The Mentalist

Thursday 11th June 9.00pm

Continuing this week is the hit US drama series following the work of CBI consultant Patrick Jane. In this instalment, Jane and the team enter the murky world of black magic while investigating the murder of a teenage boy. Initial suspects include the lad’s football coach and a local witch, but Jane thinks the killer may be closer to home.

The agents are called to a small Californian town where a 16-year-old boy called Cody Elkins has disappeared. After assessing the scene, Jane leads the team to a nearby forest where several crows are circling overhead. “I have a pretty good idea where Cody Elkins is,” he says. Sure enough, the boy is lying dead at the foot of a tree. Surrounding the body are a number of strange items, including a six-pointed star, leading Jane to suspect some kind of ritual sacrifice has taken place. “There’s no such thing as black magic,” says a doubtful Lisbon. “Somebody disagrees,” retorts Jane.

When Cody’s parents, Michael and Janice, learn the details of their son’s murder, they immediately suspect Tamzin Dove, a local ‘witch’ who recently accused Cody of killing her cat. The agents pay Dove a visit and find her unmoved by the news of the boy’s death. “Cody deserved to die – he was a bad person,” she says. “He stole, tortured and killed my cat.” The woman even admits to placing a ‘killing spell’ on the boy shortly before he died. “I’ve done the spell several times before, but this is the first time it’s worked,” she says. However, Dove insists that she had no further hand in the crime and suggests that the killer placed strange objects at the scene to lead the police to her.

Another suspect comes to the fore when it emerges that Cody had a physical fight with his football coach the day before he disappeared. Coach Dieter is brought in for questioning and admits he fought with Cody, but claims that the boy attacked him during an argument. “People don’t know – the kid is a freaking nut bag!” he says. The theory that Cody was violent is supported when the agents learn that he recently hospitalised a schoolmate during a scrap.

Rigsby and Van Pelt stake out the Elkins house and spot Cody’s younger brother, Brad, leaving in the middle of the night. They follow the boy to Tamzin Dove’s house and witness him enter the property. On Jane’s advice, the agents wait ten minutes before bursting in, only to find Dove performing a bizarre cleansing ritual on Brad. However, far from being relieved by the interruption, Brad is annoyed. It emerges that he and Dove have been friends for a while. “I feel safe there,” Brad says of Dove’s home.

Upon learning that Cody was fiercely – and often violently – opposed to his brother’s friendship with the witch, Rigsby theorises that Brad may be the killer. “You think maybe Brad had enough?” asks Lisbon. “Everybody has a limit,” replies Rigsby. However, Brad denies the accusation.

With no hard evidence to arrest any of their suspects, the agents hand Brad over to his parents – but Jane has an idea. Before the Elkins leave the station, Jane tells them that they intend to use Tamzin Dove’s black magic to locate the instrument used to kill Cody. “We’re having her put a spell of revelation on the murder weapon,” he says. Could the wayward consultant have hit upon an ingenious plan to draw the real killer out of hiding? Or has Jane taken his mind games one step too far? “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” asks a frustrated Lisbon. “How about I show you,” he replies, mysteriously.

Thursday 4th June 9.00pm

Continuing this week is the hit US drama series following the work of CBI consultant Patrick Jane. In this instalment, a convicted murderer convinces Jane to reopen his case and prove him innocent in exchange for information on Red John. Ordered to stay away by Minelli, Jane quits the CBI in single-minded pursuit of his goal. But is the consultant being conned?

A year after he was convicted of killing a young woman, a prisoner called Jared Renfrew contacts Jane offering information on notorious serial killer Red John. Unable to resist the temptation to find the man who killed his wife and child, Jane visits Renfrew in jail to hear his story. The convict claims that he did not kill the girl and will provide “dynamite information” if Jane helps him prove his innocence. “You get me out of here and I’ll give you Red John,” he says. To support his claims, he reveals information about the murder of Jane’s wife that was never released by police.

Despite warnings from Minelli to leave the case alone, Jane visits the mansion of the wealthy Renfrew family to poke around. However, he is forced to leave the property when Jared’s powerful brother, Gardner, calls the police.

