When you made a new friend, it is only natural that you want to spend a lot of time with as soon as possible. Barely a few weeks ago, we met Jim Taggart for the first time. Today, we revisit him. At least, we wanted to, but we failed. Because Taggart is not in Taggart any more. Instead, we have to make do with DCI Matthew Burke, who has a much less charming accent. 1 He is investigating the highly suspicious death of a taxi driver cum drugs dealer and his suspicious links to a family of jewellers.
In the scene above, he is visiting the local drug lord’s lawyer who, as an educated person, has a chess board set up in the middle of his table, out of comfortable reach from every chair in the room.
And out of comfortable reach of the camera. I can still more or less make out the white pieces, but the black ones are mostly conjectural, especially on the king’s side.2
Clearly, I must have done something wrong in the reconstruction because there’s no way the white pawn got to f5; it simply doesn’t have anything it could have captured. Or perhaps the lawyer has been playing bughouse. That would explain why he is in the hands of the drug lord: they were probably filmed playing bughouse together and now the lawyer is being blackmailed.
Now, with the inspector staring at him over the undeniable evidence of his deplorable activities, he is of course very nervous. Luckily for him, Burke is no Taggart and his heresy goes unpunished. Or it went unpunished — until I came along.
Realism: 0/5 I must admit that this low, low grade may be my fault instead of the director’s. But, if so, that’s fitting punishment for making Taggart without Taggart.
Probable winner: Black, as the white knights seem to have gone off to save someone on a different board.
1. […and whose very name sounds like a child’s reaction to a full plate of overcooked sprouts.] ↩
2. [This diagram editor, on the other hand, is entirely factual.] ↩