Original subtitles

♪ It's all right ♪

♪ it's ok ♪

♪ doesn't really matter if you're old and grey ♪

♪ it's all right ♪

♪ I say it's ok ♪

♪ listen to what I say ♪

♪ it's all right, doing fine ♪

♪ doesn't really matter if the sun don't shine ♪

♪ it's all right ♪

♪ I say it's ok ♪

♪ we're getting to the end of the day ♪

Somebody look at that.

Look at that.

Where'd you get all this gear?

Your old department sent them down.

They've been digitising all their archive files

so they don't need these hard copies any more.

Oh, look, look, look.

That bloke was nicked two minutes

after this picture was taken.

Mind you it took six of us to get him down to the station.

Yeah, he thought he was my best mate and all.

Didn't know what was coming.

What was coming?

Ten years for possession.

And silverfish.

Eh?

These tiny perforations.

They're made by silverfish.

Tiny little insects that live in records offices

and libraries.

Like a good read, do they?

No, they like the starch in paper.

Didn't know you were a shell suit man, Gerry.

[They laugh]

Yeah well, I was undercover, wasn't I?

White luminous green with purple?

Yeah, it was the '80s.

But where was the odds at that local leisure centre?

Now it was a big drugs bust, if you must know.

He looks like such a baby face.

Look, you think scar face and double it, eh.

I tell you the whole gang were wearing that gear.

Morning.

- Hello, guv'nor. - Morning.

What have you got there?

Electricity bills, bank statements, letters

all belonging to different

and all recovered in a raid on lock-up.

What were they doing there?

Serious and organised were acting on a tip-off

when they found a huge heroin stash

but also discovered a whole stockpile of documents.

These are just a sample.

But why pass them onto us?

Well, several are covered with the fingerprints

of a man murdered five years ago.

Friday the 13th, unlucky for some

and particularly unlucky for Max klein.

A 55-year-old east German immigrant,

who was something of a mystery.

After his murder an appeal

for information brought eyewitness reports of Max standing

at this location which led the investigators

to look at cctv.

A review of the footage found that prior to his death,

Max was at the same spot every morning for nearly six months

from 7 a.M to 10 A.M.

Every morning?

What was he looking for?

Or who was he looking for?

They never found that out.

They also didn't find out why on this particular day,

he left early.

Four hours later a passer-by stumbled

upon him bleeding to death.

He was about half a mile from a set of communal garages

where later traces of his blood were found.

So he was stabbed at the garages then tried to get away?

Yeah and when the paramedics got to him,

he was still conscious.

Don't suppose he mentioned who stabbed him?

Must have slipped his mind

however he did keep repeating the same two words

again and again until he died, in German.

They translated as blue flower.

What does that mean?

Maybe he wanted irises at his funeral.

Blue flower brought up several thousand results

but nothing conclusive

and nothing that connected to Max klein.

What about the knife he was stabbed with?

No murder weapon recovered.

No eyewitnesses.

No friends or relatives?

None.

Well this guy was like a ghost before he even died, eh?

So what's going on here?

These documents have all been torn up

and stuck back together again.

Yeah Max worked at a recycling centre.

So people tear up their confidential papers,

recycle them and Max here is what,

piecing them together?

Well he had the skills

because before he came to the UK in 2005,

he worked for the German government as a puzzler.

Puzzler?

I've read about them.

When the Berlin wall fell,

they went into panic mode on the eastern side

and the stasi started shredding all the documents

they'd been keeping on their own citizens.

Trying to Bury their secrets.

Yeah and the puzzlers were east German civil servants

whose job it was to reassemble those files.

What, by hand?

Must've taken them years.

Yeah, it did.

So Max was a dab hand at reading the garbage.

So let me get this straight,

this guy tries to piece together the truth

about one of the most repressive regimes in the world.

Then he comes here and uses those same skills

to steal people's bank statements?

It seems like it, yeah.

Yeah but he's been dead for five years.

Why was all that stuff still in the lock-up?

Well, street gangs are now diversifying into ID theft

so they can stockpile documents for several years.

Before garnering the information they find in them

to take out fraudulent loans and buy stuff.

So Max was supplying this stuff

to whoever owned the lock-up?

It's possible.

Right, this station is close to several office blocks,

housing estates, amenities...

That's a lot of foot falling in one.

Yeah, literally thousands during the peak hours.

And yet none of the eyewitnesses who came forward

had actually spoken to Max.

I mean why would they?

This is a place you pass through, isn't it?

You barely hang around long enough to breathe,

let alone talk.

Let's take a look at that.

What?

Look at the date.

2006.

Yeah and Max was here every morning

from January to July 2007

so someone connected with this might well have seen him?

Excuse me, can we help you?

I am allowed to put flowers here and the poster.

It's a beautiful tribute.

My solicitor is written to the council about this.

Oh, we're not from the council.

I'm detective superintendent Pullman

and this is Steve mcandrew.

Hello.

It's a bit heavy-handed isn't it?

No, no. We're not here to stop you from doing anything.

So what are you doing then?

We're looking into the murder of a man named Max klein.

Oh, yeah.

You knew him?

A little. We talked from time to time.

My name's grace cusack.

-I'm sorry for being -don't worry.

A bit short with you.

My last experience with the police officers

wasn't exactly what you'd call positive.

Why not?

