Police arrive at Syme’s (Denis Lawson) house and kick down the door. A bloodied man lies unconscious in the undergrowth.
A seedy seafront twelve hours earlier. Tom (James Nesbitt) wakes up in a squalid guest house, with a deep bite mark on his thumb and his foot manacled to a radiator. The room has been trashed. A terrifying message has been scrawled on the wall in dried blood: “When you sleep, I will eat your children…”
Tom gets to Syme’s house and spots a glass with lipstick on the rim. But is Syme really the good friend he claims to be? And what is his wife doing there?
Flashback. A young, foxy Claire (Gina Bellman) speeds down the country lanes on her way to dinner at her good friends, David and Nicki’s. Tom is the other guest – intense, nervous, nerdy in his glasses. They’re being set up. The conversation is like treacle. He and Claire disappear together… The morning after and Tom catches a glance of thick hair on his arm. Or was it his imagination? Fast forward and the couple are the proud parents of twin boys – unexpected, as there was only one heartbeat…
Back at the institute something strange is going on. Tom’s thumb print no longer opens the security doors. Then his sour faced assistant resigns on the spot when she confronts him with sheets of paper with the simple words: “I’m coming” scrawled all over them in his handwriting. Tom plays squash with David who’s a doctor. He’s desperate to talk – the thumb print, the hair on his arm, the writing. What does it all mean?
Back to the present. The van pulls into an underground car park. A desperate Claire demands to know where her children are and why Tom, a terrified claustrophobic, is locked in a box. Claire went to Syme for help and now he has done this. But, Syme retorts, what if your friend was the cure for cancer? It is a declaration of war. Meanwhile Miranda (Meera Syal) rings Syme from the security gates, wanting to be let in. As phones ring all over the institute, Miranda demands to speak to Winston Churchill – the real one. And Claire wants to know quite specifically what sort of relationship Katherine (Michelle Ryan), this very young and very pretty girl, has with her husband.
Sunday, 09 March 08:30PM on ABC
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