* This After The Flood episode 4 recap contains spoilers *
Jo finally confesses everything about her secret investigation into Lift Man, her dealings with Tasha Eden and why she went to check on Chris the caretaker, to her husband Pat. He begs her to drop it all before her career goes up in smoke and she seems to agree.
Back at Jack Radcliffe’s barn, Tasha continues grilling Lee about her late brother Daniel. He tells her there's nothing more to know and suggests she returns to France. It’s quite clear there’s not much chance of that! But when he leaves she finds a wooden box with a key marked ‘Secure Self Storage’ inside. What’s Daniel put into storage?
Over at the Mackie household it's clear Sgt Mackie believes his wife is having a bit of fun on the side and we know he’s right to be suspicious. They also discuss their future as foster parents, but after 20 years Sarah says she wants to start putting herself first and is aiming for a seat in parliament.
In the daily detective briefing, DCI Roy explains that Daniel Eden and his father were investigated for fraudulent accounting in 2005, with his French father serving time in Marseilles for similar offences. Tasha Eden has also been arrested for affray and assault, so is also a suspect. Jo isn’t convinced, but she’s sailing very close to the wind and people are starting to ask questions about how she happened upon Chris after his suicide.
Meanwhile, in Waterside Molly Marshall is lamenting the fact that Jack Radcliffe hasn’t actually paid the money he promised to the Flood Relief Fund. “What a snake!” she says to Sgt Mackie, who’s also got good reason to despise the owner of Uplands Eco Housing.
Finn Allen then arrives and tells Molly that the council has signed off on Uplands Eco Housing, even without the promised water retention basins and ponds. They’ve also put in a planning application to double the size of a second Uplands development on the same hillside. “They don’t care!” says Finn and we have to say we agree with him.
A bit more digging reveals that while anti-flood measures are recommended in new building developments, they’re not mandatory, so Radcliffe hasn’t been breaking the law and Sarah Mackie has been helping him out by not questioning his plans as someone who wasn't sleeping with him might have done.
To make matters worse, Mackie and Radcliffe will be pushing through new planning applications on Uplands 2 that very evening, which will make Waterside even more vulnerable to flooding.
Did Jack Radcliffe murder Chris Robinson?
Jo visits her sister-in-law Kelly as she’s clearing out her flood damaged house and finds that Jack Radcliffe has sorted her a new place in the Uplands Eco Housing development. Kelly agrees to back her up over her story about why she went to see Chris the caretaker, before sharing a tantalising piece of information about her boss.
Jack Radcliffe says he sacked Chris because of a parking scam he was running, but apparently that wasn’t the thing Jack was most furious about… “If you change the lock, don’t sack the security guy because he gets a new key!” says Kelly, before adding that her boss has been stressed ever since he had a construction plan stolen six or seven weeks ago.
Jo thinks Chris might have been murdered and we think she's right. Was there even a parking scam? We doubt it!
Who is William Caine?
Later on, Tasha heads up to the Uplands 2 development and starts grilling Jack Radcliffe about her brother Daniel. “He wasn’t a man of his word” says Jack. He asks her who William Caine is and explains that Caine and her late brother owned the piece of land they’re standing on. Who’s William Caine and does Tasha now own the land Radcliffe needs?
“I didn’t kill your brother, but if it’s any consolation, his death is f**king things up for me big time,” says Radcliffe. Boo hoo!
What was Daniel Eden doing back in France?
Later on Tasha is ‘invited’ down to Waterside police station for a chat, where they start grilling her on how she knew to look for her brother at Nanta. Pat watches on wearing his best poker face. DCI Roy says he believes Tasha knew her brother was still alive and shows her evidence that he travelled to France three weeks ago. Tasha obviously had no idea about this, but what was Daniel doing back in Tasha’s hometown less than a month ago?
As she storms off, Pat asks Jo why she can’t leave the case alone before asking her if she really wants to be with him. Jo doesn’t answer. Eeeek!
Later on Jo confides in her mum, who explains that Sarah Mackie has been “playing away” with Jack Radcliffe. Finn then reveals that Radcliffe has sold land that was meant to provide an access road to his housing development to Nanta, but the company’s owner, ‘Alex Welland’, let him build that access road anyway, which is odd. Welland owns it with William Caine and Finn says “they’re letting Radcliffe build drainage outlets on a piece of land he doesn’t even own anymore”. But why?
Apparently Jack’s planning to discharge run-off water from his newest development into the river, which while legal, would increase the risk of flooding in the area.
Has Tasha found Lee's missing cash?
As for Tasha, she heads off to the storage facility she thinks her brother was using and finds some very interesting documentation with her brother and William Caine’s names all over it. She also uncovers a box of cash, could that be Lee’s missing money?
Tasha shares the location of the storage container with Jo and she goes to investigate, but when she does so she's interrupted by Lee. When she asks him why he lied about Daniel and knowing Jack Radcliffe, he finally starts talking.
Just over a year ago, to raise finances, Jack sold him and Daniel the piece of land for the access road to uplands 2 on the understanding that he would pay them back double what they paid him. But seven weeks ago Jack ran out of money and Lee knew if he went bust he’d been left with a useless piece of land.
Lee and Daniel reluctantly stole a load of Jack's gear so he could do an insurance job. Yet without Daniel, Lee has been unable to ship the stolen stuff — until now, and says he's finally managed to get a shipping slot tomorrow.
He explains again how Daniel “cleaned him out” and that the banker gave the money to Daniel in cash, before Jo asks about William Caine. Lee has no idea who he is, but says his name started “bubbling up” after Daniel died and is shocked to find his name on the deed for their brownfield site.
He begs Jo to let him make the shipment tomorrow, saying he just wants out of the situation and says there must be something he can do to help her in return. She says she believes Jack is the thing that tied it all together, but did he murder Chris the caretaker?
Is Molly dead?!
Molly heads down to the council buildings where that evening’s planning meeting will take place and overhears a conversation between Jack and Sarah that seems to suggest they might know a bit more about Chris’s death than they're letting on. But what will Molly do with this information?
Later on she hijacks the meeting in some style, laying bare all Jack Radcliffe and Sarah Mackie’s dirty backdoor deals. “They’re screwing each other and they’re screwing the rest of us!” she shouts from the public gallery. But as she cycles home she’s hit by a car and left for dead in the ditch!
