Buy DCI Banks: Aftermath

Two police officers are called to an apparent domestic where they find Lucy Payne unconscious. Investigating a noise in the cellar they are attacked by her husband Marcus,who kills one of them with a machete before the other,Janet Taylor,knocks him out and he is arrested. D.C.I. Alan Banks comes to the house and finds the corpses of four missing blonde girls, though there is no sign of Leanne Wray,who also disappeared. The case is hampered when,due to an interfering hospital doctor perturbed that Janet put Payne in a coma, Alan is shadowed by annoying D.S. Annie Cabbot from the Professional Standards Department. Lucy,a frequent victim of her husband's violence,cannot help trace Leanne,being unaware that her husband was a mass killer and also unaware that he was having sex with Maggie,the concerned neighbour who wanted her to leave him and who called the police to the Paynes' house. After a chilly first meeting Annie suggests to Alan that they have a drink together and he agrees to,whilst wondering if she is using him for career advancement. Just as they are getting cosy,they get the call to say that Payne has died. Now there is nobody able to locate Leanne.
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Thanks to a damage limitation-obsessed Chief Superintendant,Janet is charged with manslaughter though Annie sees that she gets off. A friend of the missing Leanne leads Alan to believe that Payne had a female accomplice to lure the girls into his car and Lucy is the obvious suspect,though she denies it,at the same time admitting she knew her husband was a killer. She also blackmails Maggie into paying for a lawyer for her though Maggie counters by ringing the press to explode the 'accomplice' story. Investigations show Lucy to have been the victim in a famous abuse case as a child and she is diagnosed as mentally ill and incapable of having a mind to murder. Alan must discover to what extent she really was involved in the killings and if she knows where to find Leanne,alive or dead.
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Banks and his team investigate when book-seller Leslie Whittaker's charred corpse is found on his burnt-out houseboat along with a strong-box containing twenty thousand pounds and a Turner painting. An informant links Whittaker to crazy artist Jake McMahon,who specialises in forgeries whilst Annie Cabbot seeks the advice of art expert Mark Keane and gets personal with him. Christina Aspen's body is also found floating in the river and her girl-friend tells Banks she was about to inform on her father,an elderly doctor with a very young wife, Miranda,whose car was spotted near the murder scene. After Banks has struck Aspen for insulting a black policewoman McMahon's corpse is discovered.
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Banks gets a warning for hitting Aspen,after which more money and forgeries are found at the burnt out scene of McMahon's murder.Banks deduces that Gerry,Christina's girl-friend,is one of the forgers and she tells him she believes the killer is called Gary Morrison,who sold the artists' fake paintings but had a sinister hold over them. Banks is displeased to learn that Annie is having an affair with Keane - who also admits to being afraid of Morrison,though he has worked with him. With the evidence pointing to one of two suspects Banks must make a mercy dash to save a life before exposing a sordid secret.
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Whilst Banks investigates the rape and murder of student Hayley Daniels,arresting the shop-keeper,Timothy Randall,in whose store-room she was found,Annie investigates the death of wheelchair-bound,paralyzed Karen Drew,taken by a mystery woman from her care home and slaughtered on the site where,years earlier,serial killers Lucy and Marcus Payne dumped their victims. In fact Karen turns out to have been Lucy Payne,given a new identity on release from prison. Having satisfied himself that Hayley's lecturer lover Martin Austin is innocent he is called to another incident. This time young policeman Kevin Templeton has his throat slashed in a manner identical to Lucy Payne's murder.
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The team is in shock after Kevin's murder. They deduce that he was acting as a vigilante patrolling the alleys to prevent further murders but the witness who saw his death presumed he was out to harm her. She identifies the slayer as a woman but pathologist Dr. Waring disputes this and sees no link with Lucy Payne's death,causing Annie to doubt. Randall is cleared of Hayley's murder when he is given an alibi and,with several likely suspects,Banks is back at square one. Annie however learns of a former rape victim whose perpetrator was murdered before she disappeared,providing a link to Lucy Payne and a clue to the identity of the double murderer.
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Petty crook Charlie McKay is found murdered in a gangland execution after stealing a van. Meanwhile Banks goes to London to bring back Emily,the erring schoolgirl daughter of Chief Superintendent Rydell, whose topless photos have appeared on the Internet. Banks tracks her down living with violent criminal Barry Clough and returns her to her parents. However,after Emily has implied she has a lot of incriminating evidence about Clough,his henchman Niall Gilbert follows them and she disappears again. Then a young girl's corpse is discovered.
