Ashley paid for his mistakes with his life. After his arrest for his part in the kidnap, he made a deal with to inform on the Kneževićs in exchange for immunity from prosecution and witness protection. They still got him. While Ashley was being transported by police, two men on a motorbike drew up alongside his vehicle and shot him dead through the car window. In Series 3, his suspected killer is given a name – Darius (possibly Darijo) Knežević, the gang leader who had used the same 9mm Glock two months earlier in April 2014 to kill Gary Kokovski, the body Catherine discovers in a barrel, partly encased in cement in the drained reservoir in Series 3’s opening episode. 

This is the first we’ve heard of Gary Kokovski’s murder on Happy Valley, and timeline-wise, it took place in April 2014, just after Tommy Lee Royce’s release from prison, before he got involved in Ann’s kidnap. Kokovski’s corpse is a boon for Yorkshire police, who might finally have something concrete (excuse the pun) to pin on Darius Knežević. They just need the cooperation of prisoner Tommy Lee Royce, who was present at the murder, to take Darius down. 

Surprise surprise, Royce won’t cooperate, and instead names the Kneževićs Oldham rival Chris Oxley as Gary’s murderer. It’s possible that Royce made a deal with the Kneževićs to spare his life (Darius ordered his murder in prison when Kokovski’s body was discovered) in exchange for naming Oxley. 

2016: Aurelia, Ilinka, Goran Dragović and the Sex-Trafficking Ring

Putting bodies in reservoirs is by no means the extent of the Kneževićs’ crimes. As well as drug-dealing, Series 2 revealed that they also operate a sex-trafficking ring (“Course it would be the Kneževićs trafficking women, that’d be right up their alley”.) When trafficking victim Ilinka Blazevic escaped to Catherine’s police station, the illegal brothel she was being forced to work at by the Kneževićs was raided. 

During the raid, Catherine tasered sex trafficker Goran Dragović, who was arrested but later released on bail, which was paid for by his employers the Kneževićs. They didn’t help Dragović out of the goodness of their hearts, but in order to kill him to stop him from incriminating them. His hanged body was discovered by a nun in a local park, staged to look like a suicide, but it was clear that this was also the Kneževićs’ handiwork. 

At one point in Series 2, it looked as though the Kneževićs were behind the serial killings of sex workers. One of the victims was Aurelia Petrovic, a sex trafficking victim controlled by the Kneževićs, identified by escaped trafficking victim Ilinka. Catherine placed Ilinka with her elderly neighbour Winnie Babbage, who spoke the same language as the trafficked women. When Winnie asked why Catherine didn’t arrest the Kneževićs’, she told her, “They’re clever clever bastards. It’s one thing knowing somebody’s done something, it’s a different kettle of fish having the evidence to arrest them for it.” 

Danofgeek