The Whisperer in Darkness Episode 6

## Synopsis

Heawood realises that everything is connected, as his investigation takes him full circle.

## Plot

Matthew Heawood opens the episode with a discussion of his research into Thomas Marston. He has learnt that Mary Marston was Thomas' first cousin once removed, and that both of their family trees can be traced back to Faith Mills, a woman hanged in 1645 after confessing to being a witch. After performing the ritual Thomas suffered a mental breakdown, was sent to live in the U.S. by his parents, and settled in Providence, Rhode Island. While there, he sought psychiatric help from Dr. Jonathan Willett before returning to England and eventually killing himself in 2015. Matt interviews Jonathan in Broadmoor Hospital about Thomas' issues and he reveals that Thomas saw the Mi-Go while performing the ritual, which are servants of a shapeshifting evil that he calls Nyarlathotep.

Kennedy Fisher meanwhile, asks Slide to track Henry Akeley's phone in the hope of finding him, but Slide tells her that the phone has been disconnected from the network for too long and he can't help. He does however give Kennedy the contact details for Charlotte Davenport, a Cambridge-based audio technician he thinks can work out what the background noise was when Henry spoke through the doorbell. Kennedy visits her, plays her the recording, and Charlotte is able to deduce that Henry was speaking from somewhere near both a train station and a church. Kennedy also plays Charlotte the numbers station and she identifies that not only is the child on the numbers station the same child heard at the end of Henry's call, but that the static on both audios is identical. Neither of which she can explain.

Matt invites Dr. Eleanor Peck into *The Mystery Machine* studio to talk about Nyarlathotep. Eleanor explains that Nyarlathotep is supposedly the avatar of Azathoth, an entity that is dreaming the universe into existence. His goal is to trick humanity into opening a portal to Azathoth's Dreamlands and let Azathoth enter our reality, an act that would send the human race into collective insanity. To achieve this, he uses a variety of disguises including Babalon, Lam, and Lucifer. People who believe in his existence believe that the Elder Beings Abdul Alhazred learnt from in the desert were not some advanced pre-human race but Nyarlathotep and his servants in disguise, and that *The Necronomicon* is a manual for summoning Azathoth. Therefore, they attempt to stop any ritual, like the Babalon Working, that might summon Azathoth. Eleanor suspects that Parker, and her employers, are some of those people.

Kennedy returns to Slide and asks him to load the static from the recordings into his computer like code. Slide repeatedly insists that nothing will happen but agrees to do it regardless. When he does the result is what at first seems to be an error message, but on closer inspection reads 'help me.'

After pausing to get some water, Eleanor continues the story of *The Necronomicon*. She tells that after Alhazred's death, which supposedly happened because he had realised his book's true purpose, *The Necronomicon* travels from Damascus and eventually arrives in Dunwich. The witches who receive the book perform a ritual that goes horribly wrong and sinks the town. The book itself is believed to stay in Suffolk and people continue to perform summoning rituals, resulting in 'breaches' that lead to the abundance of folkloric creatures in the area such as The Wild Man of Orford, Black Shuck, and The Green Children of Woolpit. In the 1500s, John Dee obtains *The Necronomicon*, translates it into English, and uses it to make magic popular among the English aristocracy. He sets up a network of covens, centred on Rendlesham Forest, to channel energy for the Babalon Working. However, his plans fall apart when the anti-witchcraft James VI of Scotland becomes the new English monarch. His witch-hunts, despite only burning innocent people, drive the covens underground, and a second group of occultists, who believed in Nyarlathotep, begin a campaign of assassination that disbands them completely. Although the name and membership of this group throughout history is unknown, declassified documents from the Second World War describe a 'Department of Works' leading operations against the Thule Society, and its believed that 'The Department' still exists today. Peck theorises that, if one believed in such things, Henry, Amelia Fenner and their group performed a weaker version of the Babalon Working which summoned something that latched onto Henry, and that this was why they were trying to get into his house. Matt asks her to consider what all this means for the events they are investigating, and Eleanor reluctantly concludes that if Henry was right about another Babalon Working being attempted, and that attempt succeeded, it would bring about the end of the world.

## Cast, Characters, Crew

* Jana Carpenter as Kennedy Fisher
* Barnaby Kay as Matthew Heawood
* Nicola Walker as Dr. Eleanor Peck
* Mark Bazeley as Dr. Jonathan Willett
* David Calder as Henry Akeley
* Ferdinand Kingsley as 'Slide'
* Phoebe Frances Brown as Charlotte Davenport
* Edie Simpson as Child's voice

## Notes and Trivia

* This episode reuses a plot point from "The Listener" wherein a character's location is determined by the background of an audio recording that includes the confluence of a train and the ringing of a church bell on the hour.
* Charlotte Davenport mentions her predecessor was a woman who disappeared named Rachel Weir. Rachel is the main character in the 2011 standalone audio drama Bad Memories.