This post contains spoilers for Payback episode 1, which sees Morven Christie playing Lexie Noble, a woman who finds herself getting caught up in a terrifying world of financial corruption and organised crime.
ITV's six-part thriller, which you can watch now on ITVX, is executive produced by Line of Duty creator Jed Mercurio and written by Debbie O’Malley.
Debbie says: "It's basically the story of Lexie Noble, who is a happily married mother of two and she's about to go back to work as an accountant when personal tragedy strikes. In the wake of that tragedy she starts to realise that her comfortable middle class existence has been almost entirely funded by the proceeds of crime. As she starts to unravel the mess she finds herself in, she ends up stuck between the head of an Edinburgh crime family and a massive ongoing police investigation into money laundering.
"It becomes pretty clear pretty quickly that unless she can find a way to extricate herself, she and possibly her family are going to end up as collateral damage in this bigger game that's going on."
Here's our recap of what happened in Payback episode 1...
'Oh god, help us!'
We open in the Noble household, with Lexie Noble secretly watching her children as she adjusts to life with a new au pair, before her husband Jared tells her he’s working from home this morning as there’s a call he needs to take. We’re already getting some seriously shifty vibes from him as he checks his watch.
Downstairs, Lexie tells Doris the au pair she’d like her to take the kids to the park while she goes to the gym, before Jared sets off on his "run’"after receiving a message saying "On way". Intriguing.
Meanwhile, Cal Morris is eyeing up an island on his computer and thanks to a useful piece of exposition from his wife, it’s clear he’s completing a deal for it this morning. However, apparently, the purchase can’t be linked back to him.
Either way, it’s clear the police have their eyes on him and back at Police HQ, DC Khan waits at his desk for the 9.30 deadline, which is when Morris’ island deal closes. The solicitor fixing the deal is in Edinburgh, but the money could be coming from anywhere, although we’re pretty sure we know where. The money will be moved through a number of off-shore accounts, but once it arrives in Scotland they can try to trace it.
In Malta, the £2.5m in cash makes it to its destination and everyone seems happy enough, especially Jared who receives the news while at the newsagents buying cigarettes — despite telling us he’s given up smoking. What else is he telling us fibs about we wonder?
As he exits the shop, a homeless man asks him for a cigarette, but before he can oblige, a group of men run up and attack him, stabbing him in the stomach. Lexie, who's been busy spying on her au pair, just happens to be nearby and rushes to his side, although it soon becomes clear he’s not going to make it.
'To break the chain...'
Someone delivers the news of Jared’s death to Cal Morris, while a surveillance team tries to listen in from behind a tree. When his right-hand man Malky arrives, he confirms the first three transfers went through as planned and then the courier withdrew the funds in cash from the bank in Malta and paid them into the second account as arranged “to break the chain”.
Jared was then supposed to make the transfer to Dimitri’s holding account in Cyprus, so he could pay the solicitor in Edinburgh, who would in turn pay the vendor by 9.30. "Did it have to be so convoluted?" asks Morris. Apparently so.
But why didn’t Dimitri call to say he hadn’t received the funds? Malky suggests there may have been some confusion over timings, with Cyprus and Malta being in different timezones. Or is there something more sinister at play? However with Jared dying before he could transfer the funds, that money is now in his account — which Morris can’t access.
It seems Lexie Noble is now the only way of getting his money back. But what does she know? Cal and Malky resolve to find a “clever way” of getting to her without the police noticing.
'He liquidated some of your savings..'
The aftermath of her husband’s death, Lexie is questioned by the police. We’ll be generous and say she’s still in shock, because she doesn’t seem like someone who’s just lost the love of her life. Then again, how much time is there for overt grief when the script needs to move the plot along?
After meeting some of Jared’s pals, Lexie is left with the heartbreaking task of telling her young daughter Esme that her father is dead. Later on she tells Doris she doesn’t need to stay if she doesn’t want to, while also disclosing that she has no family she can call on, but the au pair says she will stay to help. What a week it’s been for her!
However after her daughter leaves, a letter arrives letting Lexie know that the fees for her school haven’t been paid, which seems odd. She chats to Jared’s solicitor pal, Rufus, who delivers some surprising news about Jared’s finances that Lexie had no idea about. Not only has he “liquidated some of their savings” and also remortgaged the house. Dear oh dear.
Also, is Rufus the solicitor in the Cal Morris deal? If so he knows more about Jared’s finances than he’s letting on.
