Crime drama. Series 5 (2015) (4) Shadows in the Sky. DCI Vera Stanhope uncovers a life of secrets and lies when the body of a well-loved family man Owen Thorne plummets from a multi-story car park just after picking up his foster daughter Lila from her school prom. It looks like a case of foul play but his wife Ellie insists he was a good man and loving father to their children, a son who they adopted and Lila who they are in the middle of adopting. Owen’s good deeds also extend to extracurricular volunteering for an outreach programme, at which he has developed a relationship with young alcohol-abusing Mancunian runaway Hannah; is his interest in her merely a pastoral one?
Local small-time drug dealer Logan Tilley also falls under suspicion after CCTV shows footage of him confronting Owen in the street. But although it’s subsequently clear that Tilley is Lila’s natural father and he’s a ne’er-do-well, he is discounted pretty early on as feckless rather than truly vengeful.
Hannah, it transpires is Owen’s daughter by a one-night stand – and she has tried to re-establish links with him although he has made it clear to her that his wife, son and soon-to-be-adopted Lila are his priority. She makes out to the police that she is copacetic with this, but is this true or does she have another agenda?