Synopsis:
Rachid, a local Morrocan boy, gets into a fight with a bouncer at a local club. Not much later, the bouncer ends up shot dead in his car. When Rachid's girlfriend gets caught ditching a long rifle, Rachid becomes the prime suspect. Witse, however, is put on a different trail entirely, which leads him back to Brussels. This lead brings him in conflict with a local politician, who wants to use Rachid as a scapegoat. When a journalist ends up getting killed, Witse manages to connect both of the murders and makes an arrest. Meanwhile, Dimi meets his Love Interest Anke, who's conducting her internship in Witse's team.Plot:
Rachid Zahou, a Morrocan boy, gets into a fight with Luc Demunck, a bouncer at a local club, after the bouncer denies him entrance due to racial profiling. Rachid threathens Luc in Morrocan, but eventually leaves with his girlfriend. Later that night, Luc gets shot dead in his car at the end of his shift. Witse and his team get called in the next morning, together with Anke Hermans, an intern who is observing the team as part of her studies. Witse, who got roped into being Anke's supervisor by the chief commissioner, is anything but pleased with his new responsibility. When Witse and Dimi speak to the owner of the club, Nico Leirs, they discover that the club had problems with Morrocan youth before and that Luc had gotten into a fight a Morrocan boy the night before. They also find out that Luc's boss shared Luc's racist point of view.Not much later, the team manages to identify Rachid as the boy Luc got into a fight with. They decide to pay Rachid a visit to ask him about his version of the facts (and his alibi). Meanwhile, Anke has a theory that the murder might be drug-related, but Witse dismisses her. When Witse and Dimi tell Rachid about Luc's murder, he states that he was at his girlfriend Fatima's place all night and that both she and her mother can vouch for him. Witse sends Dimi and Anke to Fatima's house to check Rachid's alibi, while he goes back to the morgue for the autopsy. As Dimi and Anke approach Fatima's place, they see a young woman driving away on a scooter with a large (rectangular) package on her back. They follow her to a nearby canal and discover that there's a long rifle in the package. The caliber of the long rifle turns out to be the same caliber as the bullet that was used to kill Luc. Meanwhile, Witse is approached at the police station by a journalist named Frank Dellaert. He asks Witse about any new leads in the murder case, but Witse brushes him off. During interrogation, Fatima admits that the rifle was given to her for safe keeping by Rachid (who had to store it for someone else) and that Rachid asked her to throw it into the canal. Rachid is subsequently arrested and brought in for interrogation, but he has nothing to say and is placed in holding for the night.
The next day, Witse joins the remainder of his team as they're reading a newspaper article. Apparently, a local politician, Paul Oosterlinck, is using Witse's case to drive his policies forward and sway voters to vote for him. Witse disregards the article, as he's planning on interrogating Rachid. As Witse starts the interrogation of Rachid, he sends Anke away, since outsiders can't be part of an interrogation. The chief commisioner, however, still allows her to follow through the one-way mirror. During the interrogation, Rachid continues to keep his mouth shut about the origin of the weapon, even when he's threathened with jail time. As Witse and the chief commissioner discuss the case a little while later, van Deun comes in with the background check on Luc. He apparently had form for dealing drugs and he can be linked to Gilbert Smeekens. Smeekens, who was a small time criminal during Witse's time in Brussels, has made a career for himself the last couple of years as the (presumed) mastermind behind the so-called "bouncer wars". During these "wars", Smeekens threathened and intimidated club owners, until they hired one of his men as their bouncer. His men would then start to deal drugs from the club they were working at. Van Deun hypothesizes that Luc might have been shot by Smeekens' men to force his boss, Leirs, to cooperate. Witse concurs and decides to give both Leirs and Smeekens a visit.
