Ginny Lamington is a character appearing in the episode Country Matters of the ITV crime drama Midsomer Murders.
Ginny was one of several women in Elverton-cum-Latterley who would go and offer high-class prostitution and escort services to tourists in their village. It all began when Rose Southerly, the local culinary instructor, was sinking in financial debt after her husband's death in a car crash, and one of her customers pressured her into paid "services", then referred her to his peers. Ginny and other local women, including Celia Patchett, all offered thematic sex tourism, as while Rose "played the role" of cook and caregiver, Ginny provided horseback tours and "punished" men with her whips, and Celia was the "damsel in distress" men would cross in the woods while hunting. All women were backed in their own protection by footage they secretly recorded on security camera in the interest of keeping unruly and aggressive customers behind the boundary lines set for the adverts.
Frank Hopkirk, an environmental wellness consultant measuring arsenic levels at an old timber mill that supposedly had a spillage, paid and solicited all three women during his visit. When Ginny came to realize her husband Orlando fancied Rose and wanted a divorce to be with her, Ginny was horrified and wanted to avenge her offended pride by getting rid of Rose. She decided Hopkirk was to be used to her advantage. Ginny was already bored and turned to the escort service and an affair with local bar owner Danny Piggott, who would watch her prostitution after she drunkenly told him about it once. Ginny had finally snapped when Danny pursued Rose as well, despite Rose staving off every man wanting her, which infuriated Ginny more due to Rose's better character.
Hopkirk had called his employer for his freelancing, Dudley Painter, to say his reports would keep the company from developing on the old mill by disproving the spillage accurately. As Danny heard the phone call, he barged out and fought Hopkirk, as Danny wanted the investment to leave the village. Hopkirk had a stroke, so Ginny, going along with Danny and also assuming Hopkirk was dead, drove him out in her horse box with Danny to the mill, leaving Hopkirk in the abandoned stables. Ginny had early stolen one of Rose's kitchen knives, lying she wanted her cookbook from a drawing room, in the hopes of framing her to get her out of the village. Danny stayed behind because he wanted documents of Hopkirk's to get the buyout going, but he watched Ginny, even after seeing Hopkirk wake up, stabbing Hopkirk to death while he was paralyzed from his critical medical attack. Ginny left the knife, Danny swiped the papers, and they both went to the village meeting on the development plans, with Danny and Orlando throwing punches over Rose. Ginny personally broke it up over her own jealousy, but hen pretended to be a friend to Rose when her daughter Dora found Hopkirk dead with Danny's son Otis.
Residual evidence on Hopkirk revealed his solicitation activities, and Rose realized Ginny came the day Hopkirk was murdered to swipe the knife. Ginny was interrogated, then found out once her own camera was found in her stables. When the detectives knew Orlando was watching through the monitor, then accused Ginny outright of murder, Orlando burst in demanding answers. Ginny bitterly stated she hated Orlando giving her attention. Trying to frame Danny, she looked for the tape of Hopkirk's stroke during the fight, but Danny took it for himself. the police arrested him and found it in his coat, along with a balaclava he wore while trying to beat to death a former mill worker, Johnny Crouch, who knew too much. The detectives saw the tape and convinced Danny's cooperation to sell Ginny out, which was followed by her scorned own full confession. Painter never bought the land, as Hopkirk's phone confirmed the call he placed Painter earlier denied.
Victims[]
- Frank Hopkirk - Had a stroke from an altercation with Danny Piggott, which knocked him unconscious and made him incapacitated. He was then transported to an old mill and as he regained consciousness and begged for help, was stabbed repeatedly in the chest with one of Rose Southerly's kitchen knives.