*CREDITS*
Our victim is Professor Alina Barbieri,
Head Botanist at the Tropical House.
Her face is burnt.
I can't see any signs of fire.
Well, she could have been moved.
The body doesn't show any signs of combustion,
so it wasn't a fire.
Be careful.
Step away from that tree.
Sorry.
Didn't take that course in tropical medicine
just for the month in the Maldives.
Right, the deceased is lying under a Hippomane mancinella.
Otherwise known as the Death Apple.
Let's hope we find our wicked stepmother,
get this wrapped up by lunch.
The tree caused the burns to her face.
Well, Patience said it wasn't a fire.
She was quite correct, as usual.
The sap on this tree is so corrosive
that when it mixes with water, it turns to acid.
And that's what's burnt her skin.
But it didn't kill her.
No, she was dead before she was exposed to the tree sap.
So, what did?
Her face is bloated.
Fingertips are cyanosed, and there's vomit near the body,
so she was poisoned.
Half the things in here look like they could kill you.
I mean, maybe it was an accident.
She was a botanist. She knew these plants,
how to handle them.
Why would she have knowingly ingested something poisonous?
Maybe she was forced to.
- The tree. Patience! - Careful!
Oh, sorry!
On the body we found an asthma inhaler,
a staff pass, and a mobile phone.
Anything interesting on the phone?
Yeah, the latest message from someone called "Teo",
it says, "I drowned Paco, hurry to Rufforth."
Oh, that is interesting.
Yeah, no-one called "Paco" has been reported missing.
And no-one's reported any drownings in the last 24 hours.
But we do have a lead on Teo.
He's the brother of the deceased, and he's got a record.
Right, what's Rufforth?
It's a village six miles out of the city centre.
Professor Barbieri had a property there.
Former farm, loads of greenhouses.
And it's where Teo drowned Paco. So, let's head out there.
Wait, sorry.
No, we've not identified the poison that killed the professor,
and I've not had a chance to check the archive, so.
My gut says it's the brother.
And also that there's a great farm shop on the way.
Well, shouldn't we wait for backup?
You know, seeing as the brother's been drowning people?
Oh, come on, DS Hunter.
All that bench pressing. You can take him.
I'll get the car started.
Well, no, no. Sorry.
There's a process, we need to do things in an order.
No. No, you need to do things in an order. I'm fine.
And also if we don't go, then I have to deal
with the mountain of paperwork that you created
destroying the crime scene.
Listen, whatever's happened between you and SOCO boy,
you need to find a way of keeping it professional.
You know, since you've been here,
you've said 55 things to make someone else feel uncomfortable.
What are you...? Bloody hell, you're actually counting.
You do it on purpose.
It's like you don't care about anyone else but yourself.
I care about the job.
You think we're here just to make friends?
I'm just asking you to be professional.
You are not professional.
Don't put your headphones...
Stop calling me Headphones.
I'm not here to look after you.
I am not your mother.
No, my mother's dead.
My name is Patience.
Well, she obviously had a keen sense of irony.
There's someone in there.
Teo Barbieri?
Yeah?
Where's Paco?
Paco?
Just here.
So, this is Paco?
Yep.
He's a mimosa pudica.
He's hypersensitive.
Look.
See?
He's my sister's pride and joy.
She is fascinated by plant neurobiology.
How plants sort of process and use information
that they gather from the wildings.
A lot like we do, honestly.
The, uh, the rose fell off
the watering can and I flooded the pot.
Nearly drowned him. But, you know, I think,
I think I've managed to save him.
Hopefully.
Is everything all right?
Would you like to take a seat?
OK.
When did you last see her?
Not for a couple of days, but...
it's not unusual.
She'd often work late. Nights even.
I should've known something was wrong when she didn't come to check on Paco.
I can't look after all this myself.
I don't know what I'm gonna do.
Is the, uh, brother a suspect?
I'm not getting killer instincts.
He's got no obvious motive.
Is he the sole beneficiary of his sister's estate?
Yes, but Alina gave him everything he needed at the farm.
I mean, why kill her for the inheritance?
What's with the plant?
Not a suspect at this stage, sir, possibly a witness.
Parson's got something for you in the morgue.
