The character Tony Gow says "No. Mean city, eh?." - No Mean City is the name of the Taggart theme tune.
The first murder victim, journalist John Marriot, was posed to represent Jacques-Louis David's "The Death of Marat." The use of homophones to secure the link of Marriot and Marat is obvious. I'll leave the artists and paintings representing the second and third victims to someone who actually majored in art, instead of an eighty-year old professional student for life.