Silent Witness season 28 episode 1 sees Dr Nikki Alexander (Emilia Fox) and Jack Hodgson (David Caves) investigate when an elderly woman is found dead in a cave.
The episode opens with an elderly woman in the woods saying her mother said not to pick foxgloves because bad things will happen. The woman, who appears confused, then says to Harold it's lovely to step out with him and her mother thinks he's a respectable young man. We see her reach her hand out to a young man who smiles and leads her along. We then see a house and an empty armchair with a book half-read. There's also a half-eaten meal on the table and then we reach the window and a man standing outside calls out to see if there's anyone in the house. And the classic Silent Witness theme tune begins…
Meet Professor Harriet Maven
We then see a young man and woman enjoying a kiss. They're near a church in the middle of nowhere. She's called Rosie. Then we see a man receive a letter.
Back in the office Nikki and Jack are having a serious smooch when they’re interrupted by a delivery driver closely followed by their new boss, Professor Harriet Maven (Maggie Steed). Jack makes a joke and she immediately dubs him the "class clown".
Rosie, the young woman we saw earlier with her boyfriend, runs into some woods with him following. He's alarmed as she enters a cave system with a warning sign that says not to enter. Now very frightened he finds himself in a spooky dark tunnel and uses his phone to light the way. Rosie leaps out and laughs and she starts taking her clothes off. And they start kissing again.
In her office, Maggie's delivery turns out to be a piano which she intends to learn! Jack seems completely terrified by her!
DI John Flynn's back
Back in the tunnel, the young couple go to retrieve their clothes and instead find a corpse! Nikki and Jack arrive at the scene. They're joined by DI John Flynn (Sean Pertwee), who they worked with in the previous series. After filling in Jack and Nikki about his family life, Flynn reveals they haven’t been able to identify the victim. Jack spots there are foxgloves by the body, linking to the episode’s opening scene. Jack spies a footprint. Nikki observes the victim’s fingerprints have been burnt away.
We then see Nikki perform the post-mortem with Maggie and Jack looking on. She takes swabs from the fingers trying to work out how they burnt away and whether it occurred pre or post-death. Look away now if you squeamish as Nikki goes to open the skull!
Later Nikki speculates the fingers were burnt by sulphuric acid. Nikki says the victim was dead when her fingertips were burnt off. Nikki speculates the victim's hand was placed in a bowl of acid, when the hand was taken away the acid dripped onto her dress, thus explaining the dress damage. They go to tell Maggie the update and Jack gets annoyed she's playing the piano while they talk. Maggie says she thinks they’re very similar and both have their slightly eccentric ways of coping with the fact they deal with death every day.
Nikki says the brain scan revealed the victim had dementia. She appears to have been lost and confused wandering around the caves. But Jack says there may have been someone else in the tunnels from a shoe print he found. He suggests the others had been erased but the mystery person missed this one.
A young couple arrives at the house of what we think is the murder victim. It's for rent!
Jack searches the woods near the caves. He finds a muddy print like the one in the cave. But he can't match them as the print isn't complete enough. Nikki and Jack try to get to the bottom of what happened with the foxgloves. Maggie describes how touching foxgloves can be dangerous for the elderly as a substance within them can slow down their heart rate. Jack, Nikki and Maggie reexamine the body.
Dodgy salesman
A young man knocks for Mr Dawson (David Hargreaves), an elderly gentleman who we've already seen previously in the episode. The young man claims to have made an appointment, but Mr Dawson says he's mistaken. The young man is about to leave, but then Mr Dawson invites him and says to himself perhaps he forgot about the appointment.
Jack speculates that the murderer led the victim to the caves and left her there. Then the murderer returned later to tidy up but left the print. Mr Dawson phones Gloria and leaves a message and says he’s worried he hasn’t heard from her. Could Gloria be our victim? The young man gives him a quote of £59,000 to fix his house. It looks like the young man is a con man but might he also be a killer?! The salesman then tries to push an equity release plan onto him to pay for the home improvements. He attempts every trick in the book but Mr Dawson remains firm.
The young man goes to a car where we see his partner in crime. The partner chillingly says is anyone going to miss Mr Dawson?! We see Mr Dawson in an antique shop and he recognises a candlestick which was Gloria’s and we flashback to them sharing a candleit dinner. He then finds a photo frame he bought her! He’s distraught.
The team recreates a photo of the victim 20 years younger to see if they can find a match. It appears Gloria isn't the victim in the cave although could she be another victim? Jack finds a match for someone called Edith. Oddly her obituary was published three months ago.
Mr Dawson knocks on Gloria’s door but finds the young couple who now live there.
DI Flynn and Jack visit Edith’s care home. The care home worker says Edith went out with her grandson and her grandson called later to say she died suddenly. He claimed she'd collapsed in a car park. We’re highly suspecting this "grandson" isn’t who he says he is! Edith's friend says she didn't think there was a grandson. As they walk down a staircase in the care home, it appears to be one of the suspicious men with another of the care home residents!
Mr Dawson is outside Gloria's house and the man living there now rather aggressively tells him to leave. Worried about his pregnant partner, the man calls the police.
We see some young walkers in the woods and they find a foot! Back at the office, Maggie is interviewing candidates for a new crime analyst job on the team and well her interview style is upsetting some of them! Jack's put out, but then Maggie says she has email evidence he’s been asking for one for years.
'Just remember you're engaged, Nikki'
Nikki and Jack arrive in the woods. "Just remember you're engaged Nikki," comments Jack as Nikki flirts with a cop.
The man in the young couple is in the pub and meets with one of the suspicious men. The suspicious man's ears prick when the other man says he had to call the police about Mr Dawson.
Nikki and Jack along with Flynn examine the foot in the woods. Flynn speculates that it was a rambler who suddenly died but Jack finds a non walking shoe showing that it wasn't a walker.
Jack then finds two bodies — not sure how the police managed to miss them! It's an elderly man and a woman. We presume one of them is Gloria.
Mr Dawson gets a knock at his door. He opens it but there’s no one there. He returns to his chair. Outside is one of the dodgy men…
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