All language subtitles for JC S02E06 - Mother Redcap x264 RB58

The gangland savages who
redefined the word "evil."

Tonight, underworld associates promise
reprisals will be swift and bloody.

And the man who condemned
them, Judge Forrest Sweetland,

is placed under armed guard,

as Chinese assassins declare
he'll be dead by morning.

Good evening. A massive security
operation has been launched

at the home of the High Court judge
in the so-called Bamboo Mafia trial...

Okay. They very helpfully
sent one set of these,

so you'll have to pass them round.

This is a character they'll
probably use on a major hit,

sometimes known
as the Invisible Man,

which I don't take to mean he'll be
wearing bandages round his face.

You see this one,
take special care.

He's one of these
martial-art types.

He'll break your spine in half with
his foot as soon as look at you.

However, if this merchant turns up,
it's a whole different ball game.

He's a suicide bomber.

One tap on the shoulder,
it could be goodnight, Vienna.

Chief Inspector?
- Yes, sir.

My wife and I rather hoping
to have an early night.

I have to be up at six
on the dot tomorrow.

No problem Mrs. Sweetland.

The lads will do one final
sweep of your room,

then we won't disturb
you again until morning.

I'm sorry, Ken.

I can do you "what"
and "where", but

"how" is going to take a
better brain than mine.

It appears to have gone pretty much
through the centre of the heart.

The wound's barely a
millimetre in diameter,

as if he'd been stabbed
by... I don't know...

a rapier or something.

How about "when"?

Well, if you're saying they
heard it happen at six o'clock,

any earlier, you wouldn't have
seen this carpet for blood.

Barred windows, solid walls, nothing
that comes close to a murder weapon.

What the hell are
we looking at here?

Hello?

Who's been cutting their nails?

If they have, it was a very
blunt pair of scissors.

This looks as if it's been
ripped off someone's finger.

You would not believe, Jonathan,
how boring my life is at the moment.

I've had bugger all of any
interest for five weeks.

Hardly the in-tray of a
thriving crime writer.

Who's Jason Tippet?
- God knows.

I got as far as he's an estate agent
and fell into a narcoleptic trance.

"I wonder if you'd be interested
in collaborating with me

"on a rather fascinating
history I'm compiling

"of a London hostelry
called the Mother Redcap.

"If convenient, I should very much
like to ring you Monday evening..."

I'd better put this
answerphone on quick...

3810546.
- I'm dead. I've just been cremated.

Yep. She's standing right
next to me, Mr. Tippet.

Hang on while I pass you over.

Hello, Mr. Tippet.
Yes, I did. I was just...

Well, that's all right.

Don't be silly.

Why would I think that?

Well, it pays to be careful.

There are some odd people about.

Forgive my scrappy letter.

I'm not a writer,
as you'll have gathered.

That's why I'd love it if you'll
help me out on this project.

It's actually the most macabre
mystery that goes back almost 50 years.

And for my money,

you're the one person in the
country who can do it justice.

You reckon?

No, nothing I can't stay
back in the freezer.

What a nice idea.

So, where are you
thinking of going?

Great.

Okay. See you there, then.

Bye.

You're not serious?
- What's your problem?

Can't stand the competition?

Excuse me, I need to run a bath.

Competition?

You don't know anything about him.
He could be some sort of weirdo.

Jonathan Creek?
- Yeah.

Fortunately, Jonathan, not
everyone in life is a weirdo.

We don't all live in windmills,
thinking up ways to saw women in ha...

Toodle-oo.

I'm starting with the assumption
that you know nothing of this place

the Mother Redcap or what
happened there in the mid 1940s.

I don't quite know
where you place it,

under unsolved murders or
very weird ghost stories.

Amazingly, no one has ever
written a book about it,

which I rather hope the two
of us, could put to rights.

Now, I know exactly what
you're thinking this minute.

I suppose a fork's
out the question, huh?

I beg your pardon?
- Sorry?

Excuse me. Could you get
me something with prongs?

Obviously, the copyright, royalties,
everything would be yours.

The research I could help with.
I've already done quite a bit.

As I said on the phone,
the whole thing's so macabre.

I don't really know
where you start.

At the beginning. Thanks.

Ever since the man who owned
and ran this place died,

it was 1969, a man
named William Ambergast,

the old Mother Redcap pub in Edmonton
has been property market poison.

