Gabriel (Inside No. 9)

Gabriel is the main antagonist of the Inside No. 9 episode "Misdirection".

He was portrayed by Fionn Whitehead, who also played Stefan Butler in Black Mirror: Bandersnatch.

Biography[]

Gabriel is an aspiring magician and student journalist who manages to arrange an interview with world-famous stage magician Neville Griffin. At the start of the interview he attempts to impress Neville by stealing his ring while shaking his hand, but Neville immediately notices. Neville agrees to show off a tarot card trick which appears to show that Gabriel is seeking to avenge a wrong in his past and predict a death in his future, although Neville insists it's just a trick.

Gabriel offers to show Neville a trick of his own: he gets him to write down a series of numbers on a piece of paper, fold the paper up in his left hand without telling him the numbers and get him a piece of fruit from across the room. He then cuts the fruit in half with a straight razor in order to demonstrate how sharp it is, before slicing his palm open with the razor and bleeding onto a nearby pad of paper, revealing the numbers Neville thought of written in blood. Neville immediately guesses how he did it; he gave him a pen fitted with a tracking chip which relays his hand movements to Gabriel's phone, which he checked during the demonstration, allowing him to write the numbers on the paper with a small wax candle while Neville was away getting fruit. He then swapped out the razor while pretending to put it in his pocket after cutting the fruit with a fake rigged with blood which revealed the numbers written in wax when dripped onto the paper. He explains that Gabriel's big mistake was that he put the real razor back in the wrong pocket, taking it out to demonstrate.

Gabriel explains that his interest in the magic arts comes from his grandfather Willy Wondo, a magician who disappeared nine years ago (Neville murdered him to steal his magic tricks). His will stated that when Gabriel reached a certain age he was to be given his notebook which contained a detailed explanation of all his tricks, but this notebook appears to be missing. Gabriel then asks Neville for an autographed copy of his book, and when Neville goes to get a copy he attempts to open his safe with the combination he wrote down during the number trick. Neville catches him and explains that he worked out Gabriel was subtly trying to psychologically nudge him into writing down the combination and changes the combination to the safe every week. Gabriel tells him he knows he killed his grandfather because the trick that made Neville famous was included on a list of all the tricks he performed that was found among his personal effects, but Neville replies that he has no proof and Gabriel storms out, threatening to come back with a search warrant.

After Gabriel leaves, Neville finds that he left behind a message reading "MOUNTWEAZEL", which he soon discovers refers to a deliberate piece of misinformation included in a work so that a plagiarist will copy it and inadvertently expose themselves. He realizes that Gabriel is implying one of Willy's tricks contains a Mountweazel and burns his stolen notebook, hidden in the safe, to get rid of it.

The next day, a police detective comes to talk to Neville and informs him that his wife and assistant Jennie was murdered the previous night. Her hotel had reported several abusive phone calls to her from someone claiming to be Neville. Neville tries to use CCTV to prove he was at his storage unit all night, but he had deleted the footage to avoid being recorded burning Willy's notebook. The detective then asks to see inside Neville's safe, as an anonymous tip says there's evidence inside. When Neville opens it, he finds a bloodstained straight razor. He realizes that Gabriel had planted a tracking chip in his ring when he stole it during the interview, then left the "Mountweazel" clue so Neville would have to open his safe to destroy evidence, meaning the tracking chip would record his hand movements and give Gabriel the combination, and delete the CCTV footage to cover it up. He then murdered Jennie with the straight razor, which Neville had handled during the interview, before returning to the storage unit, planting the razor in Neville's safe and tipping off the police. Unable to tell the truth about what happened without admitting to his actual crimes, Neville is arrested for the murder.

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