Who Killed Cock Robin?

Barnaby and Troy are drawn to the market town of Newton Magna by the report of a missing horse whisperer, allegedly struck by a car nearby. That is already an unusual start. The search turns properly dark when they find a body in the town well, and the case stops being a missing person inquiry and becomes a puzzle about who put whom down a hole and why.

Newton Magna is the sort of small community where everyone knows everyone and nobody says anything useful. But every resident appears to have a stake in the outcome: Reverend Thorne, Bubbles Stockard, Noel Wooliscroft and Frank Lightbourne, Robin Wooliscroft, Jackie Marsh. Even Dr George Bullard gets pulled in for the medical side. The list of people who might know more than they are letting on is essentially the whole town, which makes the search for truth anything but straightforward.

Jeremy Paul and Caroline Graham wrote the episode, and David Tucker directed. John Nettles and Daniel Casey are on form as Barnaby and Troy, with Jane Wymark as Joyce. The supporting cast is a treat: Patrick Drury as Robin Wooliscroft, Mick Ford as Frank Lightbourne, Jonathan Hackett as Reverend Thorne, Polly Hemingway as Bubbles Stockard, Noah Huntley as Noel Wooliscroft, George Innes as Jackie Marsh and Barry Jackson as Dr George Bullard.

The title comes from the old nursery rhyme, and there is something fitting about that. The rhyme is all about who done it, and how the whole community gathered to mourn and point fingers. Midsomer does the same thing every week, minus the rhyme and plus considerably more blood. A horse whisperer and a body in a well, a market town with its secrets arranged neatly behind closed curtains: it all feels deeply rooted in place, and a long way from anywhere comfortable.