Well they let a murderer go free.

Really, who was that?

Damon rapley.

He was driving the cab that killed my son

and he's still driving it, can you believe that?

He's still out there.

Living a normal life like nothing happened.

So he wasn't convicted?

No.

It was nearly six years ago

and I still come here every morning.

You probably think I'm mad.

Not at all.

Grace is there somewhere we can talk properly?

I'm just on my way to work

but you can come with me if you like.

Have a cup of tea.

Thank you.

Great.

[Paper rustling]

Did you know Max klein well, mr armitage?

He was a picker.

Don't really get out on the shop floor myself.

I tend to stay in here.

Being strategic, see?

What's a picker?

They refine the recycling

once it's been through the main sift.

Sort the paper from the plastics,

the wood from the glass and the metal.

So he would have got his hands on all sorts of stuff?

What's brought all this up again?

We spoke to the police just after he died.

Some new evidence has come to light.

What new evidence?

We're not at Liberty to say.

It's nothing to do

with one of our other eastern Europeans, is it?

We employ a lot of them you know.

How come?

They're bloody good workers.

But who knows what baggage they bring

with them from over there?

Actually, I tell you one thing they do bring.

What's that?

Bed bugs. Especially the Poles.

They seem to be riddled with them.

Bugs are probably getting pissed up

on all that vodka in their blood, eh?

Actually unlike some parasites you come across,

the insect cimex lectularius is incapable of discrimination.

Is it all right if we take a look around?

Not at such short notice.

Why not?

This is a dangerous facility.

We have strict regulations.

How strict?

You're talking risk assessments, health and safety forms.

Yeah, that's just red tape in it.

Put a foot wrong out there and you could lose an arm.

Let me get everything sorted

and you can come back next week.

Why?

What's not gonna be here next week?

I'll go and find our site manager, Corey.

He knew Max and he can show you round.

Thank you.

[Tyres screeching]

Oh, thank you.

Thank you. Thanks a lot.

Is this your business?

No. But I am the manager.

Well, manage myself in truth.

A whole team of one.

Must get a bit lonely.

Not really.

There's a flower for every occasion

so I get to meet all kinds of people in this job.

How did you meet Max klein?

He saw me one day.

At the station?

Asked if I knew his daughter.

His daughter?

That's the reason he came to this country.

He last saw her when she was a baby in 1987.

Why was that?

I only know what he told me.

Max and his wife tried to escape from east Germany.

[Soft music]

They didn't know it would only be two years

before the Berlin wall came down.

[Speaks foreign language]

Imagine how that must have felt.

The most delicate and precious thing in the whole world

and it's surround by barbed wire and watchtowers.

[Dogs barking]

[They speak foreign language]

His wife knew it wouldn't be long before they were found.

They had to do something.

[Alarm wailing]

The hole wasn't big enough for an adult

and then the alarm went up.

They had to make a choice.

- [People shouting] - [Baby crying]

[Dogs barking]

They only had time to get their baby out.

Takes a bit of doing.

Give your baby away like that.

They were desperate.

They were gonna be arrested.

The baby would have been taken into state care

which would have meant suffering and abuse.

Max's wife made him promise to stay alive

in the hope that one day he'd be free

to come after their daughter.

The stasi held them for nearly two years.

Max survived but his wife died in a police cell.

So he lost his whole family?

I could always see it in his eyes burning away.

Takes one to know one.

What made him think

that he'd find his daughter at the station?

After the wall came down, he went looking for her.

Worked in some kind of government office...

He was a puzzler.

That's it.

He used the access that job gave him

to try and find out where she'd gone

but the trail had gone cold.

It took him 15 years to Wade through all of the files

and the paperwork,

until he found out they'd brought her to this country.

So that's why he came here in 2005?

Yes by that time, one of the parents had died

and the other had gone back to Germany.

And the daughter?

She got herself into all kinds of trouble I think.

But he did find someone who knew her,

and said she was living in Shepherds bush.

So that's why he went to the station every day

when it was at its busiest.

What was his daughter's name?

First name, Mia.

Can't remember the surname.

Do you know if he ever found her?

No. He died trying.

I'll get onto the DNA guys.

See if there were any hits

between the original investigation and now.

Okay.

Can you think of any reason

why somebody would wanna kill Max?

No.

That last Friday he only stayed at the junction

for ten minutes or so whereas all the other days

he'd been there for three hours.

Did he seem different to you?

I wasn't there that day. I wish I had been.

Were you interviewed at the time?

I was away for a few weeks.

And when I got back,

well they'd done everything they were ever gonna do,

they'd given him one of those terrible

public health funerals.

Probably just assumed he was another knife crime.

[Crane truck moving]

I must say mr murgins, as a keen recycler

it's very encouraging to see

that something actually happens to all this stuff.

Yeah but in the end it all goes to China, doesn't it?

It goes to whoever pays the most.

Look at this lot.

How many items do you reckon you get

through here in an hour?

I don't know like thousands.

It's a lot of paper, isn't it?

Where did Max klein work?

Up there.

Are there any pickers still around

that would have known him then?

None that'd be any good to you.

Why not?

Speak Polish do you? Or punjabi?

Yeah must be hard making yourself understood

with all these different nationalities.

They understand me all right.

Did Max klein understand you?

I've already told you I've got an alibi for that night.

