Monsieur Spade
Season 1 Episode 5
Episode Title: n/a
Original release date: February 11, 2024
Spade gets more than he bargained for when he questions his eccentric neighbours, and learns more about the boy’s mysterious abilities; Teresa continues her investigation alone; Jean-Pierre faces his past and confronts Philippe.
* * *
[Grass rustling]
[Birds chirping]
[Philippe whistles “Colonel Bogey March”]
♪
[Birds chirping]
[Distant explosion booms]
[Whistling]
[Urine splashing]
[Whistling continues]
[Distant explosion booms]
[Zipper rasps]
[Distant explosion booms]
[Explosions booming]
[Fly buzzing, birds chirping]
[Grass rustling]
[Whistling “Colonel Bogey March”]
♪
[Rifle clacking]
[Whistling continues]
[Rifle thumps]
[Bipod clicking]
[Scope ratchets]
[Whistling continues]
[Bolt clicks]
[Whistling continues]
♪
[Birds chirping]
[Distant explosions boom]
[Gunshot blasts]
[Explosions boom]
[Equipment rustling, grass rustling]
[Whistling]
[Fly buzzing]
[Rifle clatters]
[Speaking French]
[Chomps]
Mmm.
[Speaking French]
[Conversing in French]
[Paper rustles]
Huh?
[Chomping]
[Sighs]
[Equipment rustles]
[Grass rustling]
[Explosion rumbles]
[Sighs]
[Church bell tolling]
[Suspenseful music plays]
[Tolling continues]
♪
[Speaking French]
♪
[Suspenseful music plays]
[Heels clicking]
♪
♪
[Pistol clicks]
[Sharp thud]
[Gasps, groans]
[Speaking French]
[Thud][Gasps]
[Handbag rustles]
[Sighs]
[Heels clicking]
[Suspenseful music plays]
♪
♪
[Door creaks]
♪
[Door closes]
♪
[Door-rapping “Colonel Bogey March”]
[Philippe speaking French]
[Sighs]
[Door opens]
♪
[People talking indistinctly outside]
[Door closes]
[Dial tone]
[Telephone clatters]
[Sighs]
[Sighs][Wine sloshes]
[Breathes sharply]
[Bandage rips][Breathes sharply]
[Breathes sharply, sighs]
[Breathes sharply]
[Groans]
[Speaking Arabic]
[Speaking French]
[Speaking French]
[Speaking Arabic]
[Speaking Arabic]
[Speaking French]
[Speaking French]
[Breathes sharply, gasps]
[Dramatic music plays]
♪
[Breathes sharply, gasps]
Psst!
[Chuckles]
[Curtain clatters]
[Birds chirping]
Anybody needs me, I’ll be in the pool.
No, you won’t. Basam drained all the water out.
What? He’s out there right now scrubbing the plaster with some smelly chemical.
What the hell for?
Something about dead bodies and bad juju.
[Sighs]
Hi.
Good morning, Henri.
Can I fix you some breakfast?
No, no, no, thank you. I’m just retracing my steps.
I lost my notebook. You mean the little black book with the names of all your girlfriends?
[Sighs] It’s brown.
Do you remember the last time you had it?
The other day when the body was, you know…
Fucking up my pool.
Have you seen it?
No.
Teresa: Did you write your name inside?
Henri: No.Next time you really should.
Yes, good idea. I will.
You know, I can write your name in for you since your handwriting is a bit slipshod.
Really? You’d do that?
Of course.
How about later we go into town, and I’ll help you pick out a new one?
That sounds lovely.
Okay, how about the two of you get the fuck out of here before I chuck my breakfast?
Someone’s in a mood because they can’t swim in their piscine.
Bye-bye. Au revoir. A bientôt.
Let me just go up and change.
I certainly can’t go in my pajamas, can I?
[Vacuum whirring]
[Vacuum powers down]
Teresa: Just wait here. I’ll be two minutes.
Henri: Great.
Yeah. I already know what I’m gonna wear.
