Silent Witness season 28 episode 3 recap: Hammer horror

Silent Witness season 28 episode 3, the first in a two-part story, sees Nikki (Emilia Fox) and Jack (David Caves) investigate a horrific hammer murder that links to a cold case.

We meet Claire, who's on a train possibly facing bad news. She pulls into a London train station and is coughing, she uses her inhaler. She has a bad memory and looks very distressed. Meanwhile, a car pulls up at a housing estate. An estate agent lets himself into a property. He hears a noise and calls upstairs, but there's no reply. He hears another noise and heads into the garden. He takes a phone call from his daughter and has a smoke. He notices someone at the top window. He goes back inside and climbs the stairs. He's then hit over the head by a claw hammer. The attacker then goes to strike him again… and the theme tune begins.

A familiar face

The police arrive at the house along with Nikki and Jack. They're greeted by DCI Jane De Freitas (Zoe Telford), who was last seen in 2015 in the Sniper's Nest episodes. Her cop partner, Nick, points out Jane is now a Chief Superintendent. The victim's daughter found the estate agent dead in the bathroom. "I had a feeling you two would end up together," Jane says to Nikki and Jack.

Jack and Nikki head into the house with torches. The poor victim is a bloody mess. We're back with Claire who knocks at a house. She's greeted by Harry, a journalist. Back at the crime scene, Jack notes the back door lock might have been picked. They also find the cigarette in the garden, but we know that was smoked by the victim. Nikki checks the victim's ID and he turns out to be a Professor in architecture.

Claire and Harry share a cup of tea. Claire says she's tired and worried about tomorrow. Harry goes to get a pizza delivery. While he's at the door, she looks at his table and there's an article with the headline: "Professor Wins Award". She also looks at a building. Could this be linked to our victim?

Nikki and Jack question the victim's daughter, Alice, who confirms her dad smoked. Jane steps in and tells Alice she's spoken to her dad's boss and he didn’t have an appointment at the house, so does she know who he might have been meeting? She doesn't. We see a mysterious man who's a prison officer. He looks worried. He eats a meal with his wife. She notes he's been on edge ever since someone called McNeice was granted a hearing, who she notes attempted to murder a prison officer. He claims he's worried the man will get parole. Harry shows Claire to her room. The prison officer, meanwhile, gets a gun he's hidden.

We’re in a government building. A woman, we later discover is called Eva, knocks and says: "I need to speak to you, Oliver". She tells him Philip Chalmers, our victim, has been murdered. Oliver doesn’t know who he is. She shows him a news report with Philip's picture and Oliver says what can this have to do with us. Eva adds he was bludgeoned to death, "just like those dealers". Eva says she's getting repeated calls from someone called Bruce Morgan-Jones. "Find out what he wants and get rid of him," says Oliver, now looking rattled.

At the Lyell, Jack says they have shoe prints they think belong to the killer. Kit says she's traced the victim's calls except for one just before he left the office for the new build. The police also had a report of a man visiting Chalmers at his office and him trying to get rid of the man. The mysterious man, who Chalmers clearly knew, was in his mid-30s, casually dressed, and possibly of Asian heritage. Nikki and Maggie begin the autopsy. They note the brutality of the attack. Nikki suggests the attacker was shorter judging by the wounds. She also notes no defensive wounds. Claire looks nervous. Turns out it's a medical appointment and she's told she has incurable cancer. We see flashbacks again, possibly asbestos in the air. Everything in the story so far points to building failures.

Nikki and Nick visit Alice. Nick asks her what happened to her father who had a great career as an environmental scientist overseeing planning and development across the UK and then it falls apart. Alice says it was the drinking. Nikki says they found evidence he’d drunk poison. But Alice doesn’t think he would have attempted to take his own life. Alice is very upset.

Claire breaks the news about her cancer to her sister, Tina. Her sister asks if she's told them about Heron Point and she says she hasn't. Eva goes to see Bruce near Parliament. He refers to the junior minister, who we assume is Oliver. Bruce, who says he gave Eva and Oliver their break, then starts talking about our victim. He then mentions the name Harry — is that the Harry who put up Claire for the night? He says Harry has been stirring it up and now someone is on the warpath. Bruce says they need to keep a united front and then hints that his silence on the matter might cost.

Back to our prison officer, Colin. His wife makes a phone call and discovers McNeice has had his parole hearing canceled. So Colin isn't worrying about that then. What is he worried about? Jack, Nikki, and co are at the victim's flat. Alice arrives and says she recalls one night coming to the flat to find her dad drinking whiskey with a man, they were arguing. She said he then vanished for a couple of weeks. She says she now thinks he was in the hospital recovering possibly from a suicide attempt triggered by meeting this man. The man had a photo of her dad in Lagos where he oversaw a huge housing project.

Back at the Lyell, Kit reveals a link to a man called Dennis Weaver, who's got a criminal record. Nick says that 10 years ago the victim was working at a London council and 10 years ago Dennis got his conviction for attacking a guard in the lobby of the council. They go to Dennis's hostel but discover he died from asbestos. They go to his grave and someone visited it the day of the victim’s murder. They check the CCTV and it looks like it's Claire who visited the grave.

Eva goes to see Oliver. She lists Bruce’s demands and says journalist Harry visited them both two weeks ago. She says he’s doing a deep dive into their days at Thamesmead, the London Council, everything is now linking up.

Colin goes home and suggests they foster again. Meg confronts him about not saying McNeice couldn’t get out. Colin asks her why she can’t look at him and demands she look at him. We see an image of a bloodied Colin, we presume from when he was attacked.

Back at the Lyell, it’s revealed that the young woman's inhaler they found at the cemetery has scored a DNA match to a cold case. Unidentified female DNA was recovered from the scene of five murders 10 years ago at a flat in Thamesmead. All the victims were bludgeoned to death by a hammer! It appears to be the same killer. Claire heads to the tower block and she has a flood of memories.

Jane says Dennis lived at the tower block and was briefly a suspect. We flash back and see Dennis, who was angry about loud music coming from a flat, with a baseball bat in the tower block. Dennis enters the flat and discovers a bloody mess of bodies. Eva tells Oliver she will solve the Bruce problem for a price.

Kit has managed to track down Harry the journalist. At Harry’s flat, Claire says how she ended up living in Heron Point, the tower block where the bodies were found. She says she was living in a shelter but that, along with all the other shelters in the area closed, and she was moved into Heron Point. She said it was hell on earth. Claire says she doesn’t understand why the council put her and her sister in there. Harry takes a call and says to Claire it was to tell him that our victim, who signed off on Heron Point, has been murdered with a hammer. And Claire notes like the gang in Heron Point. Jane and Nick then knock at the door and ask to talk to Harry, they spot Claire and she makes a run for it. She escapes.

Bruce returns home and finds his taps on. He hears a noise and slips. And then he’s whacked over the head by a hammer...