That wasn't my question.

Max klein worked here for 18 months.

In that time,

I didn't say more than two words to him.

Perfect employee then?

For this line of work.

Do you mind if we have a look inside?

Why would I?

[Papers rustling]

What happens if you find something confidential

like a bank statement?

See it, shred it.

Standard regulation.

And Max klein would've done that, would he?

Should've done.

Yeah but as his supervisor,

it was your responsibility to make sure he did.

What are you saying?

Well I'm saying that what if some of the pickers

don't follow the regulations?

What's to stop them just stashing a load of stuff

and taking it home with them later?

We don't just leave stuff lying around.

They get checked when they clock off their shift.

Who by?

Me.

Yeah well thanks, it's been very helpful.

Is there a gents' nearby?

This way.

Thanks.

It's through there.

All right, thanks.

It will be a moment.

You're going in together?

Unless there's a regulation about that as well.

Bloody hell, there's only one bog.

Get in.

Have you noticed how stig of the hump's watching us

all the time?

I'm surprised he's not in here making sure

we shoot straight.

He's just being conscientious about health and safety

isn't he?

He's hiding something. And armitage.

Mind you we haven't seen anything

to suggest that Max klein wasn't acting alone.

Brian, how much stuff was stashed in that locker

that started all this?

You don't honestly think that Max could have got

all that out without murgins turning a blind eye, do you?

No, you're right.

Murgins must be in on it.

Or running it.

Look there's an awful lot

of very valuable personal information

going through this place.

It wouldn't be hard to take the odd bit out now and again,

would it?

And sell it on the side to a gang

who then use it when the dust's settled?

Exactly.

So we've gotta find out what murgins's hiding.

Have a look at his office.

How do we do that with him on us all the time?

Don't know yet. Come on.

This place looks like it wandered out of drum chapel,

went on a bender and ended up at the wrong end of the m6.

Asbestos towers are pulling it down in three days time.

They're doing it a favour.

Maybe it reminded Max of east Berlin, eh?

Corey give you everything you need?

Yes.

Yes, very, very helpful.

Very helpful indeed.

I have further questions to ask

but my colleague needs to get back

to the office to do some office stuff.

Of course.

I'll see myself out. Thanks very much.

[Ominous music]

Yeah I'll be out in a couple of minutes.

So they found nothing in here first time around, eh?

No.

And that was a bit odd

cause it was almost as empty then as it is now.

You know it's the,

French philosopher Pascal said that all man's misery derives

from not being able to sit in one room alone.

You've been spending too much time with Brian Lane.

So look, Max's body is found half a mile away

from the garages where he was stabbed, right?

Yeah.

Well half a mile's a marathon

when you're suffering from a stab wound.

He must have been in agony.

What's your point?

Why didn't he stay put?

Cry out for help?

He must have been so desperate to get somewhere,

he put up with that amount of pain.

Maybe he was going for help.

Okay would you say from where he was found,

he was trying to get back to here?

I suppose so but coming back to what?

Yeah.

Silverfish?

Pardon?

Oh yeah Brian was telling us they're,

they're tiny little insects, right?

And they live off.

You're right, I've been working with Brian for too long.

Okay let's try looking at things

from a broader perspective.

Okay.

Max klein loses his wife, loses Mia.

He spends two years in a stasi cell

until the Berlin wall comes down.

And then he spends the next 15 years

at a government office trying to work out where Mia's gone.

He makes his way to the UK.

Gets a job in the recycling centre.

Continues his search for Mia.

Whilst ripping off electricity bills in his spare time.

Is there something else driving this guy?

Let's go and check out those garages.

This place gives me the creeps.

Okay.

Was he meeting someone?

Whoever's picking up those bills?

Could be.

Now traces of his blood were found all around here.

Okay so there's a struggle,

maybe a dispute over money,

Max gets stabbed, takes off that way.

Now that look, that cut through

that could lead you back towards Max's flat.

All right he could have been going back

but it doesn't alter the fact there was nothing

to go back for.

There's gotta be something.

What about the lock-ups?

They must be rented to people in the estate.

The leaseholder list was gone over at the time

and no connection to Max klein was found.

I see why they had so much trouble with this one.

Let's just hope the boys come up with something.

Amen to that.

Hey strickland's looking for you.

Ah, great.

This is dci rosser

from the economic and specialist crime unit.

Detective superintendent Pullman.

To what do I owe the pleasure?

There's been something of an administrative mix-up

between them, serious and organised and ourselves

mix-up?

A parallel investigation.

We haven't been informed

about the recovery of documents from that lock-up.

I don't follow.

I understand that after studying the documents,

you've taken a keen interest

in the clays Lane recycling centre.

And how do you know that?

Because I've had a man inside there for three weeks now.

Everything had been going smoothly

until two of your pensioners came trampling through

this morning.

Pensioners?

That's what they are, aren't they?

They're professionals doing their job

and you'd do well to remember that dci rosser.

I don't mean any disrespect, detective superintendent.

But your professionals are jeopardising

a major investigation into what could be one

of the UK's leading identity fraud rings.

They're asking legitimate questions about a murder.

My priority is with the living.

I'm sorry about your German but he's been gone five years.

I don't know how you run things in your unit dci rosser

but here compassion for the dead doesn't just disappear

because a few years have passed.

