MASTERPIECE | MASTERPIECE Studio: 'Magpie Murders' Finale (2023)

Jace Lacob: I’m Jace Lacob, and you’re listening to MASTERPIECE Studio.

As with any tightly-paced mystery series, I’m bound to remind listeners new and old — if you have not watched all six episodes of Magpie Murders, stop listening to avoid a few big spoilers.

Okay.

How many murder mystery series end with not one, not two, but FOUR surprising murder revelations?

CLIP

Pünd We need to meet with Detective Inspector Chubb but after that we will be returning at once to London.

Fraser Don’t tell me. You know who did it!

Pünd Matthew Blakiston provided the last piece of the jigsaw.

Fraser Well then, do tell me! I want to know.

Pünd We have a long drive.

Jace Sir Magnus Pye was killed by Robert Blakiston — who also killed his younger brother years before.

CLIP

Robert But she was wrong, sir. You’ve got to believe me.

Sir Magnus But you threatened her. Half the village heard it. And the very next day…

Robert That wasn’t me!

Sir Magnus You wanted her dead. You said so. And everyone heard you.

Jace Mary Blakiston tripped on a vacuum cord and fell down the stairs — an accident that leads Attiicus Pünd to solve the actual murders that have occurred. And Alan Conway was pushed off the roof by Charles Clover — who later tries to kill Susan Ryeland.

CLIP

Charles You realize they’ll send me to prison. I’ll get life. I won’t come out.

Susan Yes, Charles. That’s what happens when you commit murder.

Charles I thought you might make some allowances. As you yourself said, we-we’ve known each other for a long time.

Jace At the heart of this twisty multi-stranded crime series is creator Anthony Horowitz — who managed to turn his meta mystery novel into a delightfully clever six episodes. He returns to the podcast to reveal how he did it. And later, series star Lesley Manville returns for her own side of the story.

And we are back once again with Magpie Murders, creator, writer and executive producer Anthony Horowitz. Welcome.

Anthony Horowitz Thank you very much.

Jace This is a murder mystery, after all, so it’s no surprise that events wrap up with a significant degree of danger. Susan is bludgeoned and left to die in a fire, Clover Books burns, her friend and colleague has betrayed her. How did you decide that Charles would ultimately be Alan’s killer? How does that connect to the sort of thematic underpinnings of this narrative?

Anthony I’ve become all a tremble because to actually talk about who did it, It sort of goes against the grain, I just hope that nobody listening to this is doing so without having actually seen the show and discovered the answer for themselves. But as to the identity of the killer, it’s where I always begin. I mean, you know, a murder mystery is actually — the formula of it is very, very simple: A plus B equals C. A is one person, B is the next person, C is the reason why A kills B. And all along, I knew who the killer would be because, you know, Charles, has the most to lose from the terrible secret that is hidden inside the book. And Alan Conway’s illness has meant that he is going to reveal this, and that is why he has to die. It was absolutely inbuilt. And to me, the most important part of a murder mystery is exactly that, the motivation. You know, and I love creating motives for murder that are unusual, that have never been done before, that are unguessable, that are that are just different in a way. And so I can’t write the books until I have that A plus B equals C equation worked out.

Jace So you’re starting at C.

Anthony Yes. Except that C actually brings in A and B, because, you know, a cook might kill somebody in a restaurant who has criticized their food. An artist might kill somebody who has ruined their work. You know, a doctor might kill somebody who has sued them, whatever it is. You know, Agatha Christie was the same, I think, you know, we’ve talked a lot about her, but her motivation is extraordinary. If you read The Mirror Crack’d From Side to Side, the motivation in that the A-plus B equals C is so human, so understandable, so sad in a way that you just have to you just have to go with it, you can’t argue with that, you understand. You know, it’s another aspect to these stories that the murderers in Christie and in my work, I want to see this sympathetic because there is nothing good or sympathetic about murder. But nonetheless, they are understandable, they are human. And if you’re talking about the golden age of crime fiction, the 50s, 40s, 30s, whatever, if somebody is going to kill someone else at the risk of hanging, whose of course capital punishment was around then, then there has to be a very, very good reason to do it. And I think that’s interesting, too. It’s the reason, incidentally, why whodunits make such good books, because the motives and the emotions always run so high. You don’t kill somebody because you’re mildly cross with them or because you dislike them a bit. You have to hate them. You have to be furious. You have to be driven to commit the ultimate crime. And that, I think, is why I like writing them.

