Season 4 - Episode Guide

Joe's daughter is a witness to the death of a pensioner, seemingly stabbed, on a rush hour train she and her father were travelling on. Her seemingly quiet life turns out to be anything but as Vera's investigation begins to unravel a tangled web of lies and deceit. An old friend of Vera's father appears to hold the key to the entire mystery, which involves unraveling a murder committed thirty years previously, a rape which resulted in a child whose identity has been shrouded in mystery, and an affair which nobody suspected would ever be likely to have taken place. Vera realises that the answer may lie in events which have started to repeat themselves.

When a young property developer dies on a beach in Whitley Bay, Vera's investigation begins to tread on many toes. It appears that the victim was not only having a secret relationship with his estranged sister, but that he had confronted a local arcade owner, whose son had died at his house many years before, having slipped from a flat roof in a supposed 'burglary'. However, a scam involving the family's rental business may hold the key to the motive behind the victim's death. But in order to place all of the pieces of the puzzle together, Vera has to reveal some long buried - and heartbreaking - secrets, leading to a shock revelation which points the team firmly in the direction of the real killer.

Teenagers Sassi and Louis Barnes discover Shane Thurgood, dead from a single gunshot wound on the moors of the Northumberland countryside. An abandoned truck is found burnt out a mile away, containing the remains of a deer. DS Joe Ashworth is convinced this is a poacher's war gone wrong but for DCI Vera Stanhope, the truth is never that straightforward.

DCI Vera Stanhope investigates the mysterious death of businessman John Shearwood, found floating in the waters under the Gateshead Millennium Bridge. Supposedly on a golf trip to Ireland, wife Stella and brother Luke are baffled to discover John has been working as an informant for Revenue and Customs. But why spy on your own firm?