Deadly Consequences

THE BILL
Deadly Consequences – Episode 40
Tuesday 11th May 2010 21:00, ITV1
Repeated on ITV3 Monday 17th May at 23:00

When eleven year old boy, Matty Wallace, is reported missing from home the team are disturbed when they are called to local woodland where a body, they believe to be Matty’s, has been found.

D.I. Neil Manson (Andrew Lancel) and D.C. Grace Dasari (Amita Dhiri) visit Matty’s home where they speak to his mother Jane Wallace (Emily Joyce) and step father Craig Gant (Jai Armstrong) to confirm that the body is Matty. Whilst they are there they discover that the family have recently been under a lot of pressure as their youngest child, Poppy, has been waiting for a kidney transplant and a donor has just been found.

Jane Wallace claims that she only realised Matty was missing when she took his homework diary to school earlier that day (Monday) and realised he hadn’t turned up. During the conversation Grace sees Jane taking medication which she later discovers are tranquilisers belonging to Jane’s mother Ruth Pearce (Diana Kent). Ruth claims she has given them to her daughter because she has had trouble sleeping recently.

Back at the Wallace family home Matty’s stepdad Craig tells Neil and Grace that he has been working on a building site in Reading for the past four days and knows nothing of Matty’s disappearance. The team look at files on Matty’s computer and realise that he had planned to meet up with another boy, Alistair Gilmore (Alfie Browne-Sykes), on the morning he went missing.

They speak to Alistair and he confirms that they had planned to run away together on Monday morning but that Matty didn’t turn up and he hasn’t answered his phone since Saturday. Alistair also tells the team that Matty felt his mum was only concerned with Poppy’s transplant and Jane confirms that Matty had been upset that they had to cancel a family day out on Saturday when Poppy’s transplant came up.

Meanwhile, Neil Manson continues to be distant from the team as he is beside himself with worry over his son Jake’s chemotherapy. He is still refusing to discuss things with the whole team only confiding in Jacob ‘Banksy’ Banks (Patrick Robinson).

As the investigation progresses, the team’s suspicions turn to Matty’s mum, Jane when the post mortem reveals that Matty died on either Saturday or Sunday and she didn’t report him missing until Monday. She also changes her story as to when she last saw Matty - does Jane Wallace hold the key to her son’s death? Or does Matty’s step father, Craig, know more than he’s letting on?

THE BILL is a talkbackTHAMES production and a direct commission by ITV. This episode was written by Emma Goodwin, directed by Reza Moradi and produced by Sylvie Boden.