Jace Charles is undone by little mistakes. That bit about the roadworks, the envelope, the stuff with Jemima, but he doesn’t react to being at Alan’s funeral to, quote, ‘to stand in front of the man you killed and give nothing away. That requires real skill,’ we’re told. Is Charles then a skilled killer or is he just able to hold it together until Susan confronts him?

Anthony He’s a very cold blooded killer. He’s a killer who has clearly read a lot of murder mystery books because he does use certain tropes that are classic ingredients of an Agatha Christie, for example, passing off a letter as being one thing when actually it is another. But he’s not that clever because of course he does make mistakes. You mentioned two of them that they are the roadworks and the envelope. I have to say, I particularly like the envelope because you may notice in the 1950s story there is, I think, a typewritten letter in a handwritten envelope. And in the modern version, it’s a handwritten letter, in a typewritten envelope, and I rather love that mirror effect. The roadworks came because I was actually thinking about sort of clues when I was driving through Suffolk and came upon an appalling roadwork and waited there for a very long time. And I thought, ‘Oh, good, I can use this. I’ll put it in the book.’ So that’s where that came from.

Jace I mean, Alan’s death is murder, but it is not premeditated, as Charles pushes him out of anger and then covers it up after the fact. But Charles’s attack on Susan seems to be far more evil, and he bludgeons her and then leaves sort of burned to death, his friend and colleague, as he destroys his entire life’s work.

CLIP

Charles I don’t care about the missing book! All I was doing was protecting myself, and my family…

Susan No, Charles.

Charles …and my future. That’s what I’m doing now. You made me!

Susan Charles, no! Charles…Charles, what are you doing? Please, Charles. Uh. Oh, Charles…

Charles I’m sorry, Susan. I really am.

Susan Charles. Charles! Please!

Charles I gave you a chance. You should have taken it!

Jace If Charles was hoping to keep Clover alive, is this where he entirely gives up the ghost?

Anthony Well, I have to say, it is an extraordinary performance. And I was actually quite shocked when I when I saw it on the screen, I hadn’t realized it would be quite so violent and quite so horrible. And I think what is so extraordinary is the way Charles, who has been so humane, so sort of likable, so, so pleasant, is suddenly is suddenly such a monster. And that’s just down to the extraordinary performance. I mean, you know, the moment where the curtains go up and everything. That scene is is extraordinarily well shot and really has a sort of this screw reality about it. And actually, we’ve been talking about the nature of murder, why is murder something that. He insists that is not an entertaining scene. I think the moment when Lesley Manville is struck down with a visit with a statuette. Again, a little joke there, but she’s actually killed with an award, a murder award, or not quite killed that least is attacked with it. That to me is a really quite shocking moment.

Jace It is. And again, it sort of underpins that notion that we find a sick pleasure in watching people be killed in books and on TV. It’s a very odd situation.

Anthony There’s no pleasure in that scene. I mean, what do you think is in that scene is a tension, which is how would she get out of this? I mean, will she survive? And and, you know, and how could she have let this happen to her? And there’s again, there’s another great moment in there — all credit to Peter Cattaneo — where Atticus Pünd is seen coming through the flames towards her. But then there’s a sort of a twist of the smoke and the camera angle, and he’s suddenly become Andreas. And that’s another great moment for me. And I’m not even sure that was scripted. It must have been. But it’s jolly well, very, very well achieved by Peter.

