He doesn’t – phew. Ruth makes it out of episode one alive, however the identical can’t be stated for accountant Annie Bett, who signed her personal TV-land dying warrant when she made an appointment to inform Tosh (Alison O’Donnell) One thing of Important Significance the subsequent day as an alternative of whereas she was standing conveniently in entrance of her. By the subsequent day, Annie was in fact found lifeless, and her poor boy Noah was discovered splattered along with her blood, wandering the moors, and too traumatised to talk.
Who killed Annie Bett? Choices at present embody: 1) her soon-to-be-ex-husband Ian – a property developer struggling to deal with the tip of their marriage. 2) Her former college maths professor Euan Rossi, performed by Ian Hart in a wig. 3) A lifeless Frenchman named Antoine Bergen, who additionally seems to be related with the Kidd brothers’ homicide, 4) One of many Harris males, a household of mussel farmers with whom Annie and Noah had been staying. And for optimum shock worth, maybe we must always add little Noah himself as a possible suspect. It’s all the time the quiet ones.
Annie’s husband Ian can also be lacking by the tip of episode one, however as a possible wife-murderer, viewer sympathy is at present restricted. Additionally – Tosh doesn’t like him, and as our emotional windvane and chief in all issues, which means we don’t like him both.
DI Tosh, I ought to say, as our woman’s been promoted. That makes her and Ruthie Calder a correct double-act now. Two DIs, no ready. They complement one another: one acts stony however weeps the second she’s alone, the opposite appears butter-soft however has a core of metal. They each remind me of the sort of PTA mum you ship in when a provider’s let down the college fete, and who comes again with all the pieces fastened, a 12 months’s free generator rent, and a don’t-ask look in her eye. You wouldn’t mess.
Their chemistry nonetheless has a technique to go to match the familial heat between Tosh and Douglas Henshall’s Jimmy Perez however give it time. There’s one thing about these two ladies driving by way of an austerely lovely Scottish backdrop fixing violent murders that claims consolation to me.
This complete sequence says consolation, which is why it’s at present on its ninth sequence. The knitwear, the accents, the weekly countdown to station stalwart Billy (Lewis Howden) placing the kettle on, or and Tosh radioing for GP Cora to be despatched to whichever distant croft the newest corpse has been present in… It’s all reassuring, murders however. When Ruth broke by way of her emotional armour to inform little Noah that “it’s going to be alright, wee man,” I believed her.