My point is his troubles are over.

I'm trying to apprehend criminals

who are ruining lives as we speak.

And I'm trying to apprehend a murderer.

My team are on the frontline

of the UK's fastest growing crime.

Blimey, you sound like a salesman.

Identity theft cost the UK economy

over a billion pounds last year

and there were over a hundred thousand victims.

Do you have all this

on some kind of color-coded wall chart?

It's not a wall chart.

It's an interactive smart board.

Nice.

Are we supposed to stand down sir?

Stay away from that place

until dci rosser's investigation is complete.

I'm sure you have other leads.

[Phone rings]

Mr strickland.

What was all that about?

Ah, guv'nor, good news.

There's something going on at that recycling centre

and Max klein is up to his neck in it.

Bad news.

Strickland's warned us off.

Why?

That was the delightful dci rosser

from economic and specialist crime.

What's that when it's at home?

One of those fashionable, well-financed units

at the frontier of modern crime apparently.

Or something beginning with f.

Anyway they're already investigating the recycling centre

so we've been told to stay away.

No but guv'nor, I've got utility bills,

bank statements,

they're all bundled up there ready to sell on.

Yeah Gerry's right.

We finally get decent break in the case

and we're supposed to ignore it?

Work round it.

Well I've been looking into Max klein's last words,

"blue flower."

And?

The original investigation did a blanket search

on the term blue flower which is why they ended up

with poetry groups and estate agents.

But I applied a number of filters to the search,

like east Germany, the Berlin wall, cold war...

Brian, we're not getting any younger here.

The blue flower blog documents the history

of the most successful protest organisation in east Germany.

Blue flower spies infiltrated all the communist institutions

right up until the regime collapsed.

The members of blue flower married their way

into the government, the military even the stasi.

The stasi?

That was ambitious.

Their aim was to end the oppression

and they would have done anything to achieve it.

Sorry.

Yeah, wait a sec.

Yeah, go on.

But what's this gotta do with Max's murder?

Well he was an east German, wasn't he?

Yeah and he was arrested when trying to escape.

So maybe he was a member of blue flower.

Okay thanks a lot.

Guv, Max's daughter Mia adler,

she's on the DNA database.

Why wasn't this pointed out before?

Well she was arrested for breaking

and entering six months after the murder.

Address?

Yeah they gave me the address

of where she was at the time of the break-in.

Okay, let's go.

Great.

[Soft music]

This is it.

[Door bell rings]

Hi. Mia adler?

Can you give me a second?

Okay.

She's doing one.

Ah shit. Wait there.

Mia.

Mia.

Come on, running away is never the answer.

I've done it for myself believe me.

Hey, Mia. Come on.

Come on talk to me. Come on.

Hey, boys.

Here.

Here's a tenner.

I'll give you another one when you catch that girl. Go on.

She gave us a 50.

Bloody London prices.

Sorry I lost her.

That girl should wear a t-shirt saying troubled

and dangerous.

Well, it looks like she took her computer with her

but she left her Insulin behind.

Troubled, dangerous and a diabetic, eh?

Yeah. What on earth is that?

Ah, it dropped out of her bag.

Looks like it was more important for her

to take this than her Insulin.

What the hell, what the hell.

Hello.

Well, well.

This memory stick contains the back-up files

for the blue flower blog.

Which means that Mia was behind it.

Yes but I'm more interested

in the folder of unpublished files she's got on here.

They're stasi reports.

All about one particular member of the blue flower group.

A woman who tried to flee the border in 1987

after they discovered her identity.

That woman was Alicia klein,

Max klein's wife and Mia's mother.

Only there's a big difference between what's written

in these reports and what grace cusack told us.

Alicia was trying to smuggle herself and Mia out.

Max wasn't with them.

So are you saying that grace lied?

More likely Max lied to her.

Why would he do that?

To hide the fact that his wife wasn't trying

to escape with him.

She was trying to escape from him.

- [Dogs barking] - [Alarm wailing]

[Baby crying]

Max klein wrote these reports.

These are his words.

He tracked down and arrested his own wife that night.

Max klein was in the stasi?

Imagine the rage he must have felt.

Knowing she's only married him to get inside information.

And here she was trying to run.

Taking away the child they'd had together.

So his marriage, his family,

was all a lie?

Well this was a world where children informed

on their parents.

Nothing was sacred, anything was possible.

Yeah but Max was a jig Sawyer, wasn't he?

Puzzler.

All right, puzzler.

So, so the Berlin wall comes down

and he goes back to the only place

he should have stayed a million miles away from?

The government offices where they're reassembling the files

that the stasi shredded?

Well there's lots of stories of stasi personnel

infiltrating that particular office

to Bury their own crimes.

Rewrite history.

So why didn't Mia publish that in her blog?

If you'd just discovered that your father

was responsible for your mother's death,

would you publish it?

Not if you wanted to take revenge.

Exactly.

So that's why he stopped looking that day.

He'd found her.

Or she'd found him.

Yeah but hold on, hold on.

If Alicia only had Mia to keep up the illusion

of her marriage to Max,

why would he then come looking for her?

Maybe that's something that Mia can tell us.

Hey where are we on murgins by the way?

Oh yeah. I've been checking this out.

I found it in his office at the recycling centre.

Not this again.

Sandra, this is a well-known hang out

for a lot of very dodgy faces.

