The penultimate episode of ITV’s thrilling crime drama’s second season unravels the secrets of the past, leading to the killer of David Walker, a man who committed unsavoury acts and leaving his victims in turmoil.

Detective duo, DCI Cassie Stuart (Nicola Walker) and DS Sunny Khan (Sanjeev Bhaskar) are back on track interrogating some unreliable witnesses. They uncover an address in Brentford which may have been used for ‘parties’, though photo evidence laid out for the suspects are constantly denied.

Parallel interview scenes follow, where interrogation of the key suspects are juxtaposed alongside each other.  Sara Mahmoud (Badria Timimi) stays stony-faced, whilst at the same time, her father turns up at her home to apologise to her husband, Hassan (Adeel Akhtar) for throwing out his daughter at the age of 13. She tells detectives that her parents were both killed in a car crash, but the fact is that although her mother was killed, her father is very much alive, but regretting the lack of care he gave to his young daughter.

DI Tessa Nixon (Lorraine Ashbourne) is cleverly tripped up in her interrogation by DS Khan.  Despite giving the right answers to his questions, she ends up not being able to deny her ownership of a red Golf convertible which was the car responsible for bringing young girls home from the ‘parties’.

Marion Kelsey (Rosie Cavaliero), pleased that her young cancer patient, Zoe (Jodie Tyack) has now been found, meets up with her.  She apologises for hurting her, admitting she has “serious crap in my life which makes me do that to you”.

Marion says “If ever I had a daughter, I would have wanted her to be just like you”. This is a poignant scene, especially when we learn later that Marion has not been able to have children of her own.  During interrogation, she continues to deny any involvement with ‘parties’ in the house at Brentford, or recognising anyone in photos because she was ‘in Ireland’ at the time.

Meanwhile, ranks close in on Colin Osborn (Mark Bonnar) as his partner, Simon (Charlie Condou) becomes suspicious.  Their adopted daughter has been left behind at school again and Simon begins to wonder whether it would be in the child’s best interests to report this to social services.  Colin is suspected of being involved in a rape allegation of a girl, Maria Gonzalez (Avital Abregan), but charges were dropped.

Maria says she “did not want the trauma of a rape trial”. However, during interrogation by DCI Stuart, Osborne breaks down in tears saying he was ashamed about “the worse thing he has ever done”, but then learns that these allegations may have been fabricated.

Concluding with a compelling cliff-hanger, after an off-duty drinking binge, our detectives become much too close for comfort. Cassie fortunately extricates herself from the situation, runs from the pub and hails a taxi in the street.  During a moment of inspiration she declares “If I’m right, there might be more bodies”.

Next week’s finale will surely tell…

Aired at 9pm on Thursday 2 February 2017 on ITV.

Buy Season 1 on DVD on Amazon here.

Reviewed by Zoé Patrick.