Whether it's superstition
or what, but, I don't know.

Would you buy a
100-year-old building

where seven men were quite
literally terrified to death?

The way it's told,

the first one,
Mr. Clifford Jennings,

managing director of
a big clothing firm,

was staying overnight
with a lady friend

in a special guest room
that was kept for visitors.

Round about midnight,
he was preparing for bed.

The death certificate
said it was his heart.

The truth was, no one
knew what had killed him.

The girl was convinced
he'd seen something outside.

"Something so utterly horrible,
it set off the fatal seizure."

Between 1947 and '51,
there were five other cases,

deaths which have never been
explained from that day to this,

all in the same room,

all after they'd looked out of the
window in the middle of the night.

Not a mark or scratch
on any of the bodies.

No evidence they'd been
poisoned or suffocated.

Four of them were found on
the floor the next morning.

Three were actually seen
at the moment of death,

collapsing in what appeared
to be a fit of mortal terror.

So, what are you saying?

Something appeared
outside a window

that frightened seven
grown men to death?

Why am I getting this image
of George Formby on a ladder?

Er, is there any chance at all you
could tell me what this is all about?

Sorry!

Ken Speed, Chief Inspector.
How do you do?

Um sorry about the Neanderthal
tactics of my two constables.

They were under the impression
they were bringing a suspect in.

So I gather. I confessed
to two armed robberies

before we reached the
first set of traffic lights.

Now, I was having a beer the other
week with DCI Janet Masterson.

That locked-room business with Dr.
Strange and the house of monkeys?

Work of bloody genius, man.

I thought, "If anyone could give us
some pointers on this Sweetland thing,

well, let's get him in."

That Judge Sweetland?
- That's right.

About six o'clock this morning,
he was found stabbed...

God. Is that a lump
coming up under there now?

Tell me, does that
feel swollen to you?

Yeah.

Right. Thank you, sweetheart.

WPC Radnor, this is Mr. Creek,
the chap I mentioned.

You'll want to pull up a chair,

and we'll take you through
the grisly details.

You're kidding? It's been
like this since the '50s.

Last year, we persuaded the brewery
to let it go for a song at auction.

Didn't even reach the reserve price.

Lock's been forced again.

I'm afraid it's a bit of
a haven for vagrants.

Be careful.
- Yes.

This is the room.

Where seven men died of fright,

looking out of this very window.

Just kidding.

I suppose it's all been
redeveloped since then, is it?

Just to make our
lives even more diff..

Jason?

Jason?

Over here.

What's the problem?

Thing keeps cutting out.

Really, a connection
needs re-soldering.

Now we come to the riddle of the
torn-off nail found by the body.

Have you got the
blow-ups here, Fay?

The question here being why would
a self-respecting Chinese assassin

let his fingernails grow
nearly half-inch long?

How are you feeling now?

Yes. Better, now my heart's
back inside my ribcage.

I suppose it's right,
what they say.

She was just some old bag
lady with a lungful of tar,

but talk about turning up on cue.

Be worth keeping tabs
on, at any rate.

In case it has a
place in our story.

Listen, I feel, all of a sudden...

there's something about
me you ought to know.

What're you gonna tell me?

You've got a month to live?
Which is my sodding luck.

It's more in the way of...

I suppose you'd say an
alternative lifestyle.

Myself and a few friends
I share a house with...

Bit of a hippy on
the quiet, are you?

No, nothing like that.
It's just...

If you have any kind of problem
with a man who practises nudism,

now would be the time to say.

Well, absolutely,
I think it's wonderful.

Seriously?

Look, it's been a fascinating
evening, one way and another,

and we must get together
and talk some more.

Only I've just seen someone I
know, so why don't you get off,

and I'll give you a buzz tomorrow?

Goodnight.

Bye, Madeline.

Yes, can I help you at all?

The bloke in this room.

What's he here for?
What's going on?

Look, if you're from the press,

you'll have to go through
the proper channels.

I'm not from the press.

My name's Madeline Creek and
I'm that gentleman's wife.

And I quite like to know
what this is all about.

So the deal, as I see it, is this.

If I come up with a solution
that leads to the killer's arrest,

by next week, I'm highest new
entry on the Tong's UK death list.

Not much of an incentive, really.

A couple of hours tomorrow
morning, Jonathan, is all I asked.

