Congratulations

The opening case is dressed up to look like a suicide, but Rachel Bailey is not buying it. Emel Yilmatz was a young Turkish woman, pregnant, with flowers delivered to her flat and a simple youth next door who clearly adored her. None of that squares with a woman who took her own life. Her husband Gokhan was still in touch with Mana, the girlfriend from before his arranged marriage, and Mana's embittered attitude puts her firmly in the frame.

Rachel arrives at the job carrying her own mess. Nick, her married lover, dumped her, and she is in a mood for revenge. She uses her police access to check up on him and is horrified to find he has since married and now has two children. Janet, meanwhile, is pulled back into the past when an old friend asks her to reopen the case of Veronica, a schoolmate abducted and murdered when the two of them were children.

That personal history keeps crowding the police work. Rachel's answer to the Yilmatz case is a high-stakes interview with the mistress, a move that could pay off or blow up in her face. Janet's is the slower kind of work, and it is the one that will keep coming back. Nobody on the team is neutral territory this week, and the hour gives both women's private wars their due without ever letting the murder slide.

Sally Wainwright, Diane Taylor and Suranne Jones wrote it, with Sarah Pia Anderson directing. Suranne Jones's Rachel anchors the episode, supported by Lesley Sharp's Janet, Rupert Graves as Nick, Amelia Bullmore's Gill Murray, and the wider team in Nicholas Gleaves, David Prosho, Ben Batt and Delroy Brown, with Daniel Ben Zenou as Gokhan.

Two detectives, two old wounds. And the first outing already knows that in this job the past arrives with the crime scene photos. It hits the ground running, and it lands on its feet.