Not "Everyone Loves Chloe" in 'The Chelsea Detective' Holiday Special

A Christmas special* for Acorn TV’s The Chelsea Detective? Well, why not? DI Max Arnold (Adrian Scarborough), the genial, sharp-witted detective of the title — short, ginger, dyslexic — is an appealing figure. He’s so law-abiding he makes hand signals from his bike even when no other traffic is visible. Max loves coffee and music, and his ex-wife, Astrid Fischer (Anamaria Marinca), if only they could stop bickering; right now, Max lives apart from her, on a houseboat on the River Thames in the picturesque and wealthy area of Chelsea, in West London, a matter of budget and preference. He is an astute and clever detective; however, it’s coming on Christmas, and Max is aboard his boat on a video call with Astrid. She is plotting something, reminding him of an important meeting they must both attend, and he’s distracted by a funny, i.e., painful tooth he’s too busy to deal with.

(*This is actually the first episode of Season 3, which will continue in early 2025.) 

Former pop star and darling of the tabloids singer Chloe Carmichael had a big hit — her last before her career went downhill — some years ago with a single, “Nobody Wants To Be Alone At Christmas.” She lives in an apartment in a Chelsea mansion flat, but her career faded away following addiction issues and scandal. Her downstairs neighbor, Virat Sharma (Nitin Ganatra), is busy restoring some antique porcelain and is annoyed by the insistent pop beat from upstairs. Then some water drips onto the table, shorting the lights, and he goes upstairs to see what is causing it. He searches the darkened apartment and finds Chloe dead in the bathtub.

Max rides off on his bike to join the rest of the team and is surprised to find a large crowd of press and fans outside the house. Inside, his team is hard at work; drug paraphernalia and alcohol are in clear sight. Chief Forensics Officer Ashley Wilton (Sophie Stone) suspects that Chloe’s broken fingernails could indicate a sign of a struggle. Chloe’s flatmate, model Zadie Evans (Poppy Gilbert), isn’t home.

Discussing the case with the team, Max’s close colleague DS Layla Walsh (Vanessa Emme) reports that Chloe was one of the first celebrities to open up about her mental and emotional issues. Chloe had problems with her former manager, Luke Beckett (Nabil Elouahabi), as evidenced by some angry social media posts. DC Connor Pollock (Peter Bankolé) knows DS Sean Kildare (Stephen Wight) from the unit’s cybercrime team and recently advised Chloe on cybercrime attacks. As for the missing flatmate, Zadie, she has a history of drug abuse, and rumor has it she and Chloe were lovers. Sophie reports Chloe had high levels of cocaine and ketamine in her system but died of drowning, and clues on her body and in the apartment show she was forcibly dragged through the flat and held underwater. A sticky note in her pocket reads, “Tuesday A.M.” Zadie’s phone is now disconnected, and her social media accounts are silent. 

Max and Layla’s first call is to Chloe’s mother, Hilary Carmichael (Penny Downie), who is shocked to learn her daughter may have been murdered. She met Zadie only once but doesn’t know where she is. Hilary knew her daughter had a drug problem but believed she had been making an effort recently. Chloe’s father, Richard, had died earlier that year, leaving both women diminished by grief.

Journalist Sylvie Wix (Sian Reese-Williams) calls the station, reporting to DC Jess Lombard (Lucy Phelps) that she has crucial information about Chloe. Connor has talked to Zadie’s modeling agency and discovered that she had been on a shoot in Ibiza for three days and had just returned to spend the holidays with her parents. Sean arrives to assist the team, and after some friendly bickering, he and Jess wait with the others for Max and Layla to return. Sean had helped Chloe with cyber threats in the spring from her manager, who claimed she owed him money. In the summer, someone with the handle True Mirage started a series of random, unpleasant threats that continued for a couple of months. The department failed to identify True Mirage and closed the case in September for financial reasons.

Luke Beckett is busy bullying a wannabe band and is not pleased to receive a visit from Max and Layla. He’d been Chloe’s manager since the early aughts, but about a year ago, she fired him. She was no longer performing or recording. But her Christmas hit was still making money, and he wanted his share, although she intended the profits to go to charity. He has no idea who or what True Mirage is. As for his activities on the night of the murder, he was at the farewell party of a restaurant, Charlie’s of Chelsea, and went straight home to his wife.

When the team meets next, they conjecture that the “A.M.” refers to Mansfield rather than the time. Sylvie Wix comes to the station for an interview with Connor and Jess. She saw Chloe the evening before her death and was ghostwriting her biography. Although she’d never met Zadie, she had always found Chloe adept at separating different components of her life. She suggests they talk to MP Andrew Mansfield, who represents Chelsea Central.

Max and his sore tooth return home to the boat, where he listens to Chloe’s hit song and finds Sylvie has published an article on her. He’s visited by his aunt Olivia Arnold (Frances Barber), who has brought an assortment of painkillers. Like Astrid, she disapproves of his home and is rude about his decorations. Both women think his environmentally correct tree looks like a toilet brush. Max admits he and Astrid are going to marital counseling; the first appointment is coming soon, and his aunt is thrilled. She was also delighted that Astrid suggested he take up internet dating, recommending polyamory as a solution. (It’s always worked for her!)

Layla and Ashley return to the apartment for an interview with Sharma, the downstairs neighbor, who seems to have spent much time listening to Chloe upstairs. He thinks Chloe had someone else visiting the night she died. As they talk, Layla hears a second person in Chloe’s apartment; Zadie, who claims she was at her parents’ house after returning from Ibiza, is hiding in her bedroom and is taken in for questioning. She’d lost her phone and returned to the apartment to look for drugs, pocketing a necklace, which she claims was from Chloe. She’d loved Chloe; everyone loved her. Meanwhile, Jess realizes that True Mirage is an anagram for Marguerite, but that’s not a name in any of Chloe’s contacts.