Back at HQ, Minelli has found out about Jane’s actions and is furious. “If you pursue this any further, I’m going to have to throw you out of the CBI,” he spits. “I don’t want to have to do that.” But Jane is undeterred. “I’ll spare you the trouble,” he says, handing Minelli his badge. “I quit.” Faced with suspension for supporting Jane, Lisbon and the other agents stand firm and are eventually given a week’s grace to carry out a sub-rosa investigation of the Renfrew case with Jane.

While carrying out some research on the police computer network, Van Pelt receives an instant message reading ‘keep up the good work’ from a user in New Hampshire with the tag Dr Joe, NH. To everyone’s horror, Jane reorganises the letters on screen to form the name Red John, but the agents are unable to trace the message. “He somehow tapped into the secure network,” says Van Pelt. “He’s been spying on us!” “He wants us to succeed – he wants Renfrew out of jail,” concludes Jane. “That way he can get at him to silence him,” adds Rigsby.

Now convinced that Jared really does have information on Red John, Jane and Lisbon redouble their efforts to cast doubt on his conviction. Before long, they have discovered that one of the witnesses in Jared’s trial was paid to lie. Moreover, Jane is able to discredit some of the physical evidence used to send Jared to prison.

In light of these developments, Jared’s conviction is overturned and he is released from jail. A jubilant Jane picks him up with the other agents and drives him back to HQ. However, while the car is caught in traffic, Jared escapes and flees into the crowded streets. Jane and Rigsby give chase, but they lose sight of their man.

With the one man who can reveal Red John’s true identity now missing, Jane may never find his wife’s killer. But the consultant is given hope when Jared calls the station to apologise for reneging on his end of the deal. “It was dishonourable, I know, but crossing Red John just seems too dangerous,” says Jared. “You’ve already crossed him – you need our protection,” retorts Jane, but Jared hangs up. The call is traced to Tijuana, Mexico. “This isn’t over,” says Lisbon. “We’re gonna find Renfrew and he’s gonna tell us what he knows.” Can the agents get to Jared before Red John finds him and silences him forever?

Thursday 28th May 9.00pm

Continuing this week is the hit US drama series following the work of CBI consultant Patrick Jane. In this instalment, Jane convinces Lisbon to take on a case as a favour to an old associate who stands accused of murder. The consultant initially thinks that animal activists are to blame for the crime, but begins to doubt his instincts when a complex web of deceit unravels.

When Jane receives a call from an old friend called Sophie Miller, he immediately requests that the CBI take on a new case. Miller, it emerges, is the prime suspect in the murder of an eminent neuroscientist at a Californian university, but Jane believes her innocent. Also a neuroscientist at the university, Miller was once married to the victim, Alex Nelson, and has had a number of confrontations with him since their divorce. She also had access to the cyanide with which Nelson was killed. “What if we take this case and it turns out she’s guilty?” asks a concerned Lisbon. “She didn’t do it,” replies Jane. “She told me she didn’t – she wouldn’t lie to me.”

Soon after the CBI take on Miller’s case, the suspect is put in the clear thanks to a number of posters that appear around the university campus. The posters claim responsibility for Nelson’s murder on behalf of an animal-rights organisation known as the Animal Equality League (AEL). The AEL extremists also threaten the life of Nelson’s colleague, Lewis Stutzer. Upon learning that his agents have ended up with an animal-rights case, CBI boss Virgil Minelli is furious. “You’d better close this crap quick,” he tells Lisbon.

The agents visit Professor Stutzer at his lab and quiz him about the nature of his work. Stutzer, Nelson and Miller had been collaborating on a pioneering project to identify and manipulate the area of the brain responsible for morality. In experiments with chimps, the scientists claim to have suppressed violence by stimulating the ‘anterior cingulate gyrus’ with electrical currents. “We are plumbing the depths of the human soul,” says the professor. Stutzer also explains that he and his team were often threatened by animal activists.

