Disposable People (Season 2, Episode 6)
Premise: An accountant is stabbed in a Toronto jail by a man who got himself locked up to do it, and the hunt for whoever paid him leads to a charity and a wealthy family.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 2, Episode 6
- Starring
- DS Henry Graff (Aden Young), DS Frankie Bateman (Kathleen Munroe), Insp. Vivienne Holness (Karen Robinson), DCA Theo Forrester (K.C. Collins), Mark Yohannes (Araya Mengesha)
- Guest stars
- Currie Graham as Jack Walding, Laura de Carteret as Amelia Hough, Richard Harmon as Curtis, Ishan Davé as Harry Rai, Hannah Spear as Vicki Holmberg
- Director
- Peter Stebbings
- Writers
- Seneca Aaron
Summary
The Case
“Disposable People” opens with condo concierge Ingram Nestor pressing cash on his frightened son, Derek. Ingram later attacks Lewis Jenkins, a resident who complains about Derek’s visits, pleads guilty and asks to be held at the Humberview detention centre. Soon after he arrives, a brawl breaks out and inmate Allan Givens, an accountant serving two years, is stabbed to death with a homemade shiv.
Ingram lied about an elderly parent to get sent to Humberview. Derek, his hand badly hurt, admits he owed bikers more than $100,000 and that someone cleared the debt the day Allan died; a bookie later confirms an anonymous $113,000 payment, and photos of Derek’s injuries reached Ingram from a burner the day before the assault. Allan’s lawyer says he had promised evidence against someone, and his associate, Vicki Holmberg, admits trying to retrieve his old files from Seed Fund, a global food charity, until its CEO, Harry Rai, had her thrown out.
Seed Fund’s farmhouse photos prove to be one doctored building, and Jasmine from Financial Crimes traces $40 million from South Sudan projects into a numbered company in Effin, Ireland. A Limerick motto on a coaster ties that to Jack Walding, a former media baron in Ingram’s building and Seed Fund’s biggest donor. Jack says his giving pledge cost his stepson, Curtis, an old schoolmate of Rai’s, his inheritance, and then accuses Curtis at home of stealing through the charity.
The Interrogation
Curtis agrees to a chat at headquarters, but Jack arrives with revised accounts blaming Allan for clerical errors, and Curtis is let go. Curtis’s ex-wife, Carissa Rinaldi, says his mother, Amelia Hough, has always covered for him, once paying a housekeeper to take the blame when he stole a guest’s watch. Pressed again in jail, Ingram will only repeat that he killed Allan.
At the Walding penthouse, with guests expected and Amelia’s new coat of arms on display for her coming seat in the House of Lords, the detectives turn to Amelia. They raise a great-grandfather stripped of his peerage for treason and accuse her of paying Ingram to have Allan killed to protect her title. Amelia answers that Curtis confessed to the embezzlement and to hiring Ingram. Curtis calls her a liar and offers to explain how she raised the cash and paid Ingram through the anonymous app.
The ending
Spoiler: Mother and son are both taken into custody while Jack looks on; no charges or trial are shown. The episode closes on a Graham Greene line contrasting the small thief in prison with the big thief in his castle.
Suspects’ fates: Ingram Nestor, other or unclear; Curtis, arrested; Amelia Hough, arrested.
Why it stands out
- The dialogue leans on borrowed words: lines credited to Stanley Baldwin and Winston Churchill are traded with Jack, a detective ties Amelia’s Middle English motto to Chaucer, and Graham Greene gets the last word.
- The case turns on an Irish clue: the Limerick motto “Cuimhnígí ar Luimneach” (“Remember Limerick”) on Jack’s coaster points the detectives to the shell company in Effin, a parish in Limerick.