Silent Witness (1996) s10e01 Episode Script

Morning, Nikki Alexander, pathologist.
Down there.
Thanks.
Morning.
Morning.
Hi.
Some workers found her an hour ago and fished her out of the water.
She looks Oriental, maybe Chinese.
Looks like she's wearing what could be a wedding ring.
Bag the hands before she's moved, would you? Will do.
No ID.
What's that? A string of rosary beads, I think.
Second one in the river today.
Must be a full moon.
She was certainly malnourished.
There were signs of rickets in the skeletal system and she seems emaciated.
However, she ate shortly before her death.
Some sort of wholegrain bread .
.
and there's a smell of alcohol.
Let's get a tox screen done.
The uterus is bulky but there were no external signs of pregnancy, indicating she was in her first trimester.
Only just though - I'd estimate about 12 weeks.
What do you reckon - suicide? I'm not so sure.
It looks like she was a Catholic.
She had rosary beads in her pocket.
She's had a rough life.
Cause of deathdrowning.
Nikki, take a look at these.
Looped scarring.
Areas of depigmentation.
No symmetry and they're not in groups.
They're deliberate, though.
Torture injuries.
Maybe using a loop of flex or wire or belt possibly.
Quite distinctive, though.
What do you think? Gang related? Who knows? But whoever did this wouldn't think twice about chucking him in the river.
Lungs are hyper-inflated and they contain a substantial amount of fluid.
That and the fact that the trachea is full of froth would indicate that the cause of death was from drowning.
Minimal digestion has taken place.
I'd say the last meal was eaten shortly before death, consisting of something with bread, wholegrain.
Alcohol.
The same as my mine.
Guv Yep? We'll be right over.
.
.
OK.
They've found more bodies.
Your two bodies this morning - one Oriental female, one black male, right? Yeah.
Found in two separate locations on the river.
PM indicated that they had shared their last meal.
Well, these two here, I wouldn't be surprised if their stomach contents were exactly the same.
So you think they were all on this boat? Yeah.
Wreckage was reported to the river police at seven am.
Which means the boat must have come in with no lights after the last low tide, after midnight.
Human trafficking? Looks that way.
Where were the bodies found? As they are.
We've got to work fast.
The tide's coming in.
I'm losing a foot of my crime scene every minute.
I've got cuts on the palmsand bruising on the knuckles of the right little and ring fingers.
Doesn't appear to be any ID.
A phrasebook.
Albanian/English by the look of it.
Multiple contusions on this one.
Consistent with being tangled up, possibly under the boat, and being dragged up the bank.
Manage to find the owner of the boat? No, it was sold at auction six weeks ago.
We're trying to trace the new owners.
Hang on, what's that? Here you go.
It's a doll.
This means there could have been a child.
How many others were on the boat? Get yourself a ticket over there.
HE SPEAKS FOREIGN LANGUAGE I'm sorry.
I don't understand you.
Sorry, I don't understand you.
Where would you like to go? HE CONTINUES TO SPEAK FOREIGN LANGUAGE I'm sorry, sir, I've got to deal with the queue.
Could you go, please? Could you just go? There appears to be oil ingrained in his skin and under the fingernails.
Suggests he might have been involved in construction or industry.
Can you tell anything from the cuts? Typical pattern of defence wounds.
Looks to me as if someone came at him with a knife.
Nikki, any defensive wounds on yours? Soft tissue changes indicate he worked with his hands but nothing to say he's been in a fight.
What's going on with his feet? Lots of calluses.
Remains of some large blisters.
Certainly on his feet a lot.
Maybe he'd walked a long way.
Bruising and swelling suggests march fractures.
Leo, what can you tell me about ethnicity? Caucasian.
That's all I can give you, I'm afraid.
So he could be from Eastern Europe? Ercould be.
Plenty of Albanians run in human traffic.
I'm thinking he could be our skipper.
OK, so we've got a people- smuggling operation that appears to have gone wrong.
Yeah? We have four bodies.
We think they ate together, probably on the boat.
But we don't know how many there were altogether.
We don't know who was the cargo and who were the smugglers.
First off, we'll help you to identify the bodies.
We can start by getting the lab onto DNA and fingerprints.
Missing Persons have set up some TV spots and a helpline for any relatives who may be expecting arrivals.
