The second episode of the mystery-thriller Vera talks about a murder on the city outskirts, beside the railway tracks. A young woman named Gabi has been murdered, and Vera is on a mission to find out the culprit! The events take several sharp turns, making the story even more intriguing when the motives of many people are slowly revealed. Brenda Blethyn, meanwhile, does complete justice to the character of Vera Stanhope. Streaming on ITVX, the series is a must-watch as it greases our jammed rationalities, unveiling several murder mysteries! Will Vera be able to find Gabi’s real murderer? Was her death an accident? Let’s find out!
Spoilers Ahead
Why Was Gabi Staying With The Rushdens?
Gabi had formed a bond with Helen Rushden within six months of meeting her at one of Helen’s coffee chains. Helen and Gabi grew close to each other real quick when Helen found out that Gabi was struggling to pay for her treatments for cancer. She took pity on her, took her in, and paid for her expenses and treatments. As a result of her actions, Helen got separated from her husband, Tom. When Vera asked Tom about Gabi, he told them that she was a leech and was feeding off of her wife’s kind-heartedness.
It was later found that Gabi had also used Helen’s card to buy herself a ticket to Brewton. On the day of her murder, she got down at that station and hiked a long way to go to a secluded place. It was also found that she had called Jonathan, Helen’s son, several times that day before her murder, leading to Vera investigating Jonathan and his wife Freya later. Vera further investigated to find out that Gabi had no birth records and was primarily connected to Helen, who was her sole caretaker. It is possible that Gabi had been using Helen’s soft corner for her to attain all the perks and benefits. She had been using her finances to sustain herself over the course of time.
Was Gabi Lying About Her Disease? Why?
After the autopsy reports were out, Vera found out that Gabi had gotten into a fight before her death and that an internal injury to her head had caused her death. There was, however, no evidence of any chemotreatment, which indicated that she had no cancer. When Helen was informed about Gabi’s lie, she broke down. Gabi had managed to forge medical letters and create fake email accounts just to pretend that she had a physician named Danni Verma who was treating her for her disease.
Later, when Vera went to Gabi’s real parents to further investigate the case, they told her that their daughter was a compulsive liar. They told Vera that she had a sister, Emma, who had gotten terminally ill and had died of cancer at the age of 16. Gabi had always thought that she did not get much of the attention that her sister was getting, and she started creating trouble. She got herself into petty theft, causing her parents trouble. They also said that Gabi had falsely accused her mother, Deborah, of abuse, and now that she was gone, they were at peace. It is, however, possible that she was craving attention from Helen by faking her disease. She thought that her sister always had gotten more attention than she did. She thought faking the same disease that her sister had would get her all the attention.
Why Was Fiona A Suspect?
After Vera visited Helen’s daughter, Fiona, she thought that her extraordinarily expensive lifestyle was somewhat suspicious. Later, when they investigated her lifestyle further, they found that Fiona was being blackmailed by Gabi, after Fiona had come to know about her truth. Fiona was into a gold-digging website and was involved with a senior partner, Jonah Green, at her company. When Gabi learned about it, she started blackmailing her, saying that she would expose her true colors to her family if she did not stay out of her business.
What Was Jonathan’s Motive?
Jonathan found out that Gabi was faking her own disease but refrained from spilling the beans to anyone. Later, during the interview, it was revealed that he was using Gabi to steal his mother’s money to help his side business project thrive. However, when Jonathan’s wife, Freya, revealed that she had recently found out that Jonathan and Gabi were sleeping together, the tables turned. Vera realized that after they started getting physically intimate, Gabi started blackmailing Jonathan about revealing it to his wife. This was a clear motive for him to murder Gabi! Vera also found out that on the day of the murder, Jonathan’s location on the phone was close to the murder scene. When Vera interrogated Jonathan about his equation with Gabi, he accepted that he had been sleeping with her and using her to get money from his mother, but he did not murder her.
Who Was Lee Critchley?
Meanwhile, Helen Rushden’s house was visited by an intruder! When the police were informed about the break-in, they found out that it was Lee Critchley who was trying to destroy evidence of his contact with Gabi. The police found evidence of frequent phone calls between Gabi and Lee. Vera had already kept Lee on her list of suspects when she found CCTV footage of Lee and Gabi arguing over something. Later, when they went to Lee’s girlfriend, Sian, she told them how Gabi had crashed into their place a few months ago and driven a wedge between her and Lee. However, it was later found that Lee was her drug dealer.
Vera got hold of Rosa Adeyani, Gabi’s pharmacist, and interrogated her about her contact with Lee and Gabi. She said that last year her father had gotten into a road accident and had become addicted to pain medications. He requested Rosa to get him the drugs, but she refused, and that is when he got himself a dealer, Lee Critchley, and that is how Rosa got in touch with Gabi and Lee. She revealed that she sold drugs to Gabi, which she then passed on to Lee, and he sold them later.
Who Was The Real Murderer?
Lee’s girlfriend, Sian, told Vera that after a few days when Gabi was not budging from her house, she called her father, Matthew, and told him about whatever his daughter was up to. She also told him that she was suffering from cancer, which worried him, and he asked Gabi to meet him. When Vera learned about this, she immediately went to meet Matthew, and on being asked further, he told her the truth. He told them that he had met his daughter before her death, and when he asked her about her sickness, she couldn’t lie to him. Gabi told Matthew that she had gotten the love and care from Helen that she never got from her own parents. This infuriated Matthew, and in a fit of rage, he jolted her hard, not realizing that it would cause internal bleeding. While he left the spot, Gabi was alive and was cursing her father and asking him to never come back again to meet her. Matthew thought that after he had left the spot, someone else must have killed his daughter. However, Vera later revealed to him that the push that he had given her unknowingly had caused a clot to form in her brain, eventually leading to her death. On hearing that he was the cause of his own daughter’s death, Matthew broke down.
Final Words
Vera had yet again portrayed her skill of analyzing and solving mysteries faster than anyone else. With very limited details on Gabi’s death, she was eventually able to solve the case, following the trail of her messed-up family dynamics. This episode, however, puts us in doubt as to whether Matthew killed his own daughter on purpose or not. We are also faced with the question of whether a father could kill his own daughter knowingly. Every episode of the series is intriguing and makes us question our own judgment of the characters. We are yet to find out what the next episode of Vera holds in store for us!
