An Unkindness of Ravens: Part One

Rodney Williams disappears, and then his body turns up in the woods. For most cases that would be the end of the mystery and the start of the paperwork. Wexford knows better. Finding the remains is only the beginning, and the further he goes the more secrets surface, until the simple question of who killed Rodney Williams has opened onto a whole row of other questions he did not ask for.

The episode has the shape of a door swinging open onto a corridor of further doors. Every witness, every connection, every quiet inconsistency leads somewhere new, and Wexford's persistence is what keeps the investigation moving. It is the sort of case that rewards a detective who distrusts easy answers, and George Baker's Wexford distrusts them on principle. It first aired on the 11th of November 1990, with the second part already promised for the following week, so the first hour could afford to leave its questions open. That confidence shows in the writing, which trusts the audience to hold several threads at once.

The ensemble is a familiar and comfortable one. Christopher Ravenscroft's Burden is at Wexford's side, with Diane Keen as Jenny Burden, Ken Kitson's D.S. Martin, Deborah Poplett's Sheila Wexford, Charon Bourke's Sylvia Fairfax, Owen Scott's Edgar Ovington, John Burgess' Dr Len Crocker and Karen Westwood's Sara Williams filling the frame. Louie Ramsay's Dora is home as ever. Robert Smith wrote it, and John Gorrie directed.

There is a particular pleasure in watching a mystery multiply in front of you. The body in the woods should have simplified things, and instead it has complicated everything, and the episode is honest about the fact that Wexford is enjoying the complication even as it exhausts him. Rodney Williams' death is the key to something larger, and the hour ends with the lock still turning.