I don't hold out a lot of hope.
Unless they plan to seek asylum, most of them don't want to be found.
What about the boat? How many could it have carried? It's designed for eight, but that doesn't mean anything.
Traffickers like to stuff in as many as possible.
SOCO found three sets of foot prints in the riverbank walking away from the boat.
They don't match any of our bodies.
So there are at least three survivors out there unaccounted for.
And possibly a small child.
Well, that's our search radius.
The coastguard reckon survivors are unlikely beyond this point.
What do we know about the smugglers themselves? Plenty of candidates.
OK, thank you very much, Chantelle.
Who wants to be next? ALL: ME! All right everybody.
Calm down.
One at a time.
Lunch finished 45 minutes ago.
I suppose you have a good reason.
CHILDREN: Ugh! So I'm going to need all the information we have on Albanian operations running out of the UK and France over the last six months.
I'll check with Intelligence.
Yes, sir.
Ashar here.
That's right, sir.
We've got four dead bodies - all unidentified at the moment.
Possibility of at least three survivors.
That's right, sir.
We've got three sets of footprints leading away from the crash site.
Show me that last picture again.
Mm.
That looks like a Snakehead tattoo.
What's that? Chinese - people traffickers.
Off-shoot of the Triads.
Yeah? A kid brought a hand into school and they did a search where he found it and discovered this bloody great arm as well.
Snakeheads are fond of dismembering people to make a point.
That does seem to put them in the frame.
Radley, we're on the move.
Guv, come and look at this.
What? Severed hand and arm with Snakehead tatt discovered this morning.
Maybe it's not the Albanians.
We haven't any connection between these and the boat crash.
No, we don't.
Bit of a leap, isn't it? How old are these? 24 hours.
Severed while the victim was alive.
Nice.
Right, Snakeheads are known for two things - people trafficking and dismemberment as a form of execution.
We've got both in the same night.
Why not? All right.
You set up a search team and you start combing the entire sewerage system.
Guv, there's like 400 or 500 miles of sewers under London.
Radley, you wanted the gig.
You've got it.
Find me the rest of that body.
Don't suppose you've got anything in your fridge that's missing, um? No.
I wonder why she would do this? Take such a risk? And just pregnant? Maybe because she was pregnant.
But it's such a huge chance to take.
For her and her unborn baby.
What's so great about England anyway? Well, you moved here, didn't you? That's true.
What are you looking for? Well, the ink's mostly gone but if it was a biro I might be able to pick up abrasions on the skin.
It's numbers.
A series of numbers.
How many? It's a mobile number.
Get me DSI Ashar on the phone, will you? Where are we now? This is the main entrance to the grid.
And where did the kid find the hand in relation to here? Under a storm vent on the river about 100 yards down the road.
So it must have been washed down by the rain, yeah? Yeah.
Got to be careful if it rains.
Why? These pipes fill up in no time.
What on earth possesses kids to play in storm drains? Sense of adventure.
Huh! I can't believe he even touched that hand, let alone kept it to show people.
I don't know, I'd probably have done the same at his age.
You're joking? No.
I remember when I was young I found a newly severed hen's foot.
And I discovered that when you pulled the tendon the claw contracted, so I went round trying to pick things up with it.
And then there was a dead rat which I tried to No rats! Not here, not anywhere.
OK? What's wrong with rats? Harry! No rats?! THEY SPEAK FOREIGN LANGUAGE Yes.
Do you? A little.
I'm Detective Superintendent Ashar, and this is Dr Alexander.
We're looking for Jessica Sun.
Several bodies have been recovered from the Thames today.
And we think they died in an incident involving illegal immigration.
One of the women had your mobile number on her arm.
Mei We're very sorry.
What about Ying? Is she all right? You have found her, haven't you? Ying? Who's Ying? Her daughter, Ying.
Please tell me you've found her.
She's six years old.
She's six.
She's six years old.
You remember they found some Chinese immigrants, suffocated in the back of a container at Dover? That was Snakeheads.
Why Snakeheads? Is it the tattoo thing? It's a fish.
Head of a pike and body of a dogfish.
Charming ensemble.
They are aggressive carnivores.
They can breathe out of water and they migrate across land from pond to pond destroying everything in their way.
Well, we all have our faults.