[Footsteps thumping]
[Laughs] I can’t wait.
[Speaking French]
It’s not her I’m worried about.
If only that were enough.
[Dramatic music plays]
♪
[People talking indistinctly]
[Chickens squawking]
[Indistinct conversations]
[Dramatic music plays]
[People talking indistinctly]
[Bottles clinking]
[People talking indistinctly]
Mademoiselle.
[Speaking French]
Merci.
Merci.
♪
♪
[Dramatic music plays]
[Birds chirping]
♪
♪
[Gentle classical guitar music plays]
♪
♪
[Water splashing]
[Faucet squeaks]
♪
[Towel rustles]
[Bathrobe rustles]
[Insect shuffling]
[Chuckles]
[Speaking French]
[Drawer scraping]
[Keys jingle]
[Keys jingle]
[Door opens]
[Speaking French]
Oui.
[Curtain swooshes]
[Dog barking in distance]
[Telephone buzzes]
[Telephone clatters]
[Door closes]
[Key clatters]
[Bell dinging]
[Suspenseful music plays]
♪
[Clock ticking]
♪
♪
[Picture frame clatters]
♪
[Knife clicks]
♪
[Suspenseful music plays]
♪
[Vacuum whirring]
♪
[Suspenseful music plays]
♪
[Vacuum whirring]
♪
[Vacuum powers down]
[Painting ripping]
[Suspenseful music plays]
♪
[Dial clatters]
Patrice. It’s Spade.
I found the kid.
Don’t ask me how.
[Speaking French]
You got a pen? Write this down.
Just past the abandoned train station, there’s that dirt track that goes into the woods.
Take the car as far as you can and then walk to the lake.
I’ll meet you at the boat ramp.
Oh, and, uh, Patrice, bring a gun.
Philippe could be somewhere hiding.
[Telephone clatters]
[Vehicle rumbling]
[Suspenseful music plays]
♪
[Birds chirping]
♪
[Door bangs and clatters]
[Chain clatters]
[Dramatic music plays]
♪
[Dramatic music softens]
♪
[Pigeons cooing]
♪
[Suspenseful music plays]
♪
♪
[Suspenseful music plays]
♪
♪
[Object rattles]
Oh, dear.
Well, this is indeed embarrassing.
I saw two of you in the car.
You thought you did.
We only pretend to be idiots.
You do a great job.
Still, you had your suspicions.
I had my somethings.
So, what are you… MI5, MI6?
Tomato, to-mah-to.
So…
You mind putting that down?
Hmm. Sorry.
[Ax whooshes and thuds]
So
Just to clarify, you move in next door, you bug my house.
I’m guessing you’re not trying to steal the secrets to my superb wine.
Mildly superb, I’m afraid. Philippe?
He’s not all that superb either.
The kid? Getting warmer.
Why would I know anything about him?
Colder. Teresa?
Ding, ding, ding.
Why would she know anything about him?
Our work relies less on knowledge than proximity.
Sister Angelique?
Imagine our surprise.
We follow one of the kidnappers to a convent.
She doesn’t have the child in question.
Isn’t actually a nun. So what is she doing there?
Communing with Jesus?
Taking a well-earned break from fornicating?
Waiting. Watching.
Doing what we would do in her situation.
But, again, why there?
So we look at who’s in residence.
We start with the good sisters.
But outside the Mother Superior, whom, I must admit, has a rather colorful background for a nun…
You haven’t met some of the nuns I have.
Alas, none of them revealed any connection to our Algerian wayfarer.
So next we look at the children.
And we discover one young lass who’s a bit different from the others. That’s an understatement.
One young lass whose mother was an American, a convicted murderer and antiquities thief, and whose father is an officer in the French Army intelligence service and just so happens to be… Fucking sociopath.
The other kidnapper.
Oh, sure. That, too.
Naturally, we became very interested in her.
You wanna recruit her, I’m sure she’d jump at the chance.
As well as the shadowy man we observed delivering envelopes full of cash to the convent each week.
