Cause and Effect

A young trophy wife is found dead in her home, and the smart money, as ever, lands on the husband. The setting is an affluent marina, a world of boats and money where questions aren't welcome. The husband comes under suspicion, and it looks like a domestic case with a familiar shape, the kind the team have handled a hundred times. The marina crowd, when they talk at all, talk about him in whispers, and the whispers all point one way.

But two more bodies turn up, and the familiar shape breaks. The team realise they are not hunting one killer, and the enquiry shifts from the husband to the community around the marina. The second and third deaths change everything, turning a domestic case into something with a much wider net, and the tight little world of the sailing fraternity starts to look like a suspect pool. Meanwhile, DCI Matt Burke is reunited with an old flame, a personal strand the episode threads through the case without letting it take over.

Daniel Boyle and Glenn Chandler wrote it, Patrick Harkins directed. Blythe Duff's Jackie Reid, John Michie's Robbie Ross and Colin McCredie's Stuart Fraser work the case with Alex Norton's Burke, Lesley Harcourt's Gemma Kerr in support. Carole Cassidy plays Lucy Anderson, Tom Chadbon is Todd Phelps, Ian McElhinney appears as Archie Rae, and the Bovey siblings are played by Gavin Paul as Trevor Bovey and Clare Waugh as Sam Bovey.

A murder that starts domestic and ends communal is a good structure for the show, and the marina gives the episode a setting it doesn't visit often. The old flame business is handled with a lighter touch than the case deserves, which is probably the right call, and the two strands balance each other neatly. It's a solid season opener that knows what it's for.