The concluding part of this excellent drama began with the trial of Philip Hawkin and his wife Ruth giving her evidence about the last time she saw Alison. We then saw Catherine talking to Tommy about the case as they strolled along the beach. She asked him if George could’ve falsified evidence in order to convict Hawkin but Tommy said that he couldn’t believe that was true.

Back in 1964 – when the case had come to court – the defence barrister was questioning George on the stand and quizzed him about how long he was alone in various parts of the Manor house; the darkroom, Alison’s bedroom. His implication being that George had ample time to gather evidence which he could later tamper with.

The footage switched between George’s court appearance and the present day, with Nicola telling her boss Keith about the trial and reading from the transcript. She pointed out that Highsmith – Hawkin’s barrister – had tried to tell the jury that George had faked the evidence, which she and Keith clearly believed to be the case too. Keith then decided to send Nicola and a camera crew to interview George, without Catherine’s knowledge.

Meantime, Catherine asked Tommy to go with her to Scardale to talk to the villagers again but they were interrupted by a phone call from Keith in which he told Catherine she was fired and could not make the rest of the film. When Tommy was unsympathetic about it, Catherine blew up at him and said that he didn’t understand that she was trying to protect George but her boss and Nicola wanted to prove he’d manipulated the evidence and would destroy him in the process.

At the hospital, Nicola couldn’t get in to see George, so when she spotted his sister Margaret in the corridor, she tried to get to see him again. Margaret refused to allow her to but Nicola said that she was there to help George, whereas Catherine was trying to prove that George had faked the evidence. Margaret didn’t fall for Nicola’s lies and in her anger, threw a cup of tea over Nicola.

Back in court, Hawkin took the stand and told the court how the villagers had always disliked him, primarily because he ‘took one of their own’, in marrying Ruth. He said he’d tried to be a good father to Alison too but that the villagers still resented him. We then saw the two barristers summing up the case for the jury. Hawkin’s barrister again claimed that all the evidence was planted by George while the prosecution told the jury that there was nothing ambiguous about the evidence; Hawkin raped Catherine repeatedly and that if he was capable of that, murder wasn’t such a big next step.

The jury then retired to make their decision and when they returned, they found Hawkin guilty of both rape and murder. The judge then passed a death sentence and ordered that Hawkin be hung. We then saw Hawkin being led away and Ruth and the other villagers thanking George.

As he awaited execution, Hawkin wrote a letter to his wife restating his innocence, which in the present day, Tommy told Catherine about and it seemed to bother him that Hawkin continued to claim he was innocent. We then saw Philip Hawkin hang.

Next, Tommy, Catherine and Sasha arrived in Scardale. It had been more than forty years since Tommy had last been in the village and as a mob of villagers – including Charlie Lomas – gathered, the fact that he was an ex-police officer held no sway and the hostile villagers chased the three away with threats of violence.

Back at their hotel, Sasha and Catherine had an emotional talk during which Catherine apologised to her daughter for taking her to places she shouldn’t have been and for, in general, not being the mother she should have been. She promised Sasha that when this was all over, she’d take a long break from work. Sasha asked why she was still pursuing the story as the film had now been taken away from her to which Catherine replied that it was because she’d seen movement in one of the windows at the supposedly deserted Manor house and she wanted to know who was there. Also, she said that such a violent reaction from the villagers indicated to her that even after all these years, they still had something to hide.

Catherine then called her mother who, after much persuading, agreed to come down to Scardale to look after Sasha while Catherine investigated further, but as she wouldn’t be arriving until late morning, Catherine asked Tommy to watch Sasha for a while. He agreed but told Catherine that whatever it was she was doing, she must be careful.

We then saw Catherine arriving at the Manor house and having what seemed to be flashbacks to her own childhood, as if she’d been there before when she was very young. Disturbed by these images, Catherine sat outside the house and just looked at it for quite some time.

Meanwhile, Tommy and Sasha had breakfast in a café during which Tommy looked through Sasha’s collection of drawings from her childhood but there was one that especially drew his attention; a drawing that was clearly the Manor house that also depicted a camera drawn in one of the top windows. He noticed that the initials on the drawing were CD which Sasha pointed out could have been her mother’s as her maiden name was Duggan. Tommy immediately realised where Catherine had gone…

Next, back at the Manor house, the door finally opened and there was Charlie Lomas’s mother, Cathy, considerably aged of course. Catherine begged the woman for help in clearing George’s name and despite her initial hostility, she relented and said that she was sorry George was ill. She then said, ‘he seemed like he was fine…’ which of course indicated to Catherine that he’d been there recently. Anxious to know why he’d been there – and what had happened when he was – Catherine barged past Cathy Lomas and finally got into the house.

The flashbacks to her being a little girl in that same place suddenly became more vivid as she tried to go up the stairs, but she clearly couldn’t understand how she could be having such memories; she wasn’t aware of ever having been there before but her memories said otherwise. Her thoughts were interrupted when a middle-aged woman suddenly appeared at the top of the stairs. It was Alison Carter.

