Beyond Paradise season 3 episode 4 takes us a little way out of Shipton Abbott to the neighbouring town of Saltleigh, home of a very prestigious regatta that's been a bone of contention between two local families for years — and that rivalry resurfaces this week when the daughter of one family almost drowns during the competition when it turns out her pre-race smoothie was spiked!
It becomes quite an awkward case for DI Humphrey Goodman (Kris Marshall) when his fiancée Martha Lloyd (Sally Bretton) becomes a suspect — and meanwhile, DS Esther Williams (Zahra Ahmadi) gets nervous when Margo Martins (Felicity Montagu) makes a discovery about her private life.
Read on to find out what happened in Beyond Paradise season 3 episode 4...
We open in the nearby town of Saltleigh on the last day of its prestigious regatta, which will begin with the final race of the women's singles, where the winner will receive £30,000 prize money. PC Kelby Hartford (Dylan Llewellyn), armed with a megaphone, is trying to maintain order among the spectators and stop small children from running on the quayside. (He is not having much success.)
Meanwhile, Martha Lloyd (Sally Bretton) is running a Ten Mile Kitchen branded food truck (adding credence to my theory that Martha has successfully learned to clone herself, because she seems able to achieve more in a single day than I can generally manage in a week), and Hugo Digsby (Midsomer Murders' Jason Hughes) is dropping off her milk. She wishes him good luck for the big day, and then Ben Taylor (Spellbound's Lance West) arrives to pick up the breakfast bags for the competitors, which Martha hands over to him, confirming they're all labelled.
DI Humphrey Goodman (Kris Marshall) and foster daughter Rosie (Bella Rei Blue Stevenson) arrive to see Martha, who says she'll try to jion them for the start of the race if they can manage to grab a good spot, so they hurry off to join Anne Lloyd (Barbara Flynn), who's with DS Esther Williams (Zahra Ahmadi) and Margo Martins (Felicity Montagu), who are also enjoying a rare day off. They watch the competitors heading down to the race, and Margo — ever the font of local knowledge — points out Nathan Dalton (Virdee's Silas Carson) to Rosie, explaining that he won the same cup in the same race many years ago, but only through nobbling arch-rival Hugo Digsby's boat, according to the rumour mill. Now their respective daughters, Francine (Laura Euler-Rolle) and Polly (Madeleine Day) are racing each other, so it's set to get rather competitive once again.
Ben drops off the breakfast bags to Polly and Francine, who are then interviewed for local TV news as joint-favourites for the race — and because of the notoriety factor arising from their family rivalry. Polly admits that the tension between their two families has been a factor, since people keep talking about it, but says that she and Francine are trying to ignore it and focus on their own actions. The reporter (Sarah Bowden) asks Francine if she thinks she can win, at which point Nathan intervenes and replies that "she's a Dalton — winning is what we do". Hugo glowers in the distance as the reporter wraps up the interview and mutters that Nathan is a "smug git", but Polly urges him to let it go. A few feet away, Nathan is reminding Francine that a squad selector from British Sailing is here today, so she can't mess up her big shot.
Martha arrives just as the race gets underway, with Francine edging into an early lead as the commentator remarks that Polly has made an unusually slow start. Polly clearly isn't feeling well, rubbing her temples and gasping for breath — and then she falls backwards out of her boat. Francine looks back in horror as Polly lies face-down in the water, so she jumps out of the back of her own boat and swims over to rescue her, calling out for help.
Some time later, everyone is back on dry land and Polly — who thankfully survived — is being treated by paramedics. Humphrey and Esther arrive to find out what happened, and Polly says she thinks someone tried to kill her. She shows them a note that she found in her bag this morning, which she dismissed at the time because she just thought it was a joke — it's an old fashioned threatening letter made by cutting up a magazine, saying 'Race today, and it will be your last'. She says she felt great at first, but all of a sudden her vision went funny.
Esther asks if she's on any medication, and Polly says she's been on anti-depressants for a couple of months — which is news to Hugo — but hasn't experienced any side effects prior to today. Meanwhile, utterly failing to read the room, Nathan is hassling one of the race stewards about whether there'll be a rematch, since the race wasn't completed. Humphrey asks Polly if she had anything to eat or drink before the race, and she says she just had a fruit smoothie. She hands over the bottle — it's got a Ten Mile Kitchen sticker on it.