Keep me updated on the, um, witness situation.
Yeah, sir.
Have you, uh, spoken to Patience, yeah?
If she wants to sulk, let her.
We don't all express our feelings in the same way.
I find that plant easier to read.
I found half-digested acacia leaves in the professor's stomach.
Right, so that's the cause of death?
It's odd, certainly.
Tannins in acacia leaves are poisonous,
but not enough to cause death.
An acacia tree that senses it's under attack
from an animal makes its leaves taste more bitter,
to defend itself.
So, it does this by increasing its tannin level.
Plant neurobiology.
So, an acacia plant technically could produce tannin
at a strength to cause death.
That's not likely to come under attack
in a tropical greenhouse, is it?
Not by an animal perhaps,
but maybe someone being more deliberate.
Let me know what you find.
You coming?
Can I help you?
I'm... I'm...
I'm looking for Patience.
I'm a friend of hers and Elliot's.
She's not in just now.
Is that for her?
Shall I take it?
Over here.
This is an acacia.
There are cuts.
I mean, they're deep enough to aggravate the tree
and increase its levels of tannin.
What have we got here?
Could they have been created using these?
Could've been.
God, I don't even drink bad coffee,
so I don't know how they got her to chew and swallow bitter leaves.
Could it have been a suicide?
No. I think we need to talk to Teo again.
I didn't mean you to go to any trouble.
Oh, come on, biscuits are never any trouble.
So, how did you say you knew Patience?
Through work.
What is it you do there?
I'm a cleaner.
Is she gonna be much longer?
Shall we finish the pot
and then you can tell me why you're lying to me?
I'm gonna go this way.
- Any sign of him? - No, nothing.
I'm gonna put a call out.
All right.
Jake.
That's a lot of weed.
Yep.
Hello, Teo.
I'm assuming you've got a licence for these?
Hello.
Come on, mate.
- Come with me, sir. - All right.
Looks like your instinct to go after him was spot-on.
Where's Patience?
You can't tell her this now.
I've waited a long time.
Another few weeks won't hurt.
It's not your decision.
Yeah, but I know her, and clearly, you don't.
She's in a particularly vulnerable place now.
Please...
Please, let me tell her.
Just let me find the right moment.
No.
I knew the brother was hiding something.
Well, the pattern of his previous offences
doesn't statistically really lead to murder.
I know.
What's this?
I don't know.
It's not cannabis.
And the professor was obviously researching it,
I was gonna try and make sense of those notes, but...
Yeah, I'm just trying to work out what it is.
OK.
Well, there's more of them growing over there.
I'm going cos you're making me uncomfortable.
You all right?
Do I make you feel uncomfortable?
- What, like right now? - Yeah.
You know, maybe you should try and apologise to her.
I think we should bag one of those lot.
Uh, I found a...
harassment claim that Professor Barbieri filed.
Thank you.
I actually came down here to see if you're OK.
Yeah, well, I...
I think the plant that I fell into caused some skin irritations,
but it's clearing up now.
And I saw Elliot with someone else.
Well, maybe you should move on too.
Meet some new people.
Yeah. I mean, how would I do that?
It's not gonna happen down here, is it?
No. I want to keep it separate from work.
I'm trying out speed dating, if you're interested.
What's speed dating?
All right, Gen Z.
It's where you meet lots of people for a few minutes at a time
and ask them questions, see if you're compatible.
That's actually a...
really efficient way of accumulating a lot of useful data.
That's a way of looking at it, yeah.
All right.
They were a gift from Alina.
She used to borrow them sometimes.
You know what this looks like, Teo.
That you killed Alina
to stop her from telling anyone about your cannabis lab.
Of course not.
No, the farm was Alina's idea.
OK, so what happened?
Bad deal? Stepped on someone else's patch?
No, we didn't just deal to anyone like that.
Yeah, I mean, your criminal record...
- OK. - ..shoplifting, antisocial behaviour.
It's a big jump to drugs baron...
I'm not a drugs baron.
let alone a murderer.
No, you...
You've got this all wrong.
There is a distinct possibility.
So...
put me right.
I had a breakdown.
I lived on the streets.
Alina took me in,
and we started the farm to sell weed to people
with chronic pain. That's it.