Alison, Mrs Lomas and Catherine then all sat down to talk about what had happened. Alison told Catherine that everything that had happened had been her mother’s and Ma Lomas’s idea. Between them, they came up with the idea of staging Alison’s murder. Ma Lomas drew blood from Alison and her mother, as well as others, in order to have enough to convince the police that Alison had been killed. She then put the blood and the clothes in the mineshaft where George would later find them. Cathy Lomas was the one who stole the gun from Colonel Carey’s house and Ruth planted it and the blood stained shirt in the study. Dan, another of the villagers, fired the bullets that the police later found and most of the villagers had a part to play in the deception one way or another.

Alison had tied her dog to a tree before being driven away – with all the villagers there to see her go – to start a new life under a new identity with an aunt in Canada. She never saw her mother again. Catherine asked why they’d done it and Alison replied that Hawkin had ruined her life. When Catherine asked for proof, Alison told her to just look at the photographs but Catherine pointed out that they’d all been burned in the warehouse fire. Cathy then told her that her son, Charlie, had set the warehouse blaze in order to stop any evidence such as the DNA relating to the blood being found.

Alison told Catherine that the photos were real; George had not doctored them and to prove it, Alison took Catherine upstairs where she had a suitcase full of Hawkin’s photos. The pictures showed Hawkin raping not only Alison but many other children from the village. There was one picture however of a little girl who neither Alison nor Cathy knew the identity of. Catherine however recognised herself as a child in the photos and suddenly, all the memories of her being abused by Hawkin – while she was on holiday in the area with her mother – came flooding back.

As Catherine stared in disbelief at the images, Tommy came running up the stairs, desperate to find her. He burst into the room the women were in and Catherine screamed and fell against the wall, trembling violently at what she’d just uncovered. Soon after, still very shaken, the three women and Tommy sat together and discussed what had happened. Catherine explained that she’d simply blanked out the terrible events and until she saw those images, had no memory of the abuse at all. Alison asked Catherine if her mother knew, to which Catherine replied that she didn’t know but through flashbacks to her mother telling her not to dig up the past, it was clear that Catherine did believe she knew.

Tommy was upset that he’d helped to hang a man for a crime he didn’t commit. Alison pointed out that he’d committed ‘worse crimes, countless times’ but Tommy couldn’t agree. He asked why they hadn’t reported the abuse and Alison angrily replied that Hawkin had been a powerful man; the villagers fear was that all the children would have been taken into care and Hawkin would’ve got away with his crimes and continued carrying them out.

Cathy Lomas asked Tommy and Catherine to now just go away and let it all rest but Tommy pointed out that it wasn’t as simple as that. He and Catherine now knew that these two women – and the other villagers – had conspired to commit murder. He asked what they thought would happen when George found out… but then Catherine realised that George already knew. She explained to Tommy that the day George called her to say he wanted out of the film was the day he’d gone to the Manor house. He’d seen Alison in the garden and had recognised her instantly, even all those years later. ‘He said nothing,’ Alison told Tommy. ‘He simply walked away.’

Tommy and Catherine left the house and outside, Tommy told her that she should be the one to talk to George about what had happened and he handed her the old suitcase that contained the photos of Hawkin abusing the children. She said goodbye to Tommy and went to hug Sasha, who’d worked out what had happened. Just then, Catherine’s mother arrived and angrily said, ‘I told you not to go digging’ to which Catherine, in a terse and angry voice said, ‘but I did’. Her mother looked away, unable to look Catherine in the eye, obviously ashamed and angry that ‘the secret’ was now out. Catherine took Sasha’s hand and the two went home.

In the closing scenes, we saw Catherine meeting with Keith and showing him the photographs of Hawkin abusing the other children and herself. She wanted him to know that George hadn’t faked any of the evidence and she also told him that Alison was alive. He was shocked and told Catherine that if she wanted to continue the film, she could. However, Catherine told him that she felt the film should be scrapped but that it was up to him. Catherine told him that she felt this was a case where ‘truth and justice are not the same thing’ and that whether to make the film or not had to be his choice.

The drama ended as we saw Catherine visiting with George in the hospital, and although we couldn’t hear what they said, they were obviously laying old ghosts to rest…

What an excellent drama this was! However, my one issue with it is that the storyline that Catherine had been abused by Hawkin was unnecessary and just didn’t ring true. The coincidence factor was just too high for me to find it believable. All those years later, to believe that she just happens to make a film about this particular crime, without knowing of her own involvement in it, was just too big a stretch.

However, that aside, it was a really good and gripping drama with some fantastic acting. Cathy Lomas’s aging wasn’t very convincing but it didn’t detract from the very intricate plot. I can’t wait for the next Val McDermid drama!