The Blind Beggar (2)

The second half goes looking for answers among the living. The squad works through the congregation and the wider community, and what surfaces is a layer of long-hidden family history that nobody in the parish has been keen to discuss with strangers in police cardigans. Churches keep more than one kind of confession, it turns out.

Frankie's contribution is the quietly devastating one: a possible biological link between Father Stuart, the former parish priest, and the young man in the crypt. That single thread ties the ritual burial to the parish itself and turns the mystery from an outsider's crime into a family matter. If the priest and the victim were related, then whatever happened down there was arranged by people who knew exactly who they were burying.

Then the story turns on itself properly. Father Sebastian Stuart is found murdered in the same excavation where the first body surfaced. It's a shocking beat, done without fuss, and it does double duty: the man who might have explained everything becomes a second victim, and his death in that particular spot is precisely what lets the team make the connection they've been missing about who the killer actually is.

Barbara Machin and John Milne wrote it again, Robert Knights again directs, and the regulars are all present: Trevor Eve as Boyd, Sue Johnston as Grace Foley, Holly Aird as Frankie, Claire Goose as Amelia Silver and Wil Johnson as Spencer Jordan. Annette Crosbie plays Moira Bowen, James Hayes is James Bowen, Con O'Neill plays Colm Hare, Peter Warnock is Father Kevin Ryan and Barry Morse plays Father Sebastian Stuart.

This half is stronger than the first. The Braille and the crypt were atmosphere; the family secrets are substance, and once the biological link lands, every earlier oddity snaps into place. The show's fondness for crimes tangled up in faith pays off here rather than just decorating the walls.