My Life Is Murder

Yuck.

Oh my goodness. What a hoot.

Ooh. Mummy loves you.

Hey, hello.

Excuse me. Your baby is...

Oh, really hairy.

- Thanks. This is Noah. - In his pram.

He has a heart condition.

Oh, maybe he should be home in bed,

where he can crap in your backyard instead of on the path out there.

Are you Australian?

I'm from here, actually.

And a cat person, I'm guessing.

I've got a case I think you might be interested in.

Daniel Woodward... historian,

owner and a main presenter of a visiting costume exhibition

at Auckland Museum.

The show was packing them in. He developed it with his partner,

Stella Moore.

- Partner? - In business and in life.

Oh, I think you mean deluded optimists.

Yeah, you could say that.

She dumped him a week after the exhibition opened.

They kept working together at the museum until Tuesday two weeks ago.

Just after dawn on the 10th,

Daniel's body was pulled from the water just south of Motutapu.

No water in the lungs. He died from blunt force trauma to the skull.

Caused by...?

The coroner brought down an open finding.

Stella received an SMS from Daniel, sent at 10.15 the Monday night...

'I'm sorry, Stella. Nothing works any more.'

She left her phone at the museum, so didn't see till the next day.

A farewell note sent by text?

Yeah, well, guys his age don't carry pens.

Did he include any emojis?

We found the phone.

By the cliff at Achilles Point, not far from Daniel's car.

Wait a minute. His body was found way east of the cliffs.

Five hours of ebbtide.

Hm.

Did you track his movements that night?

After he left work,

he bought a burger and a bottle of Italian bubbly in Parnell.

He walked around a bit, then travelled east towards Achilles Point

until he turned his phone off around about 8.

Well, what about at the museum that day?

The museum managed to misplace a month's worth of CCTV hard drives.

Awkward.

Inconvenient.

So, what are these markings on his hand?

I dunno. Pen doodles?

Oh, let's not call them that.

So, what do you think?

Did he fall or was he pushed?

It's Daniel's phone that bugs me the most...

wasn't a fingerprint on it.

Now, who wipes their phone after sending a text?

Well, I wipe my phone. I wanna keep it shiny.

What?!

Even if you were teetering on the edge of a cliff?

Well, probably.

I don't know. It's a habit.

Yeah, like putting away the teacups face up instead ofdown.

Yeah, or you pretending to listen to me

when you're not really listening at all.

- Squiggles. - Now, that was deliberate.

What do you want me to do with this?

Just do, you know, your image searchy thingy?

You want me to pattern match this with everything on the planet?!

Yeah. Sounds good. Do it.

Well, we're gonna need better internet.

At our place, I mean.

Oh, gosh. From the outside, she's hardly changed a bit.

Captions by Kristin Williams.

Kia or a. Nau mai, haere mai, ki te whare pupuri taonga

o Tamaki Makaurau. I'm your guide...

Oh, it's all new.

You know, they used to be a family of kiwi over here.

Why do they have to move things?

When were you last here, exactly?

1982.

OK, yeah, they've also got the electricity on now.

Um, Sonny, hi.

Can you point us to the Legendary Thread's Exhibition?

Yeah. Level 1, ladies. Tickets are just back there.

Oh, we're actually here on a police matter.

The guy from the threads exhibition.

Daniel Woodward. You knew him?

Uh... Yeah. I mean, enough to say hi.

He was a nice guy.

Look, um... Head on up without tickets. Tell them, Sonny sent ya.

Wow! These are amazing!

You keep doing that tourist thing, all right?

Oh, I will.

Stella?

My name is Alexa Crowe. I'm helping the police with their enquiries.

I'm just trying to get past it, you know?

No, I do not, actually.

I'm sorry about Daniel.

Thanks.

So... what can you tell me?

Yes, he was still depressed about our break-up.

Yes, we'd had an argument that day... again.

- Do you like Italian bubbly? - Sorry? No.

It's just Daniel bought a bottle of Prosecco,

and I wondered maybe he was planning to come over,

you know, patch things up.

He didn't, and I had called him after the argument before I left work.

Five times, according to your phone records.

He never answered.

What was your argument about?

Something stupid... our dog, I think.

Well, it must have been hard

for you to keep working together so closely.

We met at art school. We'd been together five years.

We built all of this from scratch.

Why did you end it?

This was supposed to be our exhibition, our business.

It took me a while to realise it was really only his.

- And you were home that night? - Yeah, I was watching an old movie.

- Really? Which one? - North by Northwest.

Oh, I love that one.

You know that scene where Cary Grant finally meets George Kaplan?

Yeah, I know. It's wild.

Sorry. I have to...

Stella...

Now? Really?

Do you know what this pattern means?

I've been through all this.

He was always using his hand as a Post-it note.

11 o'clock tour! We are amazing by the battle armour.

They have George Harrison's kaftan, and it is awesome.

Hare krishna.

My absolute favourite was Centennial Street was right here.

It was all set up with shops from Auckland in the 1860s.

Oh, candle maker, leech applier.

I loved it.

Ooh.

Something else they changed to annoy you?

No, this was always here.

I used to stare at these masks and imagine myself at a ball inVenice.

I remember it perfectly.

Sonny...

We're looking for Lillian Reid.

I'll show you... all part of the service.

Now, we have had the CCTV hard drive stolen before.

They're worth quite a lot.

Who had access?

Well, only the other members of the Security Committee,

all curators.

We keep them locked in the basement. Would you like to see?

Oh, maybe later.

Aah.

You've been to Legendary Threads, I see.

Mm, there's a whole section on corsets.

Now, I don't know if they're a tool for the patriarchy

- or female empowerment. - Exactly.

Still, now you're thinking about corsets,

so that's a winner.

I'm glad you're looking into Daniel's death.

Yeah, evidently you were the last one who spoke to him before he died.

Oh.

Well, we did have a meeting.

At 5.30.

Administration things.

How long have you been a curator here?

Oh, about 10 years.

I'm taking up a position in New York in a week.

Ooh, very cool. Congrats.

- Thank you. - Mm.

Does this mean anything to you?

Um...

Is that Daniel's hand?

Legendary Threads was your project.

No. No, Daniel brought it to me.

I championed it.

- So, you saw quite a lot of him? - I did, yeah.

I wish I had seen more.

Been a better friend.

You know, maybe then...

I'm sorry.

He was very upset...

and worried about working with Stella long term.

- You do know that they... - Oh, we heard.

Right.

I wanted to extend the show.

'I can't go on, ' he said.

I thought that he meant...

God, I feel so stupid.

Did he tell you where he was going that night?

No. If I had have known what he was thinking,

then I could have kept him here or called Stella.

Something.

It's such a loss.

He did seem to have a lot going for him.

Oh, he had an encyclopaedic knowledge in his field...

a wonderful eye for detail.

Stella seems to have picked up the baton nicely, though.

Daniel was a showman.

Stella's doing quite a good job, but...