Death in Paradise

Not long now.

Oh! And we have lift-off!

Ha-ha-ha! Come, come.

A toast to Astraeus,

Titan God, the stars and the planets.

There. Lovely bubbly!

Fizzy wizzy!

Drink, my love? Hmm?

Oh! Um...

Yes. Yes, why not? There we go.

Thank you.

A little drink and I think a few words from my dear friend,

the professor. Oh! Speech! I don't know what to say.

I've seen a good few planetary conjunctions,

but never a total eclipse.

We know this one is going to be fleeting, only three minutes

and 12 seconds, so let's all observe it in silence,

with our own thoughts and dreams

and with whatever god we choose to walk with us.

Champagne to my real friends and

real pain to my sham friends. Oh!

Cheers, all! Cheers. To very good health.

You OK, love? Oh, yes. Just the culmination of a life's work.

If you don't mind, Jeremy. I'd prefer to watch in silence,

like the professor said?

It's nearly half-past, everyone.

Wow!

Ho-ho! Wow!

Wow! Oh!

That was truly remarkable! Ah!

Bertrand?

Bertrand, where are you, darling?

Where on earth is he? Maybe he's gone back to the car.

Why would he leave before it was over like that?

Bertrand?

Come on, stop playing silly buggers! Bertrand!

My dear, he couldn't have gone far. Why don't we just spread out?

Bertrand? Professor Sworder?

Oh... Please, no!

Over here!

No!

Thank you.

Morning, Naomi. Morning, sir.

Welcome back. How was your journey? Oh! What are the chances?

Once every 2,000 years planetary event and my flight gets delayed.

Oh! I didn't know you were coming back for the eclipse. Yeah.

Well, Saint Marie has dark sky status,

so I thought I might get a clearer view from here.

Ah. You couldn't see it from the plane?

No. All I could see from the plane was a chubby toddler blowing

raspberries at me from the top of his seat.

And I had to pay an excess baggage fee for my telescope.

Oh. I'm sorry, sir.

So, tell me about the case.

You said a man fell to his death at Cap Michelle.

Yeah, Professor Bertrand Sworder. Professor Sworder?

Did you know him?

Yeah, he was quite well known back in the UK.

Hosted a few TV documentaries, was on The Sky At Night a few times.

A real inspiration to hobbyist astronomers like me.

I can't believe he's gone. Also, sir, Marlon called.

The victim's wife found a note in her handbag.

It seems as if the professor intended to take

his own life last night. Oh, no!

We can only access the crime scene by boat, sir.

DI Neville Parker. DS Thomas.

Jeremy Herbert. Sunil Singh. We were...

We were up there with Bertrand when...

I just still can't believe it.

I assume you were here to watch the conjunction eclipse. Yeah. Yeah.

And during the conjunction, none of you were aware of what happened?

Sad to say, our attention was focused elsewhere.

Until the eclipse was over

and then we realised what had happened.

And it was you who alerted the police? Yeah. Well, Sally. Sally?

A PHD student, over from England.

She's... She was the professor's protege.

There's no signal up on the clifftops,

so she went to the pay phone.

We jumped in the car and headed down to the harbour to get a boat.

We're up in Cap Michelle. Someone's just fallen off the cliff.

Thought it best if Sally and Mrs Sworder stayed up there,

while we came here with the sea rescue people.

And there's no access to this beach, other than by boat?

Definitely not. OK.

Thank you.

Grains of sand in the victim's hair.

And all among his clothes.

Seaweed also suggests that the sea washed in after he fell.

Ha!

Sir?

From a brief initial examination, they reckon the injuries

sustained tally with a fall from a significant height.

What do you have there?

It's a notebook, found it in the victim's jacket pocket.

But, look, it's a crossword.

It's yesterday's crossword,

to be precise, and it's half-finished.

It's probably nothing.

So, tell me about this note Marlon said the victim left.

Mrs Sworder gave it to him up at the cafe.

