Paying The Price

THE BILL
Paying the Price – Episode 38
Thursday 22nd April 2010, 21.00 to 22.00, ITV1
Repeated on ITV3 on Monday 26th April at 23.00

Sergeant Jo Masters (Sally Rogers) and P.C. Benjamin Gayle (Micah Balfour) are called to a hotel where Mark Pierce (Alec Newman) is causing a commotion in the reception claiming that his wife Julia Pierce (Emily Bruni) has booked a room at the hotel and he is demanding to be let in.

Sergeant Masters gains access to the room and discovers the badly injured body of Alan Marsh (Charlie De’ath). Julia Pierce has since disappeared. D.C. Jacob Banks (Patrick Robinson) speaks to Mark Pierce who doesn’t believe his wife would have an affair and believes there is more to the case.

The team trace a phone call from Julia Pierce’s phone to the home of Yin Chan (Vee Vimolmal) a teaching colleague of Julias. D.C. Banks and D.S. Stevie Moss pay a visit to Yin’s home and discover Julia hiding out there. When questioned Julia claims that she has been having an affair with Alan Marsh and that they had wanted to meet somewhere private but denies any involvement in the attack on Marsh insisting he was fine when she left.

Meanwhile back at the station D.I. Neil Manson (Andrew Lancel) is distracted and distant from the team causing concern amongst his colleagues.

Julia Pierce is quickly cleared of the attack on Alan Marsh when forensic results show that the fingerprints on the vodka bottle used to attack him belong to a Craig Chapman (Ryan Pope) who has been arrested overnight for drink driving.

After further investigation it is discovered that Chapman is a known associate of Alan Marsh, during questioning Craig Chapman admits to the attack on Alan Marsh revealing that he just meant to scare Marsh who owes him money. He says he has never met Julia Pierce and has no idea who she is or why she was there.

D.C. Banks and D.S. Moss are not convinced by Chapman’s account of the attack and are convinced there is more to the story, Stevie Moss checks the last dialled number from Julia Pierce’s phone it dials straight through to Craig Chapman. The team need to know how Craig Chapman and Julia Pierce know each other? And why did she lure Alan Marsh to the hotel room?

The case takes an even more confusing twist when D.C. Banks shows Julia Pierce’s husband Mark a photo of Craig Chapman and he claims that the man in the photo is Julia’s brother who died in a car accident fifteen years ago.

Who is Craig Chapman? Why did he attack Alan Marsh and why was Julia Pierce there?

THE BILL is a talkbackTHAMES production and a direct commission by ITV. This episode was written by Michael Crompton, directed by Richard Signy and produced by James Hall.