Another week, another body in Brighton for Roy Grace and Glenn Branson to investigate. The third episode in Grace season 2, airing weekly on ITV, was a head scratcher, with multiple twists and turns, assumed identities and faked deaths.
At the start of the episode, the skeletal remains of a body are found in a storm drain, with the description leading Grace to believe it could be his wife Sandy.
However, it’s later discovered to be Joanna Welbeck, the wife of a failed Brighton conman who died in a plane crash years earlier.
This week also saw plenty going on in Roy and Glenn’s personal lives, as Glenn started to seek adrenaline rushes following his shooting, putting a strain on his marriage, and Roy’s relationship with Cleo hit the rocks.
Read on for everything you need to know about the ending of Grace: Dead Man’s Footsteps.
*Warning – this article contains full spoilers for the Grace: Dead Man’s Footsteps*
Grace: Dead Man’s Footsteps ending explained
Who killed Joanna Welbeck?
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After the skeletal remains of a body are found in a storm drain, dental records identify them as that of Joanna Welbeck, who had been married to Ronnie, a local con-artist. However, the team are unable to interrogate Ronnie as he died in a plane crash years ago.
A twist in the tale comes when the body of Lorraine Welback, Ronnie’s second wife, is found in the boot of a car in a pond in France.
Through multiple faked identities and faked deaths, it turns out that Ronnie had already been seeing Lorraine when Joanna had come into inheritance of a house in Brentwood, and he killed her, taking the money. He then faked his own death in the plane crash in order to escape his creditors and cashed in on his life insurance.
Lorraine then collected the money and converted it into highly valuable stamps – a good way, we are told, to launder money and move it between countries, as customs are often unaware of their value. Lorraine then also faked her death, and flew under an assumed name to Spain in order to join Ronnie and start a new life. They went by the names Margaret and David Nelson.
A serial womaniser, Ronnie then met and started a relationship with Abby Morton, and killed Lorraine. In order to sell the stamps, Ronnie contacted his old friend Chad Skebbs. Skebbs ripped him off, replacing the real stamps with fake ones – however, Ronnie became wise to this, and sent Abby to seduce Skebbs and get the real ones back from him.
Did Ronnie Welbeck get away?
It looked for a minute as though he might do. Out of the country and beyond Grace and the team’s reach, with his whereabouts unknown, the central drama of the episode’s ending instead focussed on Skebbs’ kidnap of Abby’s mother, in order to get the stamps back from Abby.
The team managed to get her back and arrest Skebbs, after a death-defying effort to stop a caravan from going over a cliff edge, with Abby, her mother, Grace and Cassian Pewe inside.
Following this, Vosper reminded Grace to keep focus on bringing Welbeck to justice. A last minute twist of the tale saw Abby leading the police to him. She asked Welbeck, who we know is already seeing someone else behind her back, to meet her at the airport, and then tipped off the police to his whereabouts. The last we heard he was awaiting extradition back to the UK.
What happened to Abby Morton?
Ronnie Welbeck may not have escaped, but it looks as though Abby did. Adopting a new persona and getting on a flight to Rio de Janeiro with the precious stamps, she appears to have eluded Grace and be off to start a new life, after saying goodbye to her mum for the final time.
Grace and Branson agreed that Abby was incredibly smart, and that they wouldn’t want to cross her.
What happened with Cassian Pewe?
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Throughout the episode Pewe (played by James D’Arcy), who has a long standing feud with Grace, had been looking into his wife Sandy’s disappearance since he arrived in Brighton, seemingly trying to pin the blame on Grace himself. After turning over his house, nothing was found.
The pair seemed to come to some sort of understanding in the final scenes of the episode, with Pewe and Grace helping one another to escape the tumbling caravan. At the end of the episode it’s revealed that Pewe has gone back to London to work for the Met, with Brighton having been too much for him to deal with.
Where have we left Roy and Cleo?
Sadly, it seems Roy and Cleo are no more – at least for now.
After opening up to one another about Roy’s continued obsession with his wife’s disappearance, Roy failed to answer how he would respond if Sandy returned out of the blue, simply saying that that wouldn’t happen.
This wasn’t enough for Cleo, who needed him to say it wouldn’t matter as Sandy left him and he’s with her now. She told him to “call me when you’re through with all of this”, so it seems that, for now, the door is closed on their time together. In the future however, who knows – watch this space.
The finale of Grace season 2 airs on ITV and ITV Hub on Sunday 15th May at 8pm. If you’re looking for more to watch, check out our TV Guide and our Drama hub.
If you want to start reading Peter James’ Roy Grace series, you can purchase Looking Good Dead, Not Dead Enough, Dead Man’s Footsteps and Dead Tomorrow on Amazon now.
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