However, the investigation changes direction when the agents learn that the AEL consists of just one loner. The unhinged man is brought in for questioning and confesses to the murder, but is unable to offer details of the crime and is quickly discounted. Instead, Jane and Lisbon visit Nelson’s widow, Emily. Jane is convinced that this meek woman did not kill her husband, but surmises that Nelson was a control freak who made all of his women dye their hair blonde. “She couldn’t kill anyone unless they told her to in a firm voice,” says Jane. “Let’s go see Stutzer’s assistant.” While at the university, Jane noticed that Stutzer’s assistant, Kerry Sheenan, also had dyed blonde hair and wonders if she might have been having an affair with Nelson.

Upon arrival at Sheenan’s apartment, the agents find the woman slumped in a chair, dead. Near the body lies a bottle of cyanide, shredded photographs of Sheenan and Nelson together and a note bearing the words ‘forgive me’. Satisfied that Sheenan killed her lover then herself in a jealous rage, the university chancellor considers the case closed, but Lisbon is not so sure. Suspecting that the ‘suicide’ was staged, Lisbon refuses to discount Sophie Miller as a suspect. “If she is guilty, she lied to me and I believed it,” says Jane. “She fooled me.”

When Jane heads back to the university and confronts Miller, he makes a startling discovery – Miller has been faking the results of Stutzer’s research. “This building, this institute, this whole multimillion-dollar project is based on a sham – yes or no,” he demands. “Yes, it’s a sham,” replies Miller. “We’ve been falsifying data for almost a year now.” Could Miller have killed Nelson because he was about to reveal the truth? Jane decides that the only way to get to the bottom of the case is by staging an elaborate scam involving Miller, Stutzer and some complex scientific equipment. But is he about to risk his career – and his life – to protect a guilty woman?

Thursday 21st May 9.00pm

Continuing this week is the hit US drama series following the work of CBI consultant Patrick Jane. In this instalment, the agents are on the trail of an arsonist who deliberately killed a man in a rural community. As the investigation progresses, the stakes are raised when Jane realises they are hunting a serial firebug.

The CBI agents report to the scene of a suspected arson, where a farmer, Richard Garcia, has been burned alive inside his garage. Guided by police chief Trey Piller, arson specialist Rigsby gets to work examining the scene. Meanwhile, Jane focuses his attentions on the teary-eyed cop, who admits that the victim was a close friend and ex- army buddy. Before long, Rigsby locates a key piece of evidence amongst the charred remains – the padlocked shed door. “Someone locked Garcia in, lit the place up. Your friend was murdered,” he tells Chief Piller.

Lisbon and Jane attend the wake at the Garcia residence, where they find Chief Piller comforting Richard’s wife, Susan. Jane leaves Lisbon to speak with the grieving widow while he snoops around the family home. In the kitchen, he bumps into Richard’s daughter, Madeline, who seems particularly moody and disagreeable. Her mother puts the girl’s sour disposition down to teenage angst. “She suspects that your lover is responsible for the killing of her father,” Jane shoots back, before accusing Susan of having an affair with Chief Piller. “You never looked him in the eye once,” he says. After some pressing, Susan is powerless to deny the relationship, but refuses to believe Piller could be capable of committing such a vicious attack.

Meanwhile, Van Pelt and Rigsby discover that three years earlier, one David Martin was burned alive in the town. The agents are disturbed to learn that Martin was also in the military with Garcia, Piller, and another local man, Ben Machado. Could the cop also be guilty for Martin’s death?

However, the case against Piller is blown out of the water when the agents receive word that the police chief’s own house has been firebombed. Rigsby rushes to the scene and ventures inside to rescue Piller. Both men escape the blaze, but with Piller ruled out as a suspect, the agents are forced to go back to the drawing board.

Cho decides to re-interview Susan Garcia to find out more about the friendship between her husband and his army buddies. Susan tells Cho the four men had all invested in a five-acre plot of land after returning home from military service. With Machado the only member of the group still standing, Cho and Van Pelt pay him a visit to find out whether there had been some kind of financial grievance over the property.

At Machado’s house, the pair are greeted by gunshots. The obviously frightened suspect surrenders when he realises his visitors are cops, and is taken in for questioning. At the station, Machado protests his innocence, saying he was only defending himself out of fear he would also be targeted by the rampant arsonist. “Why would you be next on someone’s to-burn list?” Cho asks. Suddenly, Jane bursts into the interview room professing to know the motive for the attacks – he and Lisbon discovered a hidden natural spring on the property, which could be worth millions.

