Halfway through the second episode, Susan, Lucy, Millie, and Jean attempt to track down neighbors or relatives that know their suspects. Susan and Millie discover a potential suspect, Gerard Wiggins, matches who they think the killer is: someone who has authority on the train way, and someone how knows routes by heart. However, they learn Wiggins has a brain injury that has severely impacted his intelligence. When the women finally meet up later, they learn that Wiggins was taken into custody as the police found evidence in his train station locker. Susan claims he could not do this. Knowing what they know now, Wiggins is simply a scapegoat for the killer and is not smart enough to kill in the pattern/way the killer does. As the group think about their next move, they remember the victims. All the victims were pretty young women. The group decides to take a risk--they want to use Lucy as bait for the killer on his most common train route.
Lucy is very reluctant at first. Susan reassures her that she will be in another compartment on the train to keep close and watch. Jean and Millie will wait at the other station to watch for Lucy and the killer get off the train. As they dress Lucy up at home, they continue to mull over the killer's identity. Now they're wondering if the killer is not a railroad guard. Now they're wondering if he's just a handsome man that has what women want like makeup and perfume--he's a black market seller. After Lucy touches up her makeup, the group head to the train station. She boards with Susan getting on in the next compartment while Millie and Jean head to the other station.
The camera pans to a tall man with only the waist down being seen. He sits opposite of Lucy where he crosses his hands in his lap. Lucy looks very nervous and shyly smiles at him. The camera then looks back at the man where viewers can now see his face. He has dark hair, a chiseled face, and he looks like he is a well to do business man. Meanwhile, Susan looks out her compartment, trying her best to keep her eye on Lucy. After a few minutes, the man asks if Lucy will walk with him to the next train car. Susan loses sight of Lucy.
In the next car, Lucy is assaulted by the man. He wrestles her against the wall and tears her garter all while she screams and attempts to push him away. At this point, the train is pulling into the next station. Susan, not knowing where Lucy went, runs off the train and screams desperately for the police. Millie and Jean watch as police run past Susan and storm the train. The businessman is taken into custody and Lucy stumbles off the train. She is extremely upset and disheveled. Susan, Jean, and Millie crowd around her to make sure she isn't harmed. Then, the camera pans to a blond haired man standing away from the spectacle. He wears a cold expression and walks away. Could that be the killer that got away?
Susan returns home late. Her husband, Timothy, is unhappy with her tardiness, but asks how her day was regardless. After an uncomfortable reply, he finally admits he is suspicious of her and her friends' activities. She does not respond. Meanwhile, Lucy is at home in her pajamas, attempting to relax after the hectic events at the train station. Her husband walks in and he notices her torn garter hanging off her thigh. Assuming infidelity, he approaches her and beats her over the torn garment.
The women know that the man who assaulted Lucy was not the killer. He would not be stupid enough to lead her to another car to get sexual favors. The killer would lure them away from the station to do that. Thus, the women have local search bias--reliance on known technologies or approaches to solving new problems. The new problem is that the killer is knows they are on his trail. The killer knows that they know that Gerald Wiggins was a scapegoat. The women are relying on their skills as codebreakers to recognize patterns and openly using sources (such as the library archive and public records office) to refine their search.
So the following day, Jean returns to the public records office where Angela, a former colleague works. Angry about Lucy's assault, Jean confronts Angela about her past work at Bletchley Park. It is revealed that Angela worked at the Electra House. The Electra House was an organization that specialized in the spread of misinformation. Eventually, Electra House merged with two other organizations to create the Special Operations Executive which specialized in espionage, sabotage, and misinformation to disrupt the Axis powers progression in World War II. Angela, surprised that Jean knows about her previous position, ends up giving the address of a former SOE director to Jean. Angela's participation in the search for the information leading to the killer (although it is she hesitantly agrees to give the address), may be compared to open science which incorporates outside researchers or experts into a scientific project. This is especially evident in the address of the former SOE director as he gives some information to Susan later in the episode.
Why is it so important for former workers of Bletchley Park to keep their jobs secret? First, the information Bletchley Park gathered from the Axis powers was classified information. During the time, Britain classified their information on a scale, and the most secretive or important information was categorized as "most secret." This meant that the information was extremely hard to obtain and well guarded from the public. Due to the intense nature of the information Bletchley Park received as well as their goal of cracking German codes, the information they gathered was classified as "ultra secret" which was even more protected than any other categories of secret information. Secondly, due to the nature of the information, all workers had to sign the Official Secrets Act of 1939. This was essentially a non-disclosure agreement.
Susan retrieves the address and goes to find Mr. Cavendish. He is hesitant to talk to Susan about any information regarding the SOE. However, she explains that she needs more information regarding her list of suspects and if he knows anything about the previous murders that took place years before the five women were killed in London. Mr. Cavendish admires that she treats crime like a code and that she uses pattern analysis to narrow down her search for the killer. He suggests that Susan needs to get into the killer's head and try to understand the reasons for his actions. The killer takes women underground, in the dark, and strangles and rapes them when dead. Additionally, there is also evidence that each of the victims wear the same perfume. So, why would the killer be interested in performing this pattern?
As they continue to talk, Mr. Cavendish finally admits he knew a man that worked for him during the war. A bomb hit the building the man worked at. For three days, he was buried under the rubble with a dead girl. He was the only one that survived and his name is Malcolm Crowley. Ever since the bombing, Crowley changed in behavior--he acted smarter now, but also acted differently, possibly as a result of the traumatic experience. Now armed with this information, Susan thanks Mr. Cavendish and returns home, only to receive word that there was an accident. She runs to Millie's house to find Lucy in bed, badly beaten and bruised. After she checks on Lucy, she goes home to find Timothy upset at how late she is. She explains that Lucy was beaten, and he accepts that as to why she hasn't been home much the past few days. He is still unaware of her investigation. He tells her to visit Lucy whenever she wants. Because of him believing that everything she is doing is for Lucy, she finds more opportunity to continue with her investigation. Thus, with the information she received from Cavendish, she decides to go to the local psychiatric hospital to inquire about Malcolm Crowley's files. Once she arrives, she knocks on the door and finds a blond man standing there, asking if he can help her with anything. She explains she wants information on Malcolm Crowley.
What Susan does not know is that this man is the same one that saw Lucy's incident at the train station.
This episode heavily emphasized the risks the women were willing to take to find the killer whether that be physical risks (like using Lucy as bait) and legal risks (like when Jean pressured Angela into revealing information and Susan going to Mr. Cavendish for files). Lucy faced physical consequences after being assaulted on the train and beaten by her husband for it. Susan and Jean risked revealing their previous involvement with Bletchley Park which could have resulted in extreme legal consequences. However, Susan was also too trusting with her sources. Her search for Malcolm Crowley may have put her in a bad position at the psychiatric hospital because she doesn't know that that man may actually be Crowley himself.
Resources
Special Operations Executive - Wikipedia
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