They're waiting to talk to us now.

This is it.

"I'm so sorry for abandoning you, my love,

"but I'm not sure I can endure what's about to happen in my life.

"Please, forgive me."

Let's go and talk to them.

Mrs Sworder, are you up to answering a few questions? Thank you.

I was just wondering if you knew what your husband was

referring to in this

He says he can't endure what's about to happen in his life.

I really haven't a clue.

It's just... It's all so unexpected.

Anyone else understand it?

No.

Sorry. Me, neither.

Miss Blake?

No. Was Professor Sworder acting normally, the last few days?

I suppose he had seemed a little distant recently.

I maybe thought something was up.

But not so much that he'd...

I noticed it, too.

I just thought he was nervous.

His whole life was leading up to last night.

And just to be clear, during the conjunction,

there was no-one else up there with you, just the four of you? Yes.

OK. Thank you.

Ah... Oh, um, sorry, one... One other thing.

It's probably nothing, but I found this in the Professor's notebook.

Did he often do crosswords? Yes. Practically every day.

You don't know when he tore this out of the newspaper, do you?

Well, I happened to notice him filling it in up on the clifftop,

while we were waiting for it to get dark.

You saw him filling this in? Yes. The whole newspaper.

He hadn't torn it out yet? No.

Well, that IS interesting.

Like I say, it's... It's probably nothing. Excuse me.

Ha! There it is!

See?

Yep. The dude definitely ripped it out.

That's significant, why?

Look, the only reason someone would tear a crossword

out of a newspaper and then slip it into their notebook would be

if they were intending to finish it at a later date, right?

So, why would Professor Sworder do that if he was planning

to kill himself that night?

He probably wouldn't. Exactly.

So, how did he end up falling off a cliff?

Well, I'm struggling to believe it was an accident.

The only reason Professor Sworder was up here

was to watch that eclipse.

Do we really believe during the few minutes that it was happening

that he just wandered away from his telescope

and accidentally fell off the edge?

So, then, someone must have pushed him off? It was murder?

But, sir, if someone did kill Professor Sworder last night,

surely the others would have noticed. Sarge is right.

If someone pushed him over the edge, there would have been a tussle,

the prof would have fought back, screamed out.

Somebody would have heard something. Yeah.

If Professor Sworder was manhandled over the edge,

it does seem odd that no-one else

who was here was aware of it happening.

So, we should do all the usual background checks on everyone

who was present here last night.

And go over the victim's phone and email communications, OK?

Marlon, maybe have a word with the people who run the cafe.

See if they saw anything last night.

I'm going to drive Miriam home.

Call us if you need anything.

So, what do we do now? We wait.

So, it was Professor Sworder who first predicted the planetary

eclipse last night? Yep. Or the Great Occultation, as he called it.

You know, he made the discovery when he was only 25,

back in the early '80s.

Wrote a very successful book about it.

I highly recommend it. It's a scintillating read.

It sure sounds it. Hmm.

So, I've done some initial background on our suspects.

Miriam Sworder, she and Bertrand met at university,

but were just friends for a long time.

Came from a pretty wealthy background.

And what about the protege, Sally Blake?

She went to a secondary school in Dublin

and won a scholarship to study astrophysics.

I went on her social media page

and saw that she's been a fan of the professor since she was a child.

Even met him once when she was 12.

Says it was seeing him on TV that inspired her love for astronomy.

What about this guy, Jeremy Herbert?

An old friend of Bertrand's from university.

Heads up the Barrington Observatory just outside of Pontefract.

That just leaves this fella, Sunil Singh.

"A highly regarded amateur astronomer."

He's an IT administrator in Pune, India,

but he's on the board of the Astronomical Society there.

Not sure what the connection to Professor Sworder is yet.

Well, until we find evidence that there was another person up

there on that clifftop, we have to work on the basis that it was

one of these four that pushed Professor Sworder over the edge.