You're looking at five years, Teo.
What did Alina get out of this?
The money.
Every penny that we made went back into her research.
And was this part of her research?
- Yeah. - What is it?
I don't know.
I don't.
She wouldn't tell me.
She said the less I knew, the less danger I would be in.
What was Professor Barbieri researching?
Why did she think it put her in danger?
Who did you think she was in danger from?
Uh, Professor Barbieri worked for a pharmaceutical company
called Brovexum up until 18 months ago when she left abruptly.
What was a botanist doing working for a pharmaceuticals company?
I mean, historically plants have been a significant source
of medicinal compounds.
Yeah. Patience found something in the archive.
Um, when Professor Barbieri left,
Brovexum filed an accusation of patent theft.
Yeah, and then a few months ago,
she made a claim of harassment against Brovexum.
She said they sent her intimidating emails and letters,
and then her home was broken into.
Nothing was taken, but her papers were disturbed.
What happened to the complaint?
Well, the file's full of lawyers' letters.
It looks like Brovexum came down on it like a tonne of bricks.
They sue first, ask questions later.
Will, you're across the professor's emails,
can you pull up anything from Brovexum
or anyone associated with them?
Ma'am.
So, what else were Brovexum up to?
Any patents in the archives?
I've not... not checked, I've been distracted.
We need something concrete on Brovexum
before we go anywhere near them.
Anyone else the professor was specifically worried about?
Any names in the files?
Well, the letters are from a Marissa Wilson.
She's a lawyer that we've dealt with in the past.
Looks like she's gone corporate.
She's their head of compliance.
Alina was risking everything on whatever she was working on.
I'm gonna talk to Marissa Wilson.
I want it noted that I'm cooperating voluntarily.
- Noted. - Please.
What was Professor Barbieri working on when she was here?
I can't discuss our research programmes with you,
they're confidential.
Why did she leave?
And I'm not at liberty to discuss employee HR records.
I have to say, Ms Wilson, this doesn't feel very cooperative.
Don't pursue this.
My legal team would bankrupt your entire department in a week.
What was the patent you accused Professor Barbieri of stealing?
Even if I had the time to explain it to you,
I very much doubt you'd understand it.
Right. OK.
A patent, uh, protects a product or a process.
Right so far?
Alina wasn't selling a product.
So, you accused her of stealing a process or an idea.
It's not that complicated.
Why would you break in
and ransack her home looking for an idea?
I've done a lot of work in Manchester.
I think you know Chief Superintendent Banks.
You two used to work together, didn't you?
Thank you for your cooperation.
Anything interesting turn up? Hey.
We've got the mystery plant ID, artemisia annua.
It's used in Chinese medicine against fevers
and a key component in the anti-malaria drug
that Brovexum brought to the market.
So, Brovexum has been accused of intimidation
and harassment 18 times in the past two years.
A group of patients are taking legal action,
and several have made complaints.
What's the legal action about?
Side-effects of a drug.
What's the drug?
It's an anti-malaria drug. The key component is...
Artemisia annua.
Yeah.
It's the plant that the professor was researching in the lab.
Alina must have been working
on the malaria drug before she left Brovexum.
Well, so she knew about the side-effects,
and her research, her notes,
it was the pattern she was looking for.
Yeah. Maybe she found evidence.
Something she could prove Brovexum knew that they didn't want exposed.
Well, they'd break into her house for that.
And that would be a threat.
Enough to go after her and try and discredit her.
Yeah, but is it worth killing her for?
Yeah. I don't know.
I mean, it's not just that. Why was she growing Artemisia annua?
Why was she risking everything running a cannabis farm
to fund her research?
Alina was using what she learnt about Artemisia annua at Brovexum
to try and find a better alternative.
An anti-malaria drug without the side-effects.
Right.
She didn't want to just expose Brovexum,
- she wanted to put them out of business. - Yeah.
Yeah, that's motive enough to kill her.
But how do we prove all of that?
Well, proving what she was working on would be a start.
Delphine Burrand.
When I was searching the professor's emails,
uh, looking for connections to Brovexum,
I pulled up a personal email from a Delphine Burrand.
What's it about?
