Ghost Machine ( TV story ) Ghost Machine was the third episode of series one of " Torchwood " . This episode followed up with Gwen Cooper ' s confession in the previous episode that she didn ' t know how to shoot a gun . Seeking to fix this , Captain Jack taught his newest operative how to use guns efficiently and trained Gwen into a fine shot . Her new skills would become vital to survive within the Torchwood organisation . Synopsis . When Gwen retrieves an alien object from a fleeing man in a hoodie , she ' s haunted by a vision of a lonely young boy . As the team tracks down the object ' s owner , Owen experiences an even more terrifying vision and a long - buried crime resurfaces . Plot . Gwen and Owen are running down a city street one evening , chasing a signal that Tosh is tracking . Tosh doesn ' t have a visual yet . Jack is on his way , driving the SUV . Tosh finds their quarry on the CCTV feed and calls out to the tracking team that it ' s a man in a hoodie . They chase him through a shopping area , until he ducks under a closing exit barrier at the High Street Arcade . Only Gwen has kept close enough to make it through ; Owen and Jack have to pause until the mechanism can be reversed . She chases the man in the hoodie over the gate into the train station and through some travellers until she tackles him . The runner squirms away , leaving Gwen with his jacket . Gwen is angry that she lost him , but Tosh says the signal is still right there . Gwen finds a device in the jacket . It ' s beeping , and lights on it are flashing , as she lifts it up in both hands she presses a button . The world around Gwen blurs and the other people disappear . She ' s in the same station , still night or evening . A little boy , in short pants , coat , and tie , with a little grey hat , walks out of the booking hall , with a suitcase , two brown paper packages on string , a teddy bear , and a tag pinned to his lapel that says he is Tom Erasmus Flanagan . Gwen tries to talk to him . He doesn ' t really answer , but says he ' s lost and no one there knows who he is . Tom walks back towards the booking hall . Gwen fades back as Jack comes up with Owen , apologising for missing the gate . He asks Gwen if she ' s alright . Gwen says she ' s just seen a ghost . Back at the Hub , Tosh goes over the CCTV , which shows that Gwen didn ' t go anywhere after pressing the button . Gwen protests that the encounter felt very real , to the point where she could actually feel the little boy ' s emotions . Owen suggests both hallucination s and dementia , causing Gwen to shout at him . Jack examines the device while Tosh tries to backtrack the hoodie guy with the CCTV and the little boy from the vision . Owen says not to bother , he ' s found Thomas Erasmus Flanagan on 74 Bryaeron Terrace , Butetown . . . in the phone book . " DI Cooper " ( Gwen ) and " DS Harper " ( Owen ) pay a visit to the address . A blonde woman answers , and she turns out to be Tom ' s daughter , Eleri . Tom is watching TV . When Gwen says she needs to ask about an incident the previous evening , Eleri says they were watching the " Strictly Come Dancing " finale . Owen and Eleri go to make tea while Gwen speaks to Tom . Tom never lost his accent , despite his 66 years in Wales . He says he was evacuated with the other children from the East End in 1941 , when he was 8 , and was sent to Cardiff as a way station on his way to the country . His mother and big sister sent him off from Paddington station and he never saw them again . There was a mixup and he had been left at the Cardiff station all alone . It felt like the end of the world as he wandered around , totally lost and forgotten , looking for someone to look out for him . Eventually they realised he ' d been forgotten . He was taken in by a nice family , and since he had no family left in London , he never returned after the war . Gwen tries out theories on Owen as they walk away , but is interrupted by a call from Rhys . He ' s doing the laundry , and wants to know if she ' s coming home tonight . She isn ' t sure , and he is angry . He feels that even if she needs to keep secrets for her job , she should know whether or not she ' ll be home . He says he ' s going out tonight and hangs up on her . Back at the Hub , Jack and Tosh have found Sean Harris , also known as Bernie , a known petty thief . They ' ve also analysed the device , which is a nanotechnological instrument of such complexity that it makes the work of NASA look like Toys Я Us . Gwen notices that the machine isn ' t currently beeping and lighting up . Ianto shows up with snacks and coffee . All except Ianto go to Splott , which is listed as Bernie ' s neighbourhood , to look for him . They strike out rather impressively , as they discover that Bernie has managed to annoy pretty much every person who knew him , right down to his own mother , who won ' t let him back in her house until he pays her the 50 quid he owes her . Gwen , Tosh , and Owen have just given up when Jack walks up and keeps on walking . They follow him and ask where he ' s going . He says they ' re going to the railway station to experiment with the same conditions that were there during Gwen ' s experience . They all stop under the bridge to argue about how dangerous it is . Jack tosses the device to Owen and taunts them about giving up on the search for Bernie . As Owen lifts up the machine , it starts beeping and he calls for the rest to come back . The world blurs for Owen and suddenly it goes from sunny afternoon to rain y night under the bridge . A girl stumbles down the wall . She ' s in a pretty pink coat , a nice dress , and a 1960s hairstyle , but she is sobbing . She ' s Lizzie Lewis , and she ' s running away from a boy called Eddie Morgan ; she has realised the other girls were right , she shouldn ' t have gone outside with him . Eddie comes up behind her , asking if he ' s a bad boy . He flatters her and she stops running . He kisses her but the kiss turns hard and she starts to fight away . He slaps her as she cries , then he grabs her hair and pulls a blade . As she pleads , he drags her over towards the wall . . . Owen blurs back to the rest of the team . He ' s frantic , knowing she was so scared , but