The Tower II: Death Message episode 2 saw police rivals DS Sarah Collins (Gemma Whelan) and PC Lizzie Adama (Tahirah Sharif) thrown into the same murder investigation.
However, they must put their tensions aside and work together if they are to find a lost child and a murderer on the loose.
With major breakthroughs to a dangerous brush with death, here are the key moments from The Tower II: Death Message episode 2...
- The Tower II: Death Message episode 1 recap
- How to watch The Tower online anywhere in the world
- The Tower II: Death Message cast — who's who in the crime drama
Tension in the workplace
Sarah and Lizzie are forced to put their mutual distrust aside as they find themselves working together on the Georgina Teel (Rosa Coduri) murder scene. Sarah reveals that the killer Matt Brannon (Charley Palmer Rothwell) is at large and has kidnapped his daughter Skye.
Lizzie offers her help on the case, telling Sarah that Matt may have turned to his friend Marley who he was using to keep Georgina quiet about the abuse.
Meanwhile, DI Kieran Shaw is concerned when he hears that Lizzie has been sent to the crime scene. As he prepares to rush off for the emergency, his wife Mary (Laurie Delaney), who knows all about his affair with Lizzie, stops him in his tracks and interrogates him.
He promises that their dalliance is over, but Mary gives him an ominous threat, warning him that she will "damage him in ways you can't even imagine" if his affair with Lizzie isn't over.
Sarah and Lizzie investigate the gruesome crime scene, where Sarah goes over the devastating details of Georgina's tragic demise at the hands of her abusive boyfriend Matt.
It soon transpires that Georgina was planning to leave as she had packed a suitcase for her and Skye. But tensions soon boil over for the pair as they share some harsh words about failing to save Georgina.
Damaging information
Outside the crime scene, Sarah's boss DCI Jim Fedden (Stuart McQuarrie) furiously blasts her for picking up the murder case as harmful information has come to light with detrimental impact on the Metropolitan Police regarding the Tania Mills case.
It turns out that going public with information about the new suspect Ray Walker (Brian McCardie) has backfired as Tania's father attacked Ray and now Sarah must stave off a PR embarrassment for the police.
Mr Mills is arrested for beating up Ray and Sarah is faced with a tirade from Ray's lawyer, who demands an admission of guilt and compensation for the Met's negligence.
A death message turns deadly
Sarah orders Lizzie to deliver the death message to Georgina’s mum, Cathy Teel (Tamzin Outhwaite) as she handles the Tania Mills case.
Lizzie goes with her partner, PC Arif Johar (Michael Karim) and the pair look into Cathy's background — she was a former Heroin addict who has been clean for six years and has a history of shop lifting and one case of fraud.
Lizzie breaks the devastating news to Cathy and her boyfriend Neil Slattery (Darren Swift), who sobs as she comes to the conclusion that Matt killed her, seemingly knowing all about Matt's abuse.
While she and Arif are with Cathy, Matt turns up, armed with a knife, making threats and banging on the door.
Lizzie bravely pursues Brannon on foot while back at the station Kieran helplessly waits for word on her safety.
Lizzie has a brush with death as she narrowly escapes a fatal encounter with Matt as he tries to stab her, before back-up arrive and Matt manages to evade capture.
Passions reignite
Back at the station, Sarah faces more angry words by fellow colleagues as Kieran bashes her for putting Lizzie's life at risk and slams her for not conducting a proper risk assessment as she was unaware that Cathy had an injunction against Matt.
Kieran threatens to get a misconduct finding on Sarah as she hits back that she did do a risk assessment, but there was no mention of an injunction.
It's not long before their furious exchange over Lizzie's police inexperience turns into an explosive showdown in the car park.
At Homicide Command, Sarah's focus soon falls on Ray as the evidence begins to stack up against him. Their suspicions are further supported when DC Elaine Lucas (Ella Smith) reveals that there are three fingerprints belonging to Tania on the inside of one of Ray's cameras they seized from his flat.
Determined to re-arrest Ray, Sarah is kept away from the action once again when Jim asks her to assist in putting the door in at Marley's place. Marley is then arrested for assisting an offender.
Realising that he could have lost Lizzie, an emotional Kieran can't hide his feelings for his forbidden lover and the pair reignite their passionate affair.
Meanwhile on the job, Sarah is once again tasked to do another arrest — and this time it's Ray.
Operation Perseus
Sarah meets with Tania's mother, Claire once again who blames herself for letting her daughter become friends with predators.
Claire reveals that Tania gave up the violin six weeks before her disappearance and she failed to see that her daughter was suffering.
At home, Sarah receives a call from her dad asking to attend her sister Suzie's memorial. Clearly still devastated at the loss of her sister, Sarah turns down the offer and focuses on Tania's case.
Elsewhere, Matt is happily playing with his daughter Skye and dog Candy in a park at night. Terrified that the police could find them at any moment, their fun comes to a swift end when he makes Skye get in the boot of his car along with Candy.
"I don't like it," a terrified Skye tells him.
Back at Farlow, Kieran and the team are hellbent on finding Matt and Skye and tells Lizzie and Arif to accompany Cathy in IDing Georgina's body.
Later, Kieran is approached by old colleague DCS Tim Bailie. He is setting up a task force called Operation Perseus to take down major drug dealer Shakiel Oliver. He wants Kieran to lead it but only if he can persuade DS Steve Bradshaw (Jimmy Akingbola) to join his team.
Major breakthroughs
Sarah interrogates Ray and points out the discrepancies in his case as she shows him a victim statement from the offence Ray was convicted for.
The evidence continues to stack up against Ray as Sarah catches him out in another lie that he did in fact meet Tania when she attended photography classes at the Lee College of Further Education, where he worked as a technician. Despite the damning evidence, Ray adamantly denies killing Tania.
Sarah breaks the news to Jim about what Ray wrote in his statement and confessed that he did actually know Tania and she went over to his flat the morning she disappeared.
She was wearing a skirt and jacket, so she had already been to Robert McCarthy's and changed her clothes. Ray added that Tania seemed to be in a "funny mood" and that she had been to his flat before because he taught her about cameras and film and sometimes posed for him.
Ray took a picture of her looking through a phone book, she tore out a page and then left, never seeing her again.
With Jim on the verge of charging Ray for Tania's murder, Sarah thinks there’s still more to the story and he could be telling the truth.
Sarah, Elaine, Lizzie and Arif all support a traumatised Cathy as she identifies her daughter's body.
While Sarah and the homicide team try to locate Brannon’s hideout, Lizzie develops a bond with Cathy as she opens up about her struggles.
As Cathy tells Lizzie about how she knew Matt from when she was an addict and how he worked for the dangerous Young family, she realises that Cathy’s stories about her troubled past could shed light on Brannon’s current whereabouts and passes this information to Sarah.
There's another breakthrough in the Tania Mills case when young DC Lee Coutts (Bobby Lockwood) tells Sarah there's been a hit on the green Jaguar a man was seen driving with Tania on the day she disappeared.
Sarah is thrown when he reveals that the car belongs to Adrian Stephenson, Tania's violin teacher and she goes to Tania's school to find out more information about him.
Things take an even more sinister turn when Sarah discovers that Adrian organised for the students to dig up the local park and plant a memorial garden for Princess Diana.
Meanwhile, Matt sends his own warning to the police and puts out a viral YouTube video blaming them for Georgina’s death and warning them that "this isn’t over."
The Tower II: Death Message airs on ITV1 and ITVX on Monday, August 28 to Thursday, August, 31 at 9pm.