A lift to work. They seem friendly.
Well, uh, the dates match up.
I mean, they worked in the same department
and they left at the same time.
Maybe she can tell us what they were working on and why they left.
Great work, team.
Let's find Delphine Burrand.
Actually we're, uh, we're going out tonight.
Yeah, we're going speed dating.
Yep.
But, but not with each other.
Well, with each other, but not WITH each other.
Well, Jake says I'll feel better if I meet new people.
Celebrating any major milestones with your aunt tonight, Will?
No, I'm on it.
OK, well, I'll meet you there.
I've got to go home and practice first.
Cool.
Practice for what?
Hello, love.
Hi.
Fancy having, uh, dinner together this evening?
No, I can't.
I'm meeting a friend tonight and I need to practice.
Lovely. Yeah. Great news.
Never mind, another time.
OK.
OK. So I'm gonna smile to make him feel comfortable.
I'm gonna laugh at his jokes, even if I don't understand them,
and I practiced my list of questions.
What about you?
I was just gonna wing it.
- Hi. - Hi.
Are you a cat or dog person?
I love both.
This is just about widening my social circle, you know.
- Hi. - Hi.
So, what do you do?
Oh, I'm a, I'm a police detective.
- Wow. - Yeah.
So, what do you like to do on the weekends?
I'd like to go scuba diving.
Have you ever went?
No, I-I wouldn't want to go scuba diving
cos of the risks.
Decompression sickness, nitrogen narcosis, barotrauma.
Like, where else would I meet one of those?
Yeah. Well, if you, uh, ever need to know how to dispose of a body,
I'm your guy.
Salt water aspiration, air or gas embolism.
On the apps there's... there's always someone new,
it's really easy to move on. But this is,
uh, it's a full six minutes,
and you can't ghost me.
Oxygen toxicity. Dysbaric osteonecrosis.
Hypothermia.
Most people just say they're scared of sharks.
I like sharks.
- Hello. - Hi.
Why do people do this?
Ma'am?
I found Delphine Burrand.
Delphine was hospitalised after she attempted
to take her own life 18 months ago.
She hasn't woken up since.
Her parents died of malaria,
and according to the staff,
Professor Barbieri was a regular visitor.
Uh, can I help you?
She overdosed on aconite.
It's, um, used in Chinese medicine to treat malaria,
and, uh, Delphine was using it to develop a homeopathic treatment.
Was she working with Alina to expose Brovexum?
No.
No, this is all Alina's paranoia.
Delphine was deeply unhappy,
and there was nothing any of us could do to help her.
So, what d'you think?
Yeah, his vulnerability was... seductive.
But, yeah, I don't know.
How was speed dating?
- I didn't get any matches. - I got two.
I matched yes to everyone to improve
my statistical probability of a match.
Falling for someone isn't about the statistical probability.
Well, there are studies to show that it is.
Oh, that's bollocks. It's about your heart, Headphones.
That'll be number 56.
Yeah.
Don't you start.
Patience.
You asked me not to call you Headphones,
and I respect that. I just forgot just then.
It won't happen again.
I am good at reading people.
I just, I find it hard to read you.
I...
don't think any of my dates last night realised...
I'm autistic.
I was trying...
so hard to hide it.
You don't have to be in disguise for someone to like you.
I know what killed the professor.
So, Acacia wasn't the poison that killed Professor Barbieri.
Plants are a poison, but also the cure.
We assumed it was Acacia that killed her,
but it was actually the cure in disguise.
Cure for what?
Delphine Burrand, her colleague, she overdosed on aconite.
The Acacia leaves are the antidote for aconite.
Yeah. So, what if Alina knew she was poisoned,
ingested the leaves cause she knew it was also the cure?
Aconite didn't come up on the toxicology report.
Yeah, it's a poison you can't detect
unless you're looking specifically for it.
Yeah.
Right, well. Let's look for it.
That's a pretty extraordinary
coincidence that Alina was killed with the same poison
that Delphine OD'd on.
Surely that's enough to go back to Brovexum with?
Ah, here you are. OK.
Both of you, here's another extraordinary thing.
I'm sorry.
Please come to my house so I can cook you dinner
to apologise properly.
Aconite on toast.