Although Jane is convinced they have found their man, there is limited evidence and Machado refuses to admit any involvement in the crimes. A wily Jane is left with no choice but to use dramatic scare tactics on the suspect in order to elicit a confession. But just as Jane seizes the proof he needs, the real arsonist strikes again – and the consequences may be tragic for the CBI.

Also this week, while under the influence of some powerful painkillers, Rigsby admits his true feelings for Van Pelt – but will she welcome his confession?

Thursday 14th May 9.00pm

Continuing this week is the hit US drama series following the work of CBI consultant Patrick Jane. In this instalment, a star witness in a high- profile narcotics case is murdered along with his girlfriend. Despite the detectives’ insistence that the woman was an incidental victim of the crime, Patrick begins to wonder whether she was in fact the killer’s primary target.

The CBI agents arrive at a seedy motel after receiving reports of a double shooting in one of the rooms. The victims are revealed to be Joseph Purcell and Patrice Madigan. When it emerges that Purcell was due to appear in court as a witness in a trial involving notorious drug lord Rick Carass, the killer’s motive appears to be clear. “With Purcell dead, the case against Carass dies too,” remarks Minelli. “He walks.”

Detectives Dale Blakely and Steve Presiado, who have been working on the Carass case, insist that the killings are the work of the drug lord or one of his henchmen. However, Patrick and Lisbon are not convinced. Lisbon argues that, as a dealer himself, Purcell would have had many other enemies capable of executing the crime. Meanwhile, Patrick suggests Purcell was not the killer’s prime target at all, as the murders happened in the short space of time that Patrice was visiting her boyfriend. “You’re making this more difficult than it needs to be,” spits Presiado. “We know who done it.”

In order to flesh out Patrick’s theory, he and Lisbon pay a visit to Patrice’s flat, where they speak with the victim’s roommate, Lacey Wells. She tells the pair that although Patrice did not have a job, she always had a lot of money and on one occasion was able to help Lacey escape a serious drugs charge. “She wasn’t the hooker type, so I just figured she had a rich boyfriend hidden somewhere,” says Lacey. She goes on to describe a man who occasionally visited the house – a lanky, dark-haired character who drove a blue car.

Back at HQ, the agents hit upon the idea that Patrice’s mystery lover was in fact a bent cop. “Detective Presiado is skinny with dark hair,” points out Van Pelt. The computer log reveals that Presiado’s vehicle matches the description given by Lacey. With a positive ID on the detective from Patrice’s roommate, Lisbon hauls Presiado in for questioning. Eventually the cop admits to paying Patrice for sex on a regular basis. But when Lisbon suggests that he shot Purcell in a jealous rage, Presiado is quick to provide an alibi – he was at his partner’s house at the time of the shootings.

To see whether Presiado’s story holds water, Patrick pays a visit to the Blakely residence. He questions Dale’s wife, Catherine, who confirms the alibi and shrugs off the notion that Presiado was mixed up with Patrice. “Why would you be interested in Steve?” she asks. “He’s such a straight arrow.” When Patrick reveals to Catherine that Presiado has already admitted Patrice was his lover, Catherine refuses to believe it. “Knowing Steve, I’m sure he was lying to protect his machismo,” she says. “Or someone else.”

With the case no longer as cut and dried as Patrick originally thought, he is left wondering why the cocky cop would declare his involvement with a murder victim. Patrick and Lisbon are forced to widen their investigation in order to find out whether there is any truth to Catherine’s claims of corruption within her husband’s unit. Is another dirty cop to blame for the crime?

Thursday 7th May 9.00pm

Continuing this week is the hit US drama series following the work of CBI consultant Patrick Jane. This instalment sees Patrick butt heads with a spiritualist who claims to have intimate knowledge of a woman’s murder. While investigating the crime, Patrick also strives to expose the medium as a fraud – but is he letting his personal feelings get in the way of his work?