Oi! Over here! What is it? Look.
Done? Yeah.
Looks like a match.
Eugh! An assortment of other limbs.
Nice(!) All we need now is the head and the torso.
Do you want a coffee? Nikki, coffee? Can I get three coffees for over here? Can you just take a seat there? My mother and Mei's mother are sisters.
They were born as peasants in the Shandong region.
We're Catholics.
Mum and Dad emigrated here before I was born.
We're about ten in that one.
Mei said I was her sister on the other side of the world.
Wrote every month.
I've kept them all.
Did you know they were coming over? As soon as she wrote she was pregnant, I suppose it was only a matter of time.
Do you know how passage was arranged? Who brought her over? Why did they want to come? In Mei's province you're allowed one child per family and pregnancy tests are compulsory.
They'd be fined or harassed.
She might have been forced to have a termination.
And being Catholic, an abortion was out of the question.
She thought this was the only way.
Do you have a recent photograph? I'm sorry, but this man here was also one of the bodies we recovered from the river.
Li.
Li Fong.
Mei's husbandand Ying? There was a rag doll that we found in the crash site.
But I don't suppose that's any real evidence.
A doll.
Yellow hair? Blue eyes? I made it for her christening.
She'd never part with that doll.
Ying was on the boat.
Hey! Subject sighted travelling east onto Paddington Street.
Units on the corners of Victoria Road and Smith Street, identification confirmed.
Please notify DSI Ashar, over.
All units wait for the go.
ON TV: '.
.
Here and neighbouring Southall, the largest foreign-born community is Indian, 'but Indians are leaving the inner cities.
' All units go.
Go, go, go! Do it.
Police! Move! Upstairs! Nothing here, sir! KETTLE WHISTLES He's out the rear exit.
Have they got him? Tell me they've got him.
Subject slipped us, sir.
Melusi Chazika.
He's the President of the UCDI.
Unification Cote d'Ivoire.
A new opposition group on the Ivory Coast.
Special Branch got wind of him this morning, and we raided a known UCDI safe house.
Looks like we just missed him.
How do you know he was on the boat? No legal means of entry, and we've got mud on his boots and his clothing which we found at the safe house which we've brought for you to have a look at.
Is it a confirmed ID? Oh, yes, it's him.
SB also got a hit on the fingerprints of our body number two.
His name is Manolo Chota.
They had his prints on file from a previous visit when they pulled him in and had him deported.
He's Chazika's second in command in the UCDI.
Were they known to be travelling together? The French had them under surveillance in Paris a week ago.
Do the boots match the footprints? PHONE RINGS No, but the mud looks consistent with silt from the river.
I'll come out.
At least four survivors.
Back in a minute.
Hi Jessica, what are you doing here? I, I was just wondering if there's something I could do to help.
Help? Well, look for Ying.
It's just I'm sitting at home just worrying.
Look, I'm not involved with the search itself.
But the police team is out there and they know what they're doing.
Jessica, I know that it's hard but the best thing that you could do is to go home.
Everything that can be done is being done, OK? You promise? Yes.
Harry, is that you? Yeah.
What have you got? Blimey.
This place just keeps on giving, doesn't it? Yep, tattoo looks like the one on the arm.
Any sign of the head? Just the torso.
Hello.
.
.
Yeah.
Yeah, OK, send him through.
Dr Preka.
Professor Leo Dalton.
I understand you have an enquiry about the case? Yes.
I was wondering if I can see the bodies? Well, do you think you might have a patient in there? No.
It's my brother.
He told me he was coming.
He should have been here by now.
His name is Sasha.
He's 28.
This is just wrong.
He shouldn't be here.
He should be at home where the women can cry for him.
There you go.
Thank you.
I've had to tell the police you were here.
I'm sure they'll want to talk to you.
Yes.
Of course they do.
Police are the same everywhere.
There in people's worst moments.
Like doctors.
Where do you work? A&E at the Royal Eastern.
It's a bit different from where I did my training back home.
It's easier than facing the conflict, you know? The slaughter.
I couldn't be part of that.
Sasha was just a boy then.
I don't think he ever understood why I left him.
We just wanted to be together.
That's all.
What have you got for me? The wallet the search team found and a photo.
Can't make much out, though.
