Inspector George Gently

Keep your hands up, man!

Go on, son! Go on!

Heads...

Get it down you!

Who's next?

Guv.

I'll be back, I'll be back.

For you.

It's not really my thing, John.

I'll have a large Scotch, please, love.

I reckon she's sweet on me.

Thank you.

Is this about Gemma?

Is what about Gemma?

She broke your heart, John,

but you're not going find what you're looking for

at the bottom of a glass.

Hey, look at us. Your misery must be catching.

Cheers.

To love.

To love lost.

Another.

Move out the way.

Ta. You're a life saver.

You married to a policeman, then?

I AM a policeman.

George, a word.

Yes, sir.

Good luck.

I just wanted to see how you're coping with the reorganisation.

Did they find some room for your team in the new office?

Barely, sir. We're living out of boxes.

It'll settle down.

Change is always hard, and if we want progress...

You might call it progress, I call it wasting police time.

There was a time when it would have been you up there.

There's something else, George.

We need a decision about your retirement.

With respect, sir, I'm not going to go a minute before you make me.

All the greats know when to hang up their gloves.

We do need you to set a date for your retirement, George.

I'm sorry.

Sorry, sir... I didn't mean to intrude...

Rachel, this is Assistant Chief Constable Nicholls.

Sir, Detective Sergeant Rachel Coles.

I've heard all about you, Sergeant.

- George. - Sir.

Are you leaving us, sir?

Don't say anything to John just yet.

I want to talk to him myself.

- Detective Chief Inspector? - Yeah?

There's a body been found up on the Tees.

All right. Get John for me.

Right.

...five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten...

- Here you are, John. - Thanks, Gov.

You'll want to mind your nice clothes, officers.

All kinds of crap round here.

You're in charge?

Yeah. Tommy Norton, General Manager.

I'm Detective Chief Inspector Gently.

That is DI Bacchus. DS Coles.

What were the men doing when they found the body?

We used to dump our waste down there,

but a German company wants to buy us

and they're very hot on health and safety,

so we're cleaning it up.

- And this tank was sealed until today, yeah? - Yeah.

We'll need the exact date it was sealed

and, er, get onto missing persons.

Whatever's in there has preserved most of the body

but the fumes coming off it could take out half the mortuary.

We'll have to do the postmortem out here, on site.

- Can we get a look at that watch? - Yeah.

"To A.L with love."

A.L, does that mean anything to you?

Alistair.

Who's Alistair?

Alistair Liddell. He worked here.

He was a friend. A good friend.

When did he go missing?

December '62. Around the Big Freeze.

But he's not missing.

He was murdered by his wife.

Do you remember it?

I do, yeah.

It was one of my first cases I worked on in CID.

Could it be him? Alistair Liddell.

Aye, maybe... it's possible.

Aye, it was a big story up here. Listen to this, right.

Wife killed him at home, whilst the kid was asleep upstairs in bed.

Can you believe that?

She confessed to it,

although she didn't say what she did with the body, of course.

Yeah. Eve, her name was, that's right.

Where is she now?

Ah, she's serving life at Thurston nick.

Rare to get a conviction without a body. Very rare.

Here you are, Alistair Liddell.

He was last seen drinking in the Victoria Arms,

which is up in Ouston Hill. It was a Saturday night in December.

Here you go.

Thank you!

What's this?

Frothy coffee, sir. It's from the machine.

It's Italian.

Yesterday I didn't have a chair --

today all I ask is to have my tea made by a human.

And that's never been Italian.

I'm not supposed to waste my time fetching things, sir.

It's in the new regulations and I'm supposed to be doing...

All right.

Get some biscuits.

So, Alistair disappeared. Didn't turn up for work Monday morning.

Now, his wife didn't report him missing.

She claimed that she hadn't seen him since he left for the pub.

It's not the most flattering of photographs.

But the neighbour said that she heard Alistair and Eve arguing,

at home, after he got back from the pub.

So she was lying about not seeing him.

And then we searched the house and found some, some rags,

some cleaning rags.

Can you move, please?

And they were soaked in blood. His blood type.

The daughter, Marion, she said that she that walked in on her mam,

on the Sunday morning, cleaning the kitchen floor with those rags --

and then we found, out the back of the house, kitchen knife,

still stained with blood.

See.

And?

Well, we couldn't lift any fingerprints clear.

So why did she do it?

Talk was, she was having an affair.

She went to see a solicitor, right, asking about a divorce,

this was a week before the murder,

he sent her packing -- she killed him.

Maybe it's for the money.

The conclusion that he died in the house that night was arrived at how?

Because there was no signs of life after that.

No sightings, no movement on his bank account.

All right.

Come on, then. I'll drive.

I don't know why we're doing this.

The watch isn't conclusive. Any other form of ID?

Adult male, Alistair's height and age.

Dental records are a good match.

I'd say this is our man.

I'll do some X-rays once we get back indoors.

Cause of death?

Two deep stab wounds to the chest.

There are some shallower wounds here, to the hands and arms.

Like he was defending himself?

Reasonable to presume. I would have, wouldn't you?

And could those have been made with, like, a kitchen knife?

Eight-inch blade?

Aye, that would do it.

Right, there you are, case closed, sir.

These records state that the tank was sealed

at the end of December 1962.

Somebody was banking on this body never being found.

Eve Liddell used to work here in the early '50s.

That's how her and Alistair met.

It doesn't add up, though, does it?

Alistair's body would have been a dead weight.

If she killed him at the house, how did she bring him here?

Guv, we got a conviction.

Do you seriously think Eve Liddell did this on her own?

Somebody helped her -- and they've been scot free for eight years.

Aye, see you later.

Mr Norton around?

Aye, he's just on the floor inspecting the plant.

- I can take you to him. - Thank you.

Come this way.

Hi.

Look, our buyers are arriving in two days.

This German deal's a lifeline for us but we've not signed it yet.

Do you know how long all this'll take?

Betty, get these typed up, would you, love?

Certainly.

How many people would have known those tanks were due to be sealed?

Most people on site then. Why?

Could Eve Liddell have known?

She stopped work when they married --

but I suppose somebody could have told her.

There were rumours that she was having an affair.

Perhaps seeing somebody at the plant.

She could have had ten boyfriends down here for all I know.

If a man's shagging another man's wife

he's hardly likely to advertise it.

Is he, Inspector?

You were good friends with Alistair.

You must have known his wife, as well.

Barely. She kept herself apart.

He'd bring her to the Christmas party and she'd stand in the corner

with a face on, never saying a word.

Foreigners for you.

She wasn't born in England?

Nah, she was a Polski.

Came over after the war --

I always thought there was something wrong with her.