The agents are called to a backstreet where wealthy heiress Rosemary Tennant has been run over and killed. Two eyewitnesses report that the driver deliberately chased down the pedestrian. Quick to arrive on scene is the victim’s spiritualist, Kristina Frye, who claims to have known about the crime thanks to a warning from Rosemary’s dead husband. Having himself once made a living from pretending to be a psychic, Patrick is immediately suspicious of the woman. “By her own admission, she’s either a channel for departed souls, or she’s involved in the murder,” he tells Lisbon. “You could call Ghost Busters, or we could take this woman downtown.”

At the station, Frye tells the agents that she knew the victim for three years, during which time she saw her on a regular basis to help her contact her late husband. She also reveals that Rosemary has been troubled ever since her loss, allowing herself to be swindled out of cash by several con men and losing touch with her teenage children, Clara and Travis. When faced with Patrick’s blatant incredulity, Frye offers her ‘professional’ opinion for free. “You act assured and arrogant, but inside you are troubled with deep guilt and self-loathing,” she says.

Two suspects emerge in the form of Travis Tennant, Rosemary’s perturbed son who has been missing for a few days, and Jeremy Hale, a photographer who has been living rent-free at Rosemary’s house for some time. During a visit to the house, the agents meet Hale and discover that he has set up a studio in what was once Travis’s bedroom. Patrick decides that Travis ran away after fighting with Hale. “Did you take his room as soon as he left, or did he leave because you took his room?” he asks.

When they finally find Travis, the agents play him and Hale off against one another. “Here’s the truth,” begins Lisbon. “After your dad died your mum gave away a lot of your money. Then she moved Jeremy into the house and made your life miserable.” “You knew where she’d be that night,” adds Cho. Travis admits that he and Hale often fought, but denies killing his mother. “I believe him,” says Patrick.

It then emerges that Rosemary added Kristina Frye to her will shortly before she died, putting the medium firmly in the frame for murder. “Kristina told us that she knew in advance that Rosemary was in danger,” says Van Pelt in Frye’s defence. “Why would she tell us that if she’s guilty?” “How diabolically clever of her,” counters Patrick. “To make us dismiss her as a suspect because she made herself look like one.” However, the argument is interrupted by a call from Frye herself, who claims to have had a vision that the car used to kill Rosemary was dumped in a reservoir.

Sure enough, a search of the local reservoir comes up with a dumped car. The vehicle is in fact Rosemary’s own sedan, to which Travis is known to have had access. “Are you guys gonna arrest Travis Tennant, or do you want us to?” asks a local police detective. “I’m sorry detective, but everything we have right now is circumstantial,” replies Lisbon. Despite evidence mounting against Travis, Jeremy Hale enters the frame once more when a photographic glove is recovered from the boot of the abandoned car – and when the man himself disappears from Rosemary’s house.

However, Patrick seems intent on following his own instincts and heads back to the house alone to talk to Travis and Clara. “I think Kristine Frye is responsible for your mum’s death – I need you to ask her to conduct a séance to contact your mum at the reading of the will. She’s a fraud and I’m going to expose her,” he says. Has Patrick hit upon a scheme to entrap the killer, or is he resorting to unethical tactics in pursuit of a personal vendetta?

Thursday 30th April 9.00pm

Continuing this week is the hit US drama series following the work of Patrick Jane, a CBI consultant who uses his skills of observation to solve serious crimes. In this instalment, a severed hand found on the Nevada-California state border leads the agents into the murky world of high-stakes gambling. To get to the truth, Patrick must play a dangerous game.

The agents are called to the Nevada-California state line where local cops have found a severed hand in the middle of the road. Such dismemberments were once popular with Mafia hit men. GPS results show that the hand is just a few feet into California, meaning it comes under the CBI’s remit. After a quick analysis, Patrick concludes that the victim is a wealthy male in his mid-fifties. “He’s upper management in the hotel or gaming business,” he says.

Sure enough, fingerprints prove that the victim is one Jim Meier, the owner of a big resort and casino in Nevada. Lisbon and the team head to the casino in question and are greeted by head of security Matt Etienne. While Etienne explains to the other agents that the Mafia have had nothing to do with gambling in the area for a number of years, Patrick makes himself comfortable at a card table and begins to win big. Before long, he has made several thousand dollars thanks to his card-counting skills, until Etienne kicks him off the table. As he leaves, however, Patrick has some news about the dealer. “By the way, I hate to be a telltale, but Alexandra’s robbing you blind – she’s cheating,” he says.