I mean it's a perfect place if you're gonna sell documents.

What, what is it?

It's just a pub.

But it'd be very easy to pop in there

and check out who murgins is actually meeting.

Gerry, we've been told to stay away.

How many times?

From the recycling centre yeah, but not from murgins.

He is a suspect.

And whoever he's meeting could be well involved too.

All right but keep your distance.

Actually no Steve, you go with him.

And behave yourselves.

As if we wouldn't.

[Upbeat music]

Just a pub, eh?

Well it's got a bar.

Oh so there is, how long have we got?

Murgins should be here in about 20 minutes.

That is an eternity in drinking time.

Hi, a couple of large ones please.

Yeah and a couple of pints of that London stuff.

That's great, isn't it?

Takes you back to the old days

of stings and stakeouts and secret identities.

You pining for your shell suit?

No, no. I'm just saying.

It's good to get your hands dirty now and again.

Reminds you of what it's all about.

We are as they say, kicking it old school.

Yeah.

Hey, hey, hey, focus.

We're supposed to be behaving ourselves remember?

Don't you worry about me.

In these situations

I was always known as captain outstanding.

I'm well focused.

Yeah but focus on getting that down your neck,

captain outstanding.

Yeah, you know like those superheroes.

By day he was Gerry standing, at night...

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get the picture, slainte.

Cheers mate.

Oh, dear.

I wonder how the guv'nor and Brian are getting on.

On a stakeout they'll be having a whale of a time.

Sitting back, listening to some music, digging the sounds.

[Woman] I don't know. Is the tagliatelle made with meat?

[Speaks foreign language]

Okay, I'll take the tagliatelle.

Okay, [speaks foreign language]

Maybe I was wrong, maybe we've lost her altogether.

[Woman] Ah, that is good.

Ah, that is good.

I was enjoying that.

I could tell.

Well I've gotta practise.

It's been years since my German o-level.

Brian, we don't even know if she speaks German.

And even if she does,

I very much doubt that vegetarian tagliatelle

will be a topic of our conversation.

Well I'm just trying to defrost my vocabulary you know.

Just leave it in the freezer for now, will you?

Ha, ha, very witty.

Suspect's arrived.

[Woman] Copy that.

[Ominous music]

Can we talk now please, Mia?

So this geezer has got a sawn-off shotgun, right?

Yeah.

But not only that.

He's got a parrot on his shoulder.

What?

You should have heard the language from the parrot.

Honestly you wouldn't believe this beak on this bird.

It's like, the bloke suddenly looks me in the eye

and raises the shotgun and I'm thinking Gerry,

this is it for you son, you've had it.

And suddenly the parrot says...

There he is.

There he is? What?

No, no. Murgins.

There he is.

That must be the guy he's selling to.

Wait a minute, wait a minute.

That's the dci who was at our place earlier.

Rosser the tosser.

Hey Gerry, I think that's a tad judgmental.

You hardly know the bloke.

The guv'nor's gonna love this.

But what's he doing here?

You don't think he's in on it, do you?

It's a sting.

We're gonna find out who he's doing business with.

Yeah.

[Man shouting]

Oh, he's off.

Come on Gerry, you're captain outstanding.

Do something.

Oh, very smooth.

Mr murgins.

Bye bye now.

Pullman's pensioners.

You don't have to thank us. We were just passing.

That was a suitably arthritic solution I suppose

but don't worry, I won't be thanking you for it.

Don't you speak to captain outstanding like that.

I'm afraid I don't speak clapped out and retired at all.

Oh but you're so fluent in arse hole?

You've been instructed to stay away from our operation.

Lucky for you we were around.

Otherwise your man there would have nipped off

on his rather sizeable toes.

Well I'll be speaking to strickland in the morning.

Why don't you do that? Bum face.

Are you all right?

Gerry, total tosser.

Smell 'em a mile off.

Tosser radar, mate.

I say, time for another.

I think so.

Oh hey, hey, hang on.

So what did the parrot say?

At the end of your story?

Oh the parrot.

Yeah, yeah.

He's got the shotgun right and parrot here.

Yeah.

And suddenly the parrot goes "wanker,"

and nearly tears his ear off.

So I nut him and Nick him.

[They laugh]

We've read your father's reports.

He wasn't my father.

We've got a DNA test result that says otherwise.

Ooh well listen to you, a DNA test result.

We wouldn't have found you without it.

Max klein wasn't even a human being

so how could he be anyone's father?

All right then. Your biological father.

Is that better?

He was a cancer.

A tumour eating away at people's lives

without them even knowing that he was there.

Till it was too late.

Is that what he did to your mother?

Ate away at her life?

No. No she knew what he was all along.

To think how much it must have hurt him when he found out.

Knowing that she'd almost beaten him at his own game.

Almost wasn't enough there, was it?

He arrested her, had her interrogated.

Sounds like you're doing to me now then.

We're asking you questions, that's all.

No, you're trying to exploit my emotions.

You're angry. It's understandable.

I'm not angry.

No I'm ecstatic.

Elated even. Can't you tell the difference?

Finding out that he's dead.

No, even better that somebody else killed him.

That he died in pain.

- [Dogs barking] - [Whistle blowing]

The thought of him just bleeding to death, all alone.

I only wish I'd been there to watch it happen.