It's not him, is it? And this is a woman, a girl? I can't make it out.
There was a piece of paper in there too.
Yeah.
Illegible, though.
Right? It was.
Until I ran it through the ESDA machine.
You are a little genius.
TW3.
You want to come along? OK.
Can I help you? Are you in charge here? Stop! Where's your warrant? I'm Detective Superintendent Ashar.
Now, I'm not here to make your life a misery.
So you bear with me and you help me out.
All right? Good afternoon, people.
I'm with the police.
Can I ask you to stop what you're doing for a moment and give me your full attention.
I'm going to need to ask you some questions.
Can someone turn the radio off, please? HE SPEAKS FOREIGN LANGUAGE Everyone, please, it's OK.
The police officers just want to talk to us.
OK.
Please listen to me.
We are investigating the death of a number of illegal immigrants in a boat crash yesterday morning.
There may be survivors.
Does anyone know anything that can help us? Many dead and we want to find the people who did this.
We are not immigration.
Now does anyone have relatives coming over? Ashar! Hold up.
Where do you think you're going? What's your name? You stay where you are.
Is this you? Who's this? Is this a boyfriend? A husband? Are you expecting someone? Why did you run away? Are you here illegally? Officer, please, nobody here knows anything.
What's her name? She hasn't done anything wrong.
Leave her alone.
What's her name? It's a very simple question.
Would you like it in a different language maybe? Ashar My name An.
Please.
An, it's all right.
Can you understand me? She understands perfectly.
Do you have a friend, a relative, coming here to England? Is there anything you can tell us? Now do you recognise this man? Ashar, for Christ's sake! This one? Maybe this one? No.
Why you do this? These may be your friends.
Look closer.
Ashar, stop it.
Look closer! Calm down! Satisfied? You see my problem is, An, that I think you do know something.
I've got four people dead, four people dead, An, in a boat crash yesterday morning.
Four people came to this country because they have people they love.
People they wanted to find.
Do you have someone you loved on that boat, An? A brother? A husband? A boyfriend? I know nothing.
Do you smoke? No, thanks.
So why didn't you pull her in? I don't want to arrest her or have her deported back to some shit life she's running away from.
You think I was hard on her in there? I wish I could have bounced her off a few walls to find out what she knows.
Guv You what? I don't mean that.
I want whoever organized this run.
I want to find them.
I want them in a court of law and I want them done for murder.
.
.
Yes.
How much are we likely to learn from it? I've taken DNA and prints from the hand so if he's in the database we'll find him.
If not, we might be able to have a guess at how old he is.
Looks quite young so I'll check the degree of fusion of the epiphyses.
At least we know it's the same bloke.
He fits together like a jigsaw.
No fluid in the trachea or in the lungs.
He didn't drown.
What's that? Is it a stab wound? Post mortem.
Rats probably.
Eugh, rats.
What is your problem with rats? Teeth, tails, claws.
Weil's disease.
You only catch Weil's disease from their urine, you know that? Swimming in contaminated water or letting them pee on your bare skin.
Are you going to let them pee on your bare skin? Highly unlikely when you're clad from head to foot in protective clothing.
Stomach contentsrice, vegetables.
Something that looks like chicken.
We'll have to check that.
That's different from the other bodies.
Whoever he is, we have no evidence he was on the boat.
Well, can the wounds help us? He was alive when the blows were struck.
That's a complete incision.
About 15 centimetres long.
I might be able to get an approximation of the weapon.
No promises, but I'll give it a go.
Why did you think your brother might be among the victims? I knew he was coming.
He was refused entry into the UK three times.
He was desperate.
What arrangements did he make? He made his way across to Calais to some meeting point.
He called me from there to say he's met someone from there who could get him on boat to London.
Did your brother ever have any trouble with the law? This is your brother, right? Sasha Preka.
Yes.
Does he have a criminal record? What do you mean? Well, no, he was a plumber.
He was never in trouble.
Does that pay well, being a plumber? No, nothing pays well in Albania.
Well, that would make a man desperate.
Possibly angry and possibly violent.
The body did show signs of Sasha being in a fight.
- A knife fight.
- That's not possible.
Knife? Sasha hated violence, that's why he wanted to leave.
You see, I think he could have found a better way of making some money.
Maybe he was carrier and not cargo.