Nothing shadowy about it.
I was just doing what I was paid to do, which is to make sure that young lass was taken care of.
A little above and beyond, don’t you think?
Or is your karmic debt really that substantial?
You’re the spy.
Let’s just say your time in San Francisco made for its own colorful reading.
Then you’ll know that I don’t want any part of this.
A little late for that, don’t you think?
In my experience, a little late usually refers to a lot dead.
So no, I’m happy to step aside.
Well, as they say in Hackney, in for a penny, in for a pound of flesh.
The flesh in this case being the boy.
You’ve seen his work, I presume?
The numbers.
Is that all you think they are?
I don’t care what they are, not after I come home and find a dead soldier clogging my pool filter.
And somehow the problem found you.
And now I want it to lose me.
I want you and Mummy to stop popping up in the vineyard.
And I want Teresa left alone before she gets shot by someone’s bad aim.
Understood?
You are being exceptionally clear.
Good. Very good.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going for a swim.
[Groans] [Body thumps]
[Grunts]
[Gasps]
I gathered from all that “okay, good, very good” that you grasped your current situation.
That is the second time in two days that some fucking asshole got the drop on me.
“The drop.” So bloody colorful.
That was tae Kwon do.
I spent some time in Korea, the North.
Okay, well done… I guess.
Hm! [Thuds]
What’s your rush, dear fellow?
Join us for tea, won’t you?
[“Dis, quand reviendras-tu” by Barbara plays]
♪
♪
[Speaking French]
[Speaking French]
♪
♪
[Wind blowing softly]
[Music continues]
♪
[Knocks softly]
[Birds chirping]
♪
[Knocks softly]
♪
Mr. Spade?
♪
[Teresa speaking French]
[Wind blowing softly]
The nanny snuck off with the boy three years ago.
She worked for an Egyptian family whenever they’d visit Algeria.
Mind you, this is a very large, very wealthy family, with business interests around the world, and yet there has been not a noise, nor a sound, nor hint from them about one of their children being abducted.
Maybe he wasn’t one of theirs.
He wasn’t.
From what we can glean, the boy had been passed around from one high-ranking family to another, since the day he was born.
Two years ago, we received word out of Tunisia that an Algerian woman was attempting to sell a child of great import. Digestive?
An adoption was arranged in Britain with a Saudi national, but something went amiss.
The woman never showed up, and the child disappeared again.
A full year would pass before there was another sighting of him… this time in Algeria.
No better place to hide than in the middle of a war.
Which meant the stakes had risen to an entirely new level of intensity.
[Birds chirping]
I know her.
You knew her sister the nanny, Angelique, the woman pretending to be a nun.
This woman goes by Gazala.
The uniform? FLN.
She’s fairly high up the chain in the rebel army.
We think the kidnapping was her idea.
We’re not exactly certain why.
Perhaps to raise money for her comrades, or in exchange for some POWs.
Why would the French agree to that?
Because they want the boy as badly as everyone else.
Because of the numbers thing?
Well, we have come to the proverbial fork in the road, Mr. Spade.
Have we?
Yes.
Whether to reveal all that we know, or simply finish our tea.
Meaning can we trust you?
As far as it goes, and with the usual provisos and caveats, but you know that.
Simply put, the boy can break codes.
Any code, instantly.
He’s also able to create his own unique cryptograms, what you call “scribblings.”
Now I’m calling it bullshit.
Not according to Tzedek, the CIA, the KGB, and, of course, our chief, back in London.
You left out the Church.
Hmm, which one?
Name a religion, they all want the child.
Start with Rome.
Yeah, those wretched cardinals.
They believe Zayd can prove the existence of God mathematically, and they would, of course, prefer their god to be the one the lad’s numbers add up to.
You don’t say.
Some Shiite scholars have come to the conclusion that the boy is [clicks tongue] the Mahdi, a spirit close to Allah, who can disappear and reappear whenever he chooses.