See the light fade in his eyes.

Listen to the last breath as it passed between his lips.

The way you're talking you sound

as though you killed him.

I didn't even know he was in this country

until you told me.

You're telling us, he never found you?

I didn't want to be found.

Where were you at the time of his death?

Why don't you tell me, mmh?

You seem to be such an expert on my movements.

That's important to you, isn't it?

Privacy, anonymity.

Did you search my medical records as well?

Yeah I bet you did.

Where were you at the time of your father's murder?

There's nothing you won't exploit

to get what you want is there?

Memories, tragedies, even chronic illnesses.

We just wanna discover the truth.

People like you don't care about discovering the truth.

You only care about bending it, distorting it,

making it all fit.

Hang on a minute.

If the truth is so important to you

why didn't you publish your father's reports on the blog?

Because there are days

when I still don't want to believe that it's true.

She's got the motive.

And the aggression.

She wishes she had killed him.

Yeah but that's just it.

She wishes she had.

See if you can trace her movements

over the last five years

maybe we can get her alibi

even if she doesn't wanna give us one.

What are you gonna do?

Get her to see that she can trust us.

Good luck.

Cheers.

Thank you.

Would you like him back?

I know he means a lot to you.

Did you have him when you were little?

It's the only thing of hers that I've got left.

Your mum?

She was very beautiful. I saw her photo in the report.

There's nothing beautiful about that.

They took it.

The stasi?

On the night he arrested her.

You know I don't even know what she looked like

when she smiled.

How did you get hold of those reports?

Are you gonna arrest me for that too?

Just help me Mia.

In 2006 the German government started to digitise

all the stasi archives,

but they have to be careful about what they put online.

Why?

A lot of ex-stasi are CEOs now. They're respectable men.

If their names were out there in the public domain.

If people knew what they'd done.

So you hacked them?

I wanted to know the truth.

I wanna know the truth too.

About what happened to your father.

Stop calling him that.

Sorry.

Could the people who smuggled you out

have caught up with him?

They were friends of my mother's

but they were still traffickers.

The first thing they did

was give me up to the west German adoption agency.

Your father could,

sorry, Max klein couldn't have known about your blog

could he?

No. I post anonymously.

Then why do you think his last words were "blue flower?"

Could have been some stasi codeword.

Or maybe he was full of regret

over what he did to your mother.

He wasn't capable of that.

You read his reports.

She became nothing more than an object to him.

Something to be ground down, defeated.

You know I met someone who knew Max

and he didn't sound at all

like the monster you're describing.

You really don't know who you're dealing with, do you?

Okay.

If you can think of anything

that might explain what your father's last words meant,

I want you to contact me okay?

All right, you can go now.

What were Gerry and Steve doing in that place, Sandra?

Following a legitimate lead.

And I told you to keep your distance.

Yeah, from the recycling centre.

Not from murgins.

Max klein was one of the pickers

for the racket that murgins is running there.

Alongside scores of other equally unremarkable immigrants.

Yesterday,

we discovered that klein was an ex-stasi officer.

I can assure you there was nothing unremarkable about him.

With respect, you're reaching here.

There could quite easily have been conflict

between murgins and klein

especially if murgins put him under pressure.

Well I'd be happy to ask him about it for you.

I'll do my own asking thank you.

Let me speak to armitage and murgins.

They're my suspects.

And mine.

And it's my decision.

Sir I need to know

who murgins has been selling these things to.

And I am sure that murgins has information

on klein's murder.

Talk to murgins and armitage. See what you can find.

So what really happened to Max klein, mr armitage?

I've given you an alibi.

More of a lullaby, really.

A baby might believe it.

If it didn't fall asleep first.

So what's between you and murgins?

Did you start this scam or did he?

I never meant for it to go this far.

Oh, diddums.

Straight up.

I didn't know what he was up to.

Not at first.

Not until I needed the money.

Why did you need money?

One of the girls on the floor got herself into trouble.

You mean you got herself into trouble?

If you like.

Well either you did or you didn't.

I didn't have the money for her to,

take care of it so Corey loaned it to me.

That was big of him.

I didn't know where he'd got it from

until it was too late.

So he was blackmailing you, was he?

You're a poor soul right enough.

Said if he ever went down, I was going down too.

Made you turn a blind eye?

At first he was just skimming one

or two things off the line but,

as it got bigger he needed me

to keep the bosses off our backs

so that he could run the pickers.

Bit off a bit more than he could chew

with Max klein though, didn't he?

I knew that man was trouble the moment he arrived.

Two days before he died he had a row with Corey.

What about?

Don't know.

Threats were exchanged.

Then it got physical.

How physical?

It's the first time I've ever seen anyone

stand up to Corey.

But Max put him in his place, did he?

Black eye.

That works.

Corey was bloody furious.

You had a fight with Max klein two days

before he was murdered, why was that?

Armitage told you?

Afraid so.

He also told us it was the first time

that anybody had got the better of you.

Did that hurt your pride?

It was nothing.

Nothing?

You told us that you'd barely had two words with Max klein.

I bet that row had more than two words in it, didn't it?

Was it over money?

He never wanted money all right?

Why was that?

I don't know.

All the pickers get a taste.

Not much but a fiver's a fortune to them.

But he wouldn't even take that.

He just drew his basic salary.

