The Sicillian Defence

The title sounds like a chess move, and it's apt: this one plays a long, patient game rather than a quick one. A young woman wakes from a coma with no memory to speak of, and the question nobody can answer is what happened to her boyfriend, who vanished around the time she was attacked. It's the sort of case where the victim is also the only witness, and a witness who can't remember anything is Barnaby's least favourite kind. Barnaby and Jones have to rebuild a timeline from the one person who was there and can't describe any of it.

The investigation moves through the people around the couple: David and Harriet Farmer, Jamie and Olivia Carr, Edward Stannington, with Dr Laura Parr handling the medical side of the story. Everyone insists the girl will remember everything eventually, though you get the sense some of them are hoping she won't. The further they dig, the clearer it becomes that nobody's memory of the relevant weeks is quite as vague as they claim.

Richard Lumsden's David Farmer, Jo Woodcock's Harriet Farmer, Julie Graham's Dr Laura Parr, John Bell's Jamie Carr, Julie Cox's Olivia Carr and Nicholas Rowe's Edward Stannington make up the circle, with Fiona Dolman's Sarah Barnaby and Tamzin Malleson's Kate Wilding around the edges. The performances are uniformly quiet and believable. Neil Dudgeon's Barnaby and Jason Hughes's Jones carry the case. Paul Logue and Caroline Graham wrote it, Alex Pillai directed.

But this is a quieter episode than the season has been serving, closer to a domestic tragedy with police work attached. The emotional weight stays with the girl at the centre, and the mystery earns its resolution. It's the kind of Midsomer episode where the village is scenery and the people are the point. Not flashy, but it stays with you.