Episode 1

Friday, 9 January 2009, 9:00PM on ITV1

The vastness of the equatorial rain forests – seen from the air. A mighty river curves through it. Paper masks half hide South American faces – brown eyes below thick black hair. Decorated screens are sprayed with layers of lacquer. Cut to: An ambulance pulls up outside a London flat.

Paramedics race inside. A man writhing in pain on the hallway floor. A young woman yelling about getting him to hospital. Ambulance doors slam shut and it races away. The driver’s doing seventy-five, but in the wing-mirror he sees a BMW is gaining, and pulls level. Tinted windows roll down, a gun is aimed at the ambulance driver. The BMW accelerates, swings across. A crunch of metal. The ambulance forced off the road, a 360-degree roll as it tumbles into a ditch. Siren screaming.

Connor and Walker at the scene. The ambulance was heading back to A&E with a mid 20s male. First name Sebastian. An unknown woman was with him. Connor and Walker circle the ambulance. The rear doors are open wide, there lies Sebastian, very dead. There’s no ID on him. But where’s the woman?

At the flat, the front door’s open wide. Satch enters warily. The place is empty. No furniture, no carpets, curtains – nothing. Either someone’s just moving in or just moved out. Satch turning into the gravel drive of a large house. A delivery of furniture — bubble-wrapped chairs, a table, a wooden screen — in the drive. Tanya Buller – mid 50s, very verbal, very loud – signs for the delivery. Satch asks her to confirm she’s the owner of an empty flat and does she know a man named Sebastian? Yes he’s her daughter Imogen’s fiancé.

Connor joins Walker on the edge of the service station area. A shout goes up. They head towards a commotion fifty yards away. A figure (Imogen) – bruised, bloody, unsteady and barefoot – steps out of the darkness. She’s shaking and sobbing, pleading for help. Connor briefs Walker on Imogen Buller-Turi – ‘it girl’ and favourite of the redtops, full-time socialite, hooked up with Sebastian a year ago.

Imogen’s in a private bed. She’s been cleaned up and sedated. She’s badly bruised from the crash, no fractures. Walker can see Connor doesn’t get what they’re dealing with here. Celebrity mother. Tabloid couple – it’s tabloid heaven.

In a North London Turkish café Hikmet catches sight of the TV news in the corner. He yells in Turkish for quiet. The report shows the crime scene. Then it identifies Imogen as the daughter of rich and famous parents. This is obviously news to Hikmet.

Connor and Satch check take a closer look around Seb’s car and flat. An empty blister pack of pills beside its box on the floor in the kitchen.

Meanwhile, Hikmet arrives at the hospital. However, once he sees the two armed officers outside the private room he heads away.

Palmer fills in Connor on Imogen and Sebastian’s recent movements. They made arrangements for their wedding in a few weeks time, then took a holiday together. First a few days in North Cyprus then trekking through Ecuador. Satch discovers a substantial sum of money was transferred from Imogen’s trust fund to a Cyprus bank – £150k. Was the boyfriend financing a drug deal? A drug deal that went wrong and lead to him getting a bullet in his skull. Walker wants to know about the trip to Ecuador. He hears they stayed in a small town just 30 km from the Columbian border. Did Sebastian make any trips on his own or arrange to meet anyone when she wasn’t around? Imogen tries to cover up the truth, but under pressure admits Sebastian did make a trip alone. He said he wanted to camp overnight in jungle he thought was too dangerous for her.

Connor assesses. As an ‘amateur’ he’d need bone fide introductions to an importer before they’d even take his call. Find out the go-between and they’ll get closer to Sebastian’s killer. Then a clip turns up on YouTube: A man (Hikmet) in a baseball cap crosses to the open doors of the ambulance and fires a shot.

Satch has something; Sebastian Cole used to share a flat with a man named Clem Ross – a known middle market cocaine supplier. Connor and Satch arrive at Clem’s address in vain. Staking out the place are drug squad, senior officer is DI McGill.The two teams shift into mutual suspicion mode – neither wants to give away information about their investigation until they have to. Finally, reluctantly, McGill tells they were trying to connect Clem to a middle market dealer with plans to move up the chain and import cocaine. A Turk by the name of Orhan Hikmet who was in Columbia at the time Sebastian Cole was in Ecuador.

Walker and Satch question Imogen about Clem. She tells them yes he was a good friend of Seb’s, this is absurd. He must have the wrong Clem.

Walker sees six items on the delivery note and five in the hall. Walker races up the stairs, bursts into Imogen’s room – she’s gone.

Connor and McGill are visiting a lock-up an informant told them Clem was using. We see sheets of plywood have been removed from inside the decorative screen. Shavings from them are in the process of being boiled down in a large vat. We pull back and see four bodies on the floor. Three are young men. The last one we see is Clem Ross.