The Murder Detectives (C4) | 4oD
Detectorists (BBC4) | iPlayer
DCI Andy Bevan was barely credible as a TV cop. For a man leading an investigation into a brutal killing he seemed hopelessly lacking in fatal flaws: he never sought solace in a tumbler of single malt whisky, or listened to the Ring Cycle at too high volume, or smashed up his office; we were given no indication that his marriage was unravelling or that he was bipolar or that he had an ongoing grievance with authority or ever slept in his car. He was never distracted from his duties by estranged children or deranged parents; he was routinely polite to both superior and subordinate. What on earth was wrong with him?
I came to Channel 4’s rigorous and revealing three nights of The Murder Detectives after OD-ing on the twitchy third series of The Bridge, and found myself scanning the real-life incident room of the Avon and Somerset constabulary in vain for evidence of darting eyes and a hungover shame; half waiting for Bevan to find himself alone again, chasing his suspect on an industrial estate with only a torch for company. It didn’t happen.
In place of adrenaline and OCD, Bevan and his investigation team offered quiet patience and calm resolution when trying to find the killer of 19-year-old Nicholas Robinson who had been fatally stabbed in the hallway of his hostel building in St Paul’s, Bristol. The documentary crew’s forensic cameras were allowed everywhere into the investigation – into unwatchable close-ups with Robinson’s parents and girlfriend as they absorbed the news and wept at the funeral, into cells and interview rooms with suspects. Where they didn’t go, CCTV invariably did. Surveillance footage was clearly Bevan’s closest ally, the Hathaway to his Lewis; he scanned the tragic clip of Robinson’s efforts to stagger outside and get help – “oh fucking hell, I’ve been stabbed really bad” – over and over, like a TV critic; and having had to dismiss one suspect because of an alibi in which he appeared on film from outside a local pub, eventually he pieced together the jump-cut movements of the murderer, Luchiano Barnes, 18, with his kitchen knife and his “blood gang” bandana.
The Murder Detectives offered a sharp insight into homicide work as it no doubt mostly is: sad, unremitting and bleakly banal, with occasional brief punctuation marks of success. No doubt Bevan and his team were on rule-book behaviour with cameras present, but most of what they did had the credibility of ingrained habit and routine procedure. The narrative they were dealing with seemed also ingrained. Robinson was a good kid, an apprentice bricklayer, just engaged to his girlfriend; he had somehow been drawn into a plan to buy a gun for a gang, a plan that had failed. His killer, known to one detective since the age of five, but not thought capable of murder until it happened, had filled his day like any other. He’d been riding his bike around the nearby streets; an hour before he stabbed Robinson, he’d been out on an errand to buy some chicken pieces for his mum. “Teaching Robinson a lesson” appeared to be the next thing on his to-do list. His conviction was secured not by edgy psychological profiling or eureka-moment plot twists, but by careful administration of the evidence and a single eye-witness. Angela, Nicholas’s mum, who had lost her other son to murder in Jamaica, forced her first smile to Bevan after the sentencing, but this was no happy ending.
Detectorists, BBC4’s fine comedy, came to the conclusion of its second series in the only way possible, with Lance (Toby Jones) finally doing a “gold jig” after the discovery of the medieval trinket that has tantalised in the title sequence. After weeks of wandering field and hillside with their “coils to the soil”, this was no more than he and his metal-detecting confidant Andy (Mackenzie Crook) deserved. Jones gives his grins away so sparingly it is well worth the half-hour wait to see his doleful features transformed. Detectorists remains the most likely winner of any “sitcom on an unlikely theme” award, but it works because of the unfailing Don Quixote meets Countryfile tone of Crook’s script and direction. “Ambition’s overrated,” suggests Lance as he clambers over a stile – leaving Andy, with baby Stan papoosed, to struggle with yet another fatherly obstacle – but nevertheless keeps on digging up 1980s Fanta-can ring pulls in the hope of finding the Staffordshire hoard.
Appropriately enough, the long-awaited detectorists’ rally – bringing together the Uxbridge Unearthers, the Letchworth Locaters and the Romford Recoverers – passed mostly without incident, except for the troubling appearance of a rogue detector, a “nighthawk – scum of the earth” at the dig site. Still, in among the sedimentary strata of English despond there are always nuggets of hope: Lance found common ground with his newly discovered daughter; Andy the reed-thin resolve to try a new life for size. “We are all looking for gold,” is one of Lance’s certainties. Another, eminently employable is “when in doubt dig it out”.
