This post contains spoilers for The Long Shadow episode 4.
When a woman survives a brutal attack in Bradford, the police start looking at taxi drivers again and there's one they're very interested in. Terry Hackshaw was in the area of several murders on the night they took place and bears an uncanny resemblance to the killer.
Here's our recap of what happened in The Long Shadow episode 4...
'Had you been drinking more than you should?'
It’s July 1977 and DCS George Oldfield receives a call from Dick Holland who tells him about another attack on a woman in Bradford, however Maureen Long survived her horrendous ordeal and was left for dead.
The detectives start questioning her about her night out and hear of how she met a man, whom she spoke to in a car, but she can remember little else about how she got to the caravan site where she was found. A frustrated DCS Oldfield then starts asking her if she’d been “drinking more than she should”, pulsing with misogyny as he does so.
At Millgarth incident room, the other detectives have a debrief where they indulge in more victim-blaming, before DCS Oldfield decides that taxi drivers should be the focus of their investigation. Jim Hobson says he and Dennis Hoban spent ages looking at cabbies and it’s a waste of time, but Oldfield isn’t interested.
Meanwhile a cabbie named Terry Hackshaw makes his elderly mother a hot water bottle and sets off for the night. His first customer is a young woman who doesn’t have enough to pay for the whole fare. He agrees to take her, not realising she has a boyfriend. It’s a subtle tease from the writer that this could be Peter Sutcliffe, or at least a man with bad intentions, but we’re not convinced.
PS Meg Winterburn and her colleagues begin calling all the cab companies and bringing drivers in for interviews. DSI Dick Holland questions them all with the distinctive charm we’ve become accustomed to. However Holland is particularly irked by Terry Hackshaw's contempt for his questions, while also noticing that he was in some of the areas where murders took place.
DSI Holland shares his theories, but even Oldfield thinks they might need more than a few scraps of circumstantial evidence before they arrest him and they decide to put surveillance on him.
That evening Terry picks up a sex worker who we last saw chatting to Emily Jackson on the night she died, in episode one. She clearly knows Terry quite well and asks him to drive her to see a punter, to which he agrees, in return for a cut of her fee. He then waits nearby and declines when she asks if there’s anything he wants afterwards. We think it’s pretty safe to say he isn’t the killer, but the surveillance team have watched the whole incident.
When Terry returns home, the atmosphere between him and his mother has changed. He tells her it’s a load of fuss over nothing, but she doesn’t seem convinced and says his father would “turn in his grave” if he thought his son had paid for sex. Terry says he hasn’t and from what we know that’s absolutely true.
'That's me scarred forever...'
Maureen Long examines her terrible injuries in hospital and it's no wonder she’s utterly traumatised by the events of the evening. Later on the police send her back to the venues she visited on that evening, in a bid to jog her memory. It’s not a bad idea, but Maureen is brave to go along with it, even if PS Meg Winterburn is accompanying her.
Meg sets off for her evening out with Maureen and she’s wearing a wire as they go into The Perseverance Hotel. Understandably, Maureen seems very uneasy as they buy a drink and begin to run the rule over all the men in the bar. She soon wants to leave because she knows everyone recognises her from the newspapers and think she’s “dirty”, because the Ripper only attacks prostitutes.
Meanwhile Dennis Hoban is still obsessed with the case and collects press clippings. He meets Professor Gee for a pint, clearly desperate to discuss the case, although it’s soon clear his companion isn’t interested in that. However it’s clear Hoban’s health is deteriorating.
Later on, DCS Oldfield is mowing the lawn when ACC Gregory turns up at his house to tell him about the press attention the case is getting and how frustrated he’s becoming with the lack of progress. Oldfield tells him not to worry because they have a suspect they like and all he needs is “one more bit of evidence pointing to him..” when we presume he meant to say “..one bit of evidence pointing to him.”
'He's clean as a whistle...'
Jack Ridgeway from the Manchester police force pays DCS Oldfield a visit, with news that Sutcliffe may have been over his way after a sex worker named Jean Jordan was found dead. The pathologists believe the murder was committed by the so-called Ripper, but DSI Holland is cynical about this new evidence because it goes against his theory. We’re not detectives, but maybe detectives should change their ideas according to the evidence? Just a thought lads!
They then start discussing the attack on Joan Harrison back in Preston in 1975, which Hoban and Hobson ruled out. Oldfield seems keen to rule it in, based simply on the fact that Hoban ruled it out, because he’s a detective powered by vibes, arrogance and misogyny rather than actual police work.
Ridgeway doesn’t see how anyone would have the time to leave Yorkshire to commit these crimes, yet Oldfield reasons that a taxi driver would and sends his officers to arrest Terry Hackshaw. They burst into his house, arresting him in front of the whole street and his elderly mother, before scrutinising his cab for clues. The experience is clearly very distressing for Terry’s 67 year-old mother.
Later on DSI Holland and DC John Nunn begin questioning him about his whereabouts on the nights of the murders and they seem very confident about proving he murdered Jean Jordan. However the police fail to find a scrap of evidence in his house, in his cab or on his clothes to link him to any of the murders. We wonder why.
One of them even suggests the fact that he's "clean as a whistle" means he has something to hide. Come on lads!
'He's got the best alibi there is...'
In December 1977 Marilyn Moore is attacked just off Scott Hall Avenue, close to where Wilma McCann and Jayne McDonald were killed. However her attacker was interrupted and drove off, meaning Moore survived, albeit with terrible injuries. Her description of her attacker bears a close likeness of Peter Sutcliffe — but also Terry Hackshaw — and the police descend on his house immediately.
DCS Oldfield and DSI Dick Holland then bundle Hackshaw off to a deserted police training centre in a bid to force a confession. Even DSI Holland, who’s hardly Hackshaw’s biggest fan, suggests he might be going too far. Meanwhile, Terry’s mother is beginning to question whether her son is the killer and is probably now convinced he's been with sex workers. Either way, his reputation is ruined.
As the interrogation begins, Oldfield shows Terry the sketch of the attacker and begins applying the pressure, in the hope of breaking Terry. It’s a distressing scene to watch and highlights the utter desperation of the detectives in charge of the investigation. Later on, he insinuates that he’ll be keeping Terry overnight, which was illegal even then.
By the next morning, it’s clear the experience is taking its toll on Terry and he says he wishes he could tell them he did it “just so you make it stop”. It’s clear he isn’t the killer and that’s confirmed when Jim Hobson arrives with news that another murder has been committed while Terry has been locked up, giving him the “best alibi there is”.
However, when they drop Terry back home, it’s clear his mother will never see him the same way again.
Yet no sooner has he finished with that dead end, DCS Oldfield opens a letter purportedly from the killer, which references “Preston 75” — a reference to Joan Harrison. The detectives believe none of the public know about Harrison, so this letter must be from the killer...
