

Season 1 • Episode 4
LatestEddie can't get arrested and his one lead is a house in Holland Park. He enlists the owner's daughter and they head to a country house where he discovers the real killer is too important to ever be named and has just one choice.
London based petty crook Eddie Cass agrees to pick up a package and courier it across the capital. When nobody answers the door at the drop-off, Eddie opens the package and finds a woman’s severed head in a hatbox. He panics and dumps it in the River Thames. Returning home, Cass is kidnapped by the mysterious Eldridge and his heavies who inform Eddie that he has been framed for the murder.
Acting
Denis Lawson's sweaty desperation as Eddie Cass.
Writing
Brenton's poison-pen satire of British institutions.
Creator
Howard Brenton
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Howard Brenton was a leading 'angry young man' playwright; this was his rare TV foray into paranoid thriller territory.
The hatbox prop was reportedly lost for decades, becoming minor BBC folklore among prop department veterans.