Webster (Inside No. 9)

“	Urban: I'm just trying to help you. Webster: And you have! For the past five years, you've been an angel on earth, a beacon of light. Just think: his kind soul would burn far more brightly than mine.	„
	~ Webster shows his true colours.

D. Webster is the main antagonist of the 2021 Inside No. 9 episode "How Do You Plead?". He is an elderly former lawyer who achieved great success in his career by making a deal with Satan himself to acquit a guilty murderer.

He was portrayed by Derek Jacobi, who also voiced Dennis Fulcher in the same series as well as portraying the War Master and the 1996 version of King Claudius.

Biography[]

D. Webster was originally a run-of-the-mill criminal defence lawyer with a struggling career of no note. However, all that changed when he defended a man named Andrew Waite who had strangled two women to death. Everybody was convinced of his guilt, but Webster was able to produce a photo of Waite at a birthday party eighty miles away from the crime scene on the day of the crime and Waite was acquitted. Webster went on to become one of the greatest lawyers in the country for the next forty-five years, becoming known as the "Lion of the Bailey". He would represent many clients (implied to have mostly been guilty) and get all of them acquitted.

By the time of "How Do You Plead?", Webster is long-retired and is now a bedridden and dying old man who constantly demands painkillers from his long-suffering nurse Urban Bedford. The episode begins with Urban arriving in Webster's room at the request of fellow nurse Curt, who informs him that Webster has been requesting a priest to confess to and claiming that Urban is the only one who can help him. Webster also ended his birthday party early by shouting abuse at the guests.

Early in the episode, Webster seems to be a grouchy but truly good old man who has a friendship with Urban. He even demonstrates his legal skills in a roleplaying game where he demonstrates how he would get Urban acquitted of a hypothetical murder and net him five million pounds in a lawsuit. However, Webster eventually requests his old case files due to wishing to look over a case where he did something terrible. Urban reads them and discovers that Webster had gotten Andrew Waite acquitted. Webster admits that the photo he used to clear Waite's name was faked and he obtained it illegally to win the case. He claims that this offence still haunts him, but manages to get Urban to say that he forgives him.

Webster is distressed to learn that midnight is only five minutes away, as he claims that someone is coming for him. He produces a contract and reveals that he made a deal with Satan to help him win the Waite case and give him a successful career. Urban doesn't believe him, but the lights go out at that moment. Satan, revealed to be the building's lift attendant, enters when the clock strikes midnight and demands Webster's soul. Webster begs to renegotiate his contract, and Urban argues in Webster's defence that he is a good man. Webster thanks him for all his help; after all, a kind soul will burn in Hell far better than a wicked man like him. Webster asks Satan to amend his contract so that Urban, a man so kind and pure that he forgave Webster for his past crimes, will be damned in his place while he goes on living for a few more years free of pain. Satan agrees.

As Urban is forced into the elevator to be taken to Hell, Webster taunts him that "the Devil has the best tunes". But just before all hope is lost, Urban reveals that he killed a classmate of his during a bullying incident as a child, which even Satan had been unaware of. This invalidates the new contract as Urban's soul is no longer worth anything. Webster is forced to take Urban's place in the elevator and reveals his cowardice by pathetically begging for mercy, but Satan ignores him before pulling a lever that sends the elevator, and Webster, plummeting into the deepest pit of Hell.

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