Wounds (1)

A disused London tunnel gives up a body, and the Cold Case squad has a new file on its hands. The remains are too far gone to have waited patiently for a name. The tunnel does some of the storytelling itself: it sheltered protesters through the nineties, and it has kept Dearden's secret since. The dead man is Chris Dearden, a salesman who went missing in 1996.

The awkward detail is where he died. Dearden was on a self-empowerment weekend with his colleagues, the sort of corporate bonding trip that promises breakthroughs and usually delivers resentment. One of that group never came home. The team has to pick through the friendships and grudges of people who spent a long weekend together fifteen years ago, and work out which of them left with a secret.

Barbara Machin and Paul Farrell wrote it, and Sam Miller directed. Trevor Eve leads as DSI Peter Boyd, with Sue Johnston as Dr Grace Foley, Tara Fitzgerald as Dr Eve Lockhart, Wil Johnson as DI Spencer Jordan and Félicité Du Jeu as DC Stella Goodman. George Rainsford plays Luke Boyd, Lorcan Cranitch Victor Coleridge, Ian Puleston-Davies Harold Bloom, Ian Dunn the dead Chris Dearden and Christopher Fulford Josh Findlay.

Part one is careful with its pacing, and the material rewards that. The show has always been good at the slow build, letting an old crime settle over new interviews until the silences start to mean something. There are no confessions here, only people waiting for the question to land somewhere near them.

The title does double duty, as these titles usually do. The body carries one set of wounds. The survivors have been carrying their own since 1996. This opening half takes its time with both, and it earns the patience. The questions it leaves hanging are the right ones, the sort you want answered next week.