Waterloo (2)

"Waterloo (2)" opens with the past refusing to stay buried. Grace and Boyd interview Jason Heath, the son of the disgraced officer shot dead with the same gun that killed the boys. Jason tells them something the files never did: his father and two other policemen were murdered years earlier for beating a suspect to death in custody. The boys on Waterloo Bridge, the dead officer, the vanished reports: the case is knitting itself together, and not in a direction anyone wants. That prisoner was very likely Nicholson's father, and Boyd is suddenly sure of the shape of the whole thing. Nicholson knew who killed the boys. He shielded him, and he lost those reports on purpose.

But the pressure starts showing. Nicholson brings in two sinister detectives to spy on the team, and everyone's worry for Sarah grows a notch. Boyd keeps pulling on the thread, and it leads somewhere unexpected: George Barlow, a crooked property developer, took the orphaned Nicholson under his wing years ago. Loyalty does the rest. Nicholson protected the murderer because the murderer was close to Barlow, and Barlow was the man who made him.

Boyd finally has what he needs, and he uses it. Belated justice arrives for a crime thirty years old. It does not land like a triumph; it lands like the closing of a ledger. The honest question is whether it counts for much if the price is Sarah's safety.

Barbara Machin and Ed Whitmore wrote it, with Andy Hay directing. Trevor Eve's Boyd, Sue Johnston's Grace, Tara Fitzgerald's Eve, Wil Johnson's Jordan and Eva Birthistle's Cavendish are joined by Alfie Browne-Sykes as Darren Hawes, Louis Mahoney as Reverend Dennis Grant, Jermaine Allen as Pelé, Jake Curran as Martin Barlow and Matt Granados as PC Tony Nicholson.

The boys finally have names, and the men who failed them face the bill. Whether the price was worth paying is left for the viewer to argue about.