The British crime thriller Vera has been adapted from Ann Cleeves’ series of detective novels on Vera Stanhope. Brenda Blethyn plays the major role of Vera, the detective, in the fiction drama. The sharp instincts and presence of mind that Vera had can be compared to the character of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The plot of the first episode of season 13 revolves around the murder of a young lad, Danny, and the alibis that the suspects have. All the major suspects have strong motives to kill Danny, but one motive stands out, the one that got Danny murdered. Will Vera be able to find the real culprit? What alibis did the other suspects have? Will Danny get justice? Let’s find out!
Spoilers Ahead
What Was Ian Headley’s Feud With Danny?
After Danny Meddon’s body was found at the Benthan Bridge, Vera started investigating his case. The impact of the accident was so strong that Danny’s phone went flying out of the bridge. Now, someone needed a very strong motive to hit Danny with such force and ferocity. When Danny’s friend Owen was questioned, he told Vera about Danny’s feud with Ian Headley. He was another trader whom Danny had once accused of stealing his pitch from the distributors. Vera was told that they were constantly involved in business-related feuds. Owen also told her that Danny had stolen the goods that Headley was about to sell, such as a few tops and shirts, to disrupt his business. One day, Danny had worn one of the stolen shirts to the pub, which made Headley realize that Danny had ransacked his store. Vera thought that Headley had a strong motive for murdering Danny and approached him. He told her that he was not involved in his murder and also informed her that Danny was involved in selling knock-off cigarettes. Later, when their store was searched, fake cigarettes were found.
What Did Tony Do?
Tony had gotten into a disagreement with his son Danny, about selling off their vegetable store. Tony wanted to sell their store, and when he told Danny about it, he became livid. On the night of his murder, he had walked out of the pub after having a huge fight with Tony, making him another major suspect. Later, when Tony was interrogated, Vera saw that he had a smashed headlight, making her more suspicious of him. Vera also found out that Tony had initially hidden from Danny that he was adopted, but eventually, Danny found out about it a few days before his death. His foster mother, Gaynor, told him all about it after she got cancer and regretted keeping a huge secret from him. This could’ve been another reason why Danny would get into a serious feud with Tony, eventually getting himself murdered!
What Was Alison Wilmslow’s Connection With Danny?
After Vera started investigating Danny’s adoption, she found out that his real birth mother was Alison Wilmslow. When Vera approached her, she told her that she got pregnant with Danny many years ago due to sexual assault. She was now married to Neil Rahim, who was a minicab driver. Alison told Vera that Danny had crashed into her place a few days ago after finding out about her from the community services. When he insisted on knowing the truth about his birth, Alison told him about the rape, which got Danny worked up!
What Was Neil’s Motive?
While Vera was leaving Alison’s house, she saw that Neil’s car had been recently painted gray. This made Vera suspicious, as Danny’s autopsy report found that his clothes had gray stains from car paint. She also found out that on the night of the murder, Neil’s location was near that of Danny. Later, when Vera asked him about this, he told her that he had met Danny and asked him to stay away from his family. Later that night, he picked up a woman from somewhere nearby and dropped her off at Fourstones.
What Was Leanne’s Motive?
When Leanne was arrested for shoplifting, Danny’s tablet was found at her place. Owen had told Vera that there was a kind of affair going on between Leanne and Danny, but later Danny stopped pursuing her, as if something had changed within him. Things were eventually made more clear to Vera when Leanne told her that she had put Danny’s DNA sample on the genealogy tracker and found that he was her brother. This traced Vera back to Alison’s rape case in the past. She realized that if Leanne and Danny were related, then it meant that Leanne’s father, Alun Barrie, was Alison’s rapist, who could never be found! It is possible that Danny had found out that Leanne was his sister and stopped pursuing her sexually. Later, Vera arrested Alun Barrie, tracking Alison’s rapist down. She also interrogated Alun, asking him if he had murdered his son as he was threatening to expose his truth to the world. When Alun refused, Vera knew that she had something more to uncover!
What Was Milan’s Motive?
Further investigations shed light on the fact that Danny had been using a dating app for homosexuals. Vera found out that Milan Shah, the owner of Danny’s shop, had paid with his card to take him to a hotel room to spend a night with him. He told the police that he had met Danny through the app for sex, and before meeting him, he had no clue that it was Danny, as there were no pictures of him on the website. He told the police that when Danny came to meet him, he was completely sloshed and had left early. Later, when Vera told Milan that she had CCTV footage of them together in a parking lot, Milan said that Danny was blackmailing him. Danny was threatening to tell Milan’s wife, Basma, about their illicit relationship if he did not pay up. There was a strong motive for Milan to have murdered Danny, but when he denied his hand in it, the police approached Basma.
What Did Basma Do?
Vera found out that Basma had lied to them about her and Milan being together at home on the night of the murder. Vera found out that on the night of Danny’s death, she went to a birthday party and came back home late. When she was questioned further, she revealed that she had known about her husband’s affair and was going to confront Danny so he could leave them alone. She was the one to have hit him with her car in a fit of rage for having slept with her husband. Even after being hit Danny was alive for a while, but Basma decided not to help him up and let him die there. Later, Milan revealed that he also knew that his wife had killed Danny after he saw the broken headlights of her car. He decided to keep it undercover to make sure that his reputation wasn’t hampered in the long run.
Final Thoughts
Vera had been able to solve not just Danny’s murder mystery but also the rape case of Alison while on the go. This proved her worth as a true detective—to delve deep into a case while investigating it. As twisted as Danny’s case seemed, Vera resolved it with her sheer patience and determination to find the truth. DI Ashworth had been constantly looking over her shoulders to keep a check on her method of investigation. The distraction, however, did not affect Vera much, and she went on with her job to find out the truth without wasting much of her time.