Lexie heads to Jared’s office to find his life insurance policy, but she’s becoming increasingly concerned about what other finances he might have been hiding from her. She does find all his passwords though and then reveals the secret of his cypher, always adding two to each number. That must have been a nightmare at the cash machine after a couple of pints.
'They shouted Jared!'
Meanwhile over at Police HQ, news that the deal didn’t happen and the funds didn’t release the solicitor’s account goes down badly. Apparently this has been the big moment in a long operation to catch Cal Morris and open the door to all his shady finances.
DC Khan goes back to the whiteboard and soon learns that Jared’s death was the reason the deal didn’t go through, which comes as good news to his boss DCI Adam Guthrie. Further digging unearths confirmation that Jared was working for Morris. It looks like DC Khan could be back in the game!
Later on, the department investigating Jared’s murder begin speaking to the homeless man who witnessed his death, who tells them the attacker knew Jared’s name, suggesting it was a premeditated attack.
It’s a break in the case that leads the detectives to search Jared’s offices and Lexie’s home in the hunt for evidence, but when they ask to see Lexie’s laptop and phone, she realises she could be a suspect.
Back at the station, with Rufus by her side, the detectives tell Lexie that her husband seemed to have been visiting restaurants, buying jewellery and paying for hotel rooms on his credit card. The police seem to think it’s Sarah Blaine, who was booked on a flight to Miami with Jared — although he was using a false name.
They suggest Jared was planning to abandon Lexie and his kids and start a new life with his mistress, before insinuating that she arranged his murder by way of revenge. Apparently, his attacker said “Jared, ye shouldnya fooked around man!” before killing him, but was this a reference to an affair? Or dodgy finances? It’s clear what the detectives believe, but maybe they should chat to DC Khan and the other financial investigators.
When she gets home, Lexie quizzes Doris, who says Jared had asked her to fly to America with their kids. It’s a hammer blow to Lexie, and she’s left reeling by the thought of her husband fleeing with her children.
'Who were you dealing with?'
As Lexie walks home from the office her handbag is snatched by someone on a moped, who then delivers it to Cal Morris who waits nearby, but luckily Malky is there to look after her. This must be the “clever” way Cal and Malky were discussing earlier on. Very subtle lads!
Malky begins to question her about Jared and the deal, which is when Lexie starts to realise the robbery was no accident. The weak illusion is utterly shattered when Cal comes in and returns her bag, before outlining his need to get access to Jared’s Maltese bank account and making an equally unsubtle threat about Lexie’s children.
Back at home, Lexie discovers Jared had a safe down in their basement and realises she has the password to it in the book that Morris believed useless. Inside is an accounting ledger that we think the crime boss would find very interesting and a burner phone, with just one number in it. Does she let Morris know as she said she would? She does not. Although after calling the number (Morris’ burner phone) we reckon he might have worked out what happened.
The name Stuart Sheehy is also scrawled on the front of the ledger and a quick web search reveals is an associate of Cal Morris, with whom she’s already familiar, but turns out to be far more dangerous than she could have imagined.
That evening Esme answers Jared’s burner phone, which Lexie has recklessly left lying around. It’s Cal Morris and he tells her he and Jared had unfinished business, while she asks whether he knows anything about his death. He says he didn’t and seeing as it cost him £2.5m, we believe him. But he does ask for a meeting.
'You don't say no to me..'
After going to such lengths to avoid the police finding out about his connection to Lexie, Cal Morris then throws caution to the wind and decides to meet her on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile, the busiest street in Scotland. Fair enough.
She tells him she doesn’t have her mobile on her (really?!) but doesn’t reveal the existence of the ledger. Morris tells her to go back to her cellar and look for those foreign accounts and in return he’ll get her answers, while warning the police will care more about catching him than getting her justice. Yet it soon becomes clear Lexie doesn’t have much choice about the deal.
When she returns home, Lexie finds the police are at her home and an ‘engineer’ has been in to fix a dodgy smoke alarm. It’s an utterly pathetic cover story for the bugging that’s clearly taken place.
With DC Khan listening in, Lexie discovers Jared’s fake passports, which the detective had told her about. Yet she’s shocked and relieved to learn that Sarah Blaine’s passport was a false document for her and that Jared was planning to escape Scotland and start a new life for his whole family in America.
But that doesn’t explain who he was buying jewellery for and taking to dinner?
