The Responder

Chris has breakfast with his wife, Kate and daughter, Tilly. Things are strained, and Kate is obviously concerned about her husband having mental health difficulties. Chris warns them to settle their differences before he takes a call from his friend, Carl. Carl is looking for a young woman called Casey but Chris tells him to get lost. As Carl and his gang search for Casey, Chris is called to a report of a sudden death. Chris eventually finds Casey, and she tells him that Carl wants to beat her up because she stole some drugs from him.

Exhausted after his shift, Chris visits his mother June, Chris tells June he’s done a good thing by saving a girl – someone “who normally doesn’t matter”. Rachel gets home, she is annoyed with her boyfriend, Steve, because he hasn’t moved out of her flat. Marco returns to his flat and finds Casey hiding out with the stolen drugs - she is high, and he decides to betray her to Carl who sends his men to kidnap her. When Carl tells Chris that he’s found the girl, Chris realizes she is in real danger, and he must find her and save her from Carl.

Chris and Rachel arrive at the party and Chris makes Rachel wait outside. Inside, Casey has been badly beaten by Barry and Ian. Chris heads to Casey’s hide-out where he finds the bag of stolen drugs hidden in a toilet. The next afternoon, after talking to his therapist, Chris makes the decision to do the right thing and hand the drugs in. When a drunken Kate returns home, a huge row erupts in which it emerges Kate has been sleeping with Mullen. Kate asks him to leave and Chris packs a bag in front of his distraught daughter.

Chris finally opens up to Rachel about his feelings of mental despair, and they realise that they have much in common as Rachel reveals she is having a difficult time with her partner, Steve. Chris watches Carl being murdered by the gang. After witnessing the brutal murder of Carl, Chris reaches rock bottom and wakes up cold and disorientated in his car.

In a dingy pub, Casey, Marco and her granddad, Joe, try to sell the drugs. A paranoid Chris turns up at the police station to start his shift and is shocked when he sees Carl’s wife, Jodie, waiting for him in the waiting room. Rachel has been locked out of her flat by her boyfriend. After being taken prisoner, Chris finds himself in a lock-up, tied to a chair, being interrogated. Rachel decides she will evict Steve from her flat, but after a confrontation, she finds herself imprisoned.

Chris, ashamed of what he’s put his family through, finally opens up to his wife about his corrupt relationship with Carl. Casey, meanwhile, has found Marco and he explains that he only took the drugs because he loves her. Rachel finds the drugs in the car. Chris arrives home and promises Kate that everything is okay but the one loose end he has not tied off is Rachel, who is as cold as ice to him – finally, she knows that he is every bit as corrupt as she feared.