Have a bit of your wisdom.

If I could pick you
up about ten o'clock.

What are you doing here?

Well, what do you think?

I'm worried sick about
where you've got to.

Come on. We'll grab a coffee.
You can tell me all about it.

Of course, technically,
I'm retired. That's a joke!

After the third bypass, they
put me behind a desk, told me,

"If you don't watch the stress levels,
you could go at any moment."

Well, of course,
they're so short-staffed...

You brainless little turd!

I'll nick your Brylcreemed arse!

Cor! Did you see that?

Came straight out,
didn't even look.

On another planet,
some of these people.

Still, we're in good time,
wouldn't you say? No hurry.

Then you've got my daughter.
Says she's gay.

What's that all about?

Expecting her first baby in a month,
courtesy of the local sperm bank.

What are they going to put
on the birth certificate?

"Father, some wanker"?

God only knows what
the world's coming to.

Yes. Well...

In a minute or two,
we'll be able to ask him.

Personally, I don't know
what's left to look for.

We turned the place inside
out before and after.

We've had body heat detectors,
ultrasonics in here, the lot.

And two of your officers were posted
outside that door the entire night?

From about 10.30 to 6am precisely.

When they heard a disturbance,
came in, to find the body.

Which I think you said is what
woke you up at the same time.

Normally, I'm a very
heavy sleeper, but I...

The first thing I
remember with any accuracy,

the door's been flung open,
the police were in here...

And when I saw the
blood... on her hand...

Um... Sorry, just to fix it,

he'd half-fallen out
of bed about here...

with a load of stuff from
his table on the floor.

If I remember from the photo,
his clock, a glass of water,

some papers and a table lamp.

His clock, well there's another weird
thing. The fact that when I...

except that I obviously was dreaming.

Dreaming, Mrs. Sweetland?

It's all the worry of that night.

It took me a while to drop off,
and when I did, I kept waking.

The first time, I
remember quite clearly.

I happened to open my eyes,

and the clock there by
his bedside said 5.10.

I nodded off. I must have
woken up again a while later,

and this time,
you'll think I'm mad

it said 4.06.

At the time, I'd swear it was real,
but then how could it have been?

Why are we all
standing around pretending?

There are only two explanations
for my husband's death.

Either somehow he did it
to himself or I'm lying...

because I was the only
person in the room.

I'm the only one who could
possibly have killed him.

If we take the evidence
at face value,

and fall into exactly the trap
we're meant to fall into.

I know we're all buying the fact
that he was stabbed at six o'clock

because that's when
they heard the scuffle,

and the fact that he'd
barely started bleeding

despite a wound through
the middle of his heart.

But, even if he was killed earlier,
the question remains,

how did the assassin get in here
to do it, and then out again?

Sorry?

Er, no, I think you're
missing the point.

I mean, that question remains,
but it's largely irrelevant.

Implying what?

Implying...

there's a third explanation
for what happened in this room

that's so ingenious, we're not
within a mile of seeing it yet.

Morning.

Someone said you did the PM on that
old lady they brought in last night.

I just wondered if you could
say what she died of?

No to you. That
information's confidential.

Of course it is. Shame.

I suppose I'll just have to put these
photographs in the post, then.

Sorry about that. Bye.

Just a minute. What photographs?

Photographs, Mrs. Climpson,

that I think might be of considerable
interest to your husband.

So, he's not really a
Chelsea fan, then?

Get out.

Holy moley!

You're kidding? When
did you find that out?

My God!

And we thought this case
was already complicated!

What's that theory?

That absolutely everything
that happens in the world

is somehow connected
to everything else?

I read an article once,

that if a man breaks
wind in Hounslow

it can affect a hurricane in Java.

In fact, I think I know the
man they're talking about.

Travels on the Circle Line.

Did you tell that WPC
you were my wife?

Certainly not.

Certainly NOT.

So, come on then.
How does all this fit together?

Corpses with ripped-off fingernails.

I'm going to have to put
a poultice on my brain.

You should never tumble-dry
a cotton and linen mix.

She wasn't a bag lady at all.

She was Sweetland's cleaning woman,
or someone with access to the house,

who the gangsters paid
to do the deed for them.

And afterwards, to shut her up,

they kill her and dump the body,
suitably disguised, in this old pub,

where no one'll find her till
she's rotted beyond recognition.

