The victim
Bit by bit, we learn more about Hayley. A sit-down with former DCI John Bentley, the second-in-command on the investigation in 2000, reveals a police oversight that hampered the case. Believing she had gone to London with her boyfriend, they delayed the start of their search for five days. Bentley will never know what they could have turned up in that period and he bitterly regrets the decision. There’s a lot of that about on Unforgotten.
Plod make a breakthough when an old friend places Hayley in a Hampshire holiday rental called the Spinney at the turn of the millennium. The home was leased to James Hollis for the New Year – also present were Melanie Hollis, Peter Carr, Tim Finch and Chris Lowe. It’s a solid lead and our first connection to the suspects. With Melissa handing over the hard copies of Hayley’s diaries, there’s a lot for Cassie and Sunny to get their teeth into.
Dr Tim Finch
At the General Medical Council hearing, Alison Pinion makes a compelling witness. Her testimony on Tim’s threats towards her mother has a ring of truth to it. Maybe that’s because she has had so much experience in giving it. Alison has made complaints against local practices on multiple occasions and every time she has tried to settle financially. It’s a bad look for any plaintiff in a he-said-she-said case. All the signs are that her complaint will be summarily dismissed and Tim can get back to doing what he does best – helping the vulnerable. That starts with his old pal Chris.
Chris Lowe
Live life on the margins and you’re always an easy mark. Chris discovers this the hard way when he returns to his minimum-security campervan to discover both the £4,000 deposit for the flat and Frankie the superdog are gone. Like a lot of artists, he finds life’s practicalities beyond him, but when Tim white knights in from the north to fix his shattered windscreen and patch up his broken life it’s a huge boost. Tim presents as the kind of guy who would do anything to help a buddy out, even if they had, I don’t know, accidentally snapped a teenager’s neck at a millennium party or something. A rapidly improving day gets even better for Chris when Jamila shows up to accept his proposal, closely followed by the returning Frank. With the press swarming all over the Hayley case, though, he won’t want to be popping any champagne corks just yet.
Peter Carr
Taking a well-earned break from ruthlessly exploiting the elderly, Pete rolls up to the school sports day. He is greeted by his wife, Maria, talking to a man looking suspiciously like he just stepped out of the “guy she told you not to worry about” meme. There’s nothing solid there – just that sickening sense of dread that haunts his every waking moment. Maria later berates him for his inability to face up to his responsibilities as a breadwinner.
“This isn’t Hong Kong you know – whatever weird endlessly delayed adolescence you lived over there,” she snaps. Exactly what Hong Kong phooey did Pete get up to? More urgently, how will he explain the missing £3,000 now that Mr Salthouse’s daughter has cancelled the cash Isa? Over to you, Pete.
James Hollis
Perhaps in keeping with being the most successful of the suspects, James is also the most stressed. He’s swearing like Roger Mellie at work and feeling the pressure at home. In a parent-child heart-to-heart, he tries to get a handle on Eliot’s troubles and in return gets oblique references to a dark history: “This isn’t about the past, or at least not the past you’re talking about.”
It sounds a lot like whatever went on in the holiday rental, Eliot was somehow involved. When Cassie and Sunny come to visit James, he immediately lawyers up, lies to his wife and phones Eliot to announce: “It’s happened, sweetheart. They’ve come – the police – about her.”
Notes and observations
- It’s always worth scouring the Unforgotten title sequence for clues. I think I see a homeless person’s cardboard shelter, scattered Polaroids, a crucifix, a woman in red sporting a pillbox hat, a shovel out in the woods, a trophy with “Finchley Road under-14 rugby team 1972” on it, what looks like a shocking school report, a speedometer, a campervan and some reeds underwater. Are we perhaps looking at some kind of Chappaquiddick incident?
- We are introduced to no-nonsense pro-Brexit blogger Sandra Rayworth. When the news of Hayley’s discovery breaks, she begins a blog blaming the parents with the headline “I blame the parents”. Say what you see, Sandra.
- So James “pissed off” to another continent for eight years. Might he have hooked up with Pete in Hong Kong in that time?
- Hayley’s boyfriend, Adrian Mullery, works in a London girls’ school, though I don’t see that lasting now the Evening Standard have outed him.
- “Artist did it by accident, all the evidence will point to the doctor, salesman helped cover it up.” Abigailgem with my favourite theory from the comments last week.
How is Eliot wrapped up in the case? Is there a future for Chris and Jamila? Just how much does Frankie the superdog know? Please give your theories below.