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The dead girl is Emily. The stress causes her parents to separate, her mother Rosalind telling Banks that Ruth,who was Emily's flatmate in London,is the illegitimate daughter that she gave up for adoption before she met Rydell. Banks is suspicious of Tony,the lad whose van was supposedly stolen by Charlie McKay and the team shadows him,saving him from being shot by Niall Gilbert. Banks gets Tony to confess that he and McKay were couriers for Clough,whom they robbed,Charlie paying with his life. Banks,noting the recent decline in drug arrests,also wonders whether Rydell was on Clough's payroll,the answer to his question coming after a further visit to Rosalind which solves everything.
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With Annie due for maternity leave icily efficient inspector Helen Morton joins Banks' team to investigate the murder of Jennifer Lewis,shot dead in her car,where Banks' address is also discovered on a scrap of paper. Banks himself disappears following an answer phone message for help from his wide boy brother Roy,but Roy is missing from home and neither Corinne,his girl-friend,or his father Arthur know of his whereabouts. His business partner Gareth Lambert tells Banks that Roy was having an affair with Jennifer and CCTV from the garage where she bought petrol an hour before her murder shows Jennifer with Roy. Whilst Helen Morton is questioning Banks the news comes in that Roy has been shot dead with the same gun that killed Jennifer Lewis.
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The police discover that Jennifer and Roy were involved in a prostitution ring,Roy importing women through his travel agency,though business partner Lambert claims ignorance. Because he is related to a victim Banks is taken off the case but D.I. Morton agrees to let him help in an advisory role,warning him he may be in danger. He seeks out Carmen,the face of the escort agency fronting the prostitution racket and finds that she is pregnant.That pregnancy,linked to a baby-selling arrangement,holds the key to the double murders.
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Keith Rothwell,an unassuming accountant with an overbearing wife Mary, is dragged from the family home and his head blown off by a masked intruder. Nothing is stolen. However musician Pamela Jefferies comes forward to say that she knew Rothwell as her married lover, Robert Calvert. Banks is not pleased when he meets DCI Burgess,an arrogant colleague at police college. He is investigating possible corruption by MP Martin Fleming. Solicitor Daniel Norcliffe disappears and Burgess believes he may be a link between Fleming and Rothwell in a money laundering fiddle. Then Pamela is savagely attacked.
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Banks defies orders by informally speaking to Martin Fleming on his own though he gets no results. Tom Rothwell returns from America for his father's funeral and tells the police he fell out with his father after seeing him with another woman. Pamela identifies her attacker as a rough-looking Irishman named by police records as Arthur Jameson,an arms fan and former client of Norcliffe but Jameson kills himself before he can be questioned. Following Tom's information Banks discovers that the woman in question was not Pamela. The trail leads to a house where all is revealed - including a money laundering scheme which justifies Banks' suspicions. The case closed Helen at last begins to integrate with the rest of the team.
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Banks gets a call-out to Owen Pierce's house,which has been vandalised whilst Owen was in prison but Banks makes it clear he still believes Owen was the killer. However after Helen has seen CCTV footage of Ellie getting into a car with somebody who is not Owen Pierce Becca comes forward to say that Tyler Judd sexually threatened her and was perpetually shadowing Ellie after she dumped him. Then Becca is found dead in the same spot as Ellie. Focus now switches to Judd,who admits to stealing Simon Harris's car after Simon warned him off Ellie. This in turn leads to the discovery of some incriminating photographs and the identity of the murderer.
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11-year old Kyle Heath escapes a couple claiming to be social workers who try to force him into their car but next day his mother Katy tells Banks and Helen that they returned and abducted him and the phone number they gave her is false. Mr and Mrs Harris who live opposite confirm the visit but are critical of Katy's parenting and Kyle's behaviour. When heroin is found in the floor-boards of Katy's house Annie believes Kyle was taken to force Katy to give them to the abductors but Katy denies knowledge of it. She suggests Kyle's father, her estranged partner Paul Cain, is the culprit though evidence suggests that Kyle is the actual drug dealer, earning money to spend at an arcade with headmaster Mark Campbell. Then a young boy's corpse is found - though it is not that of Kyle.
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Campbell admits to kerb crawling but claims to have met Kyle in the arcade by chance and sent him home whilst the dead boy is named as Andre Petri, who died of a heroin overdose and lived near the Heaths. His sister tells Annie that she was amazed how flush he was and it turns out that the arcade was the recruiting ground for under-age drug dealers. Banks suspects the leader is Chivers, a cab driver with previous convictions, who has disappeared with a female accomplice but Helen believes that Katy is not so innocent and is involved with Chivers to get Paul to pay a ransom which he will share with her. Annie shadows Paul as he delivers the money but loses him. Eventually Banks catches up with Chivers and finds that things are not as they first appeared to be.