That's impossible.
For a start, smugglers were from London.
You know them.
Now that interests me.
I was going to tell you.
Mm-hm.
Sasha gave me a contact number for the gang, in case anything went wrong.
Everything you know - names, addresses, everything.
I want it all written down.
I don't know anything.
Honestly.
I don't even know this man's name.
But you don't believe me.
What? I'm Albanian so I must be a criminal.
My brother too? No, I just take a lot of convincing.
I would like to leave now.
That's fine.
Just advise you to stay in London.
Any trips you might have planned - planes, trains, boat trips - cancel.
I will want to talk to you again.
DOOR OPENS An, what the bloody hell is going on? Mr Orhan, please.
This is my brother.
Stupid girl.
Is he the one they're after? Please, he's hungry.
I don't want the police back here.
Both of you, get out and don't come back.
OK.
OK.
CHUNG COUGHS He's not well.
He should see a doctor.
We cannot.
He is not allowed.
Because he's an illegal? Please, you know a doctor who ask no question? Can you pay? I have a little.
Take him home.
Get him warm and make him rest.
Look after him.
Don't bring him back here.
Thank you.
This is the last one identified.
Body four.
Sasha Preka.
Albanian plumber.
Passenger or crew? According to his brother, he was a passenger.
I've got my doubts.
That contact number he said he was given is a pay-as-you-go mobile - untraceable.
Are you holding the brother? No, haven't got enough for that.
Anything from you and Radley? Sorry, no, nothing to connect the body in the sewer with the boat.
So you two still think this is Snakehead related or not? Well, the tattoo is indicative, hardly definite.
OK, one last thing.
The search radius has been covered by POLSA.
Now we can keep them out there, but it's been 36 hours now.
Realistically, in your opinion, what are the chances of there being anybody still alive out there? Based on the temperature the other night and the currents, I'd say negligible.
That's what I thought.
So from dawn tomorrow we're scaling back the team, we'll be looking for bodies now, and not survivors.
Jessica? Hi, it's Nikki Alexander.
ON TV: 'Four years out of date.
All the same, this first official 'estimate of the unauthorised foreign population of Britain puts it at between 310,000 and 570,000' The search has been called off? It's been scaled down.
How did they find out she was dead? They haven't found out for sure but But what? Look, the chances of her being alive now are so small that Have you no faith? I have faith in the probability.
And what is the probability that she's alive? About one in 1,000.
I'm sorry.
Have you ever loved someone? Of course.
Really loved someone so that you'd die for them? Yeah.
Imagine someone told you they had died.
How you wish you had some chance, any chance at all to bring them back to life.
And then imagine someone told you there was a one in What would you be willing to do? What wouldn't you do? Would you give up trying to bring back the person that you'd die for? You'd never give up.
Ying's parents wouldn't.
But they're dead.
I wouldn't.
But all I'm allowed to do is to beg you.
Please don't give up.
'You have one new message.
' Hi, Nikki, it's Harry.
Tried you on your mobile, tried you at home.
If you're at work don't stay too long.
Hey, Nikki.
I'm sorry.
I didn't get your message till very late.
It's OK.
You're not burning the candle at both ends? You've got something for me? I do.
Seaweeds that grow on the bottom of boats are called fouling species.
I found two on the underside of our boat.
Blidingia minima is a saltwater weed, it's commonly found in the Thames, downriver at about here.
The second species I found is Cladophora glomerata, a freshwater variety.
And it too lives in the Thames, upriver to about here, which leaves us with a stretch of few miles between Richmond and Putney.
I reckon that's where your boat was kept.
It's a lead, isn't it? Yes, it is.
If we find that boat we find a lot of answersI hope.
So thank you.
And get some sleep, yeah? Ashar? About the search teams? What about them? Well, we don't know she's dead, do we? Nikki, I asked you about this.
You were the one who said that their chances were next to nothing.
I know, but there is still a chance.
People survive for days under rubble from earthquakes.
They lived for weeks in the jungle after the tsunami.
She could have hidden and covered herself up.
Miracles, Nikki.
They don't happen all the time.
You need to be realistic.
We have to shift our resources.
You have to what? Shift our resources.
Ashar, we are talking about a six-year-old girl who was missing.
This makes me an unfeeling bastard, right? No.