Pardon?

Sorry?

Is that all I get,
contemptuous silence?

Give me your mobile.

And she got in and out of the
room how? Astral projection?

She was in one of the
drawers under the bed.

I don't know.
That's your department.

And if she was murdered, why does
it says here she died of emphysema?

And how could she have
killed Sweetland two night ago

when according to this, she'd
been dead for at least a week.

And why would they pick
a 70-year-old asthmatic...?

Yes, all right!
You've made your point.

This Mother Redcap thing,
how does it go again?

Seven men all died of fright?

While looking out the window,
that's the story.

Hi, Jason. It's Maddy.
I got your message.

I'd love to come round for
coffee. That'll be great.

I'm sorry we keep
missing each other.

There's been quite a few
amazing developments

which I'll fill you in
on tomorrow. Bye.

Look, it all happened 50 years ago,
and it's probably apocryphal anyway.

One's fact, one's folklore.
I don't see the relevance.

You don't, but obviously
the killer did.

You're losing me, Jonathan.

Fifty years ago, Mother Redcap,
seven baffling deaths in a bedroom.

This week, Judge Sweetland,
baffling death in a bedroom.

What are you saying?

That the people there
were all murdered

using some clever method that's now
also been used to kill Sweetland?

Except their deaths
couldn't be explained.

Your guy we know was
stabbed through the heart.

A single, clean puncture,
through the right auricle,

unaccompanied by any peripheral
tearing or tissue damage...

which suggests there
was no resistance.

And yet he brushed all that stuff
off his table onto the floor.

No resistance?

Which means he must have been
stabbed while he was asleep.

I've got a horrible feeling
it doesn't mean that at all.

I just wish I could get a fix on that
clock she said had gone backwards.

What are you on about?

When are you seeing
your estate agent chum?

Tomorrow at 11. Why?

Get him to fill out the whole story,

as much as he knows, about the
guy who ran the pub, the victims,

their backgrounds, the exact
details of how each one died.

Somewhere in this place...

everything's telling me...

lies the truth behind
Sweetland's murder.

And it's got sod all to
do with a fingernail.

Hi. Welcome to our weird
and wonderful world.

I've told everyone
all about you,

but I know they're dying
to see you in the flesh.

This is really, really nice.

God, aren't you lucky?

So long as...

I suppose there's a danger you
could just chuck yourself off?

People call you a recluse
because they love labels.

You know, I go into a shop
or a pub or a restaurant,

and they're all pointing, going,

"There's that bloody recluse again.
Fed up to serve him."

It's deeply disturbing.

What are they like?
I don't know.

This looks smashing.

So, tell me about you, what
made you become a copper?

Both of my brothers
were already in the force.

They more or less twisted my arm.

Sound a right pair of bastards.

They were both killed on
duty by an axe murderer.

There's some Parmesan
there if you want it.

I was just saying to
Gareth and Pauline,

the moment we first
spoke on the phone

and I don't know if you sensed it,
and it may be too strong a word

but a certain er... simpatica.

Most people, I think we find this,
can be terribly judgemental

about a lifestyle they
simply don't understand.

Yes.

Yes, right.

At the moment, you're being
held on suspicion of murder,

so I think it'll be well-
advised if you just...

Good. So can we take
that as a confession?

Yes, right, well just
make yourself at home

in there for a day or
two and bear with us.

That'd be smashing.

And no miraculously disappearing
through the walls this time,

if you wouldn't mind.

Our job's hard enough as it is.

I mean I'm sorry, but that
is a serious turn-off,

if you can't keep your tongue in
your mouth while you're eating.

Right out it came each time,

with it's revolting scooping action,
like a giant iguana or something.

Listen, you're lucky you
only had a tongue to look at.

Let's just put it down as
nil-nil on the score sheet,

shall we, and move on?

What I have got is everything
you ever wanted to know

about the Mother Redcap
and the people who died here,

plus, he said the power
should be on now.

So we can see what
we're looking for.

What ARE we looking for?

Victim number five,

Mr. Gordon James Chapman, age 53.

A merchant banker.

Same as three and four, dead
on the floor the next morning.

No evidence of any
human intervention.

Found him lying there with
just a towel around his waist.

As if he'd come out of the bath,
gone over to the window and just

died of shock or whatever it was.
Am I talking to myself?

Plenty of woodworm and
a fair old bit of fungus.