he could not move and couldn ' t help her . He pants and starts to cry as Gwen takes the device . Back in the Hub , Jack tells Tosh it was 40 - 45 years ago , and she finds that the only child of Mabel Ann Lewis of Hatford Street died March 29th , 1963 . She had been raped and murdered on Penfro Street under the bridge at age 17 . No one had ever been brought to trial . As Owen asks Tosh to look for Eddie Morgan , Jack notices that the scan of the device shows a quantum transducer . This is a device for converting energy from one form to another . This particular transducer seems to amplify the energy of human emotion into ghosts . Jack says , " When you feel déjà vu , something behind you in an empty room , there was , there always is . " Owen pushes for more information about Lizzie ' s death and Jack realises that Owen wants the case reopened . He emphatically states that , no matter how it felt , Owen was not there , he was not a witness , and they can ' t take it to court . Tomorrow , they ' ll do their job — which is to find the origin and uses of the alien device and secure it . He sends Owen home and stalks off after ordering , " Gwen , with me . " Gwen finds Jack in an area of the base which has been set up as a shooting range . He starts with the basics , then stands back to watch her . After a somewhat rocky start , the roof is safe and she ' s hitting targets with a gun in each hand . As they finish up , Gwen checks her watch and says she ' s got to go . She jokes that Jack lives there , in the process finding out that Jack does actually live there . He doesn ' t have a place to sleep because he doesn ' t sleep . When Gwen asks if it gets lonely at night , he doesn ' t answer . Gwen goes home , finding that Rhys has gone out to Daf ' s to play poker . She ' s brought the device home and uses it to see happy scenes , such as her flirting with Rhys in the kitchen when they celebrated her new job as a police constable . Rhys comes back , and they make up . As she kisses him , she hides the device back in her purse . Owen is home drinking liquor from the bottle . He ' s taken the reports on Lizzie ' s murder from Torchwood . With some effort , he finds Eddie ' s current address on Prysse Ave . He goes to the address , selecting a false ID from the Gas Supply Services . He talks his way into Eddie ' s home , even though Eddie doesn ' t have any gas service . Owen sits down with him and talks to him , saying he knows about the bridge . Owen describes the entire scene of the murder while Morgan visibly gets tense . Morgan chases him out , saying he ' ll get nothing from him . As Owen returns to his car , he spots Bernie smoking , and chases him . People in the neighbourhood dislike Bernie , and the bystanders help Owen keep track of him . Finally , Owen corners Bernie in a fenced backyard . Bernie asks Owen not to hurt him . Owen replies , " I ' m not gonna hurt you . . . I ' m gonna bloody " kill " you . " They go to a pub to wait for the rest of the field team . Bernie is babbling when Jack puts down the device and says , " It ' s worth knowing we ' re probably about the only people you can tell . " Bernie stole the device from a storage unit . It was with a bunch of strange coins and rocks in a tin . After he ' d taken the device , it started going off near the old wharf . He saw a woman dumping her dead baby in the water , and realised he knew the woman . He went and told her what he saw and she gave him money to keep quiet . Jack realises that Bernie doesn ' t know anything more about the device and they begin to leave . He yells after them that he ' s got rights , but they don ' t stop until he asks if they want the other half . They go to Bernie ' s flat on Evelyn St to collect the other half and the alien coins and rocks . Tosh finds that they fit together like LEGO . Bernie is dismayed that they ' re going to confiscate everything . Gwen trails behind the others and Bernie tells her that he never used the second half again , as it showed him he was going to die bleeding in the street outside . Gwen hurries down and calls out to Jack , but the machine starts beeping . Without stopping to think , Gwen holds it in both hands as Jack bolts toward her , yelling . The world ripples around Gwen and she sees herself standing with her hands covered in blood , holding a knife . In the vision , Gwen is asking for help . She couldn ' t stop it and he ' s dead . Owen had the knife . Gwen stands there in shock as the vision ends . Back in the Hub , Jack tries to ease Gwen ' s fears , telling her it ' s only a possible future . Gwen wants more assurance , demanding to know if any of that alien stuff they collect is ever of any use . Tosh and Owen are out for a drink . She tells him she found Eddie . Owen tells her what he did and asks what she found out ; Tosh found that Eddie had major issues with mental instability and hasn ' t left his house in years because of his agoraphobia . They realise that Bernie must have tried to blackmail Eddie . Meanwhile , Eddie calls Bernie . Gwen shows up at Bernie ' s to let him know what Jack said about possible futures . Jack calls Gwen to let her know that Eddie had been frightened by Owen , and they ' re on their way . Tosh sees Eddie on the CCTV , coming up Evelyn Street . Bernie runs for it and Gwen follows . Eddie confronts Bernie with a knife and a paranoid rant . Gwen tries to calm him , but Eddie gets angrier , as he blames women for making him bad . Jack and Owen jump him , then Owen gets the knife and threatens Eddie with it . He realises what he ' s doing and gives the knife to Gwen , who is relieved . As Eddie goes to hug her for saving his life , he walks right into the outstretched knife in her hand . He drops to the ground , bleeding . Owen begins CPR , but realises quickly that it ' s futile and stops . Gwen is staring in shock , blood on her hands , the picture from her earlier vision . Back at the Hub , they debrief . Owen is glad that he decided not to kill Eddie . Gwen is shocked and guilty , and Tosh and Jack try to comfort her with the thought that it could have been anybody . Jack gives Ianto the device for the secure archives , then takes the silently crying Gwen to the bay to watch the sun rise .