Back at the police station, Margo is examining the letter and asking who can be bothered with that kind of threatening note in this day and age ("I can't remember the last time I held a Pritt Stick"). Humphrey asks Margo to fill him in on the story of what happened between Hugo and Nathan back in the day, and Margo is all too happy to oblige: Hugo and Nathan had been rivals for years, always neck-and-neck when they raced, until it got to the last race of the season when something oddly similar to today happened — minutes into the race, Hugo's boat started to take on water, and it capsized.
Afterwards, Hugo accused Nathan of sabotage — which Esther is quick to stress was never proven. Margo concludes by saying that Nathan went on to sail in the Olympics and won a gold medal, while Hugo just disappeared from the racing scene until he re-emerged as Polly's trainer. Kelby points out that the key difference this time is that Francine abandoned the race to save Polly. An email comes in from the lab, saying that there was nothing found in the energy bar given to the racers, but significant traces of zopiclone — a sleeping pill — in Polly's smoothie, which Esther observes would be enough to knock her out when taken in conjunction with her anti-depressants. Since it's unlikely an athlete would deliberately take a sleeping pill right before a race, the team deduce that she was spiked.
Back at the regatta, Martha is having a right old time of it, having just been told that the regatta is being extended by a day so that the women's race can be re-run, because she's run out of breakfast supplies. Zoe Williams (Melina Sinadinou) offers to take some more time off college, but Martha discourages her from doing that. Humphrey and Esther arrive to break the news that Polly's smoothie was spiked with a sleeping pill, and Martha confirms that she made them herself this morning. She did everything by herself, and didn't leave them unattended at any point until she handed them over to Ben. Humphrey and Esther head over to question him, but Ben assures them that he didn't stop anywhere between Martha's food truck and the part of the beach where the competitors were, and handed all of the breakfast bags straight over to them.
He also remembers Polly opening her bag and drinking her smoothie there and then. He asks if Polly's going to be all right — he tells Esther that he's known Polly for years and has wanted to ask her out for a while, but always felt like they were too different. Esther tells him that sometimes different is good. Humphrey asks if anyone was with Polly when she drank her smoothie, and Lance recalls that she was with her dad; it was when they were being interviewed by the TV crew.
Back at the police station, Margo is reviewing the TV news crew's footage, which clearly shows Polly opening the smoothie and drinking it right away. Margo notes that Nathan Dalton was on the quayside and they know that he's cheated before (again, Esther clarifies that they don't know that). However, she takes great delight in bringing Humphrey's attention to the fact that, given there's no sign of anyone interfering with Polly's smoothie between it being picked up from the food truck and Polly drinking it, there can only be one person responsible: Martha.
Humphrey goes home, where Martha is busy trying to reorganise her life after the unexpected extension of the regatta. Humphrey jokily informs her that she's the prime suspect in his case, and she drily responds that he can lock her up, as she'd be glad of the rest. Anne walks in and Martha guiltily asks her if she can look after Rosie tomorrow afternoon due to the sudden change in plans, and Anne (no fool) negotiates a delicious home-cooked meal once the regatta's over as payment.
Meanwhile, Esther and Archie Hughes (Jamie Bamber) are lounging around on his sofa, with Esther listing the three things about him that she likes the most (his hair, his posh accent, and him having his own business so he's not constantly under her feet).
He takes his turn to count off the things he likes about Esther: she's ultra-bright and therefore incredibly sexy, she's a good mum which means that despite all evidence to the contrary she has a heart, and she's both frustrating and fascinating at the same time. Once that's all taken care of, Archie suggests that now they could reveal what they don't like about each other, but Esther points out that would be a waste of time because she has no flaws. She tells Archie that he thinks too much, and gets too hung up on things like "is this a date" and "what do/don't we like about each other", and suggests he could benefit from living in the moment a bit more. This is all very cute, and despite the things she's been saying, Esther is definitely quite smitten with Archie.
Down at the beach in Saltleigh, Hugo catches up with Polly, who is feeling better, but still a bit shaky. She tells him that the race has been declared a no-contest, with a re-run ordered for tomorrow. Hugo doesn't want her to take part because they still don't know who spiked her drink, and Polly points out that this essentially means whoever did it gets exactly what they wanted, while all of her hard work and training counts for nothing. She wants to try again, because even if she screws up, it will be because of her and not anyone else.
