City Homicide

Previously on City Homicide...

Physical evidence doesn't tell us what's going on up here, does it?

I got the green light. I'm back.

You'd better be leaving that weapon of yours in its holster

unless you've got a damn good reason to take it out.

What's this... about, Sergeant?

Your ID maybe?

The one I found in the back of my wife's car.

Her name's Natalie Pierce.

That's her husband up there. He reckons she jumped.

Any idea why she? Every bloody idea.

We had a fire and we lost both our kids.

Did you kill your wife, Mr Pierce?

The man's children were killed in a fire.

His wife has just committed suicide.

Now... Oh, call me old-fashioned, I would have thought that might require

a little bit of sensitivity on our part.

The last call she made was to a Dr Patrick Swain, plastic surgeon.

We both went to sleep. We'd been... we'd been drugged.

This is the guy I saw getting in the lift. What's his story?

He's a cop. Bloody hell.

Don't hurt her. Put the cleaver down!

Pick up Klein. He's just beaten McCready half to death.

Keep your hands where I can see them!

That's him. He kept asking about my wife.

This key opens room 116. It's a very important room.

Seven fires in nine years.

The psychiatrist Sean McCready, his children were the first.

Then Craig and Natalie Pierce's children, they were the last.

Why kill the kids? Why come back and torment the parents?

This isn't a trophy room, it's a crime profile wall.

This is an office. He didn't kill any of these children.

He's trying to work out who did.

"In the hands of giants ever are the children.

"Grateful should be the man who has in his quiver two of them."

Psalms 127.

The cards look the same but they're not.

The number of arrows in each quiver changes

depending on how many children were burnt to death in each fire.

That's what this person does.

Murders the children then sends a wreath to the funeral

to taunt the parents.

And they don't even know they're being taunted.

Did you know that 85% of marriages fail after the death of a child?

I didn't.

Not until I tried tracking some of the parents down.

Most had separated.

Five had committed suicide.

Natalie Pierce was the last one to kill herself.

That was my fault.

I put too much pressure on her.

Four years ago I was having an affair with a woman named Rosemary Smith.

The affair lasted just over a year.

It finished when her children were burnt to death in a house fire.

They were home alone at the time.

They were home alone because their mother was with me.

I didn't work it out until later that that was fire number four.

Rosemary never believed it was an accident.

She said, "You're a copper, you've got to help me.

"And if you don't help me I'll kill myself."

Well, seeing I wasn't getting the sex anymore,

I didn't need the aggravation, did I?

But Rosemary kept pushing,

pushing and pushing.

Making phone calls to me.

They started off just every now and then,

occasional fax.

Then it got to the stage where the phone calls became incessant,

and the faxes, well, I just pulled them out of the machine

and chucked them in the bin.

Why's she in there instead of us? She's not even on our bloody crew.

Shut up, Freeman.

And then one day, Rosemary threatened me.

I said, "I've got to put an end to this."

So I set the meeting and...

...and she never turned up.

Disappeared completely.

Three days after she disappeared, I got a package.

It was from Rosemary, it was like an insurance policy.

I open it up and it was just reams...

Reams and reams of paper.

Notes written on tissue and bits of cardboard.

She'd managed to track down some of the mothers,

found out they were having affairs at the time of their children's death.

Then there was the funeral cards.

When I looked at the cards,

they were the same handwriting and the same ink.

And she was right.

So you decided whoever killed all the kids probably killed Rosemary.

Is that right? Yeah.

I didn't do my job, Stanley.

When she needed me the most I didn't do my job.

DS Klein. He's in public relations, isn't he?

Right now, he's sitting in remand.

A rogue cop running his own case on a child killer.

Great PR.

Media involvement? None, yet.

As far as I know. Good. Let's keep it that way.

Well, that could be tricky, Bill.

The task force is 30 strong.

This is the Commissioner Mulholland.

Yes, I'm on my way.

Lips zipped.

Your responsibility, Bernice.

If the public gets even a sniff

that there's a multiple offender out there killing children,

things are going to get very ugly,

which will make our job that much bloody harder.

We're on this around the clock, all of us.

Is that a problem for you?

No, ma'am.

Good.

I'll see to it that you're as well resourced as I can.

Anything your crews need I'm a phone call away, 24 hours.

I want to bring this one in as fast as we can.

Thank you, ma'am.

Alright, 10 minutes, then we're back in here for task allocation.

Good.

Hey, what's with pinching my crew members?

I thought Jen Mapplethorpe was meant to be on my team.

Well, Larry Klein's got this, ah...

It's a Don Quixote thing happening.

I thought a woman might bring something useful to the mix.

Sounds like bulldust to me, mate.

Next time ask, OK?

Come on, come on, come on, come on.

Hel... Lorraine.

Simon, darling.

So have you found it yet?

Found what?

My ID. What do you think I'm talking about?

Sweetie, I've looked everywhere. It isn't here.

He must have it in his office.

So has he said anything yet?

He's spoken to me.

Lorraine, your husband is going to drop me in the poo with my boss.

Now, he will tell him everything.

Now, my boss is a Christian,

he goes to church every Sunday, for Christ's sake.

Simon, there's nothing I can do. I'm sorry.

You know how it is, babe, no pleasure without pain.

How does he start the fires?

I mean, if they were deliberately lit,

why didn't Arson pick up on it?

Arson wrote up all seven of the fires as household accidents.

Obviously, whoever started the fires knew exactly what they were doing.

Plus, remember it happened over a 9-year period, in different areas.

Until now, there's no reason to think they might be related.

We've already got the files on the McCready and Pierce fires.

The rest are being couriered over from Arson.

We've assigned people to go through the lot from scratch.

So check your task sheets.

This person makes sure that the kids are home alone.

How does he get them to open the door?

I mean, they can't break in, Arson'd pick that up surely.

Hmm, again we don't know.

Do we know if this arsonist even exists?

We just spent three days, you know,

wondering if Klein existed and he did.

Mad as an old coot.

Yeah, well, look, fruit loop or not, what Klein says makes sense.

This woman disappeared because she either saw the man we're looking for

or she found out who he was.

Rosemary Smith. Missing, probably dead.

We're going to be concentrating on finding her ex-husband,

among other things.

Yeah, Smith. Good luck with that one.

Right, you're allocated the job, Joyner.

The rest of you button it, you might learn something.

Ah, we've got a bit to get through here.

Tasks - Freeman and Ryan,

check out the hotel where Dr Swain and Natalie Pierce were drugged.

See what you can dig up.

This was their regular room? Si.

What do you expect? Clues?

All rooms cleaned every day after they're used.

I run a very good hotel.

Yeah, with rooms that you can rent for the afternoon.

What you say?

That I run bordello? Dad!

Take him out.

Come on.

They came here once a fortnight.

Yeah.

Did they eat or drink in their room?

They always had champagne.

Lunch in the restaurant and champagne in here.

That day they checked out much later than usual.

The guy, he says it was because they'd been drugged.

Ah, I don't know.

Carla, I know your father's worried about the hotel,

but I've got a whole bunch of dead kids to worry about.

There was an intruder in the hotel on that day.

I came up to service another room and I saw him come out of here.

The champagne was already here?

Yeah, but... I checked - nothing had been disturbed.

The champagne was still here, it hadn't even been opened.

How could he have drugged it?

Have you ever heard of a hypodermic?

Did you get a look at this guy?