Jane insists that Emily knows who's behind the messages. At that moment Emily's phone pings with another one: "Next time you won't be so lucky". Danny comes back and Emily shows him and her mother the message.
Over at the houseboat, Anne Lloyd (Barbara Flynn) is checking the bruise on her shoulder after her fall last week, accompanied by Selwyn the duck. She can't really see it properly, so she uses her phone to take a photo — but as she checks the picture, she sees something that alarms her.
Esther arrives at Emily's house, and Danny admits that he called the police: "It's either that, or I'm going to go round his house and batter him." Esther asks if she can speak to Emily on her own, and Jane and Danny step out. Emily tells Esther that the harassment started about three weeks ago, when she started getting comments on her social media — nasty stuff calling her fat and things like that. She didn't think much of it until she started getting messages directly to her phone, saying similar things but more threatening, saying that they knew where she lived.
Esther asks to see the messages, and Emily shows her her phone, saying that whenever she blocks the number, they keep coming from a different one. She talks Esther through what happened last night, and says she was hit by a cab when she ran into the road — but it wasn't the driver's fault, they were very worried about her and took her to A&E. She says that she didn't see anyone, but she knew the person had to be nearby because they knew what she was wearing. Esther asks what Danny meant by his comment about battering someone, and Emily reluctantly says that her mum thinks the messages are coming from Emily's ex-boyfriend Mark, who got out of prison three weeks ago — the same time the messages started up. When he got out of prison, Mark called Emily and said he wanted to see her, but she said no.
At the police station, PC Kelby Hartford (Dylan Llewellyn) appears to be moving on from his crush on Chief Superintendent Charlie Woods, explaining to Margo Martins (Felicity Montagu) that he's realised now she was a bit too old for him, and them both being in the police would have meant they'd end up talking about work all the time. Zoe pops in with coffees for the team, and Margo asks her if she has any single friends Kelby's age. Kelby tells Zoe to ignore her, and Zoe says she doesn't know anyone suitable, but she'll have a think.
Martha's been in touch with Hannah the social worker, who told her that Rosie's mother never reported night terrors. Humphrey ventures that Rosie seems quite wary of him and didn't want him in the room when she was upset. Martha says that apparently the only men Rosie has been around are drug users, so it'll take her some time to trust him. Martha goes in and tries to get Rosie to get dressed, but Rosie only wants to watch TV. Feeling a little defeated, Martha tells her she can watch for 10 more minutes.
At the police station, Esther asks Margo to dig out the file for Mark Weston, and to check the numbers that were messaging Emily — they're probably all pay-as-you-go, but maybe the mast information will be revealing. Esther asks Kelby to check Emily's social media feeds, and he says that he knows her: they went to the same school, and their mums were friends. He gets a dreamy look on his face and says, "she's lovely".
Margo asks if Emily is an old girlfriend, and Kelby says no; he almost asked her out once but he couldn't work up the nerve because he thought she was too pretty. Kelby gets on with checking Emily's socials while Margo reads out Mark Weston's file: recently released from Exeter after serving three years of a six-year sentence for GBH. He also has three previous convictions for criminal damage, possession of a controlled substance and ABH. Esther checks the CCTV and sees Emily looking terrified, but no sign of anyone else in the frame — figuratively or literally.
Esther and Kelby go to see Mark Weston (Kem Hassan), who isn't feeling particularly co-operative as far as the police are concerned. He does, however, say that he hasn't seen Emily for over three years. He admits to calling Emily when he got out of jail, but says that she dumped him while he was inside, and he felt she at least owed him the courtesy of doing it face-to-face.
Esther asks to see his phone and Mark claims that he hasn't got one. She points out that his parole conditions would require him to register a phone number; Mark says he lost his and he's saving up to buy a new one. Esther asks if he's attempted to contact Emily Buswell in any way apart from the one time he's mentioned, and Mark says no. Esther tells him she doesn't believe him, and Mark tartly responds that that's her problem, not his.
Esther reminds him that malicious communication is an offence, and asks where he was last night. Mark says he was with his friend Billy Roberts, at his house. As they leave, Esther and Kelby agree that they can't see what Emily saw in Mark. Esther asks Kelby to check Mark's alibi, even though she's sure Billy will say they were together even if it's not true. Back in the flat, Mark watches them leave — and then pulls his phone out from down the side of the sofa.
Back at Emily's, Danny tells her she did the right thing telling the police about Mark, and adds that he's spoken to Katie, who said there's no rush for Emily to go back to work. Emily's startled by this, because she's due to go to Katie's hen night, which has been organised for months and she can't just let her down. Danny tells her nobody will be expecting her to go after what's just happened. He heads off back home to pick up some things, and Emily stares at her phone nervously.
