Wire in the Blood

Hole in the Heart (4x3)

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Saving student Kurt from leaping to his death makes Tony ponder why someone might want to take their own life. He'd like to help Kurt to feel better, but Kurt doesn't stick around in therapy long enough to debate the issue. He disappears to hook up with a new group of "friends" and Tony is left feeling inadequate. Meanwhile a businessman and his accountant die in a horrible fire - apparently both victims of arson. Were they murdered by jealous partners? There seems no reason for the deaths. But these are not the last pair of corpses found in Bradfield and Alex turns to Tony for help. The complex tableaux at the scenes of death lead Tony to deduce that these corpses are neither both murder victims nor both willing suicides. The truth is more bizarre and more complicated. Masonic symbolism leads the investigation to a local lodge but to no avail, and then the penny drops for Tony: the ways in which each of the pairs of victims has died bears uncanny resemblance to the deaths of Christian saints. This is a suicide cult. Someone is breeding murderous martyrs and the deaths will continue until Tony and Alex find the source. A local vicar with links to many of the perpetrators looks the most likely candidate... but when he kills himself in a simple suicide Tony realises he is merely an ordinary cult member trying to throw them off the trail. He builds Alex a profile of the true leader, piecing together the ways in which the perpetrators were gathered, hoping this will enable them to arrest their man.