Bad Blood

Landowner shot dead, tenants in the frame, village ready to do its own justice. "Bad Blood" starts with the pieces in place and lets the pressure build.

Lionel Penmore has been trying to get rid of Kevin and Laura Kessell for a while. Bribery first, then violence, all to clear the way for paying off the huge debts left by a collapsed business deal. The Kessells live in a tied cottage, the very house where Kevin was born, with their baby Flo, and they have nowhere else to go. When Penmore is found shot, suspicion lands on them like a weight.

Wycliffe has to move before the locals do. The mood in the village is running hot, and the threat of the law being taken into local hands hangs over the case. Wycliffe works it with his wife Helen close by, DI Kersey and DI Lane feeding the investigation, Inspector Carson holding the local end. He finds the real killer. The how of it matters less than the timing: a village that has already made up its mind doesn't wait for evidence.

But the episode doesn't stop at the unmasking. Penmore's family are not built to let things go, and they exact their own revenge on the Kessells. The revenge comes after the investigation wraps up, at the moment you'd normally relax. That timing makes it land harder. It's a reminder that solving the crime and settling the score are two different things, and only one of them is the police's job.

Written by W.J. Burley and Scott Cherry, directed by Alan Wareing. Jack Shepherd as Det. Supt. Wycliffe, with Pete Lee-Wilson as Kevin Kessell, Charlotte Coleman as Laura Kessell, John Hallam as Lionel Penmore, Richard Moore as Richard Penmore, James Larkin as Mike Penmore, Lynn Farleigh as Helen Wycliffe, Jimmy Yuill as DI Kersey, Helen Masters as DI Lane and Adam Bareham as Inspector Carson.