The dealer, Alexandra Yee, is brought in for questioning and admits that she had a scam set up to steal money for her mother’s liver operation. Cho accuses Yee of killing Meier when he discovered her racket, but she denies murder. She also claims that Etienne knew nothing of her theft, but Patrick is convinced that the security officer is somehow involved. “Matt Etienne is lying,” he says. The next day, Patrick’s hunch proves well-founded when Meier’s widow, Ann, contacts Lisbon and confesses that she and Etienne had been having an affair for two years. Her daughter Jessica and son-in- law Danny, a professional gambler who worked for Jim, also knew about the affair.

Things begin to look bad for Etienne when the agents turn up at his house with a warrant and discover Jim’s body in a chest freezer in the garage. However, Etienne maintains his innocence. He does admit the affair with Ann, and says that Yee knew about the illicit relationship – hence his silence about her theft from the casino. Etienne claims that he was with Ann in a motel on the night of Jim’s death.

The autopsy report shows that Jim was beaten to death with a blunt instrument, and that something was ripped from his neck post-mortem. Ann confirms that her husband used to wear a lucky $100,000 casino chip on a necklace. Could the motive for this complex murder be something as simple as robbery? Lisbon thinks not, and goes over the casino’s security tapes to look for further clues. On one video that Jim watched shortly before his death, she finds footage showing Jessica going into the room of one of the resort’s guests, a gambler called Cal Trask, dressed like a prostitute. “Jessica, your father watched this video on the night he died – what does that make you think?” she asks. “It makes me think that this video had something to do with his death.”

Meanwhile, Patrick follows a separate line of inquiry and asks Danny to set him up in a high-stakes card game. Once again, Patrick uses his card-counting skills to great effect and begins to win money from the other players, until it is just he and Danny left at the table. However, despite his success at cards, Patrick seems intent on playing a different game and switches the deck while Danny is distracted. Is the wayward consultant out for personal gain, or does he have some other trick up his sleeve?

Thursday 23rd April 9.00pm

Continuing this week is the hit US drama series following the work of Patrick Jane, a CBI consultant who uses his skills of observation to solve serious crimes. This week, a young woman is stabbed to death and dumped in the middle of a forest. The prime suspect is the woman’s best friend, who apparently fled the scene – but Patrick thinks a third party is involved.

The agents are called to the forests of Redwood Point where officers searching for two missing women have found a bloody body by an abandoned car. The local sheriff identifies the victim as Kara Palmer, one of the missing women. “So, where’s Nicole Gilbert?” asks Patrick.

As the CBI agents join the cops and park rangers in a search, the sheriff reveals that Kara was a good girl, while Nicole is something of a wild child. One ranger, Kyle, is convinced he knows what happened. “Some badass townie girl got mad drunk, stabbed her friend to death and ran off into the woods,” he says. “Kara Palmer died from loss of blood. Nicole Gilbert is still missing,” says Teresa, keen to stick to the facts. “Maybe she ran off, maybe she was abducted – don’t assume anything.”

However, things look bad for Nicole when she shows up the next day in a psychotic state, covered in blood and holding a knife. She is taken to hospital and claims to have no memory of the previous night’s events. Patrick pays her a visit and presses her for information, ignoring the doctor’s orders to let her rest. Nicole says that she and Kara were at a party celebrating her engagement to a local man. They left together in Kara’s car, then stopped because Nicole felt sick. All she remembers after that is the sound of rushing water. “She’s telling the truth,” says Patrick. “Something happened – something too horrible for her mind to handle.”

Following up the rushing water lead, Rigsby and a park ranger search all the empty cabins near the river, looking for evidence that Nicole was held captive overnight. Meanwhile, the other agents check out Nicole’s fiancé, Jason. He has a solid alibi for the time of the murder, but is able to provide a video of the party that shows a suspicious-looking man staring at Kara from the bar. The man is identified as Rulon Farnes and brought in for questioning. The sleazy Farnes admits that he often visited Kara and hassled her to go out with him, but denies murder. “If I killed every woman that rejected me, I would have killed a lot of women,” he says.