What the hell is it?

Yeah, sorry. Number six.

Number six. Yeah.

Got a picture of this one.

Sir Michael Pritchett QC. That was
his last entry in the family album.

You'd think word would have
got round by now, wouldn't you,

or you'd think the publican, Mr.
Ambergast, would put a sign up.

"Caution. Do not gaze out..."
What?

What have you spotted?

Shoes.

Over by the chest of drawers.

So?

The last guy you said, Chapman,
had just come out the bath,

and all of them were
getting ready for bed,

so it's a fair bet that
when they died,

each one of them
would have been...

Yes...

Clever. I'll give him that.

It wouldn't work every time, but...

Hang on. Who are
we talking about?

Ambergast?

You think he'd deliberately lured
people up here to bump them off?

And the amazing thing is,
no one tumbled it,

because there's nothing to suggest
a crime had been committed.

They would swallowed that
tosh about dying of fright.

Bearing in mind, three of
them were actually seen

convulsing with horror, supposedly,
as they looked out.

Doesn't that point you
in any definite direction?

Especially when you look at all
the things it couldn't have been.

What was that Sherlock
Holmes said to Watson?

"Get your kit off and
give us a kiss"?

Exactly. Which leaves us
with only one possibility.

Which is?

Why do you think
there's no evidence

of any woodworm in
this skirting board

when the floor here
is riddled with it?

Pass.

Stay right where you are.

What are you looking for now?

I don't know till I've found it.

I still can't get over
that other, you know?

If you were looking for the quickest
way to destroy any sense of mystique,

I think opening the door stark bollock
naked would do it every time.

Got you.

What if there been a wasp
out there or something?

Mistaken it for a
sprig of buddleia?

I can tell you, you wouldn't
catch me dabbing on his Savlon.

Ooh, put me right off.

The things people get up to in pr...

Jonathan?

What are we doing in
this sodding place?!

I think I'm ready to go
home now, Jonathan.

Solution or no solution.

I'm afraid I draw the
line at bubonic plague.

Don't go near the window!

I'm sorry.

God!

I could have killed you.

What the hell happened there?

The same thing as happened
to those seven guys...

and nearly happened to you.

It's been electrocuted.

That's not woodworm
in those boards...

They're the holes for a
set of tiny metal pins,

just very slightly proud
of the surface.

Can you see?

Step on those in your bare feet...

You're kidding?

For a 50-year-old booby trap,
it still works surprisingly well.

Come on.

You've got a lever here, evidently,

which raises and lowers the pins...

and a switch here, on and off.

And that's how he did it?

Well, beats Sweeney
Todd into a cocked hat.

But... how do we
put this together

with the murder of
Judge Sweetland?

That's the one.

He followed me up the
road last Thursday,

and made himself scarce when he saw
all the police cars outside the house.

Okay.

That's very useful,
Mrs. Sweetland.

Have you got a moment and
come and have a cup of tea?

I think Mr. Creek has got
something to tell us.

Sorry to rake this
all over yet again,

but last night, about
2:00 in the morning,

a load of stuff suddenly
came into focus,

and I finally got

I don't know, a sense of
the whole thing in context.

Are you okay?
- Just get on with it.

Sometimes what looks really
sinister to start with

turns out to be
frighteningly normal.

Something like the
time on the clock

that appears the
wrong way around

with a glass of water
in front of it.

It's pretty safe to assume, I think,

that the first time you opened your
eyes that night and looked across,

the time was actually
twenty past one.

Only, because you were seeing
it through the water,

the display was reversed,

and it read ten past five.

Between then and the
next time you look,

your husband has taken a sip
of water and put the glass back,

only this time not
in front of the clock,

so you see the
correct time, 4.06.

So...

the clock had nothing to
do with the murder at all.

Alternatively, Mrs. Sweetland,

it might have had everything
to do with the murder.

God help us.

If I get through this one
alive, it'll be a miracle.

Cutting to the quick,
we face two questions.

How was your husband
stabbed by an assailant

who appeared to have spirited himself
into the bedroom like Dracula,

and then out again.

And what the hell
has an old bag lady,

whose fingernail was
found in the carpet,

got to do with the murder
of a High Court judge.

According to the
description in this report...

Mr. Sweetland put
up no resistance...

to the blade or rapier or whatever
it was when he was stabbed,

suggesting the attack took
place when he was asleep.

