Karen Pirie series 2 concluded with an exciting, globetrotting, sun-soaked, chase-filled episode 3 – there was a LOT going on so here’s our recap with the denouement fully explained. From who actually killed Cat and how they did it. To why Cat faked her own kidnap in the first place. It’s all broken down below.

The action moved to Italy and Malta (though all the foreign filming was in Malta), where a bunch of Scots cops had trouble acclimatising to the unfamiliar heat while trying to track down the kidnappers – Mick and Andy – and Cat’s son Adam before Sir Brodie’s minions could.

*** Warning! Spoilers ahead ***

Who actually killed Catriona Grant in Karen Pirie series 2?

Cat’s killer turned out to be her mother, Mary Grant. But Mary wasn’t a murderer, because she had no intention of killing her daughter.

In fact, for 40 years she didn’t even realise she had killed her daughter, not until her body was found in the previous episode.

Karen Pirie series 2 ending explained: How was Cat killed?

She was shot in the stomach by a shotgun in the cave where the “kidnappers” had arranged to meet with Sir Brodie so that he could hand over the ransom money.

Mary was intending to shoot Mick Prentice, but missed, hitting Cat instead. The shots triggered a rockfall that buried Cat, but Mary Grant didn’t know that – she assumed that Cat had escaped with Mick, and that’s what she told her husband, so he believed that too.

Mick, on the other hand, was well aware that Cat was dead. He escaped the cave by a back entrance (he was on the far side of the rockfall) to join Andy, who was waiting in a car with baby Adam. They sped off, heading to Europe with their fake passports.

So there was a third ransom note?

Yes. The police in 2024 were under the impression that a third ransom note had never been delivered and that no ransom money had ever been paid to the kidnappers. This was not the case.

The third ransom note was delivered to Fergus, as the older Fergus told Karen during his police interview.

It read: “You will bring the two holdalls to East Rotheswell Head, at 5am tomorrow morning. You will not bring police. If you notify the police about this letter, you will never see your daughter or your grandson again.”

Fergus took the note to Sir Brodie and Sir Brodie told no one else about it apart from his head security guy Glen Gibson.

Hang on – who’s Glen Gibson?

A quick moment to ponder Glen Gibson here. He – and the actor who plays him – have been listed in the end credits for each episode this series, but until this episode you’d have to be super-attentive to even notice him.

Then suddenly, early in this episode, he was named by Karen as a possible suspect (although she quickly dismisses him and he’s dead by 2024 anyway). About 99% of the audience is probably going, “Hang on – Glen who?”

Flashbacks in this episode gave him a bigger role finally, but you can’t help wondering if in an earlier version of the script Glen had a more prominent role that made him more of a suspect in the early stages of the investigation.

Why did Mary have a shotgun?

Although Sir Brodie didn’t tell Mary about the third ransom note, she was suspicious that something was going on. So when Brodie left the house just before dawn one morning, she secretly followed him in the gamekeeper’s car, which had a shotgun stored on the passenger side.

When she arrived at the cave she took the gun with her as she didn’t know what she was getting into. However, she did know about the back entrance to the cave. So, while Mick and Brodie were negotiating, she sneaked into the cave via the back entrance.

Then, when Mick re-entered the cave with Cat (and because, obviously, she didn’t know they were working in cahoots) she threatened Mick with the gun. Cat tried to intervene, it all got a bit confusing then – BANG! Cat had a teabag for an abdomen and the roof fell in with Mick one side and Mary on the other.

Karen Pirie series 2 ending explained: Why did Cat arrange the fake kidnapping?

Because she hated her dad and she wanted money to start a new life abroad with Mick and baby Adam.

What did Kate discover that made her hate her dad, Sir Brodie?

Until this episode, viewers will have assumed that the rift between Cat and Sir Brodie was mainly idealogical (he was a capitalist to the extreme and college had turned her into a leftwing flag waver) mixed in with resentment that he’d carried on employing Fergus, even after Fergus dumped her when she became pregnant.

But there was something else specific she learnt that really tipped the balance. And it comes to light thanks to Bel doing some digging for Karen.

About six months after Adam was born Cat went back to do some work at Grant Operations, where she stumbled on legal documents with Fergus’ name on them.

Some time before February 1984, there had been a fatal accident on a Grant Operations-owned oil rig in the Kilmar oil field. Three men were killed when Mark Denmore, a 30-year-old engineer, made a drunken mistake whilst operating heavy machinery, Bel tells Phil.

What Cat discovered is that accident was actually down to faulty equipment, the result of cost-cutting measures. Brodie, trying to distance himself from the tragedy, sent Fergus to do his dirty work. All the families involved were paid off and forced to sign NDAs (non-disclosure agreements). Cat was disgusted that an innocent man was framed to take the fall for Brodie’s penny pinching.