Farnes has no alibi for the time of Kara’s death, but the agents do not have enough evidence to hold him. They release him, but Lisbon and Rigsby tail him to a bar across town. It is while they are sitting in the car park that Lisbon notices the drone of cars from the nearby highway. “What if Nicole didn’t hear water that night – what if it was the flow of traffic?” she asks. “Then we should have been searching cabins on this side of town,” replies Rigsby. Lisbon calls Kyle and sets about searching all the likely locations near the highway, while Rigsby stays behind to keep an eye on Farnes.

Convinced that Nicole holds the key to the case, Patrick visits her in hospital again and sneaks her out past the guard. He then takes her back down the forest road and urges her to remember more about the night of Kara’s death. Sure enough, she recalls that a man approached her and knocked her to the ground when she was being sick by the roadside. When Kara got out of the car to help, the man stabbed her to death. “Kara died trying to save me!” she says. The man then took Nicole to a cabin where he held her at knifepoint and tried to rape her, but she managed to grab the knife and escape.

Nicole eventually manages to recall a description of the man, which Patrick relays to Lisbon over the phone while she is searching a cabin. Initially, Lisbon thinks that the description is too vague to be of any use, until one particular aspect stands out – the killer is none other than Kyle, the armed man currently standing next to her…

Thursday 16th April 9.00pm

Continuing this week is the hit US drama series following the work of Patrick Jane, an independent consultant with the California Bureau of Investigation who uses his skills of observation to solve serious crimes. This week, the brutal murder of a wealthy businessman leads the agents on a search for $10million-worth of missing diamonds. The key to solving the case lies with the two enigmatic women in the victim’s life – his demure wife and his tough mistress.

The agents are called to the luxury San Francisco residence of Jason Sands after his wife returned home to find the house ransacked and her husband missing. The local cops are already at the scene and suspect kidnapping, since Sands is a well-known political contributor. “He’s still here,” says Patrick to the bemusement of the officers. Sure enough, Patrick finds a hidden door to a safe room where Jason Sands is lying dead in a pool of blood. He has been tortured with pliers and a lit cigar. The agents theorise that the victim bled to death after locking himself in his safe room to escape his attacker.

At the victim’s funeral, Patrick offers Rigsby some seduction advice, before practising his own tips on none other than the dead man’s widow, Jennifer. Before his colleagues can stop him, the controversial consultant has approached Jennifer, clasped her hand tightly and offered her his help. The Sands family lawyer quickly brings in security and has Patrick ejected from the funeral. Back at CBI HQ in Sacramento, bureau director Virgil Minelli is furious. “Jane, you close cases so I tolerate you,” he says. “But there is a line and when you cross it, I’ll throw you to the wolves.”

However, it seems Patrick has succeeded in his bizarre ploy when Jennifer invites him to her home. “What’s on your mind, Mrs Sands?” he asks upon paying the widow a visit. “Why am I here?” Jennifer reveals that she needs Patrick’s help because her late husband was close to bankruptcy at the time of his death. Convinced that her husband kept back some kind of nest egg, the destitute Jennifer wants Patrick to locate the money like he did Jason’s body. “If I know Jason, there’s something left,” she says.

A look into Jason’s financial records shows that his business interests had all but disappeared over the last few years thanks to some bad investments – yet until just a few weeks ago, he had $10million in his personal bank account. “His business has been dead for years – where did he get ten million from?” asks Rigsby. “More importantly, where is it now?” adds Van Pelt. “That’s what his killers wanted to know,” concludes Cho.

The agents get some answers when they learn that the dead man had a mistress – a hard-nosed Armenian woman called Adrianna Jonovic. Under questioning, Adrianna claims that she and Jason were about to run away together with $10million- worth of diamonds. Since he was murdered, she has been looking for the jewels. “You know who killed him?” asks Lisbon. “Sure I know,” replies Adrianna. “Dieter Webb and Carter Lewis.” She explains that Jason had been laundering dirty money for these two crooks until he stole $10million of their cash. They too must have been looking for the missing money.