At the police station, Margo tells Esther that the phone that sent Emily the messages wasn't connecting to the same mast as Emily's phone, which means the person messaging here wasn't anywhere nearby. Esther can't make sense of this: the stalker knew what Emily was wearing, so they must have been following her.
Kelby goes to see Emily, who greets him with a warm hug. She asks what he's doing here, and he says he heard what happened to her and just wanted to check she was all right. Emily tells him she was so frightened when she got the messages; she really thought someone was going to kill her. Kelby holds her hand and assures her that he's going to make sure nothing's going to happen to her.
Meanwhile, Martha is colouring with Rosie, who tells her that her mum has been taking drugs again, but said she was definitely going to stop this time. She's told Rosie that she's going to sign up for a class in prison that will help her get better, then she will come home and everything will get back to normal.
Martha smiles, and tells Rosie that her mum is very lucky to have her as a daughter. Rosie tells her that her mum gets "a bit upset" when she's taken something, but people will see how different she gets when she's not taking drugs. Martha agrees with Rosie, and tells her that she'll be staying with Martha and Humphrey until her mum is better. Rosie says Humphrey is "a bit weird", and Martha says that he can seem that way at times (no kidding), but he's lovely when you get to know him.
After finding out Rosie's favourite foods, Martha tells Humphrey that they'll be having fish fingers and chips for tea, but Humphrey's announcement that he'll be having salad cream with his does little to dissuade Rosie that he's a bit strange. Rosie asks for crisps, and Martha goes into the kitchen to find some; Martha's pleased that she's made a breakthrough with Rosie, but Humphrey is still worried that she called him weird. He's determined to switch from "funny peculiar" to "funny haha", and Martha suggests that he just try to relax and be himself around Rosie, and she'll soon warm up to him.
Back at the police station, Margo confirms that the SIM cards used to send threatening messages to Emily were all unregistered, so Esther asks for the cyber unit to be sent over to check Emily's computer. Kelby returns and gets to work looking through Emily's socials again for possible clues.
Humphrey is at home, doing his best to act normal by reading the paper (apparently the black bins in Shipton Abbott haven't been collected for three weeks and it's a big story), but keeps peeping over the top of it to look at Rosie — who is staring at him listlessly. Martha comes over and suggests Humphrey pop in to the station to see how Esther is getting on, and Humphrey is grateful for the excuse to get out.
Kelby's search has turned up a potential lead: apparently Emily got into a bit of an online spat with an influencer called Abigail Marsh. Their exchanges started out fairly friendly until Emily criticised one of Abigail's posts three weeks ago, and things rapidly turned a bit hostile. Apparently Abigail has 23,000 followers — so any of those people could potentially be Emily's stalker. Esther, sighing deeply at the prospect of this case expanding beyond all proportion, asks Kelby to trace the people who sent the worst messages, and to find an address for Abigail. Humphrey pops his head in; the rest of the team are curious to find out how he's getting on with Rosie, and he admits that she's finding him weird. They respond with polite/sarcastic (delete as applicable) noises of disbelief. Kelby hands Esther a post-it with Abigail's address on it, and Esther offers to fill Humphrey in on the way.
At the houseboat, Anne is scrolling through pictures of moles on her phone (the kind you get on your skin, not the furry ones who burrow underground), when she's startled by Zoe suddenly appearing behind her and saying "oh, I had one of those!" Zoe apologises for scaring her and says Martha asked her to drop off home-made fish fingers from the restaurant.
Anne says she hasn't met Rosie yet — they're trying to give Rosie a bit of space before introducing her to too many people at once. Zoe gets straight back to business and offers up her own knowledge on the mole front: they're only really a concern if they're crusty or if they change shape. She apologises for prying, but Anne seems relieved to have someone to talk to about it. Zoe asks when Anne found it, and she explains that she found it while checking her bruise from the fall. Anne adds, likely trying to convince herself as much as Zoe, that maybe the colour of the bruise is making it look odd. Zoe goes to take the fish fingers inside, but advises Anne to get someone who knows about these things to take a look at the mole. After she's gone, Anne rings her GP surgery.
Esther and Humphrey arrive in town, and Humphrey asks if they can stop off at a bookshop on the way back: he's worried that he's been a bit surplus to requirements on the Rosie front so far, but thinks his skill might lie in the art of bedtime story-telling.
They head in to visit Abigail Marsh (Hannah Howland), who talks in an airy voice about the importance of protecting her brand. She was promoting a new make-up range, and Emily accused her of filtering the images. Interestingly, when Esther asks if that was true, Abigail neither confirms nor denies — but she does deny sending threatening messages to Emily. She was doing a livestream at the time this was all happening, so she reckons she's got a few thousand alibis.
