Simisola: Part Two

Part two opens in a hospital, where Wexford is visiting the victim of another attempted murder. The woman survives the visit, barely: a second attempt on her life follows shortly afterwards, which tells the detectives they are close to something the killer wants buried. But the hour's most important moment happens in the car park. Wexford notices a pink Volkswagen Beetle, and the observation, small as it is, turns out to be the thread that pulls the whole case loose.

The Beetle is traced to the Epson family, who are away, having left their children with a childminder. The childminder is Melanie Akande. The missing graduate has been living a quiet second life, and Wexford's focus narrows onto the links connecting her to the wider mess: the burglary at the murdered unemployment worker's house, the attempted murders, and the figures of Annette Bystock and Zack Nelson, who sit at the centre of both the threat to the victim and the deeper secrets of the case. By the close of the hour Wexford believes he has found the missing graduate's body, and the search for a living woman hardens into a hunt for her killer. The episode aired on 2 February 1996, with one part of the trilogy still to come.

Ruth Rendell wrote the script herself, and Jim Goddard directed. The regulars are in place: George Baker's Wexford, Christopher Ravenscroft's Burden, Louie Ramsay's Dora, Diane Keen's Jenny, with Jane Lapotaire's Anouk Khoori, George Harris' Dr Akande, Robin Kermode's Sgt Vine, Kelly Reilly's Kimberley, Barrie Shore's Mrs Stowlap and Paul Trussell's market trader filling the frame.

The episode is Wexford's method in miniature: no single piece of evidence is decisive, but the slow act of connecting them all starts to form a picture. A pink car, a childminder, a burglary, a dead caseworker: the strands are finally braiding together, and the hour ends with the picture still incomplete but unmistakably forming.