"The Hollow Tree Part 1" Reopens a New Cold Case on 'Ridley'

“There’s a storm a-comin’...” Ridley opens with our titular detective singing to an entranced crowd at the jazz bar as his love interest, Annie Marling, hangs out behind the bar with jewelry shop owner Harry Bentham. Art imitates life as outside a storm brings down a large tree, which splits to reveal a corpse inside. It's not quite the British mystery equivalent of cutting open a green pepper and finding little peppers growing inside, but it's not not the equivalent of that experience. Edward Gorey would have had a field day if they had let him draw that for the credits, is what I'm saying.

DI Carol Farman and DC Darren Lakhan arrive, where Dr. Wendy Newstone reports it was once female, strangled, and several years decomposed. The pockets have an ID: Kathy Hadderly, who went missing six years ago. Kathy’s husband, David (Ryan Gage), waited six days before reporting her missing, and the leads fizzled out. With no real evidence, former DI Jean Dixon (Elizabeth Berrington), who was in charge, declared Kathy'd run off with a lover, leaving David and their 13-year-old daughter, Sam, deeply traumatized. (This is not a surprise if you remember Dixon from Season 1; she was the one who pinned a missing kid on a local sex offender without evidence in "The Peaceful Garden.")

Carole and Darren visit David and Sam Hadderley to tell them the case is reopening. David sticks to his original story: Kathy disappeared one night; things were rocky between them, and she'd said if she left, she wouldn’t come back. He'd assumed that's what happened until she didn’t call for Sam’s birthday, which she would never do. Sam (Eleanor Kirby), now grown, leaves the room. Carol follows her and learns Sam never believed her mother was dead but goes quiet when she sees David listening.