Connor reports that Chloe attended a fertility clinic and started a course of IVF treatments. He is shocked by the prices (he and his wife are having difficulties starting a family), but someone else footed the bill. Max and Layla head to see MP Andrew Mansfield at his swanky, old-school boys-only club. Mansfield claims he knew Chloe from their charity work last spring; they were to have dinner together the night she died, where he planned to argue her out of proceeding with her autobiography. He also is very concerned that this conversation will remain confidential. After the detectives leave, he calls to report “a problem.” Virat is called in for questioning by Layla and Max. He reveals he had a key to Chloe’s flat but claims it was only used if he heard something suspicious. There had been a “misunderstanding” when she’d returned home and found him there. 

Max and Astrid attend their first counseling session. Max’s tooth still hurts, and he looks appalled as the counselor tells them to hold hands and hope for a positive outcome. She assigns them homework, using her “blank sheet of paper” approach; Max’s horrified expression might (or might not) be because he’s unwisely eaten a piece of hard candy. On his way to the dentist, he sees a car driving away from Chloe’s house and follows. The driver is Chloe’s estranged manager, who meets up with Andrew Mansfield for a brief conversation that doesn’t look friendly. Layla reconnects with Hilary, who had no idea about Chloe’s IVF treatments but had noticed that her daughter was healthier. Once Layla leaves, Hilary calls someone and asks for help. Sean claims he’d never seen Chloe using drugs, but she didn’t seem to be looking after herself. 

Max returns home to find Astrid waiting. She wants to know how he’s doing with the piece of paper exercise, and he admits he’s dissatisfied with their therapist. They should be able to figure things out themselves. Astrid leaves, as usual, annoyed with him, but sends a text suggesting they be friends. After a hearty dose of painkillers, he falls asleep, woken by a call from Connor, who’s forwarding an email from the fertility clinic. To no one’s surprise, Andrew has been paying the bills. All lawyered up, Andrew is called in for questioning, reminding Max and Connor of his political power. However, he’s not the father of Chloe’s baby... he’s Chloe’s father. Andrew had an affair with his secretary, Hilary, who later gave birth to a child named Chloe. Andrew admits he contacted Hilary to get to know his daughter, and they developed a relationship. The autobiography he advised against would have revealed his paternity. However, his alibi is water-tight: he was in a late-night House of Commons session.

Meanwhile, Hilary receives a letter from Sylvie Wix asking if she wants to tell her side of the story. Zadie turns up at Hilary’s house and asks if she can stay for a while, but Hilary calls the police, and Zadie is brought into the police station, where she tells Max and Layla she’d landed at the airport, seen all the news stories about Chloe’s death, and ran off, sleeping rough. But afterward, Zadie and Hilary bond through their love for Chloe and decide they are friends now.

Chloe’s phone has been found with her last call from Luke Beckett, who left the restaurant much earlier than he’d told them. Max remembers there’s a cafe, Marguerite, where Sylvie Wix likes to write. Sylvie is interviewed again, telling Max and Layla she was frustrated with Chloe, who wanted to talk about her charity work, whereas Sylvie and the publishers wanted a sex, drugs, and showbiz story. Sylvie needed the money. Chloe didn’t guess Sylvie was True Mirage, as she’d hoped, but she wouldn’t tell her anything about her relationship with Andrew Mansfield. Max is angered by Sylvie’s callous attitude and deception, making their work even harder.

Max realizes he’s about to miss another dental appointment and cycles off to meet Aunt Olivia, who insists on escorting him after having observed Max’s dentist phobia for years. At the dentist, Max learns the “naughty cousin” of lidocaine is cocaine and, inspired, returns to the office and suggests to Layla that Chloe has developed a resistance to narcotics, using them in secret. Connor and Jess visit Luke Beckett to check out his lies. He claims he went for a walk after leaving the restaurant early and talked to Mansfield, who advised him not to ask Chloe for money. He’s broke, and it’s Chloe’s fault. However, Beckett’s walk has been tracked on CCTV, and he was too far away from Chloe’s flat to have killed her.

It’s about then that Max remembers Sean commented Chloe’d forgotten to turn the heating on, which doesn’t seem quite right, as he worked on Chloe’s cyberbullying case over the summer. Connor and Sean go for a pint together, and Max asks Connor to find out when Sean last visited Chloe’s flat. It was, he says, ages ago, but Sean becomes suspicious, knowing Connor is questioning him, and leaves. Max orders backups to the scene, where Sean is arrested. He’d supplied Chloe with drugs until she turned on him, threatening to report him. He encouraged her to take more drugs that night and engineered her death to save himself.

Max addresses his team as they clear up the paperwork from the case, knowing they were shocked to find one of their own guilty. Sean was never a suspect, but it has shaken their confidence. Max tells them to go home and enjoy Christmas. Layla is going to Dublin, Connor is hosting his in-laws (a mixed blessing, apparently), and Jess plans to retain her family title of Scrabble Queen. And Max? He returns to the boat, where he finds a home invasion in the form of decorations, and Astrid and Olivia knock back some wine. The two women announce they have decided to stay for Christmas.

The Chelsea Detective Season 3 will air on Acorn TV in early 2025. Seasons 1 and 2, as well as the Christmas episode, are streaming now.