But then how do we explain
the apparent struggle

and the way he'd knocked
all that stuff off his table?

So let's run, for a minute,
with a different hypothesis.

That he was stabbed through the
heart after he'd been murdered.

And now we're looking for a
different cause of death entirely,

something a bit less obvious,

that would be totally overlooked
next to a knife wound in the chest.

Enter Mr. William Ambergast,

a thoroughly unpleasant
character in the 1940s,

who electrocuted his victims at a
London pub called the Mother Redcap.

Electrocuted?

I'd been lying there, trying to squeeze
the mechanics of it out of my brain.

How do you put an electric current
through someone in such a way

that no one would ever
realised what happened?

You'd need to rig
something up in his bedroom,

something you knew
he was going to touch

that was connected
to a power point,

that looked entirely harmless.

If it hadn't been for that thing
about time going backwards,

I'd probably would never
have latched on to it.

On to the frightening simplicity of a
clock that had been carefully sabotaged

so the alarm button
actually becomes live.

So that when he goes to hit it...

at 6am precisely...

And I'm afraid everything
that follows,

follows directly from that
one basic premise.

If Mr. Sweetland was killed by
an electrified clock at 6am,

and less than 15 seconds later was found
with a stab wound through his heart,

there was only one
possible explanation...

and only possible killer.

God. Fay.

A quick trawl through the news
services filled in the gaps.

The man who slaughtered
both your brothers,

decapitating one with an axe,

and then himself being
killed in a police shoot-out,

had previously been
released on bail,

pending another
charge for assault.

Their deaths would never have happened
if that man had still been in custody.

It was a bum decision...

but did it really give you the right
to murder the judge who made it?

Well, I couldn't believe it, could I?

When I found I'd been rota'd
on the protection detail.

My first thought was,
"To hell with it."

Just produce a gun.

Hang what they did to me.

That's how much I wanted to blow
his trendy, progressive brains away.

Then something happened...

about a week beforehand...

showed me I could be more...

creative than that.

Okay. All right. Up you go.

My finger's caught.

Just caught.

There it goes.

I said I'd try and get her
in a hostel somewhere,

but she wasn't interested.

This was her home.

I decided to stay with
her for a few minutes,

during which I got her life story

and the story of that place,
Mother Redcap.

It turned out as a young girl in the
'40s, she'd actually worked there...

and not as a barmaid.

A room upstairs was
basically a knocking shop.

Discreet service with professional
gentlemen of the day...

with the additional grisly
sideline you know about.

Seems several of these blokes'
wives coughed up a lot of money

to have their husbands
conveniently disposed of.

What it did...
set me thinking.

If I was clever...

I could do this...

and get away with it.

Required some special expertise...

but of course I knew
just who to go to for that.

The deal was done.

They fixed me up with
a duplicate clock,

suitably modified.

And to throw everyone off, I was
taught how to use one of their more...

sophisticated devices.

Earlier in the day,
I'd made the switch,

knowing it would be easy enough
to swap them back later.

At six o'clock, when
we heard the noise...

My God, you're proud
of what you did to him.

You murdering...!

My God.

Someone call an ambulance.

Chief Constable Peter Grisham
paid tribute to what he called

Mr. Speed's incomparable intellect
and powers of deductive analysis.

His window Marjorie could cherish
with pride the memory of a husband

whose lasting memorial,
he said, was the resolution

of one of the most complex and
apparently baffling murders

in police history.

And now let's take a
look at the weather.

No, I'm impressed, I must say.

'Cause it wouldn't have mattered
a toss to him who got the credit,

but you, Mr. Self-Effacing Softie,
knew what it would mean to her.

It almost makes up for you being
such an anal-retentive smart-arse

who never gets absolutely anything
wrong, not matter what he does.

Now... what have we here?

How is it?
- Bliss.

Utter... pure... bliss.

I've finally found something
you are crap at, food.

This is absolutely horrible!

The worst Caesar salad I have
tasted in my life ever, bar none.

Urgh!
- Maybe I overdid the raw egg.

Raw? You're supposed to wait
until the chicken's laid it!

Didn't anyone ever tell you,

the first rule of preparing
lettuce, take off the slugs?

What are you talking about, slugs?
They're anchovies.

Look, get your coat.
We'll go down to the chippie.