Curtis Ferabbee is a character appearing in the episode Send in the Clowns of the ITV crime drama Midsomer Murders.
Curtis was the son of William Ferabbee, a World War II soldier & farmer with his wife Mrs. Ferabbee, and the brother of Joe Ferabbee. Growing up as kids, they did not have a very good childhood as their father was very "commanding" and he often beat their mother. One night, when Billy goes "too far," Joe runs away from his home and Curtis goes to follow him as they find themselves in a circus tent near the middle of nowhere, which they are both enchanted by; though Joe, in particular, ran away to join it while Curtis came right back home and dealt with his parental issues all on his own. Upon adult age, Ferabbee became the proprietor of the farm in Swynton County where he would often work way longer than anticipated and mostly stacked hay for a living. At some point, married Freya, who commented that he could be quite protective due to his daddy issues. He also owned the nearby abattoir that was managed by Mostyn Cartwright, who he trusted so much that besides giving him copies of all the farmhouse's keys, often praised him as "the son he never had." However, his father died without completing his last will & testament and as a result, the land that would've been acquired by Curtis was reverted to his brother's favour and as a result, have been in a lifelong feud. Things got far enough where he teamed up with Ashley Denton to evict his brother from the land, made his employee dress like a clown to scare the local community and point blame on Farabbees Circus, and tried to blackmail his own nephew. Though despite his masterminded crusade, Curtis secretly loved the circus as his basement was full of clown memorabilia. He may have also been a staunch promoter of anti-thievery as he had a sticker on the driver side of his car that read "STOP THIEF." Though unbeknownst to him, his employer was charged with multiple counts of armed robbery and was still fighting an addiction to stealing.
On the day that the circus comes back to Swynton, Joe walks to his brother's farm to negotiate on the land deal where he pleads to keep the circus running, though Curtis responds that he should do the right thing and give it up. When Freya arrives home and shares a kiss with her husband, she announces that she's needed for a part-time shift at Denton's Pub & Grill in the afternoon. Curtis offers to drop her off, though she objects and takes the car herself; much to his suspicion. He then orders Mostyn in his clown makeup to cause a scene at the restaurant so he can incite enough fear that drives the community against Denton, despite also working with him, in an emergency meeting held the next day, which he attends with Freya and Mostyn. Sometime after that, Curtis walks up to the property uninvited as Harry tries to keep him out, though he gives him a legal document from his lawyers regarding the overturn of Joe's land claim and instructs him to give it to his father. After Freya consoles Daniella Bellini following the death of her husband, Curtis sends her a text asking where she is, though she ignores to make out with the illusionist Raoul Delgado, whom she is having an affair with. After the real killer is suspected to have used a rifle for the deed, John Barnaby orders a list of every registered rifle owner in the area and once its finished, he finds Mr. Farabbee on it and splits off to interview him. Despite quipping about his brother siccing the DCI on him, Curt confirms that he does own four rifles, each inherited by his father, and states that as much as he hates the circus, he has better things to do with time than killing clowns. When asked to show where he keeps the guns, Ferabbee takes him to his room where he opens the cabinet, only to find three of them there with the fourth slot left completely empty. After mentioning that he remembered seeing it yesterday, Barnaby accidentally brings up Freya's involvement with the circus to Curtis and when asking who could've had access to the cabinet, Curtis directs him to the abattoir as they gave Mostyn copies of each key in the house. For a while, Barnaby assumes he's lying about the whereabouts of his gun and that he may be the alleged arsonist.
While driving past Denton's one day, Curtis observes Freya talking to Harry through the window and waits for her to get home, where she accuses her of cheating on him. She argues that she needed someone to talk to and accuses him of stalking her, though they make up for a bit and Freya tells him that Harry was explaining an idea for an attraction he had that his father rejected. Curtis uses this revelation to his advantage, though before that, he orders Mostyn to send a threatening letter to Denton as he was aware of his leagues with the circus, despite also working with him. The next day, he approaches a moping Harry in the corn field outside the circus as he tells him he might need some investors for his aspirations. His nephew defends that he had too much to drink that day and shouldn't have talked too much, though his uncle insists that his father is not worthy of his approval and blackmails him to convince his Dad to sell the land; which Curtis promises that he will repay by getting his project off the ground. He is successful in getting Harry to tell off Joe and afterwards, he make Mostyn deliver a ransom note to Joe; though it may have been a personal one sent by him to Harry regarding him watching Curt get close to Harry. Later that afternoon, Curtis comes home to find Daniella suspiciously standing close to his hay truck and upon asking what she's doing there, responds she was there to console Freya. Curtis offers to show some support as well, but she awkwardly "walks off" as Farabbee goes back inside. Unbeknownst to him, Bellini was trying to return the rifle that not only went missing from his home, but was the one that she used to kill her husband in honour of Elsa; though almost got caught by him and hid it in the hay. Meanwhile, Curtis challenges Freya's commitment of "never leaving" him by pulling out a flight reference card that he found in her bag; destined for San Francisco. She defends that she needed a break, though Mr. Farabbee doesn't believe her and goes far enough to stop her by confiscating her phone. He also finds out about her affair with Raoul and all the money she embezzled from his personal & financial accounts, which he announces he'll put a stop to so he won't take advantage of him anymore. While that's going on, Daniella sneaks into the house to return the rifle and then runs off to the abattoir where at 16:58 PM, she notices the "Elsa" locket that Mostyn stole from her home and retrieves it. This ends up triggering the alarm and as a consequences, piques Farabbee's attention and goes off to investigate. Upon arriving at the slaughterhouse, he turns off the alarm and makes his way back. Though when hears some noises coming from inside, he ventures further in to see what's all the ruckus and upon hearing some shuffling from the catwalk, he ascends the ladder only to scream for his life as a metal trolley, pushed on accident by Daniella, makes him lose balance and falls into the gas chamber; the machine that he himself approved of. The doors automatically closing, the treadmill drags the wounded Ferabbee into the enclosure where he is gassed, slid down the other side, picked up by a robotic arm, and lifts him onto the overload haulage system where his employee discovers his dead boss among the hanging meatbags the next day.
With the police on the scene, Fleur Perkins examines his corpse and determines that his death was caused by CO2 poisoning that toxified his nervous system and heart upon exposure: a severe exposure that made him unconscious after two or three breaths, and killed him in three minutes. The bruises in the head and shoulder area are first determined to be solely from a long fall, though later autopsies suggest he was killed with blunt force trauma; citing metal slivers in his fingers that Barnaby also received when briefly touching the murder trolley. As a result of his death, the solicitor brokered several of Curtis' properties to his close associates with Freya getting the farmhouse, Mostyn getting the abattoir, and Joe finally being able to keep the circus. Though neither result in the end was worth it as Freya was arrested for polygamy and money laundering, Mostyn was attempted for multiple charges (robbery, domestic terror, attempted arson, black market trade), and besides being arrested for covering up Elsa's death, Joe considered giving up the land to his brother after receiving the note and lamented on never fixing up their relationship.