Jace Susan sees Alan Conway’s Pünd titles all laid out in a row in the first letter of the titles spell out an anagram, which is why Alan was so dead set on it being Magpie Murders and not The Magpie Murders. The anagram for Atticus Pünd is spelled out with a bit of delicacy for TV viewers. Was there any concern ahead of time about the use of that particular four letter word?

Anthony Yes, there was, a great deal of trouble and strife and worry. And I have to tell you, I didn’t use it in the book either. The actual final four letter word that is inside Atticus Pünd is not written in the book either. And for good reason because, I do use bad language in books. Unfortunately, if you’re going to reflect the way people talk in the 21st century, it’s very difficult to avoid. But I don’t like it. And it’s interesting how many tweets I get from readers who say they much prefer books not to use bad language. And it’s also a funny thing and certainly from my experience, but if you’re writing a television show and you have, shall we say, the F-word used, and then you go back and say, ‘Do I really need to use it? Let’s take it out and see what happens. And put in a slightly milder expletive,’ nobody ever notices. And so actually using foul language is something that is not entirely necessary. And when we came to make the show, someone outside the the team that made the show suddenly realized what the what the final scene would include and tried to have the show dropped and tried to stop us making it because they were so concerned. But this particular word, of course, is also much, much more unpleasant when it is spoken in America than it is in England. I didn’t quite understand why that would be the case, but in England it’s a word that one does hear from time to time. In America, I think it is still very much more taboo. And so we had to come up with a way to do the final scene that everybody would understand what we were going on about. But you wouldn’t actually have to be faced with the word either spoken or even written on the screen. And I think we got round it very, very well. What is good is that the show has been seen certainly in this country and in many, many others. We’ve had not a single complaint, and I think we handled it very delicately.

Jace No, I think it’s handled it extremely well. I was amazed because I was waiting for that moment and I did not know how it would be handled here. And I think you pull it off quite effortlessly.

Anthony Well, thank you. Realistically, I’m just thinking about that final scene. You know, the whole beginning. I haven’t mentioned Michael Moloney, who is the actor who plays the publisher, Charles, it’s a wonderful performance and I would be very sad if his podcast went out without my actually having given him the credit for his extraordinary work.

Jace What do you feel was ultimately Charles’s motivation here? Was it just financial or was he personally humiliated by Alan that his own life’s work was reduced to a laughing stock if the truth came out about the anagram?

Anthony I would say that he is angry. I think anger is what makes him kill Alan Conway. I think the fact that he has been duped and made a fool of, that this man has for all these years been preparing this this vile prank, this stupid, unnecessary act of sabotage for reasons that that Charles can’t even begin to understand. I think it’s a fact that Alan Conway has sneered at him all his life, and now at the very end, he’s going to destroy everything he’s ever worked for. His company, his pension, the sale of the company, his whole life’s work is going to be spoiled by this arrogant, unpleasant, ungrateful man. And it’s so easy, even as I describe it to you now, I can see myself on the roof of that house, on the tower up at the top, and I can see myself pushing Alan Conway off, it would be easy. That’s why he does it. And that’s why it’s not premeditated. It just happens.

Jace I mean, I’m going to double down on my metaphor here and say that like the titular magpie Alan Conway stole from everyone, from people he met to Agatha Christie to Susan herself and embedded clues throughout his books. I mean, there is such a pettiness to Alan, despite or perhaps even because of his success, he yearns for revenge and goes to such lengths to achieve it. Even waylaying Katie to try to garner information about Susan. He puts that poor writer in his book as a possible pedophile. I mean, what drives Alan to such spite, such bitterness? Is it the work of a self-loathing writer?

