Wire in the Blood

Wire in the Blood (2002–2008) is an ITV television series, based on characters created by Val McDermid, which teams a university clinical psychologist, Dr. Tony Hill (Robson Green), with a tough female Detective Inspector, originally Carol Jordan (Hermione Norris) but replaced by Detective Inspector Alex Fielding (Simone Lahbib) from series four onwards.

Series 1

 * Tony Hill: Sex with me is definitely not worth a three-hour drive. Maybe a five-minute walk. If it's not raining.


 * Tony Hill: People like Maggie offend with impunity; she was caught, but her punishment doesn't hurt her. And she tries to draw others in, open up their minds.
 * Carol Jordan: To what?
 * Tony Hill: The possibilities.
 * Carol Jordan: Of what? Of evil?
 * Tony Hill: 'Evil' is a relative term.
 * Carol Jordan: Only to psychopaths.

Series 2

 * Carol Jordan: Does your wife know you're out at this time of night?
 * Tony Hill: Wife?
 * Carol Jordan: Typical man. You woo us, you marry us, you've got us, you forget us.
 * Tony Hill: Ehh, it was her cooking. She burned everything.


 * Carol Jordan: What were your parents like?
 * Tony Hill: Mm? Oh, Mum was classic delusional. Desperately believing in only the good... it was a natural defense against her fear that Dad had fallen out of love with her. Yeah, she didn't realize he just had difficulty in expressing it.
 * Carol Jordan: ...I was just making small talk, actually.

Series 3

 * [Tony is being assessed for brain damage following an accident]
 * Neurologist: Could you give me ten things that begin with a "p"?
 * Tony Hill: Pie, paw, pot, poor, patients, patience, psychology, pneumonia, phantom, day.
 * Neurologist: Day doesn't start with a "p."
 * Tony Hill: Mine does.


 * Carol Jordan: What did the hospital want?
 * Tony Hill: They had something wrong with the X-ray machine.
 * Carol Jordan: It's not what they said... Sorry, I'm nosy. Part of my job description.


 * Tony Hill: They think it's a brain tumour. An intracranial meningioma. But if I can pronounce it, there can't be that much wrong with me.


 * Tony Hill: It's the hand we don't see.
 * Carol Jordan: What do you mean?
 * Tony Hill: It's the times the cards told him not to shoot. Queen, Jack, Seven. Jung's theory of synchronicity says there are links between events beyond cause and effect. Patterns the conscious mind can't perceive.
 * [he pauses]
 * Tony Hill: "There is no such thing as coincidence or accident."
 * Carol Jordan: Did Jung say that as well?
 * Tony Hill: No, that was Joe Stalin. And he was one of history's greatest murderers, second to cancer.


 * Carol Jordan: So he really was just an innocent victim.
 * Bishop Fordham: Of course.
 * Carol Jordan: Then why was he shot?
 * Bishop Fordham: God knows.
 * Carol Jordan: So you'd be the right man to ask.


 * Bill Denton: I don't like taking chances. I prefer certainties.


 * Tony Hill: That's human nature. Finding patterns. Faces in clouds, gods in stars, the future in tea leaves. We're so desperate for meaning, we invent it. There is none.
 * Carol Jordan: That's not true. Who we care about, what we care about, fighting for it, that's what gives our lives meaning. We have to go on. We don't have any choice.


 * Carol Jordan: Looking for faces in the clouds?
 * Tony Hill: No, I was just thinking about...
 * [he turns and their eyes meet]
 * Tony Hill: ...hang-gliding.
 * Carol Jordan: Shouldn't you wait until you lose the staplework?
 * Tony Hill: No. I'm tired of putting things off. Come with me.
 * Carol Jordan: No, I've got work to do.
 * Tony Hill: You're making excuses.
 * Carol Jordan: Yeah.
 * Tony Hill: Life's dangerous. Come with me.

Series 4

 * Tony Hill: It's bad...They're going after you through me on the grounds I led you astray while cancerous microbes ate my brain.

Series 6

 * Tony Hill: He's not a person, in the true sense of the word. He's an amalgam of conflicting personality disorders.


 * Alex Fielding: I still don't know anything about you.
 * Tony Hill: Like what?
 * Alex Fielding: Like anything.
 * Tony Hill: ...you're wearing lipstick.
 * Alex Fielding: So?


 * Alex Fielding: Probably about the only thing we managed to agree on last night.
 * Tony Hill: Yeah, sorry about that. Socially, I get... confused.


 * Tony: People often say I'm contrary for contrary's sake.
 * Alex: I have to admit...when I first started working with you, I often thought, "what a prick". I mean, interesting prick, talented prick, but "prick" was always the noun.
 * Tony: [sarcastically] ...Thanks.