When Witse, Dimi and Anke visit Leirs at his club, he admits to knowing Smeekens and states that Smeekens had caused some trouble for his club the last few months. He also mentions that Luc knew Smeekens from when he was still working in Brussels and that he asked him to mediate between him and Smeekens. Smeekens, however, rejected this mediation. Leirs also tells Witse that he had suspected Smeekens of killing Luc as well, but that he was scared of some form of retribution if he were to come forward. Later that day, Witse visits Smeekens' night club in Brussels. There, Smeekens admits that he had hired Luc years ago as a driver for the girls in his night club. He also states that one of the girls, Nina, had become Luc's girlfriend, but she dissappeared some time ago and Luc subsequently left Brussels to find her (without much luck). Witse receives a photograph of Nina from Smeekens and leaves for Halle. Meanwhile, Dimi and Dams finally get the truth from Rachid concerning the long rifle. The rifle belonged to Rachid's cousin Arfan, who had used it to shoot up the neon lights of the club several months prior. Rachid had stored the gun to protect Arfan from himself, as he had a bit of a temper. The rifle, however, is not the murder weapon and Witse decides to let Rachid and Fatima go.
Later that night, Witse gets a call from Dellaert. He states that he has information about Luc and arranges a meeting with Witse the next day. The following day, Witse shows the picture of Nina to Dimi and Anke. Anke states that she has seen Nina's face before, but can't recall where. Not much later, Witse is called to the chief commissioner, who's in the company of Paul Oosterlinck. He warns Witse that releasing Rachid was a bad political decision and demands that Witse brings him in for questioning once more. Both Witse and the chief commissioner decide that arresting an innocent man for political reasons would be in bad taste and they tell Oosterlinck off. Nevertheless, the chief commissioner asks Witse to continue his investigation into Rachid and his cousin, as they can't afford to leave a single stone unturned with Oosterlinck against them. When Witse returns to his desk, Anke and Dimi show him a newspaper article. Apparently, the fiancé of Oosterlinck, shown in the newspaper, strongly resembles Nina. Witse, who's still preoccupied with the chief commisioner's orders, asks Dimi if Dellaert has left any calls. Since he hasn't, Witse decides to call Dellaert at his work, but he gets in contact with another journalist. As Dellaert is away for an interview, Witse asks the other journalist if he can find out who the fiancé of Paul Oosterlinck is. It turns out that the girl in the photograph is, in fact, Oosterlinck's fiancé and that she now goes by the name Anja de Rijke. As Witse is leaving for the home of Anja, he gets a phone call: Rachid's home is being attacked by a group of bouncers. Upon arrival, they see Rachid getting beaten up by a small crowd and they manage to (barely) save his life.
Witse, Dimi and Anke arrive at the house of Anja de Rijke and meet her as she's turning into her driveway. When Anja's confronted with the photograph, she admits that she used to be Nina Larsen, but that she left that life behind. She also states that she was unaware of Luc's death and that she hasn't seen him in over a year. When asked for her alibi, Nina states that she was asleep in bed. Later that night, Witse receives a phone call from the station: Dellaert has been found dead in a nearby forest. He was murdered somewhere else and subsequently dumped there. Witse now believes that Dellaert had discovered something concerning Luc and that he was eliminated because of his findings. He asks Dams and van Deun to search Dellaert's home for leads.
The following day, the coroner's report on Dellaert comes in: he was shot with the same caliber round as Luc. When Dams and van Deun return from Dellaert's house, they tell Witse that someone has ransacked place before they arrived. The ransacker appears to have used Dellaert's key, as it was missing from his corpse. They also found an appointment with the initials N.L. in the laptop of Dellaert, which could relate either to Nico Leirs or Nina Larsen. When Witse, Dimi and Anke arrive at Nina's residence, they find that no one's in. When they search the house, they find the primary crime scene for Dellaert's murder and the murder weapon in the bedroom. Meanwhile, Anke finds an invitation to a promotional party for Oosterlinck later that evening, which both of them will attend. With most of the evidence pointing towards Nina, the team decides to arrest her at the promotional party, much to the embarrassment of Oosterlinck.
At the station, Nina eventually confesses to both murders: she had left Luc, who was her pimp before he fell in love with her, as part of her transition to her new identity. However, Luc tracked her down not long after she met Oosterlinck and started to blackmail her with her past: either she would come back to him or he would tell the truth to Oosterlinck. Nina then murdered Luc to salvage her relationship with Oosterlinck, who she truly loved. The following day, Dellaert called her: he had found out about her previous identity from Luc (before his death) and was planning on writing a scandalous article about her and Oosterlinck. Nina subsequently invited Dellaert to her home and seduced him to follow her to her bedroom, where she killed him as well. The episode ends with Anke saying farewell to the team. Witse, however, sees her and Dimi again later that night, when he catches the two of them going out on a date.