Anne is on the phone to her GP surgery, anxiously chasing up her biopsy results when Martha and Rosie emerge from the house in a hurry, running late because Humphrey set the alarm for the wrong time. She offers them a home-baked banana muffin, and Martha finds this odd because Anne hates baking. Anne claims that she was bored, and says she didn't sleep well last night. Martha asks if she's OK, and Anne breezily assures her that she's "never better". But as they drive away, her face tells a very different story.
Kelby comes into the police station checking his phone, and Margo asks how he's getting on with the dating apps. Kelby says he's struggling to know what to say to the women who get in touch (he panicked and wrote "nice ears"). Esther arrives and asks if the forensic reports have come back; Margo gives them to her while staring at her with a broad, frankly unsettling grin on her face. The lab found fibres on the note sent to Polly, and two sets of fingerprints on the smoothie bottle: one of which is Polly's, and the other belonging to someone who isn't on file who is presumably Martha. Again, Margo takes great delight in reminding Humphrey that technically Martha is the main suspect, and if it was anyone else, they would bring them in. Esther says that nobody thinks it's Martha, but maybe she does know something that could be useful? Humphrey mutters that she's going to kill him.
Sure enough, Martha is brought in for fingerprinting and questioning, and is thoroughly unimpressed to be there. Humphrey assures her that it's just a formality to eliminate her from their inquiries. Esther sympathises with her that this is obviously a major inconvenience, but they do need to try to figure out how the smoothie was spiked.
Martha runs through her morning in the food truck: Zoe came in briefly to make a cup of tea for Kelby but she was there very briefly and Martha was never alone. Nobody else came onto the van between the smoothies being made, and being picked up by Ben. (In the process of questioning Martha, Humphrey inadvertently calls her "darling", which makes Esther's eyebrows shoot right up.) Esther says that they just need to confirm if the smoothie was tampered with at any point while they were in Martha's keeping, and Martha states, somewhat tersely, that she's already said they weren't — eight times. Humphrey says they aren't questioning her, per se, which Martha responds to with a "no?" and a very pointed look at the recording device. He explains that they're just trying to see if there's anything that Martha might have forgotten, and she replies, "Like what? Turning the alarm on? Putting the cap back on the toothpaste? Picking up dirty clothes off the floor?" Oh, we're going there, are we?
Humphrey, trying to get things back on track, asks her to go through her movements one last time and Martha — every bit her mother's daughter — says she'll do it in exchange for a takeaway and a bottle of rosé tonight. (Humphrey: "Are you attempting to bribe a police officer?" Martha, without flinching: "Yes.") Martha goes through her movements one last time: she arrived quayside at 6:45am to open up, health and safety sign-off happened 15 minutes later, then stock check. She started work on the sailors' breakfast bags a little after 8:30am, Hugo brought fresh milk from the clubhouse just before 9am, Zoe came to make tea for Kelby, Ben came to collect the bags, and that was all done by 9:15am. Martha concludes by saying she has a witness for that last bit: Humphrey asks who, and she responds, witheringly, "you". Hee hee hee. Esther checks the part about Hugo bringing fresh milk over, but Martha explains that he never came into the van; he passed the milk in through the back door. Having officially reached the end of her rope, Martha declares the interview concluded and sees herself out. (Humphrey, as Martha walks out of the door: "Love you!")
Humphrey and Esther go to question Hugo, who's concerned for Polly's safety with the drink spiker still very much at large. He confirms that he brought milk to Martha in the morning, and has done so every morning this week, bristling at the idea that he might have spiked his own daughter's drink. He says that it was busy around the food truck, lots of members of the public as well as the competitors and their teams, but nobody who shouldn't have been there. He was only there for a minute to pass Martha the milk, and then he left. Hugo tells Humphrey that he thinks Nathan is the main person who would have benefited from Polly being unable to race, and says that if the police don't stop Nathan, then he will.
Back at the station, Kelby is analysing the threatening letter: he's frustrated because the fibre turned out to be a blonde hair, which is probably Polly's, so he's back to square one. Margo is largely unsympathetic, because she's trying to read a sailing magazine and wants him to be quiet and stop complaining. Eventually she throws her magazine at him in annoyance — which turns out to be a fortuitous move, because Kelby spots something in the magazine that looks familiar.
