Contact Information

Wayne Parker, P.O.Box 1, Blenheim. Ph: +64 3 578 1200, Ph: +64 3 379 0000, Fx: +64 3 379 0001, wjparker@xtra.co.nz

'Healers' - Synopsis

'Healers' is a contemporary crime drama set in the one of the major wine making regions of New Zealand (i.e. Marlborough, Wiarapa etc.). Although this viticulture aspect is peripheral, it sets the overall tone of the story and disposition of characters, several of whom are part of, or desire to be part of the growing wine making social faction perceived from the outside to be successful and wealthy. The story commences with the late night brutal murder of a nurse in a hospital carpark and is the first of a chain of mysterious deaths investigated by disillusioned detective (and hobby vineyard owner / wine maker) Alan Morton on the eve of his departure from the police force. He is joined by his appointed replacement, junior detective Rachel Chambers, and instantly the two clash as their very different personalities (his gut feel instinct / her logical intellect) vie for predominance. Following the discovery of a second body, that of a security guard, the investigation focuses on a large abandoned 1950s era Nurses Hostel and the hospital's maze of underground service tunnels. The subsequent killing of a second nurse prompts Morton to instigate a relentless manhunt while Chambers focuses on the relationship between the two nurses involved. Chambers also becomes intrigued with the Nurses Home and its inhabitants: a homeless old vagrant and a group of sheltering itinerant street kids. But it is the brief sighting of a five year old girl at the end of one of the building's many long dark corridors that brings her to the believe that the building may hold the key to the deaths. Morton's search reveals yet another dead nurse, fuelling public speculation that a crazed serial killer is on the loose. Chambers concludes that a revenge motive may behind the killings as all three of the nurses had at one time been assigned to the maternity ward and during that period a young woman had died due to complications just prior to giving birth. Additionally, the woman's husband has not shown for work, had been acting strangely, and also the couple's 5 year old daughter had not appeared at school. Morton turns his attention to the vast network of underground service tunnels while Chambers again searches for the girl seen in the hostel. Searching the maze of Nurses Home corridors, Chambers coaxes the girl out of hiding. After gaining her confidence, the girl states her family are 'all' here and that they're "looking for her brother". Before she can say much more, the girl's father, Ray Eden, appears and seizes his daughter, startling Chambers who steps back and slips, knocking herself unconscious. Chambers is found and is admitted to the adjacent hospital where later that night she fights off an unknown assailant making an attempt on her life. Against medical advice, she discharges herself and starts to investigate the facts surrounding the death of Eden's wife prior to giving birth. This leads her to a Dr. Alistair Dixon who was responsible for her care and the subsequent signing of the death certificate. While the death was attributed to a pre-existing genetic heart condition, at the time, concerns were raised by one of the recently murdered nurses. Meanwhile Morton's manhunt continues and almost traps Eden in an older underground section of a boiler room but following daring rooftop escape, he avoids capture. Chamber's continues to believe that there is more to this case than simply revenge. She learns from the hospital executive manager, Susan Aston, that Alistair Dixon received a sizable grant for a Stem Cell research project. When queried about the ethics of a practicing doctor performing research in such a controversial area of medicine, Aston dispels any concerns and comments that the hospital received the funding and that Dixon used very little of it. Chambers searches staff records and discovers that an another nurse, Jane Abbott, was rostered to the maternity unit at the time of Eden's wife's death. Tracing her to a surgical ward, Chambers probes her regarding Eden's wife's death but Abbott claims she had little to do with that particular patient. Chambers is not convinced and begins to suspect some involvement. Morton discovers a chamber (where it is evident someone has been living) and a old service tunnel which surfaces in an area of the grounds where the old hospital ward once stood. Norton sets a trap of Police an security guards, and waits. Discovering and evading Norton's underground trap, Eden enters the hospital and confronts Detective Chambers in Dixon's research lab. Cornered, Chambers is forced to listen as Eden threateningly expounds his certainty that his wife's death was not natural, and while he expresses his determination to find out why his wife had to die. Eden is distracted by a partly open cupboard where he notices a vessel containing a human foetus suspended in formaldehyde. A cardboard tag indicates the name 'Eden' and the date of his wife's death. Eden breaks the vessel open and emotionally retrieves his son and carries it away through the hospital corridor system. Chambers and Norton later discover the body of the unborn child buried next to Eden's wife's grave in the adjacent cemetery. Later that night Eden is detected and monitored on security cameras within the hospital complex. Chambers and Norton are called in and play a cat and mouse game as they attempt to locate and corner Eden but it becomes evident he knows the hospital complex far too well. By the time they establish Eden is heading towards a ward where Dixon is currently attending an emergency consultation, it is too late. Eden seizes Dixon as a hostage and as police and security moves in, the two head for the roof-top. Cornered, the Eden drags Dixon to the highest point of an older ward block - a utility tower featuring a radio antenna and water tanks. Eden, certain that Dixon is responsible for his wife's death, threatens to kill him unless he reveals what occurred. Outside below, Chambers, Norton and police snipers take up positions. During the ensuing discourse, Eden denies killing the nurses and security guard. Chambers continues to keep him talking Norton while pushes for more direct action, readying his sharp shooters and positioning his team for an assault on the tower. Chambers pleads Norton to hold off. Meanwhile Eden continues to pressure Dixon. Under extreme and eminent threat, Dixon breaks down and divulges that the third nurse on duty the evening of Eden's wife's death, Jane Abbott, was responsible for all the deaths - and that she must be stopped. Sceptical initially, Chambers believes him when she realizes that previously on several occasions when she had spoken to Abbott (including not an hour earlier), she had with her a young boy in wheelchair, presumably a patient, but now realized, it was actually her own son - who was paralyzed. Chambers leads Norton and his team back into the hospital and after a desperate search, locates Abbott in the hospital chapel with her son. She has with her a firearm and a syringe of liquid she claims will cure her son of the severe paralysis resulting from a recent diving accident. Dixon appears at the scene having being released by Eden, and realizes that she has the substance created during his stem cell research but pleads her not to use it as essentially the programme failed, and the substance resulting unstable and dangerous. Emotionally, Abbott refuses to believe him, stating that she had "got" him all he had required to complete the work and exclaiming "you promised it would work". While continuing to hold the police at distance with the firearm, she prepares to inject her son with the stem cell based solution. Eden, who is now handcuffed and being escorted by a policeman, becomes enraged by the presence of the person responsible for her wife's death, breaks free and rushes at Abbott forcing her heavily against the wall where she accidentally injects herself with the syringe. After an emotional exchange with her wheelchair bound son, the experimental drug begins to take hold with extremely painful and gruesome effect. Eventually she succumbs to a slow and agonizing death.

'Healers' - Location Proposal
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Copyright (C) Wayne Parker, 2004. All rights reserved.