Superficial

Both women face the promotion board at the start of the new series, and both pass. That leaves Gill with the job of choosing which of them stays on as sergeant, and Janet solves the problem by stepping down, because she feels she is needed more at home. Rachel gets the stripe. But the pair are determined to be honest with each other this year, after last year's wreckage.

The case is a missing lad named Robin McKendrick, reported by his boss, pub landlord John Rivington. Robin is described as a simple lad, and the regulars are not helpful until a boy tells Janet that an ex-soldier known as Jackie-Boy locked Robin in the boot of his car as a cruel prank and later reported the car stolen. Another witness says Jackie-Boy dumped the car in a quarry with Robin still in it. A photo of Robin bound and gagged in that boot is doing the rounds online, which raises the temperature considerably.

Then Gill identifies a body pulled from the river as Mandy Sweeting, a woman who disappeared twenty years ago, and the missing persons case starts to look like two cases in one. The quarry and the river tell different stories, and the photograph of Robin in that boot fits none of them neatly. It is a lot to hold, and the team is still finding its feet with a new sergeant in place.

Amelia Bullmore, Diane Taylor and Sally Wainwright wrote it, Simon Delaney directed. Suranne Jones and Lesley Sharp lead a cast that includes Simon Slater's DCI Mayhew, Janice Acquah's Inspector Judy Clarke, Danny Webb's Chris Crowley and Ken Bones's John Rivington, with the familiar squad of Tony Mooney, Danny Miller and Delroy Brown filling in.

A new year, a new rank, and a case that refuses to be one thing. The honesty Scott and Bailey promised each other gets tested almost immediately.