Anthony Well, I think you’ve answered your own question. Self-loathing. That’s where it all begins. The sense of what he’s doing is beneath him, a sense that he is actually contemptible because his real talents would be to be the writer of a masterpiece of modern English literature with a very large capital E and a capital L, that he would be winning the Nobel Prize for drama, perfect for writing fiction. And instead, what’s he doing? He’s he’s selling mass-market paperbacks, the railway stations, my people too stupid to read the sort of books that he really should be writing. So it’s self-loathing is is what I think motivates him throughout, even in his relationship with James, you know, this young man with whom he lives, that’s all about control. It’s about disdain. It’s about the fact that he doesn’t feel he’s respected enough. You know, when these two are splitting up at the very start of the series, it is because this and this young man has gone off and had parties and Alan thinks that he’s laughing, or being laughed at. That he’s a laughing stock. So it is, it is on the one hand, this massive self-disgust, his desire to be regarded that drives him. And also there’s this knowledge that he has failed, that he is nobody, or at least that’s what he feels in his own head.

Jace Much of the momentum of the plot comes from the two investigations moving towards their solutions. But there’s also a rather beautiful arc for Susan herself as well, one that’s almost entirely separate from the mystery as she grapples with her feelings about her dying father and her sister, Katie. Does this help refocus the action on Susan’s arc, as we talked earlier about?

Anthony Very much so. Very much so. I mean, if you… can’t have a character like a Poirot who just asks questions and has a couple of mannerisms. That’s not being fair. David Suichet did a wonderful performance humanizing Poirot, but the fact is that Poirot is a fairly limited character in how he presents himself to the world. And what we’re discussing here, the relationship with the sister and with the father, the childhood betrayal, plus the second betrayal of Alan Conway stealing her life from her and playing tricks to the hiding, not just nasty anagrams in the book, but doing the same thing with the letters of her life, muddling them up and recasting them in a different guise in a way that even she doesn’t spot when she first reads the book. That was very much a decision that I made once Lesley Manville had been cast. She had to have a very powerful story of her own, a human story, a story that made us understand her character. She’s an editor and a businesswoman and a survivor of a difficult life. First and foremost, she is an investigator only by accident and only in a secondary way. And, you know, it is, again, the great pleasure of the show writing for an actor of Lesley Manville’s ability and also incidentally, having a character who is not in the first flush of youth, who is a mature woman of a certain age, one might say, who is nevertheless not treated in the scripts or in the show in that way. She has a completely fulfilled life. She drives a sports car. She is having, you know, a proper and full relationship with a man who she may or may not, you know, run off with. So there are no, there are no clichés, if you like, about the treatment of a woman of that age. And that was done in collaboration with Lesley and I love seeing it on the screen.

Jace Susan Ryeland of course, appears in the sequel Moonflower Murders…Would you be up for adapting that next and continuing Susan Ryeland story with a second series?

Anthony Well, the question you should really be asking is, is Lesley, because if she isn’t, then I can’t do it. But the good news is that Lesley is very, very keen to come back and do Moonflower Murders with us. I’m really looking forward to doing it, and I think it’ll be a terrific piece.

Jace Anthony Horowitz, thank you very much. I look forward to checking in at the Moonflower, hopefully soon.

Anthony A pleasure talking to you. Thank you.

Jace Before this next question, a brief word from our sponsors…and then, we’ll return with Lesley Manville…

And we are joined once again this week by Magpie Murders star and executive producer Lesley Manville. Welcome.

Lesley Manville Hello. Thank you very much.

Jace The final episode of Magpie Murders not only reveals who Alan’s killer was, but places Susan in mortal danger at the hands of her friend, Charles Clover. What did you make of the reveal that Charles was the killer and that he would attempt to murder Susan as well?

