Paternal

A man is found shot dead in a hotel room and the cash he was carrying has gone missing. We discover the man owed his ex-wife thousands of pounds in unpaid child support and was lying to his girlfriend about his line of work. DS Sam Casey (Paul Nicholls) and DS Ronnie Brooks (Bradley Walsh) also learn he has a son dying of leukaemia, but hadn’t been tested for a bone marrow match.

Attention turns to the ex-father-in-law, Philip Donovan. Did he hunt down the father of his dying grandson to try to recoup the unpaid money or is there more to this family set up than first appears? How far will a parent go to protect their child…?

Meanwhile, at the CPS Jake (Dominic Rowan) and Kate (Georgia Taylor) work out their differences and reach a more even keel.

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix.

An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.