Well-known to local police for a series of drug offences, Webb and Lewis are promptly arrested and dragged in for questioning. However, while the suspects are in custody, a panicked Jennifer phones Patrick and reports that her daughter, Julie, has been kidnapped. A note left at Jennifer’s house reads, ‘You know what we want’, while a message that later arrives on Jennifer’s cell phone asks if she has what they want. “Say yes and tell them I’ll bring it to them,” says Patrick. “It’s okay – I know where the money is.”

Once again, it seems Patrick has an audacious plan to bring the case to a close, but he is going to need the unwitting assistance of one of the key suspects – Adrianna Jonovic. Does the maverick mentalist know what he is doing, or is he about to put his own life – and that of a little girl – in grave danger?

Thursday 9th April 9.00pm

Continuing this week is the hit US drama series following the work of Patrick Jane, an independent consultant with the California Bureau of Investigation who uses his skills of observation to solve serious crimes. This week, the murder of a teenage girl at a seaside resort leads to a close-knit group of young surfers and a powerful local businessman. To get to the truth, Patrick resorts to some controversial tactics.

The body of 15-year-old Christine Tanner is washed up on a beach in Santa Marta, California. The girl drowned, but her lungs contain fresh water rather than sea water, and she has a blunt-force injury to the back of her head. “So the killer is clever, but not as clever as he thinks he is,” says Patrick. The victim’s father reveals that his daughter was very independent and mature. He also provides the agents with the names of some of Christine’s friends – one of whom, Darlene, is currently in custody for drug offences.

Darlene is brought in for questioning and offered leniency in her own case in exchange for information. The girl reveals that Christine was having an affair with a man many years her senior. While she does not know his name, she can tell the agents that Christine knew the man as ‘Pops’ and that he likes 50s music.

Meanwhile, Kimball comes up with a positive ID for one of Christine’s surfer pals known as Flipper. The man’s real name is Philip Handler and he has served time in prison for assaulting a woman. During questioning, Handler denies murdering Christine, claiming that he last saw her and her friends at a beach party two nights ago. “You’re exactly the kind of man who does terrible things to women, but I don’t think you did this,” says Patrick.

When the coroner’s report concludes that Christine died two nights ago, the agents decide that the beach party is critical to finding the killer. “Somebody there had to have known what happened that night,” says Teresa. She and Patrick head to Christine’s school to talk to her surfer friends Andy, Danny, Win and Hope. The kids admit that they had all been drinking at Devon Point, a construction site behind the beach owned by Danny’s father, Dane Kurtik. The friends claim that they went home at around 10pm, while Chr istine remained behind to meet somebody. Theorising that the person Christine was due to meet was Dane Kurtik, Patrick and Teresa visit him at his construction site. Despite a lack of evidence, Patrick seems sure that Dane is involved – especially when he hears rockabilly music blaring out of the businessman’s car stereo, suggesting he is the mysterious ‘Pops’. “He was raping her all right, I just don’t know whether he killed her as well,” Patrick tells Teresa, clearly trying to provoke a reaction from Dane. “Did you kill her?” he asks the suspect. “Tell me the truth, you filthy old goat.” Dane punches Patrick in the face and is promptly arrested.

Back at HQ, CBI boss Virgil Minelli (Gregory Itzin) puts pressure on Teresa to release the notoriously litigious Dane, pointing out that he was only arrested on “a hunch based on rockabilly”. “But it’s a Jane hunch,” retorts Teresa. “You keep him around for a reason.” Virgil allows the agents to question the suspect until his lawyer arrives. However, it becomes clear that Dane is not about to confess to anything. “Let’s go back to Devon Point,” says Patrick to Teresa. “What for?” she asks. “So I can put the rest of my cunning plan into effect,” he replies.

Patrick’s plan, it emerges, involves taking Danny, Hope, Win and Andy back to the construction site and hypnotising them to bring back memories of the fatal night. The strategy seems to work when Hope suddenly recalls that she saw Dane standing nearby, staring at Christine. But Patrick has another trick up his sleeve. “I never hypnotised you,” he tells the girl. “You pretended to be in a trance to give us a fake story and incriminate an innocent man.” Has Patrick finally hit on the truth, or have his bizarre tactics led him back to square one?