Margo calls Esther with another development: Nathan Dalton is in a bad way, financially, meaning he'd have a vested interested in that £30,000 prize. Humphrey and Esther go to speak to him, and he insists it was simply a matter of a few rogue investments, which he is handling — but he wouldn't have interfered in the race because he doesn't believe Francine needs his help. He adds that despite Hugo's accusations, he has never cheated, and he's not responsible for any of Hugo's current problems, so they should be looking elsewhere.
When Humphrey and Esther return to the police station, Kelby is piecing together fragments of works that he has cut out from Margo's sailing magazine — every cut-out on the letter matches that particular issue. He adds that he had assumed that the blonde hair was Polly's, but he found a part of it stuck underneath one of the letters, meaning it had to belong to the sender, not the receiver. And as it happens, there's a picture of Francine Dalton on the front page of the magazine — with a blonde streak in her hair.
Humphrey and Kelby bring Francine in for questioning, and she admits to sending the letter, but not spiking the smoothie. She explains that she was under pressure from her dad to win the race, and she thought that she could throw Polly off her game with the threat, but she never intended for Polly to get hurt. Kelby asks why she would go to all the trouble of cutting up a magazine rather than just sending an anonymous message, and she says she saw it in a movie and thought it would look more dramatic.
She says that sending the letter was childish and she's sorry that she did it, but she just wanted her dad to be proud of her. Francine is released on a caution and picked up by her dad, who's furious, saying he's going to have to pull a lot of strings to make sure she's not disqualified from racing tomorrow.
As he drives off, Esther notes that the more she sees of Nathan, the more she dislikes him. Humphrey says he's starting to understand why Francine sent that letter, but the team agree that it's unlikely she would have spiked Polly's drink — especially since she ended up jumping in the water to save her and ruining her own race in the process. Margo comes out of the station, saying that Hugo has called, confirming that Polly has been given the all-clear to race tomorrow.
Martha and Zoe are loading up the Ten Mile Kitchen van, and Martha apologises to Zoe for having to miss more college. Zoe says she doesn't mind, because she's getting paid, whereas Anne's helping out for free. Martha mentions the home-cooked meal that she's promised her mother, and says she's hoping it will take her mind off things. Unfortunately, Zoe interprets this as Martha knowing about Anne's biopsy and proceeds to put her foot right in it.
Martha, now in the loop, races home to speak to her mother and is rather hurt that Anne didn't tell her about any of this. She says she wishes Anne hadn't gone through all this on her own, and Anne replies that she doesn't see why, because her husband did. Martha gently points out that it was a different time then, and that her father wouldn't have wanted Anne to go through this on her own. She says that she's sorry that her dad isn't here —but she is there, and wants to help. Anne says that she thought Martha had enough to worry about as it was, and Martha tells her that being excluded from things like that only makes her more worried. She gets Anne to promise that she won't keep any more secrets from her.
Archie comes to pick up Esther after work, and they kiss in his car — which Margo, eyes like saucers, happens to witness as she's passing. Archie gives her a little wave, and she waves back, giving Esther a look that implies they will have a lot to talk about the next day. Archie attempts to reassure Esther that Margo will be discreet, and I can only conclude from this that he has never met, interacted with, or indeed heard about, Margo.
Humphrey turns up at home with the promised takeaway, which he forgot to ask for a bag for so he's carrying it all rather awkwardly in his arms. Martha tries to help him, but in the tussle between them the bottle of wine falls to the ground — and Rosie screams, because a shard of glass has gone into her leg. Martha and Humphrey exchange terse words with each other over whose fault it was, and they race to get Rosie to hospital in the car.
At hospital, they're treated by Lucy (Eva Feiler) — last seen in episode five of season two — who asks how it happened. Rosie says that Humphrey and Martha were arguing, and both of them are full of remorse over they know was a silly, careless mistake. Lucy tells them not to beat themselves up over it because children have accidents all the time. She goes to get Rosie a sticker for her bravery, and Rosie says she didn't like it when Humphrey and Martha were shouting at each other. Martha assures her that they might occasionally snap at each other, but it doesn't mean anything. Rosie asks if they're going to break up, and Martha promises that they aren't — they were just worried about her, and that's why they were so short-tempered with each other. Rosie seems reassured, and Humphrey and Martha apologise to each other.
