Harvest

September 1967, and a body found in the marshland outside Oxford is taken to be the remains of Matthew Laxman, an Oxford botanist who vanished near the site five years earlier. Morse heads to the village of Bramford, which is busy preparing for the autumnal equinox with all the pagan customs that come with it, and immediately finds a wall of silence.

The locals, including the reclusive clairvoyant Dowsabelle Chattox, deny seeing Laxman. Then Selina Berger, the local doctor's sister, recalls seeing the missing man's car near the nuclear power plant on the edge of the village. The plant's director, Elliot Blake, assures Morse it poses no danger, but it is not a welcome presence in a place that has been proposed as the site of a new reservoir. When Morse finds Laxman's jacket draped over a scarecrow, he knows the village has been lying. The admissions come, and the evidence confirms Laxman went to the power station. A Geiger counter finds his body, and the readings explain everything: a high dose of radiation, deliberately delivered.

As the equinox celebrations get under way, the power station's emergency alarm sounds too early to be the usual drill. Morse and Thursday race to the facility to stop an aggrieved avenger from destroying the whole area, and they unmask Laxman's killer in time. Their bravery earns both of them the George Medal, and Morse finally gets the promotion to Sergeant that has been blocked for so long.

Russell Lewis wrote it, Jim Loach directed. Alex Mann is Dr Matthew Laxman, Sheila Hancock is Dowsabelle Chattox, Simon Meacock is Nigel Warren, Shaun Evans is Morse, Roger Allam is DI Fred Thursday, Anton Lesser is Chief Superintendent Reginald Bright, Sara Vickers is Joan Thursday, Caroline O'Neill is Win Thursday, Sean Rigby is DS Jim Strange, and Dakota Blue Richards is WPC Shirley Trewlove.

A case where folklore and fallout sit side by side, and the past, literal and legendary, proves as much of a mystery as any crime scene.