One of the subplots in Dept. Q was centered around the brutal killing of a police officer, P.C. Anderson, who had found a victim, Archie Arran Allen, stabbed to death in his house in Leith Park. In the first scene of the show, we saw that, as soon as P.C. Anderson reported the crime to the serious crime unit, a team of detectives, DCI Carl Morck and his partner DCI James Hardy, arrived at the location to investigate further. Carl and James were just investigating the crime scene when a man wearing a mask came out of hiding and shot Anderson to death. He even fired shots at Carl and James, but luckily they survived. Carl was hit in the neck, while James probably got shot somewhere near the spine, leaving him paralyzed. He couldn’t move his legs and lost control of one of his arms. Throughout the show, Carl blamed himself for his partner’s condition, but truth be told, he couldn’t have done anything because no one really knew that they were walking into a trap. However, as soon as Carl got out of the hospital, he decided to track down the killer, but his senior, DCS Moira Jacobson, wouldn’t let him investigate his own shooting.
Spoiler Alert
But even though Carl wasn’t directly involved in the investigation, he did help the detectives to look in the right direction so that they could make a breakthrough. The thing is, Carl may have acted all rough and tough in front of his colleagues, but deep down he was still haunted by the whole ordeal and wasn’t exactly sure if he was mentally prepared to face his perpetrator. Moments before losing consciousness, Carl saw the masked shooter, especially the look in his eyes that he could never forget. DCS Moira knew that Carl was the only person who could ID the shooter, but to do that, Carl had to first silence the voices in his head so he could remember the minute details from that tragic day. When Carl and James first arrived at the scene, Anderson told them that Archie’s daughter from Lancaster had called in and asked the police to check on her dad, who hadn’t been responding to her calls. Well, on further investigation, Carl found out that Archie Allen had no daughter, meaning Anderson lied to them. But why?
According to Carl, Anderson was top of his class at the academy, but on the day of the crime, he was acting like a dumb amateur, touching things without gloves on. The lad was nervous and, at the moment, Carl wasn’t sure what he was really hiding. Maybe Anderson intentionally planted his fingerprints in front of the detectives because he had been to the house before and knew that forensics would find his DNA at the crime scene. As per Carl’s investigation, Anderson was a local lad. He himself grew up in Leith Park, a kind of rough and tumble neighborhood run by a criminal lord Eugene Errington. Now, Carl had a hunch that Anderson was somehow connected with the crime. He deduced that Archie Allen wasn’t the real target. He was just the bait that someone had set to get to Anderson, who was the shooter’s main mark. The shooter knew that Anderson, being a local, would turn up sooner or later, and therefore had been waiting for him in the house. But what was the motive? Well, either Anderson was working for Eugene and was going to betray him, or he was gathering evidence against him. I know the whole garage scene took place in Carl’s head, as he never actually visited the shop owned by Eugene, but in his vision, we do come across a bug-faced hitman named Charlie Bell, who worked for Eugene. Carl was sure he wasn’t his shooter, as he didn’t have that look in his eye, but he was quite certain that Charlie was the second guy, who was waiting in the car outside the house at the time of the shooting.
I think Carl’s dream suggested that he had a theory why Eugene had Anderson killed. His short visit to the garage (in his dream) hinted that maybe it wasn’t the daughter who called Anderson to check on her dad; instead, it was Caroline, the woman who had a kid with Eugene. On the day of the shootout, Carl had seen Caroline with a stroller near Archie’s house, which gave him an idea that she had something to do with Anderson’s death. Maybe Caroline knew about the murder, which is why she called the police, so she could free herself from Eugene, but in that case, why would Anderson lie to the detectives? It was revealed later that Archie Allen, who was found dead in the house, was a confidential police informant, possibly gathering intel on Eugene, which was why he had him killed. Maybe he was working for Anderson, but Anderson didn’t want to blow the cover. He had already seen the body and been at the crime scene, yet was acting naive to avoid suspicion. Well, at this point, anything is possible, and these are just my theories, but if you have anything to add or feel like totally bashing me for making things up, feel free to drop your thoughts in the comments.
Anyway, in Dept. Q’s ending, when James returned to the department, DCS Moira told him that she wanted to show him something. She had a case for him, and it’s likely that she was talking about Anderson’s murder case, as in the previous scene, one could spot the case-related documents open on Moira’s PC. If you noticed the criminal profile on the PC, the guy on the report looked quite similar to the suspect Carl had picked from the lineup. So, maybe the police finally found the shooter and Moira wanted James to confirm his identity? I think this particular case will be further explored in the second season of Dept. Q, where the newly formed department for cold cases will pick up another mystery and get to the bottom of the truth so as to put the real perpetrator behind bars.