Evidently, this particular Mahdi’s arrival could announce the end of times.
Of course, the Sunni ulamas believe the child has come to Earth to restore the purity of the faith.
And whilst we all wish him good luck, we’re fearful some in the FLN plan to murder him.
Not particularly religious, I guess.
No. For the FLN, a martyr of any stripe could come in handy.
Nothing like getting everyone’s anger pointed in the same direction.
Exactly, and until now, there’ve been so many factions
shooting at one another, including the OAS in the middle, shooting at everybody, that some sort of divine casualty could unify the country faster than any bullet.
The fact is, Mr. Spade, that whatever gifts this child may possess can be used as evidence that he may very well be the one for whom so many have waited.
“May very well be” is a long way from “is.”
Why would anyone believe this hokum?
I mean, the world’s gullible, but not that gullible.
[Chuckles] Many thousands of years of human history to the contrary, or perhaps I’ve missed the moment when humans began parsing the difference between knowing and believing.
Neither of which are necessary when creating a myth, which is exactly what some Algerians hope to create around this child, one that could, amongst other things, thwart Morocco’s border grab to the West.
So far, I’ve heard a lot about Sunnis, and Shiites, and Moroccans, but neither of you have mentioned Philippe Saint-Andre.
How has he found his way into the middle of all this?
[Chuckles] That one’s easy. Her.
I imagine Sergeant Saint-Andre forgot all about his orders to terminate a high-level FLN assassin, when he saw this beautiful face in his crosshairs.
Aren’t you forgetting that the one thing Philippe Saint-Andre loves more than a beautiful face is money?
[Chuckles] Most assuredly, the FLN are paying him very well.
Oh, I’m sure they think they are, but if I’m Philippe and I know that this kid is on the top of the wish list for every rebel, spook, and priest,
I’m thinking it’s a seller’s market.
I can make a lot more by offloading him to the highest bidder.
And that’s what’s happening.
Of course, he has the problem with Gazala.
Again, if I’m Philippe, a bullet solves that problem.
George: Not this time.
No one has actually seen the child.
No photos of him exist.
Gazala is the only one who can authenticate his identity to a potential buyer.
So Philippe needs her.
One assumes that each believes they have a deal with the other, and one can also assume that each has a plan to kill the other once the deed is done.
Either way, you can understand our urgency behind removing this child from such danger.
Sure, so he can break codes for you instead of anyone else.
Tomato, to-mah-to.
[Chuckles]
Well, this has all been very enlightening.
I’m afraid we can’t let you go.
I wasn’t asking for permission.
My dear Mr. Spade, please, don’t take offense, but despite your stellar past, these many years in Bozouls have left you both impetuous and clumsy.
Therefore, we cannot allow you to jeopardize what has been over two years of meticulous trade craft.
And I can’t allow you to…
The “Kato” thing worked once.
I propose a relationship.
[Vehicle approaches]
[Vehicle horn honks]
[Engine revving loudly]
[Engine continues revving loudly]
[Loud clatter]
[Car creaks]
Hold that thought.
[Vehicle door clicks open]
[Both grunt softly, vehicle door slams shut]
[Birds chirping]
Okay, don’t be mad. We need to…
Are they moving?
What?
Are they pointing a gun, anything like that?
No, they’re just standing there.
Good.
I’ll drive.[Scoffs]
Don’t pout.
That George guy, does he look like he knows kung fu?
Kung fu?
No.Yeah.
♪
I didn’t think so either.
[Engine starts]
That little bitch.
[Dramatic music plays]
♪
♪
[Marguerite speaking French]
Hmm?
[Grunts]
[Breathes deeply]
[Speaking French]
[Sighs]
[Gulps loudly]
[Woman singing in French in distance]
♪
Marguerite?
♪
[Distant traffic humming]
[Woman continues singing]
[Breathing heavily]
♪
♪
[Soft jazz music plays on radio]
[Lighter clicks]
[Soft jazz music continues]
[Audience applauds in distance]
[Distant footsteps clicking]
[“I Can’t Get Started” by Lester Young plays on radio]
♪
♪
[Glasses clink]
♪
[Philippe speaking French]
[Speaking French]
Mm.