Lesley Well, I didn’t, I didn’t when I read the script scripts. You don’t see it coming, really. I didn’t see it coming and I think that it’s really only when the final pieces are put together that Susan realizes that unavoidably she has to come to the conclusion that it has been Charles all along. But I don’t think she imagines that she’s in personal danger, because that’s a different kind of person, isn’t it? I mean. It’s it’s I mean, I know murder is murder, but you kind of. I think there’s possibly an element of understanding that the murder of Alan Conway by Charles has been a one off. So I don’t think she thinks, ‘I better not go to the office because he might then bump me off,’ because he wouldn’t have any reason to bump her off, whereas he’s clearly had a reason to kill Alan. So, her being in danger, of course, is a massive shock. And, you know, she leaves the office and she she just thinks, ‘Well, that’s it. I’m going now you’re going to go home. You’re going to tell your wife,’ and obviously, she respects that. And she says, I’m paraphrasing, but I think she says something like, look, ‘If you don’t phone the police tomorrow, I will. But I’m going to be gracious and say, yes, you need to go home and explain all this to your wife and family,’ because she doesn’t think of him as somebody who’s going to just try and murder somebody else, and it be her. She walks out of the office and he comes at her from behind with one of his heavy awards and clocks her over the head and then sets the place on fire so that all of the final chapter and everything is burned. But of course, as we know, she gets rescued and she gets out of there. So I don’t think she sees that coming. But obviously, there comes a point when she does realize that, unfortunately, she has to admit that this man that she thought she knew and that had worked for and collaborated with for, you know, a good decade or more is a murderer.

Jace I mean, his…Alan’s murder is a crime of passion. It happens in a moment. It’s not premeditated. But as you say, Charles, attacking Susan is just sort of evil. I mean, he bludgeons her with an instrument of his success, this award, and then leaves her to burn along with Clover Books. His entire sort of life’s work goes up in flames.

Lesley Yeah, yeah.

Jace And it’s such a horrific moment because it is a betrayal, a deeply personal one, even against Susan’s own morality that she thinks he will do the right thing..

Lesley Yes, that’s right.

Jace It’s it’s so upsetting to me because she’s proven wrong, that this man, she thought she knew, her friend, not only doesn’t do the right thing, but then tries to murder her to cover up another murder.

Lesley Yes. Yes, that’s right. That’s right. It’s shocking.

Jace I couldn’t help but think of what Alan’s sister Claire said about the success and the money driving Alan mad. Do you think that this is what happened with Charles, or was it more that he couldn’t stand the humiliation of people learning the vicious truth about Atticus Pünd?

Lesley Oh, now there’s a question. I’m not sure that I can answer that. I mean, Charles is a man who seemingly is interested in how he is perceived. And having had that formidable standing as a publisher for many decades. And it would be very painful to have to eat such humble pie, wouldn’t it? And to be so exposed. And a man who was revered and admired and respected in the publishing world. Yeah. I mean, I guess you’re on to something there, but I don’t feel I can comment on that too much more because it’s like asking me to get inside his head a bit. And I’m not sure. I think that your take on it is probably pretty spot on and viewers will make their own decisions about what they feel about the why the why the whys and wherefores of what made him make those choices.

Jace Alan hated Susan, but he becomes a partner in Andreas’ hotel scheme, and Susan sees it as a way of Alan controlling her, even from afar. Does she see Alan’s money as an act of revenge now that he’s dead, or does she see it as a springboard to a new life for her and Andreas?

Lesley I think she says something, doesn’t she, about not liking that it’s his money. But maybe it does become a springboard for a potential new life, certainly for Andreas. But, you know, again, I don’t think she sees her and Andreas as this package deal. You know, I mean, you see here at the end of episode six, she is going to make some changes. But always with Susan, it’s a kind of, you don’t think you know what she’s going to do until she’s done it because she’s going to surprise people and surprise herself and surprise the people close to her along the way. She I mean, it is in the end, Andreas does have the money and it has come from Alan. But I would think she probably does have moral issues with that. But, it’s how much you use, how much she’s going to think of that as hers as well as opposed to Andreas. And again, so that’s where that kind of, ‘Well, that’s Andreas’ business as it were. And, you know, that’s nothing to do with me,’ kind of thing.

