Trial & Retribution II (1)

Series two opens with a missing person report that everyone already knows is a murder case. Susan Harrow does not come home, her mother calls it in, and before long her body is found on wasteland. Walker is back in charge, and the team barely has time to get its breath before a second woman is killed. But nobody says the words out loud. They all know what they are dealing with. A serial killer is working the area.

Then the case takes a stranger turn. One victim survives the attack, and she names Damon Morton as the man who did it to her. Morton is arrogant, and he seems to hold a strange power over everyone near him. Three of his employees come forward and claim responsibility for the crimes, which is the sort of confession that makes a detective's skin crawl. His wife, worn down by years of it, gives him an alibi. Walker's team is left trying to unpick a knot where the truth sits underneath several layers of loyalty and fear.

Lynda La Plante wrote it; Aisling Walsh directed. The regulars are all back, Hayman's Walker and Kate Buffery's North among them, with a young Kris Marshall as PC Henshaw and Deobia Oparei's Palmer joining the ranks. Daniel Ryan's Brown rounds out the team, and David Kennedy returns as Phelps. Deborah Findlay's Jill Ashton stands out as the sensible detective who keeps her head while the louder personalities around her get ahead of themselves.

The pleasure of this opener is watching the machine cope with something genuinely horrible. The procedural work is as solid as ever, and the Morton thread gives it a nasty edge, the sense of a man untouchable in plain sight. None of it is comfortable viewing. It is supposed to sit with you.