Treatment Sheetment

Treatment Sheet

Working Title

Dead and Buried

Genre

Crime Drama

Premise

DCI Nicholas Griffin is a cop with a dark past. Fifteen years ago he was the ringleader of a small crew that pulled off big crimes in places all around the UK - money laundering, drug pushing, armed heists, and even hits on criminal targets. Griffin worked from inside the police force to divert attention away from him and his circle, steering convictions instead towards gang rivals and competitors. Despite this violent lifestyle, his crew made sure that truly innocent victims were never caught in the crossfire - until bad information caused tragedy. A recently-sold house they thought was empty was torched by Griffin's hand as a distraction for a hit; however, as he found out when the report landed on his desk the next day, a mother and her three young children were still inside. Griffin instantly disbanded the group, and they never saw each other again.

Griffin went on to have a successful career, and is now a senior officer in the NCA. On the face of it a through-and-through professional, he hides the mental anguish he faces every day well. He doesn't know what happened to his former collaborators, nor does he want to know. However, when a young DS [Tom Fletcher/Georgia Sullivan] comes to him with what she thinks may be a link between seemingly random murders from across the country, he is shocked to see three faces he thought he'd managed to leave behind staring back at him from the file. Who is killing his once partners in crime? Will he be able to keep the investigation away from his past? And, most pertinently, which of them is next?

Extract

The extract starts with Griffin waking up tied to a chair in a dark and boarded-up room. Tied next to him is the last of his aforementioned consociates, Brandon Pritchard. Griffin had been trying to warn Pritchard of the dangers facing them when they were kidnapped. Pritchard manages to free himself from the chair, but before he can free Griffin, he is shot dead by a man who had previously been hiding out of sight. The man approaches Griffin, and when he comes out of shadow, he is revealed to be the husband of the woman killed in the fire fifteen years ago, Lewis Connor. In their frenzied conversation beforehand, Griffin had said out loud to Pritchard that he had been the one to set the fire, and Connor now knows the answer to the question he has been searching for all this time, ever since the end of the police investigation that he (quite rightly) felt was not carried out the way it should have been. He takes out a jerry can from within the shadows, and proceeds to douse Griffin in petrol, planning to bring the same fate upon him that he brought upon Connor's family years ago.

Meanwhile, DS [Fletcher/Sullivan] is desperately speeding down the road towards their location. She had a feeling that DCI Griffin knew more than he was letting on throughout the investigation, and was surreptitiously tailing him when he and Pritchard were kidnapped. While she lost track of Connor as he made his getaway, she managed to get a track on Griffin's mobile phone location, and she's heading there as fast as she possibly can. The screen cuts between the two scenes, building tension, the noise of the speeding car providing a contrast with the eerie quietness of the [warehouse?]. She makes it to the warehouse on foot, and is just trying to force her way in when the building goes up. [I'm not yet sure exactly how the scene will fully end - it may well be down to time constraints. DS Fletcher/Sullivan survives the explosion, and is heavily dazed and confused, but what after that?]

Characters

DCI Nicholas Griffin

DS [Tom Fletcher/Georgia Sullivan] - which it will be depends on who I can cast (they will also have to be able to drive, restricting my choices somewhat)

Brandon Pritchard

Lewis Connor