Esther gets into work early the next day to get a head start on her paperwork, where she's eventually joined by Margo. Esther tells her that nobody, not even Zoe, knows about her and Archie yet, and Margo tells her that their secret is safe with her. Esther asks if Margo has ever kept a secret, and Margo says "once, in 1985". Giggling, she reiterates she won't tell anyone — but it's not as if Esther has anything to be embarrassed about. She tries to pump Esther for more details about the relationship, but Esther's having none of it.
Over at the regatta, Martha is preparing the smoothies again with Humphrey hovering over her shoulder (Humphrey, as you might imagine, does not fit particularly well in the food truck with its low ceiling), checking to see if this is exactly how she did it last time. One of the stewards comes over to bring milk on behalf of Hugo, who's busy getting Polly ready, and Martha swaps the fresh bottles for the empty ones. Ben comes by to pick up the breakfast bags, and Humphrey appears to be getting an idea, so he darts out of the food truck and along the quay.
Catching up with Ben, he asks if all the bags are the same, and Ben confirms that they are. Ben tries to give Polly her bag, but Hugo informs him that they don't want it, as they've brought their own. Polly notes that her dad looks tired, but he assures her he's fine — it's just been a long week. Humphrey checks whether Polly feels up to sailing, and she says she won't let anything beat her. Humphrey promises that the police will be there the whole time. Nathan and Francine arrive, and Hugo's dismayed, having thought Francine had been disqualified, but Nathan tells him that the committee decided to let Francine compete when he explained it was all just friendly banter.
The two men start bickering and it escalates until Francine snaps and tells them to stop. She takes off her life vest and says she isn't doing this any more: she's always hated sailing, and if Nathan wants to win so badly, he can do the race himself. She leaves, and Polly goes after her. Francine apologises to her for sending the letter, and says that she started sailing to make her dad proud of her, only to realise that he never would be. Polly tells her she can't just walk away after all the work she's put in, and Francine says that she has to be who she wants to be, rather than who her father wants her to. be. Polly gives her a hug, which takes Francine by surprise, and afterwards Polly suggests they go for a beer sometime instead. Francine says she'd like that.
The race is re-run, and this time Polly is way out in front, leaving all her competitors for dust. (Can you leave someone "for dust" in a boat race? Well, you know what I mean, anyway.) On shore, Kelby brings over coffees for the team and Esther makes a face when she drinks hers because it's got sugar in it. Kelby realises he's given her his by mistake, and they swap — which gives Humphrey an idea: what if the smoothie was never meant for Polly? What if the bags got mixed up? He remembers that Ben had a soft spot for Polly, and it was a big race day with a camera crew attending: what if he was distracted by his crush and all the clamour, and gave Polly someone else's bag by mistake? What if, instead of giving her the bag marked "P.D." for Polly Digsby, he gave her the one marked "F.D.", intended for Francine Dalton? Humphrey says that they've been overlooking the real culprit the whole time because they were asking the wrong question: they should have been wondering who would attempt to spike Francine's smoothie, and the prime suspect is Hugo.
Here's what really happened: Hugo would bring fresh milk to Martha's van every morning, and worked out that there was a small opportunity to switch breakfast bags, as Martha would have her back to him when she opened the fridge door. So Martha was right when she said that she never left the van and no one else came in — but the switch was made without him needing to.
Down on the beach, Polly has just won the race and gives Ben a hug and a kiss in celebration. Humphrey and Esther arrive to arrest Hugo, who asks for a moment with his daughter first. He's then taken to the police station, where Esther informs him that they'll have to talk to Polly about what she wants to happen. Hugo says that he deserves whatever is coming to him. Before locking him in a call, Esther asks if she can ask him something.
Everyone has gathered by the houseboat where Anne is currently living, having been invited by Martha to celebrate the end of the regatta with some sparkling apple juice. Once everyone has a drink, Esther reveals that she's got the gossip about the original race between Hugo and Nathan: it turns out that Nathan wasn't responsible for Hugo's boat taking on water back in the day, Hugo simply hadn't checked his boat properly the night before, but he always blamed Nathan because it was a convenient excuse.
Anne's phone rings - it's the GP surgery. She and Martha step away from the group and Anne says that she's not sure she can face finding out: what if it's bad news? Martha promises her that if it is, they will face it together. Anne takes the call — and she gets the all-clear. She and Martha are both immensely relieved, and Zoe joins them to share in the good news.