Hold on, hold on.

So why was he helping put back together torn-up bills

if he wasn't earning out of it?

Cause he knew if he didn't do the work

I wouldn't trust him.

Besides, it was the best job he could get in this country.

Did he ever have any contact with the people you sell to?

No. Why would he?

So why did you have a fight?

He wanted that Friday off.

The Friday he died?

Yeah. He said it was vital.

But you wouldn't let him?

No.

Why did it get physical?

What do you think?

He threatened to expose you, didn't he?

But you must have climbed down

because he was supposed to be working

at the time of his death.

I didn't climb down.

He never showed up for his shift.

I never saw him again.

Why was that particular Friday so important to Max?

I don't know.

I always thought it might be something to do

with the cabbie.

Cabbie?

Yeah, he came down to the centre looking for Max.

A day or two before we had our,

disagreement.

Geezer seemed pretty steamed up.

They started pushing each other about.

Can you remember his name?

Ripley?

No, rapley.

Something rapley.

Grace cusack told us that her son was run over

by a cabbie called Damon rapley.

But why would rapley go and see Max

at the recycling centre?

Well, grace is obviously the connection

but I haven't got a clue where or how or why.

Grace's boy was playing chicken

across the road with his pals.

And this Damon rapley just happened to be

in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It says here that he's a leaseholder

on one of those garages.

There was a black cab parked there remember?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah murgins said he saw rapley

at the recycling centre with Max.

And he parks his cab close to where Max was stabbed.

What's this about an injunction?

Grace could never accept the accident verdict

and she threatened rapley.

Letters, phone calls, the works.

Grace talked a lot to Max.

Could she have told him about all this?

Well she volunteered quite a bit when we met her,

didn't she?

Even called rapley a murderer.

Maybe Max got rapley to go to the recycling centre

to get revenge for grace.

Would you describe yourself and Max as close?

Not close exactly.

Then what?

I think we understood each other.

How do you mean?

In a way we'd both had the same experience,

we'd both lost a child.

Only he had the chance to try and find his again.

Where is this going?

Did you ever tell Max how you felt about Damon rapley?

Of course.

But how does me telling him how I felt

have to do with his murder?

Well we think he might have gone after rapley.

Why?

You wanted revenge, didn't you?

I never told Max that.

Yeah but you might not have needed to.

I have learned to live with what he did to my son.

I can't deal with the thought of him hurting Max too.

My governor said you wanted a word.

Mr rapley?

Yep.

Detective superintendent Pullman.

This is Brian Lane, ucos.

Yeah, got you a cup of tea mate.

Yeah great, thanks for that.

Look, I don't mean to be rude

but if we can we make this quick,

I've got an airport pick-up.

Do you remember going to this man's place of work

on the 12th of July 2007?

Is this about her?

Who do you mean by "her"?

Grace cusack. He kept pestering me about her.

Why?

Wanted me to apologise.

Had this mad idea it would make things better.

Why didn't you do it?

Because it would have had the opposite effect.

How so?

She'd have seen it as an admission of guilt

and I would never have been over it.

She's not the only one who's suffered you know?

She lost her only child.

Yeah, who stepped out in front of me.

I couldn't do anything about it.

You said that Max had been pestering you.

How long had that gone on

before you went to his recycling centre?

Couple of weeks give or take.

He got more threatening.

I went to warn him off.

But if you knew he was speaking to you on grace's behalf,

why didn't you call it in?

Let the police handle it?

It was a breach of the injunction, wasn't it?

He was very clever about that.

He said he was doing it all without her knowledge.

That she didn't know anything about it.

Did he say why he'd taken up her cause?

He was sure there was gonna be a disaster

if I didn't apologise.

And what with the anniversary of her son's death. One year.

What kind of disaster?

She was gonna do something drastic.

To herself?

I don't know.

Why didn't you say anything about this at the time?

I mean you must have been aware of Max klein's murder.

Because I'm not stupid. I know what it looks like.

What does it look like?

Are you going to charge me with something?

Otherwise I really have to go.

Can you tell us where you were on the day he died?

Working.

We'll be checking that.

Fine.

Thanks for the tea.

[Ominous music]

Grace said that she always goes

to the junction first thing

but not on the day Max was murdered.

Well what about this?

Max is waiting and he sees that grace isn't there,

so he goes after rapley,

there's a struggle but it's Max who gets stabbed.

Why didn't rapley just own up?

Say it was self-defense?

Because he was seen at the recycling centre

a couple of days before.

That and his history with grace

could all add up to premeditation.

So we need something more than this.

Something that puts Max

and rapley together at those garages.

Well I've talked to his cab company

and they're sending over the records for that day.

What did the original investigation turn up at Max's flat?

Just a bed and a few possessions.

And some of your silverfish.

Silverfish?

Well that makes sense.

It does?

When the stasi man goes after somebody,

they usually have a system, a method.

They gather all kinds of material before they confront them.

Observation reports, photographs,

even scent samples.

What's scent got to do with it?

Well my point is that Max was looking for his daughter.

And he had a surveillance routine at that junction.

And he stuck to it like clockwork.

So if Max was going after rapley on grace's behalf

there would have been material,

surveillance research that kind of thing.

And paperwork.

Max's flat was virtually empty.

But the original team didn't know he was stasi, did they?

So?

