Dust Thou Art: Part 2

The BBC's question for the closing night is whether Dalziel is to blame for Jackson's disappearance or whether it could be something to do with the mysterious art world. The Radio Times variant of the same line states that things become very personal for Dalziel and Pascoe when one of their own goes missing.

The published synopses agree that the investigation continues to circle the Wetherton Arts Centre and its production of Oliver, and that the forged seventeenth-century old master drawings are the scam at the centre of the case. Wikipedia's story synopsis closes on Dalziel racing against time to save Jackson.

How the kidnapping of WPC Jackson is resolved is not stated in any source consulted. No published synopsis names the people who took her or Lisa Johnstone, states whether either was recovered, or describes the ending of the forgery scam. Dalziel racing to save Jackson, the arts centre, the forged drawings and the question of whether Dalziel bears responsibility for her disappearance are the whole of the documented resolution. Nothing has been reconstructed here, so how Jackson survives, or whether she does, is not recorded in this account.

What can be said about the ending is the shape of it: the identification of those responsible and the recovery of the officer happen inside the same race, and the story's stated close is Dalziel trying to reach her in time. The forgery business is the scheme that ties the killings together, and the drawings are the reason three people at the arts centre are dead, which makes the case one about objects rather than about people until the last twenty minutes.

The story is the last of Series 9 and the second night of the run's most personal case, because the officer taken is one of Dalziel's team and the episode asks directly whether his conduct put her there. Pascoe's involvement is personal too, through Anna Wisley, and the two men therefore work a case in which each has something of his own at stake. The closing night is also the point at which the two-part format produces its most effective ending, since the whole of the second episode is a countdown rather than an inquiry.