I just thought that you of all people might understand What? Because I'm an IC4, I should be somehow different? Yeah, well, I'm sorry, darling, I was born in bloody Basingstoke, not Bangalore.
Ashar, I didn't mean that, but surely Thanks for the lead.
Harry.
Hi.
You didn't sleep here last night, did you? Please don't.
You've got a perfectly good bed at homeor so everybody says.
Been to the supermarket? Ah, Radley of the dump.
Nice way to greet a girl.
Especially one bearing gifts.
We found it caught on a grate at a drop point in the main drain coming south from W1.
Which includes Chinatown, yeah? Yep, bit mucked about, but definitely Oriental.
Which brings us back to our Snakeheads.
Ashar's convinced it's the Albanians.
We still don't have any connection between him and the boat.
HE SNIFFS Ugh, you're the only person I've met lately who smells worse than me.
Soon as I'm out of here I'm straight into a bath full of aromatic oils.
PHONE RINGS Guv? Dr Alexander's seaweed map has given us the location where the boat was moored.
We've an address on the Thames in Richmond.
It's a Mr Jim Pearson.
Now, you want to join me on this or have you got better things to do with your time? Thanks, guv, I'll meet you there.
That's odd.
What's wrong? I'd hold that bath if I were you.
Why? There's too much neck.
Oh, don't mess me about, Harry.
I am not in the mood.
I'm not messing about.
They've both got the upper two cervical vertebrae.
This head doesn't fit that torso.
Don't be stupid, of course it fits.
It has to fit.
What the hell are you doing? Stop it.
Give me that.
But if it doesn't fit Then we have a head without a body as well as a body without a head.
You're kidding me.
I have spent three days down that sewer.
Rats! There were rats everywhere.
I never knew there were so many rats.
It's like a rat convention.
And you're telling me that you want me to go back down there again with the rats.
Finished? Come and look at this.
Look.
What is it? Sand and silt, I'd say.
And maybe fragments of shell.
Meaning? Meaning that although your torso hasn't been in the river, there's a good chance that this guy has.
So one of them could have been on the boat.
And your Snakehead theory is back on the board.
Yeah.
Sorry, I just don't like rats.
Really? Control from search team leaderbody found.
We have a female Caucasian, aged about 20.
Her clothes are waterlogged.
No discoloration on the right ileac fossa which indicates that death would have occurred Generally well preserved although there were early signs of skin slippage There is free fluid in the peritoneal cavity.
It is blood-tinged.
The liver is blotchy and appears haemorrhagic.
Nigel, can you stand over there, please? SHE DIALS NUMBER Leo? Shit.
Harryquick.
OK, Nikki, we're looking at it.
Tell us what you've got.
OK, there are needle track marks in the antecubital fossa and some contusions to the upper arms which could be consistent with grip marks, but I wasn't happy with that.
Small haemorrhages in the palate and conjunctivae.
Slow down.
Then I opened up the body.
And there were similar haemorrhages in the pericardium.
Blotchy red lungs.
What about the liver? Is there a skin rash? No.
What is it? A virus? I'll have to ask an expert.
Sounds like some kind of a viral haemorrhagic fever.
Nikki, stop the PM.
Don't touch anything.
What are you doing? I'm double-gloved.
We need some samples.
Nikki, get out of there.
It could be Ebola or Lassa Fever, for God's sake.
I'll be fine.
OK, Nikki, I'll take over here.
Harry, call Ashar and warn him.
And then get onto NDSR, ask them to send a team over.
Leo, I might as well finish I want you and Nigel out now! MOBILE RINGS Shit.
Police! Open up! Shall I call an ambulance? You're a sick woman, Radley.
Just kidding.
Harry? Helen, are you in there? Yeah, wait till you see You have to get out of there now.
What? Get out of there now! Guv, we need to get out.
GO! What? We need to get out of here.
It's Harry.
Why? Just get out now! Why? Harry, Harry, what is it? Yeah, yeah, yeah we're out, we're out.
What is it? What's the rush? Radley, what is going on? Right.
Oh, great.
Right.
I've got another body and another head for you.
Guv, OK, so the body that they took of that young girl, she's got some virus so if Jim Pearson's been near her, chances are he's got it too.
Harry, what kind of virus are you talking about?