Inspecteurs associés

- Season 3

(1998)

The discovery of a skeleton deep underground in a mine shaft brings Dalziel and Pascoe to the Yorkshire coalfield. When the body is confirmed as a man missing for ten years they realise that they have a murder to investigate. Raking over the past proves difficult for the local population as old wounds are re-opened and old grievances come to the fore. As the investigation progresses the acrimony increases and various relationships come under strain. As the police home in on the culprit the locals take the law into their own hands with tragic consequences.

As Gwendoline Huby is being laid to rest her funeral is interrupted by Alessandro Pontelli, who claims to be her son Alexander, missing in action in Italy in 1944. The other heirs are not happy - especially bluff John Huby though hotelier Stephanie Windibanks is more philosophical. She believes Pontelli is genuine, having a birthmark she remembers. The family's former housekeeper Ella Keech claims there was no birthmark. Then Pontelli is shot dead. At the same time Wieldy is visited by a gay youth who knows that the policeman is a closet gay himself. The boy is also ...

Dalziel almost witnesses a shooting which two witnesses claim was a beautiful woman trying to commit suicide by shooting herself in the face. He is convinced it is murder. Ironically, Dalziel and his suspect (Philip Swain) are cast in a cathedral mystery play as God and the devil, respectively. A young missing husband, a series of letters to Dalziel by an intended suicide, heroin in the autopsy, changes in testimony, and bodies buried in concrete add to the drama facing Dalziel and Pascoe.

Inspector Pascoe's grandmother dies, and he sets out to discover the truth about his grandfather: why he disappeared during WWI. Pascoe is falsely told that his grandfather was a deserter but continues his quest. An animal rights group, in a seemingly unrelated incident, attacks a pharmaceutical firm's labs. The leader (Amanda Marvell) escapes to the woods nearby and falls over a skeleton. Dalziel is attracted to Marvell but relentlessly sets out to solve the murder of her disciple, though her Jeep is involved. Flashbacks are used to show the threads linking the two ...