Jace While a lot of the plot concerns the goings on at Pye Manor and Abbey Grange, there is an entire emotional arc for Susan Ryeland that’s separate from the Alan Conway investigation. I love how Susan must also grapple with the death of her father and her complicated feelings about her family. What did you make about this, what did you make of this aspect of Susan’s arc?

Lesley Well. I think it just kind of added to the complexity of the woman and also a kind of, you know, even when her father is facing death, she’s not really interested in forgiveness. She’s not interested in forgiving him. You know, he behaved badly. It devastated her life. It devastated her sister’s life and her mother’s life and. She’s just not one of those women who’s going to say, ‘Oh, you know what? You’re ill. You’re dying. I’m going to say everything’s okay,’ because it isn’t okay for her. And I mean, it’s quite hard to swallow all of that. I mean, I don’t know if I’d be that person, but clearly her sister is, you know, urging her to make peace with the situation. And she doesn’t make peace with the situation. And then he’s gone, he’s dead. And. But I don’t think that keeps her awake at night. It would keep me awake at night, but I don’t think it keeps her awake.

Jace I mean, to me, the that sort of layering of tragedy that a terminal illness on top of murder, it makes Magpie Murders, not just about Susan solving a murder mystery, but a more psychological one — how does she let go of the past? How does she forgive and move on with her life? And in some ways, it’s Pünd who helps her to. just as she helps Pünd let go of his own mortality within the novel.

Lesley Yes. Well, I mean, what detectives do you know of where it is all about the crime? There’s always something about their personal life thrown in for good measure, because you’ve got to really. It adds to the audience’s understanding of that person. And I think it’s a tricky one with Susan, because you don’t…she’s not unlikable because of all of this. If anything, it just highlights how principled she is. And how adamant and immovable she is and what she believes about a situation. But I think there’s something very lovely about the relationship, if you can call it that, because of course, it doesn’t really exist but whatever you make of her relationship with Atticus, that is very….it’s almost it’s kind of, it feels like lots of things in one. It feels very paternal. It feels very, you could think of it as maybe even being almost romantic. And I don’t mean in the pure sense of romance, but just that because of what they feel for each other, what they conjure from each other. So yeah, it’s very, very interesting, isn’t it? I mean, there’s so much in Magpie Murders that’s that’s up for grabs in terms of interpretation and in terms of I mean, you could do a whole Freudian session on the whole thing if you really wanted to.

CLIP

Susan Do you know what happens to you at the end of the book?

Pünd I knew it from the start.

Susan I’m sorry.

Pünd No, there is no need to be. There are eight books. Nine now. I will not be forgotten. At least for a time.

Susan No. I mean, I’m sorry because, well, I suppose that means I won’t see you again.

Pünd We have separate paths to follow, Miss Ryeland.

Susan I’ve asked you not to call me that.

Pünd It’s been a pleasure.

Susan For me too. Goodbye, Atticus.

Pünd Goodbye, Susan.

Jace Susan appears in the sequel Moonflower Murders, which begs the question: would you be up for putting back on that leather jacket and continuing Susan Ryeland story?

Lesley You bet I would. Yeah. No, we’re really hoping to do Moonflower Murders.And I’ve certainly expressed my interest to play her again. And yeah, the leather jacket is wrapped up and safe, ready to come out again.

Jace There’s only one moniker that I can apply here towards you Lesley, and that is international treasure. Lesley Manville, such a pleasure.

Lesley Thank you. And I will take that, international treasure. Thank you.

Jace And with that, we reach the close of MASTERPIECE Studio for this calendar year. We’ll be back in your feeds — and on your television screens — in January 2023 with new episodes of Miss Scarlet and the Duke and All Creatures Great and Small — and of course, new interviews here on the podcast. Stay tuned!

MASTERPIECE Studio is hosted by me, Jace Lacob, produced by Nick Andersen and edited by Robyn Bissette. Elisheba Ittoop is our sound designer. The executive producer of MASTERPIECE is Susanne Simpson.