[Chuckles]
[Chuckles under breath]
[Soft dramatic music plays]
[Dog barking in distance]
[Distant sirens wailing]
[Dogs barking]
[Soft dramatic music continues]
♪
[Barking continues]
♪
[Gun clicks softly]
[Barking continues]
[Door creaks open]
♪
[Distant baby crying]
♪
[Crying continues]
♪
♪
[Crying continues]
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[Muffled cough]
♪
[Wheezing softly]
♪
[Door creaks]
[Door bangs]
[Door creaks]
♪
[Lighter clicks]
♪
♪
[Door clicks shut softly]
[Gun cocks]
♪
[Door creaks]
♪
♪
[Coughing]
♪
[Light switch clicks]
♪
[Car door opens]
[Car door slams]
What’s in there?
Nothing. The place is empty.
But Claude said… It’s a dead end.
[Teresa sighs]
Should we get a drink?
Really?
Just one, a very small one.
We’re going to a bar?
That’s where the drinks are.
Can I smoke? No.
Can I drive? Definitely not.
[Keys jingle]
[Engine starts]
[Soft dramatic music plays]
♪
♪
[Gun clicks]
[Drums playing clumsily]
I gotta figure out what to do with her.
The convent’s not opening anytime soon, and she doesn’t want to go back, anyway.
But if you could, that’s where you would leave her?
At the convent?
Where else is there?
How could someone so smart be so stupid?
She doesn’t belong anywhere but with you.
Me? No, she hates me.
Maybe because you left her at a convent.
I was looking for advice, not a lecture.
[Teresa plays piano]But you need a lecture.
You know exactly what to do with her,
you just don’t want to…
What is the expression?
Own up to it.
Own up to what? To the obvious.
The thing you avoid talking about.
You know, you sound like a gal I knew back in ‘Frisco who talked in a loop-de-loop.
She’d never say a color was red, only that it wasn’t blue.
Why don’t you just say what you want to say?
I am. I have been. For years now.
Each time, you suddenly go deaf.
[Speaking French]
♪
You’re not the one who has to clean the puke out of the car.
Samuel knows how to put a drop of gin in a tall glass of tonic.
Maybe she should stay with you.
You seem to understand her so well.
[Soft jazz music plays]
[Glass clinking]
Okay, let’s pretend you really are an idiot, and I will put this in your own words.
Many years ago, Bridget walks out of prison and into your loving arms.
You whisk her off to a motel and fuck her one last time, only to realize that the love, or whatever you two shared, was all gone.
And before you can tell her, she’s run off to Turkey, where she meets Philippe, and you never see her again.
That’s the story, yes?
Yes.
But where in that epic tale do you hear that I’m a father?
Hm, so we are not so dumb after all.
You honestly think that’s never occurred to me?
My point is only that you won’t face reality.
I won’t, because reality doesn’t make any sense.
Why not?
Teresa was 4 years old when I picked her up in Turkey.
So?
I hadn’t seen Bridget in six years.
And can you make the difference
between a 4-year-old and a 6-year-old?
I can read a birth certificate.
Bridget sounds like someone who knew how to get a document forged.
♪
Look at her.
Does she seem 14 to you?
She’s 15.
Does she seem 15 to you?
Yeah.
15 going on 50.
Exactly.
Look at her.
[Speaking French]
♪
[Glasses clinking]
[Knock on door]
[Conversing in French]
[Objects rustling]
[Door creaks]
Okay.
[Scuffling]
[Grunts]
[Thudding]
[Thud]
[Wheezing softly]
♪
[Distorted gunfire]
♪
[Distorted footsteps]
♪
[Breathing shakily]
♪
♪
[Distorted footsteps]
♪
[Woman vocalizing]
♪
♪
[Whispering in French]
[Gunshot]