As they leave, Humphrey and Esther agree that it would take a lot to escalate something from a petty online spat over filters and brands to real-world threats of violence. Esther still has Mark down as her prime suspect, even if he turns out to have an alibi — and she still finds it very suspicious that he claimed to have lost his phone. We then see Mark sitting outside a café, tapping away frantically at his phone — just as Emily receives a message saying "So you called the police? Now you're dead" with a picture of a coffin at a funeral attached.
Esther and Humphrey go back to see Jane, who is still convinced that Mark is behind it, and Humphrey says that it's hard to trace online threats and pay-as-you-go texts back to a specific party. Emily and Danny come in from the back garden, and Emily says she's going for a walk; Danny says he'll go with her. After they leave, Jane tells Esther that it was lovely to see Kelby — she and his mum used to think that he and Emily would get together. Jane mentions that Emily and Danny had a blip a while ago, and Danny was worried that Emily might go back to Mark, but apparently they sorted things out. She still thinks Emily and Kelby would be perfect together, but Emily has a thing for bad boys — and Jane suspects Emily still has feelings for Mark.
After Humphrey and Esther have gone, Jane finds Emily and Danny arguing because Emily is still planning to go to Katie's hen party. Emily doesn't see why this stalker should get to ruin her life, and doesn't want to sit around at home knowing all her friends are out having fun. Danny suggests a compromise: he'll take her and wait outside, so if Emily's worried about anything, he'll be right there. Emily's delighted, and Jane thanks him.
Esther pops in to Ten Mile Kitchen for more coffees, but Zoe won't hand them over until she gets the dirt on last night. Esther lies that she stayed over "at a friend's house" and Zoe doesn't believe this: "you don't have any friends". Esther protests, and Zoe asks her to name one, which Esther struggles to do. (Two things I'm getting from this scene: Zoe would make an excellent detective, and Esther needs to join a book club or something.) Esther's on her way out when she runs into Archie, who claims he's been trying to call her. He asks if she'd like to go for a drink later and Esther shuts him down. Archie says he read somewhere that "women of a certain age like to stay in their comfort zone" (OUCH) and Esther seethes at this. She informs him that he doesn't know anything about her, and Archie says that he would like to know more. He suggests they meet for a drink (not a date, he clarifies) later on, and Esther leaves without giving him a reply.
Humphrey is sticking around at the police station, and he's noticed that the messages that Emily has been receiving are very specific: they often seemed to know exactly where she was or what she was wearing, suggesting that whoever sent them was following her — although the phone data contradicts this. Kelby says that he's identified the most prominent trolls from the spat with Abigail, but only five of them were in the UK, and the nearest one to Shipton Abbott lives in Stevenage. Esther's still set on Mark Weston and wants to bring him in for questioning, but Humphrey suggests they regroup in the morning and see if any new leads have come up. Kelby offers to stay late and cross-check the mast data, just in case they've missed anything.
Emily goes to Katie's hen night, where Katie is thrilled to see her. The nightclub is full of revellers — one of whom is Mark, watching from a distance.
Back at Martha and Humphrey's (well, technically it's Anne's house, but you know what I mean), Rosie's had her home-made fish fingers (she claims they tasted weird, but she still liked them) and now she's tired, so Martha suggests that Humphrey read her a story. Having had some mild anxiety earlier over exactly which story would be suitable for Rosie, Humphrey reads The Boy Who Cried Wolf to her, doing lots of voices, which Rosie seems to enjoy, and Martha looks on proudly. Flushed with success over his storytelling, Humphrey thinks Rosie might be starting to like him.
At the nightclub, Emily is enjoying her night out with her friends, unaware that Mark is watching from a distance — also carrying out a few cheeky drug deals while he's there. While Emily is distracted talking to Katie, a mysterious man in a hoodie tips some powder into her drink. Later, we see Emily sitting down and clearly starting to feel a little woozy, as she gets another anonymous message: 'No-one to help you now". She makes a call to Danny, but the room around her seems to start spinning and she struggles to get to her feet. Someone takes her outside while a muffled voice explains that he's taking her to get some fresh air. Outside, we hear Danny shouting "what are you doing? Get off her!" as Emily leans against a wall, slowly losing consciousness.
Archie is in a fancy pub, keeping one eye on the door, and is relieved when Esther finally walks in. A little while later, he's answering a very pressing question: why is he still single? Archie claims that he was prioritising his very successful business, but Esther points out that lots of successful men have partners. She thinks if he's still single, it's about him as a person and not just what he does for a living. Archie admits that as well as being a busy businessman, he's also quite picky.