Cat then met with a business journalist, Agnes Selkirk, from The Scots Times, to tell her what she’d learnt. But Sir Brodie got wind of the meeting, and pressured people he knew at the paper to make sure nothing from that meeting was ever published. Agnes was made to sign an NDA.

Karen later asked Phil if they could interview Agnes but he said she’s dead now. “Nature’s NDA,” said Karen, with her usual dry wit.

And while the families of the victims couldn’t say anything for legal reasons (the NDAs), in this case actions spoke louder than words –Phil discovered they all moved into much larger properties shortly after the accident.

What happened to the kidnappers in Karen Pirie series 2?

Mick Prentice took on the name Daniel Porteous while Andy Kerr’s new identity was Matthias Johnson. Mick decided to bring up Cat’s orphaned son, Adam, and renamed him Gabriel.

They moved through France and ended up in northern Italy.

Andy never totally kicked the gambling addiction and became notorious in local casinos, often causing trouble.

Mick brought up Gabriel in the way he hoped Cat would have, forging him into a human rights activist, assisting illegal immigrants crossing the Mediterranean in small boats.

What did Fergus know about the kidnapping?

Karen hauled older Fergus in for questioning again, as events at the end of the last episode put him in frame as prime suspect.

At first he refused to talk, but loosened up when Karen showed him a picture of Gabriel and said she believed it’s Adam. He seemed genuinely relieved to have proof his son was still alive, and started spilling information.

When he received the third ransom note, he said, he began to suspect that Cat was involved in the planning of the kidnapping. In flashback he even said to Brodie, “She’s punishing us!”

He was not aware about what happened in the cave at the time. He had a pretty watertight alibi for not being present at the handover – he was in hospital that night, caring for his wife who lost a baby.

So he only knew what Brodie told him: that Cat just took the money and ran.

Asked why he was now finally revealing all this, he said, “I thought that Adam had his mother. I thought Cat had money and a new life… I will not go down for something that I did not do, and because my son grew up without either of his parents, and he shouldn’t have had to.”

How did Karen and her team find Mick Prentice?

Mint and Isla, who had been tracking possible sightings of Mick, Andy and Adam across Europe, discovered five casinos in Genoa had banned “Matthias Johnson” (who they’re pretty sure is Andy).

Karen told Mint to fly to Genoa immediately, and Mint asked if Isla could come too. “It’s not a holiday,” protested Karen, but she agreed when Mint pulled a face like a kicked puppy.

When they got to Genoa, Mint was having issues with his emails (honestly – THIS IS RELEVANT!).

They met up with a wonderfully louche Italian detective (with a wayward attitude to rules and regulation) called Barbieri. He had tracked the “very ill” Matthias to a hospital. And he pulled strings to get Mint and Isla a meeting with him.

But Matthias (who definitely is Andy) was admitting nothing. And soon some mysterious benefactor had arranged a move to a private hospital where they couldn’t reach him.

Before he’d moved he made a phone call to Mick, which was tracked. Mint, Isla and Barbieri drove to the address but Mick had already scarpered.

Instead there was a armed man waiting, who held a gun to Isla before escaping.

The contents of Mick’s bin revealed details of a flight to Malta. Malta – argh! – has no formal extradition treaty with the UK.

Karen told Mint and Isla to fly to Malta immediately and she’d meet them there.

Who was the armed man at Mick’s house?

From the registration plate of the rental car the armed man escaped in, Mint and Isla learned that he was Jonas Weber, an ex-Federal police officer from Berlin.

The force kicked him out for allegedly killing another officer. No conviction followed. He’d been a private investigator ever since with a an exclusive client base.

Yep, Brodie had hired him to track down Adam. Brodie also turned up in Malta at the same time as Karen. And he haf the local police force in his pocket. They shut down Karen’s investigation at every turn and they were also pretty sure Gabriel was in Malta. (He was – he bribed a border guard to sneak in with his girlfriend, Renata Rossi).

Mint also learned that someone had hacked his emails, which was how Weber beat them to Mick’s place. And how Brodie’s people found Andy and moved him to another hospital.

Karen Pirie’s charm offensive to the rescue

Luckily, Karen made friends with a feisty female cop called Camilleri – they bonded over their frustration with bosses.

Thanks to Camilleri and Barbieri, they managed to pinpoint the apartment of one of Gabriel’s small-boat activist mates, Alessandro Vella. They went see if that was where Gabriel was hiding… and he made a bolt for it out of a window.

Cue a lavish-looking, on-foot chase scene which showed off the sight’s Malta’s capital Valetta. It ended with Karen and co catching up with Gabriel just as he tried to escape on his boat. Even better Mick showed up looking for Adam at the same time too.

Oh, and Isla tasered Weber for good measure.

Interviewing Mick and Gabriel later, Karen learned that Mary was the real killer (and Gabriel learned an awful lot more).

Karen Pirie series 2 is currently airing on ITV1 on Sundays at 8pm and all episodes are available in ITVX