That's a joke. Sorry.
I did it again, didn't I?
Alina wasn't at work all day, as we thought,
on the day that she were killed.
Timely interruption. Thank you, Will.
She attended an appointment to register a new plant species.
But it wasn't in her diary.
Future love.
Well, I can head down there, find out who she spoke to.
Don't plants normally have Latin names?
Oh, that's a scientific name, ma'am.
Future Love is the common name.
My aunt gardens.
Patience?
Future Love, that's a book title.
I've seen that before at Alina's lab in Rufforth.
Let's go.
Yeah, there it is.
Future Love.
There's an inscription.
"To my darling Alina, when our bodies entwine..."
"it's the only moment that matters.
"To our future together. All my love, Delphine."
- Alina and Delphine were lovers. - Yeah.
What's...?
I think you just found what Brovexum are looking for.
This is incendiary.
It could change the outcome of the court case.
So, why didn't she hand them in?
She stole them.
And Brovexum would have seen her go to jail,
and they implicate Delphine.
I mean, I think she was waiting until she finished her research
to secure the bigger win.
So, someone at Brovexum's got a motive for murder.
Dr Parsons, you're on speaker.
We have a cause of death.
The levels of aconite in Alyssa Barbieri's blood
were high enough to kill her.
Good call, Patience.
What, so the same obscure poison that put Delphine
in a coma was used to kill Alina?
Absolutely.
It's enough to bring Wilson in for questioning.
And to secure a warrant for
Brovexum's HR records and emails.
Let's line up everything perfectly
before we serve that slimeball, Ms Wilson.
Thank you, Dr Parsons.
Sorry.
Dr Parsons, isn't aconite very fast acting.
Yes. Extremely.
I mean, it could only have been administered
a few moments before she died.
So then, the killer must have been inside the tropical greenhouse
with Professor Barbieri.
Yeah. But there were no alarms, no struggle,
nothing to suggest an intruder.
So then, Alina knew her killer,
trusted them enough to let them in.
Yeah.
That doesn't line up with a Brovexum assassin.
Tell me you have another suspect.
There is a connection between these two women
which tells us how Alina died.
Why can't I see it?
You asked to speak to me?
Yes.
You spoke to one of my colleagues who said you recognised this woman
as a regular visitor.
Alina. Yeah.
What did she do when she was here?
Did she talk to her?
Sometimes she read to her.
She brought those.
Yeah, the blue rose?
Unusual, isn't it?
Well, blue roses don't actually exist in nature.
I've seen this before.
- Here. - Thank you.
So...
this was the scene where Delphine's body was found.
It was treated as a crime scene
before they officially ruled it as an attempted suicide.
Who found her?
Her husband, Tobias.
It says in his statement,
"He knocked over the vase in a panic and it shattered on the floor."
Yeah.
Tobias Burrand, I knew I wasn't sure about you.
So,
each plant grown from seed has its own unique DNA.
So, to create a truly blue rose,
the professor must have modified the genetic code of
a white one to create an entirely new breed.
That's... it's amazing.
Oh, any luck, Will?
Drug squad's got hours of CCTV footage,
but I found him.
Tobias Burrand.
He arrives, snoops around.
And he stops by a particular plant in the east greenhouse.
It's not a blue rose by any chance, is it?
It's a black and white camera, ma'am.
And then, what does he do next, exactly?
He looks at it, steps close to it.
Then he reaches for something inside the plant pot.
Could be a label?
And he takes it out to look at it.
Scientific name Rosa Delphinium.
It's after Delphine.
Then he looks quite upset.
What's the date on the tape?
Boss, I spoke to some of the staff.
His alibi stands up.
His phone records show he was in the city centre,
and the waiter in the restaurant remembers him.
The waiter says he ate dinner with a woman,
and then stayed until closing drinking on his own.
Left a big tip.
Yeah, course he did. He wanted to be remembered.
Did you get a description of the woman he ate dinner with?
Yeah.
Why did you not mention you had dinner
with Alina Barbieri the night she died?
Alina asked to meet me.
I agreed to dinner...
but it was just as I feared.
All she wanted to talk about was her paranoid
Brovexum conspiracy theories.
We had a row. She left.
