Breaking Glass (1)

A recovered memory therapist walks into the Cold Case Squad with a story: a regime of sexual abuse of young boys in local care homes, and a suspected murder attached to it. Before the hour is out, her source has vanished. The client who told her everything in session has disappeared, and the team reaches an uncomfortable conclusion quickly. He hasn't run away. He's gone hunting for the man who abused him and murdered his friend.

That inversion gives Breaking Glass (1) its shape. Usually the squad chases a killer; here they're chasing a potential killer's victim, trying to reach him before he does something they'll all regret. It's a grim premise even by this show's standards, and Stephen Davis and Barbara Machin's script treats the material seriously, keeping the focus on procedure and character rather than wallowing. David Thacker directs.

Charlie Creed-Miles plays Tanner, the missing man, and his absence hangs over everything. Around him: Navin Chowdhry as Rainman, Saskia Reeves as Dr Laurie Poole, Michael Pennington as Macintosh and Ian Hogg as Oliver Gill. Sue Johnston gets some of the episode's most sensitive work as Dr Grace Foley, whose territory this case very much is. Holly Aird, Claire Goose, Wil Johnson and Trevor Eve complete the squad.

It went out on 27 September 2003. Care home abuse was a subject British television was only beginning to face properly at that point, and the episode earns credit for refusing to soften it into background colour for a thriller plot.

What works best is the moral knot at its centre. Every instinct says find Tanner before he kills someone. Every other instinct remembers what was done to him and understands exactly why he's doing it. The episode doesn't resolve that tension, and doesn't try to. It just tightens it, then cuts to black.