A woman's body, burned beyond all recognition, is discovered lying in a cornfield on an idyllic summer's day. Two days into the case, Hampshire Constabulary know their victim has been strangled, her body carried in a suitcase to a field near a tiny Hampshire village, and then set alight; but not who she or who her killer is. House-to-house inquiries unearth a witness who's seen a battered Vauxhall being driven slowly around the crime scene, the day before the killing. The offender profilers advise that whoever chose that lonely spot had done so because he knew the area, and a database search of car registrations throws up four names, one of them with a Hampshire bank account. The chase is on, and as the case unfolds it presents an extraordinary snapshot of Britain in the 21st century - the passions and divisions hidden beneath the placid surface of middle England - and a unique insight into the fragility of modern policing.
This episode follows the work of a specialist rape unit in Portsmouth, the first dedicated unit to be established outside London; in other parts of the country rape is bundled in with other crimes and conviction rates can be as low as five per cent. Rape is a uniquely difficult crime to solve. It often takes place behind closed doors with no corroborating evidence, and no outside witnesses: all too often it boils down to one person's word against another's. Can Crystal - a unit of dedicated officers - make a difference?
In September 2007 someone flicked a lit match into a petrol can at a block of flats in Portsmouth. The fire that ripped through the building killed Kevin Holmes. Nine months later, his murder remains unsolved and there is nothing to indicate why he might have been a victim of arson. It's a tough case for Hampshire's Major Crime Unit, which has one of the lowest unsolved crime rates in the country. The case is handed to an experienced Detective Chief Inspector, the third senior investigating officer to take charge of the case. After nine months the trail looks cold. It's not long before the police make a series of arrests; but can they find the evidence to make the charges stick?