I stayed and finished the bottle of wine.
I was annoyed with myself for falling out with her.
You could have been the last person to see her alive.
Apart from the murderer.
Why did you lie?
When you tell people that your wife attempted
to kill herself, they look at you a certain way.
There's a...
there's an unspoken question.
"How did you let that happen?"
I suppose I'm tired of being looked at with suspicion.
I'm sorry.
I hope I haven't set your investigation back.
I stayed at the restaurant drinking until closing.
Did the waiter tell you?
I know he did it. But how?
He was at the restaurant when Alina died.
There's witnesses.
CCTV footage shows him entering and leaving.
He couldn't have administered the poison.
How do you know?
Well, I sent down dozens of guys who've killed
or tried to kill their wives and he's just, he's got the same...
I know he killed Alina,
and I know he tried to kill Delphine.
It's just the timeline says it's impossible.
Or maybe there's another way of looking at the timeline.
Alina was given the poison by someone she trusted
moments before she died when Tobias Burrand was in...
You've just made a leap in logic.
How?
Well, the poison must have been ingested moments before she died.
But...
she could've been given it earlier.
Into something she trusted.
Without her knowing.
Of course.
We... found this on Alina's body.
That's nothing unusual. She was asthmatic.
But...
when we tested it,
it was filled with powdered aconite.
We traced the unique serial number on the inhaler, and...
it was purchased with your credit card.
Can you explain that?
No comment.
It was ordered the same day you were captured on CCTV
visiting Rufforth Farm.
Something inspire an impulse buy?
No comment.
Do you know the thing I love about this job is getting
to learn new stuff every day?
Did you know that every plant has a unique DNA?
It's like ours. Only simpler.
No comment.
So, when we test the aconite in that inhaler,
I'm guessing that it has the exact same DNA
as an aconite plant in your garden.
No comment.
You only need to say that when I ask you a question.
It's a nice touch, tipping the waiter so generously.
Could have saved yourself the money
and got us to check the CCTV?
There wasn't any covering our table. I...
Checked, did you?
So, you knew it was safe to swap the inhaler in Alina's bag
with the one you filled with powdered aconite.
When Delphine told you she was leaving you for someone else,
how did it feel?
You felt helpless.
Yeah?
Angry.
So, you poisoned her with her aconite medicine.
But you didn't quite manage to kill her,
and you still didn't know who she was cheating on you with.
That must have been agony.
You know, the thing I think that tipped you over the edge
was when you knew it was Alina,
was realising just how truly deeply in love they were.
Rare, special.
No, no.
We found a dedication from Delphine to Alina
in one of the books that Alina always read to her.
- "To my darling Alina..." - Don't. Don't.
"when our bodies entwine..."
Alina was a corrupting whore!
Killing her was the easiest way to end the suffering, wasn't it?
Yes.
I didn't know we had the resources to test plant DNA.
We don't.
Teo.
We shared the files that we found in Alina's things
with a Serious Fraud Office and the legal team fighting Brovexum.
And they think they're dynamite.
She got 'em in the end, then.
You gonna be OK?
Yeah. Time to sort out my head, I guess.
Yeah.
Hey, can you... could you do me a favour?
Could you make sure Paco's looked after?
So glad you could both make it.
Oh, do you want us to take our shoes off?
Oh, yeah. Shoes on, shoes off.
Just make yourself at home.
Can I get you a drink?
- Yeah. - Would you like a mocktail?
- Yeah. - Yeah? Mocktail? Cocktail?
Yeah, I'd love a cocktail, yeah, please.
All this on a DI salary, yeah?
This place is amazing.
Oh, yeah, thanks.
Um, this is the first time I've used this pan.
It comes already seasoned with flax oil.
The pan's cast iron, but the handle stays cool.
Is this your mum?
Yeah. But she's not around anymore.
You've got to try these olives before the main event.
They're so tasty.
Absolutely divine.
30 Euros a jar, including postage.
Oh, so now we know what all the,
parcels coming to the office were.
I'm gonna get your drinks.
Sit down, sit down, sit down.
- That one's yours. - Thank you.
- Ah, thank you. - There we go.
- Cheers. - Cheers.
**CREDITS**