He asks Esther what her main character flaw is, and she says that it's that she doesn't really like men — she can always "see the cogs working", and finds them predictable. Archie asks what his cogs are doing, and Esther says she never looks at a man's cogs on a first date. (Heh.) Archie: "Oh, so this is a date?" Esther says that was a slip of the tongue. Archie asks if all of her anti-man talk is because she gets too much attention, or not enough? Esther insists she isn't "anti-men" — she just thinks that anyone who's intimidated by her wasn't worth having in the first place. Archie asks about Zoe's dad, and Esther says she doesn't want to talk about that right now. She tells him that last night was fun, but "it was what it was" — so she wonders why he even asked her to come for a drink. Archie's about to answer when Esther's phone rings: it's Kelby, letting her know about Emily. She tells Archie that she has to go back to work — but also rather playfully teases that maybe she deliberately asked Kelby to call her with a fake work emergency around this time to give her a reason to leave.
Esther goes round to Jane's house, where Kelby is already there, and Jane tells her that Emily had her stomach pumped in A&E. Emily says that she had three drinks, and after the last one everything started to go blurry and she couldn't see properly. Kelby has asked the club to review their CCTV, but they probably won't hear back until the morning. Esther asks to speak to Danny privately, and asks him to describe the man who was there — Danny says he didn't really see as he was focusing on Emily, but it was a dark-haired guy with his hoodie up. Esther asks if it could have been Mark Weston, and Danny says maybe — but he can't be sure.
Esther and Kelby head to Mark Weston's flat to arrest him, and at the police station in the morning Margo confirms that they have multiple witnesses who saw Mark at the club — also, Emily dropped her bag at the club, which has been recovered and left on Humphrey's desk. Humphrey and Esther question Mark, who admits that he was at the club, but points out that a lot of other people were there too, and they haven't been brought in for questioning. Esther notes that Mark said he didn't have a phone when he was questioned yesterday, but they found one in his pocket when they picked him up, and Mark claims he "forgot" about that one. Humphrey asks him to unlock the phone to prove he didn't send any messages to Emily.
It appears there was no incriminating evidence on Mark's phone, as we see Humphrey and Esther returning to their office. Margo says that Emily's boyfriend came in to collect her bag, but she didn't give it to him as she wasn't sure if she should. Kelby is reviewing the CCTV — there's nothing of note after Emily goes into the club, and there's no coverage on the side of the club where she was taken out after her drink was spiked, so the next time she's spotted is when Danny takes her around to the front to ask the bouncers for help just before 10pm. Humphrey says that Danny said in his statement that he was waiting outside in his car until he got a call from Emily's phone at 9.52pm. But there's no sign of Danny entering the club — so how did he get in? And how did he know that Emily would be in the alley, given that she never managed to actually speak to him after trying to make that distress call? Esther notes that Danny is very protective of Emily, so maybe he went in the club earlier to keep an eye on her. Humphrey doesn't find this credible either: if Danny was in the club with Emily, why didn't he prevent whoever it was from dragging Emily out of the fire exit?
Humphrey spots Emily's bag on his desk and a thought occurs to him. He checks whether any of the team told Emily or her mother that they'd found her bag (no one did), so he puts a pair of rubber gloves on, tips out the contents of Emily's bag and finds a smart tracker tag inside.
So here's what happened: Danny was the one sending the threatening messages to Emily. When they had a fight recently, he was convinced Emily was going to leave him and go back to Mark. Fearing he would lose her forever, he came up with a way to make himself indispensable to her: inspired by the online spat Emily had with Abigail, he started sending threatening messages. Because Danny was the one dropping her off or picking her up, he always knew what she was wearing — and the tracker told him exactly where she was at any given moment, so even if he wasn't physically there, he could convince her she was being followed. To make his case even more convincing, he made sure she received some messages while he was present: like when Emily came back from the hospital, he surreptitiously sent one of the threatening messages when he went ahead to open the door for her.
He became her protector, and even convinced her that the person she needed protecting from was Mark. As for the man in the hoodie at the nightclub: that was Danny too. He hadn't wanted her to go to the club without him, so he wanted to prove to her that she should have listened to him, and that she needed him by her side at all times — which he did by sneaking in and spiking her drink while she was distracted. Once they were outside, when Emily was barely able to see or understand what was going on, he faked a confrontation with her non-existent assailant and then removed his hoodie, presenting himself as her saviour.
The police arrive to arrest Danny, while a furious, tearful Emily is comforted by Kelby and her mother. Once she's calmed down, Kelby checks that Emily's all right, but offers to stay longer if she needs him. Emily assures him that she's fine, and tells him he's been amazing. She gives him a kiss on the cheek, and Jane says that if Kelby and Emily had got together in the first place, it would have saved them all a lot of trouble. At that moment, Emily's phone rings — it's Mark, and she answers it enthusiastically. Kelby gives a little sigh and heads off on his bike, recognising that it's probably never going to happen between him and Emily, but at least able to take pride in a job well done.