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Matt Barber, whose father Jack is a respected high ranking policeman, and is now a London-based journalist is found murdered in a holiday chalet, owned by Liz Forbes. Liz was the singer with a 1980s band the Crystal Kiss, along with Martin Soames, who is the chalets' caretaker. Matt was seemingly investigating the death of another band member John Gaunt, over thirty years earlier, which, at the time appeared to have been an accident. The remaining band member Ian Basset had returned to England from abroad just before Matt died. He approaches Liz and Martin with the idea of reforming the group - a suggestion made to him by Matt, of whose death he is seemingly unaware. At the same time Martin's lawyer David Hornby is discovered to have been paid by Matt and his finger prints are found at the chalet. He is also the father of Annie's baby.
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Banks learns that Jack Barber arrested Martin for John Gaunt's manslaughter when he was a constable but Jack denies forcing a confession. However he visits Martin to demand the hand-over of a tape the group buried. With Annie off the case for personal reasons Banks and Helen visit the band, who are planning to reform and hear that Ian Bassett was due to give Matt an interview before he was murdered. Banks finds that both Jack and the band members close ranks when he mentions the tape, especially after Martin kills himself having given the tape to David Hornby, The police discover that the Crystal Kiss's moment has gone and that the killer was desperate to make money for a very dubious reunion, something which also involved Jack Barber. At the same time Banks' private life suffers upheaval when his daughter Tracy turns up unannounced, having dropped out of college.
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Banks' old neighbour Juliet Doyle comes to tell him that found a gun, wrapped up, in her daughter Erin's bedroom. Helen leads a raid on the house, resulting in Erin's father Peter being tasered and ending up in hospital. Consequently Annie is asked to head an investigation into Helen's decision. Erin tells the police she was given a parcel, unaware that it contained a gun, by older boy-friend Jaff Kitson. The gun was used to kill DJ Richard Martin and Banks makes a connection with villainous local businessman Al Jenkins. However Jenkins tells him that he sacked Kitson before the murder. A further interview with Erin reveals that Banks' daughter Tracy has left town with Kitson - and she has told him that her father is a policeman.
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Following the disastrous raid Helen is suspended but she tells Banks that her colleague Trethowan reentered the house after the event, leading them both to surmise, correctly, that he was covering up for his girlfriend, the policewoman who Tasered Peter Doyle and Helen is exonerated. Meanwhile Kitson takes Tracy to Jenkins' house, where he intends to hold her as a hostage in return for the gun. However Jenkins ultimately admits to Banks that he is terminally ill and the reappearance of his long-lost illegitimate son, by whom he wanted to do right before dying, angered Kitson to the point of murder . Tracy is ultimately returned to her father.
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After celebrating his birthday with his parents and friends Banks is called to investigate the murder of Estonian Katrin Vesik, who worked in a beauty salon and had recently been in a fight with racist Shane Harris. Katrin had come to England to find her sister Annika and had rung the police the night she died. Katrin's colleague Jodie tells Banks that Annika was involved in drugs and prostitution though entrepreneur Jason McCready, boss of an escort agency, denies knowing her. Michael Osgood, another victim of racism and father of autistic Robbie, however admits that he knew Annika. Whilst investigating the crime Banks must also deal with a family tragedy.
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Robbie dies when the Osgoods' house is set on fire. Chief suspect is McCready's nephew Gary but he has an alibi. Soon afterwards the body of an unidentified man is found in the same spot as Katrin was and, following information given by Shane Harris, Anika's drug dealer, Banks discovers that the man was one of several Eastern European slave workers held captive by McCready - including Anika, who is released. McCready and his mother deny any involvement in the fire, however, requiring Banks to identify the arsonist and whether they also killed Katrin.
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The body of lawyer Anaan Kamel, shot through the head, is dragged from a river. Her brother Bilal had assaulted her because he guessed she was having an affair and also blames her husband Raheel for her abandoning her faith but denies killing her. Next day Marcus Leyton, a work colleague of Anaan and her presumed lover, is found shot dead in his car at the scene where Anaan's body was thrown into the river. Prime suspect is vicious loan shark Lewis Hargreaves whom Marcus helped send to prison but he has an alibi. Fisherman Eric Dwyer, who witnessed the slayings, reckons that Hargreaves was not the killer, identifying instead one of Hargreaves' henchmen, whose arrest is ordered by Banks.
