Synopsis:
Patrick Gijselbrechts, caregiver at a local retirement home, witnesses a violent carjacking. He reluctantly steps forward as a witness and quickly identifies one of the carjackers. Witse, however, thinks that Patrick isn't telling him everything. This feeling only becomes stronger when Patrick turns out to have a dark secret of his own.Plot:
Patrick Gijsbrechts, caregiver and animator at the local retirement home, witnesses the carjacking of a woman at a local petrol station. He also sees the carjackers shooting another customer of the petrol station during their escape. Witse and Dimi are sent to the home of the carjacking victim, where they find her (badly) injured, along with the corpse of her husband in the kitchen. The husband turns out to be a (high-ranking) member of the European Comittee, so the case is closely monitored by the brass. Patrick reluctantly comes forward as a witness, but wishes to stay anonymous out of fear for retribution towards himself and his family. Witse manages to put him at ease and convinces him to testify anonymously.Witse comes up with a plan to catch the carjackers. He convinces his boss to allow the carjackers to use a stolen debit card and hopes for evidence (in the form of CCTV footage) of the perpatrators. His plan, however, doesn't work out as well as he had hoped and they only manage to obtain video footage of possible suspects on an escalator of a local shopping mall. Nevertheless, Patrick manages to identify Kurt Haverals, a crook van Deun arrested several times before, as one of the carjackers on the footage. When Haverals is brought in, he claims he is framed for the carjacking and swears vengeance on whoever did this to him. Meanwhile, Patrick finds the dead body of Yvonne, one of his favorite residents of the retirement home, in her room. Even though they have a positive identification of Haverals, Witse isn't entirely confident about the case, as they don't have any hard evidence against him. When the cashiers at the shopping center fail to recognize Haverals from the photographs, Witse visits Patrick once more at his house to ascertain if he was absolutely sure it was him. While he's there, Patrick receives a suspicious phone call. Nevertheless, Patrick confirms, once more, that he saw Haverals, but despite Patrick's steadfastness concerning his statement, Witse feels that it's all a bit too convenient.
The next day, Patrick gets beaten up by a thug when he goes out to get groceries. The thug is quickly identified as Karel Blondeel, the son of Yvonne. As it turns out, Yvonne has left her entire inheritance to Patrick, something that Karel discovered through a letter on her bedside. He also admits to calling Patrick the day before. At a local quiz night later that evening, Dimi asks the head warden of the retirement home (who is on his quiz team) if Patrick received tips or large sums of money more often. The head warden reluctantly confirms this and states that Patrick often made an extra effort for the more wealthy residents. Dimi informs Witse of this and, subsequently, Witse joins him at the quiz night to asks the head warden about a prior injury Patrick has to his knee. They discover that Patrick had a "sports-related" mishap several years prior and that an elderly lady, Julienne Thienpondt, died one day before this accident. This elderly lady turns out to be Kurt Haverals' grandmother, which could give Patrick a motive to frame Haverals.
Witse and Dimi immediately bring in Patrick for questioning. At the police station, he admits that he received an inheritance from Julienne and that he pointed the finger at Haverals, because he ruined both his knee and his life. After some persuading, Witse manages to get the identity of the real carjackers from Patrick and they are arrested not much later. Haverals is also bound to be released from holding, but Witse and his team anticipate trouble, as Haverals is livid about the false accusation (which is further aggravated by the fact that he lost his girlfriend, house and job due to the circumstances). Meanwhile, Patrick is scared for his life and demands protection, but Witse can't (and doesn't want to) give it to him after his false confession.
Witse and Dimi discover a disturbing coincidence when they look through the death certificates of Julienne and Yvonne: both women died approximately a week after they changed their will. Witse, who suspects that Patrick has something to do with this, strikes a deal with Haverals: he wants him to blackmail Patrick into giving him the inheritance of Julienne. Meanwhile, Witse is looking for evidence against Patrick at the retirement home, as he suspects him of murdering more of the elderly ladies he had in his care. After a nighttime meeting with Haverals, Patrick takes the bait and leads him (and Witse's team) to the bank where he kept the (illegitimate) gains of his inheritance murders. He is promptly arrested and charged with murder. At the police station, Patrick confesses to the murders of six elderly ladies, which he disguised as heart failure through the use of potassium chloride.
