Trial and Retribution - Kill The King
31 January 2008 @ 9-10pm on ITV 1
Jonathan Carlisle, 48, Head of Paediatric Surgery, is found dead in his own home with signs of a heavy blow to his head. Among the many photographs lining the shelves of his luxury home, one grabs the attention of DCI Roisin Connor: Carlisle smiling and laughing alongside DCS Mike Walker. The hard-nosed boss has a secret giving side as Walker had been involved with Carlisle's fund-raising and charity work.
The body was discovered by Neelah Sahjani, Carlisle's girlfriend and an anaesthetist at the same hospital.
When questioned about Carlisle and who would have motive, she mentions a case that Jonathan had been involved with – an 8 year old girl, Amber Webster, who had died in the ICU following surgery. After discovering that a retraining order had been issued against the father, Connor and Satch pay a visit to the parents, Gary and Gemma Webster.
They find two people still bitterly affected by their daughter's death, fighting for justice in what they believe was a case of hospital negligence. Amber suffered from a congenital heart problem, and had been in and out of hospital all of her life. Carlisle performed the routine surgery, everything had gone to plan, complete success. But when complications arose several hours later in intensive care Carlisle did not return, leaving it to his junior Adrian Lawson to take care of.
Connor goes to question Lawson, while he's doing his rounds at hospital – was he anxious about the Amber Webster inquiry, how was his relationship with Neelah Sahjani? He doesn't give much away, his answers are polite but succinct – doctors and police are not comfortable professional bedfellows.
Meanwhile, there's been a development at Carlisle's house. Stuffed down the toilet, SOCOs have found a syringe and empty ampoules of a drug called fentanyl.
The police pathologist, James Patterson, tells Connor fentanyl is a very powerful painkiller and is certainly known to be open to abuse by doctors. Track marks on his body suggest Carlisle had a habit.
However, there was enough in his blood to kill a rhino, so he couldn't have flushed the works after injecting himself – someone else was there. Connor pays another visit to Neelah, and pushes her harder. Carlisle was murdered using a drug that Neelah had access to, putting her right in the frame as far as Connor is concerned.
Walker uses his personal connection to Carlisle by seeing what he information he can from Adrian Lawson and his wife Sally. But the wall of silence that Connor experienced at the hospital seems just as in-tact at home – the story remains the same: Jonathan Carlisle was a brilliant man, loved by all, with seemingly not a care or worry in the world.
Facing a potential murder charge, the truth starts to emerge from Neelah. She says that she found Carlisle dead on the floor, with the syringe sticking out of his arm. She collected the needle and ampoules, wrapped them in tissue and flushed them away. In her attempt to protect her lover's professional reputation, she may have ruined her own career.
Back at the station, Palmer laborious work combing through the CCTV footage from outside Carlisle's house has paid off – on the evening of the murder, Carlisle is seen having an altercation in the street with Gary Webster. As well as placing him at the scene this contradicts their earlier claim that they had both been at home all that evening.
With this new evidence, and the belief that Neelah may be telling the truth, the police switch their focus to the angry, grieving father. On what would have been Amber's 9th birthday, Gary Webster visits his dead daughter at the mortuary, bribing the attendant there to gain access.
When the police arrive at the Webster flat, Gemma sees Connor arriving and slips away. With no response, the police ram open the front door. Inside Gary's bedroom, there's an ominous discovery – an entire wall covered with surveillance photos of Carlisle and everybody in his life, all timed and dated. There are also some photos of Amber at the mortuary.
Connor and Palmer race to the mortuary, but they're too late – Gary Webster has left. The attendant tells Connor that Gary was acting very strangely, in the way he spoke to Amber. It was almost as if she were still alive, and with him in the room.
With Webster's description out on an APB, a call soon comes through that he has been spotted causing a disturbance at the zoo. In his mind, Gary is taking his daughter to her favourite place on her birthday.
Seeing his wife Gemma arriving breaks that reverie, and Gary starts to panic. Almost simultaneously, Connor and the team arrive on the scene, and Gary's panic turns to anger, mistakenly assuming Gemma must have brought them.
A chase ensues throughout the zoo, until the police have Gary cornered on a high walkway. Despite the pleas from Palmer below, Webster can see only one way out from his torment – he jumps to his death, landing directly at the shocked Palmer's feet.