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As Banks puts Geoff Dwyer and his daughter in a hotel for their safety he traces the gunman, Jacky Mullen to his ex-partner's house but Mullen has fled, eventually tracking down the Dwyers though he declines to kill them and escapes. Hargreaves is arrested but refuses to admit to any link to Mullen. At the same time Raheel's alibi is discredited and a secret exposed, suggesting that Marcus was his lover. Banks catches up with Jacky Mullen but has to establish whether it was Raheel or Hargreaves who hired him whilst Banks' colleague Helen is upset to learn that her husband wants a divorce.
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Student Josh Tate is stabbed to death and his body dumped on the moors. Flat-mate Spencer describes him as quiet and reserved and yet he frequented Exotica, the lap-dancing club where Spencer's girlfriend Melanie moon-lighted. Josh was also manufacturing Ecstasy pills with his tutor Beverley Calcutt, from which he profited financially, and which they sold to the club owner ex-convict Liam Fallon. Then Helen meets former colleague Martin Hexton, who is investigating Fallon but has another agenda in internal affairs. Beverley believes Fallon killed Josh but as the police go to arrest him they find he has been attacked and is unconscious whilst Hexton is shown to have been retired from the police on mental health grounds.
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Banks believes Hexton may be a member of a rival drug suppliers but Fallon does not recognize him. However Helen discovers that Hexton is Josh's natural father and he confesses to her that his involvement is to find his son's killer. At the same time Annie finds out that Melanie is pregnant by Spencer and that Josh thought himself to be the baby's father. Believing Spencer to be the murderer Hexton abducts him, leading to the truth about Josh's killing. Helen agrees to an amicable divorce and Annie accepts her boyfriend David's proposal - much to the disappointment of Banks.
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Drug dealer Damon Horsley is murdered at the woodland shrine of suicide Sian Haddon, Sian's teen-aged friend Kyle Finn finding the body. Banks discovers that Horsley owed money to Charlie Franklin, whom Banks suspects of dealing on behalf of outwardly respectable property developer Steve Richards. Franklin is arrested but denies murder and Richards denies any involvement, despite his daughter Kat being shown to have been the dead man's girlfriend. Sian's father Brendan had also visited the murder site and when Richards' alibi is blown apart Banks, desperate to nail him after an earlier failed conviction, triumphantly arrests him. Then he hears that Kat has become the next victim at the shrine.
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Kat is found dead after admitting to Horsley's murder but Banks is not convinced she died by her own hand though her former therapist, Kyle's mother Alice, claims that had lately been depressed. Richards himself uses violence to pursue his own enquiries with Nathan, Horsley's brother, surviving a hit -and-run attempt by Franklin. At the same time Helen discovers that Kat could not have murdered Horsley since, at the time of death, she was with Kyle - though it is Alice who provides Banks with the means to solve the case.
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When Rachel Li reports her husband, property owner and philanthropist Xun Li, missing Banks interviews his brother Chang and niece Wei, hearing the family were dissidents who had to flee China, and son Bo, a hospital worker who does not get on with his father. A ransom note is delivered, leading to Rachel handing over the money and her husband being released but the kidnappers escape - prime suspects being a disgruntled tenant and a dry cleaner with form for protection. Later however Banks is called out to a grisly scene whilst Annie is intrigued when Tamsin Richards comes to the police station but clams up when her husband arrives.
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Banks deduces that Xun Li knew his killer as he had opened the door to them with Bo, whose mother died giving birth to him and who frequently rowed with his father, being the prime suspect. However fibres found on Xun's clothes point to Wendy Xiao, whose protection racket Xun was seeking to expose. The kidnappers are unmasked but a surprise package from China clears them and leads Banks to the person responsible for Xun's death. Meanwhile Helen is successful in her promotion interview and Annie, having told Banks that her marriage is in ruins, places herself in danger by going alone to meet a caller.
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The attack on Annie turns into a murder investigation and Banks is convinced Richards was responsible as Annie had gone to meet Tamsin. Tamsin herself admits that she spoke to Annie whom she saw as a comforter following her daughter's death but claims that she left her unharmed and alive. A man called Colvin is identified as the killer and, since he was once in rehab with Richards, Banks sees this as linking Richards to the murder. However when Banks loses it and assaults Richards he is taken off the case.
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Whilst Helen interviews an uncooperative Colvin following the discovery of Franklin's blood in his car Banks makes his own inquiries with Franklin's sister, making a connection between her husband and Richards regarding Franklin's fate. Colvin finally confesses to two crimes but insists that Richards was not involved. However two surprising admissions finally allow Banks to seek justice for Annie and to close the case.
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