Left for Dead

The case is personal for Ben Jones before a single body is found, which is exactly how the script wants it. A series of murders pulls him back to the town where he grew up, and the dead turn out to be tied to childhood friends and to events from years ago that nobody in the place much wants to revisit. The first murder is ugly, the second worse, and the pattern starts to look like an old argument being finished at last. Jones works the inquiry with a foot in two worlds, half detective, half local boy, and the old faces he meets are not all pleased to see him back. The town is pleasant enough, which only means the resentments have had plenty of time to settle and harden.

The cast does solid work across the board. Maggie Steed's Lynne Fox, Harry Peacock's Patrick Bradley and Albert Welling's Ron Wilson all circle the case, with Indra Ové's Charlotte Knight, Marion Bailey's Alyssa Bradley and Ben Crompton as Spud filling out the picture. John Nettles's Barnaby backs his sergeant up without stealing the story, Jane Wymark's Joyce is around as usual, and Barry Jackson's Dr Bullard does the medical honours. The weight of the episode sits on Jason Hughes, and he carries it well.

Michael Crompton and Caroline Graham wrote it, with Renny Rye directing. The mystery is built from memory and guilt rather than clever alibis, which suits a story about people who have known each other since childhood. The episode is not in a hurry, and the patience pays off in the last act.

And that is the point of the whole exercise. Home is where the secrets live, and Midsomer has kept its share of them. Jones gets his answer, but the past he digs up does not go back in the ground easily. It is the sort of case that leaves a sergeant quieter than usual on the drive back to Causton.