So they didn't know

that the one thing a stasi man would do

is go to incredible lengths to hide things.

Walls, pipes, floorboards.

Secrecy was a way of life for these people.

So it hasn't changed since klein lived here.

No.

Oh.

[Laughs]

Do you wanna share the joke?

Look at the wallpaper. It's all flowers.

Hello, Gerry calling team.

Blue flower?

They're pink.

Well maybe there's a blue one somewhere.

[Knock on the door]

Hang on a minute.

This is a stud wall right?

Yeah.

Well look, the wall's far too close to the window.

I reckon this room's short by at least four feet.

Gerry, let's get this wardrobe out.

We have some wheels. So there's hope.

Oh, well done Gerry. Look.

Blue flower.

It's been coloured in with felt tip.

Oh. What the.

Careful guv'nor.

Blimey. Look.

What is the around here.

Well, he'd been searching for his daughter for 17 years.

He'd need structure, organisation.

He'd wanna make sure that this place

was free from interference.

Especially detection.

Secrecy was his second nature, wasn't it?

You'd be paranoid about anybody discovering this lot.

Well I suppose when he knew he was dying,

he was desperate for someone to discover the truth

hence the words blue flower.

You know they look really happy in these photos.

Well we might find some truth in here.

This looks like his journal. It's in German.

Oh, the last entry was on the day he died.

Can you, can you read it?

Give me a chance. Me German is still thawing out.

[Speaks foreign language]

Oh, that's hurting.

To hurt.

I must stop rapley hurting grace.

Time to bring him in.

Max klein attacked you, didn't he?

Why would he do that?

Because grace cusack wanted revenge

and he was gonna get it for her.

Did he bring the knife or was it yours?

I was working that day, you can check with my company.

We did.

You were several minutes late for your first booking

and that delay ties in with the time of Max klein's murder.

You wanna know why I was late?

I took the long way round.

Why?

I always take the long way round now.

Why?

Ever since the accident,

I don't wanna go near that road ever again.

Grace cusack doesn't think I care about what happened

to her boy but of course I do.

Then why haven't you told her that?

She needs someone to blame, don't you understand?

It's the only way she can deal with this.

And avoiding the road helps me forget.

Every time I remember it's like the guilt comes alive.

I can feel it swirling around me now

every time I talk about it.

It's like, like a big, black hole but it's not inside me.

I'm outside it.

And one day it's gonna swallow me whole.

But the accident investigation found you weren't at fault.

You ever run over a child?

It empties you.

Whether it's your fault or not.

How did it go with rapley?

His alibi checks out. We've had to let him go.

Poor sod's in bits.

So now we're back to square one.

[Speaks foreign language]

Look, with German,

you can't just translate word by word from left to right.

You have to isolate the verb and work backwards.

Well being back in school, isn't it?

Go on, Brian.

So the verb [speak foreign language]

Would be used in both rapley hurts grace

and rapley is hurt by grace.

Max wasn't trying to stop rapley hurting grace.

He was trying to stop grace hurting rapley.

Well there's his cab, but where's he?

Something's wrong.

Eh?

[Knock on the door]

Grace? Grace?

It's locked.

Break it down.

[Door bangs]

Grace?

Grace can you hear me?

Have you taken these, grace?

I'll get the medics.

Is he gone?

Who?

Is rapley gone?

He's still got a pulse.

Yeah I'll get an ambulance.

Max knew what I wanted to do.

He kept trying to talk me out of it.

I was trying to avoid him.

And that's why he didn't go to the junction that morning.

I was waiting at the garages for rapley

but Max caught up with me.

He tried to take the knife.

I just wouldn't let it go.

The next thing I knew, he was on the floor

saying those words.

Blue flower.

He was a good man.

I didn't wanna hurt him.

They're on their way.

Okay.

You think she's gonna be all right?

She'll live.

Is that enough?

[Siren wailing]

I wanted to bring you here

so that I could show you

what your father's last words meant.

He, he just wanted someone to know the truth.

What truth?

That he secretly tried to smuggle you

and your mother into west Germany

so that you could get your Insulin.

[Soft music]

No she was running from him.

With him.

Not from him.

He was part of blue flower too.

And that's why he joined the stasi in the first place.

She's smiling.

They obviously loved each other very much.

And you.

But all the files, all the arrest reports.

Part of his cover-up.

It's all in here.

Your father's account of what really happened.

[Ominous music]

[They speak foreign language]

[Dogs barking]

Your parents knew that if they were both arrested,

then they'd never be set free to come look for you,

they'd never see you again.

[Alarm wailing]

[Baby cries]

But then your mother had an idea.

No.

[They speak foreign language]

Arrest me.

[Blows whistle]

When the border police caught them,

she made him act like he'd played no part

in the escape plan,

like he'd just been following her.

Like she was part of the blue flower and he wasn't?

Yeah.

She made him swear to keep up the illusion

no matter what they did to her.

And he knew that was the only way he'd stay free

to come and find you.

But he never found me.

This room is all about you Mia.

He never stopped looking until the day he died.

No but these are just words.

Your father was a good man.

How do you know that for sure?

Because he died trying to stop somebody

from making the biggest mistake of their life.

[Soft music]

You okay?

I've got one hell of a story to tell on my blog.

I look forward to reading it.

Thank you.

For everything.

[Soft music]