Waking the Dead

A new team of detectives, the Cold Case Squad, is put together to re-examine evidence of unsolved murders using advanced technology. In their first investigation DCI Peter Boyd has a second go at nailing the murderer of Alice Miller, a young girl who disappeared five years ago. Trouble is, the perpetrator is as keen as Boyd to act again, and abducts another girl.

Hoping that new DNA tests will reveal the killer's identity, DCI Boyd has the original abductee's body exhumed. But he soon comes to discover that the kidnapper is looking for more than money -- he wants revenge on Boyd's team.

A young woman, Marina sets fire to an abandoned car in a street and takes photographs of it as it burns. Boyd walks by and tackles her to the ground, attempting to shield her from the possible explosion. He later learns that Marina's father died in a car accident a few years earlier in that spot, and Marina refuses to accept that his death was an accident. Although not officially a cold case, Boyd is intrigued and reluctantly agrees to investigate. Frankie runs forensic tests on Marina's father's car and proves that he was still alive after the crash and could have escaped. The answers they uncover may mean that the danger to Marina is much greater than any of them had suspected.

Boyd has Marinas uncle, Mike Coleman and her mother Gwen brought in for questioning while Frankie searches the house. The team find the items that were recovered from the car nine years ago and suspect that Perry Coleman was being blackmailed by Rod Brogan, a friend of Perry's. Boyd has the body exhumed and the DNA results surprise everyone.

Workmen are burrowing in the crypt of a Catholic church when they come across the skeletal remains of a young man buried in concrete. The squad sets about trying to pinpoint the identity of the body, which was buried with the accoutrements of certain Catholic rituals. Even more oddly, there is a message in Braille buried with the corpse, which tums out to be a passage from one of St Paul's letters to the Corinthians The team suspects that the body was never meant to be discovered.

The Cold Case team is forced to enlist the help of a psychotic serial killer named Thomas Rice, AKA "the Gambler" (because he left playing cards at the scenes of his murders). The one woman who escaped death at his hands, the cool and poised Dr Clare Delaney, gets a dreadful reminder of her past ordeal and a fearful shock when a playing card is flung at her car windscreen as she sets off to make a house call on a wet, windy, dark night. The team look again at the Gambler's crimes, prompted by Boyd's unshakeable belief that Rice had claimed other, hitherto undiscovered victims.Boyd - who has personal links to the case - and Grace decide to use detective constable Amelia Silver to lure a confession from Rice.

Boyd and the team continue to begrudgingly rely on serial killer, Thomas Rice's assistance on the case, while also trying to protect Dr. Delaney from experiencing her terrifying ordeal once more at the hands of the copycat assailant. It becomes apparent that he might have help on the outside, so it's crucial that Boyd confronts one of Rice's intended victims, Dr Delaney, to find out what went on during her captivity. Why did he spare her life?

Boyd and the team take on the task of infiltrating the dark underworld of London's gangland crime families when Harry Newman makes a deathbed confession to 12 "unauthorised killings". Dr Grace Foley is intrigued by this strange expression but Boyd and the rest of the team are tempted to dismiss it as the meanderings of a dying man. Until, that is, forensic psychologist Frankie Wharton discovers that Newman did not die of natural causes, but has been murdered. They soon realise there's a lot more to Newman than they imagined. Added to all that, there's a link to a famous fifties trial in which a gangster was hanged for killing two policemen.

A man accused of opening fire on a crowd from a multi storey car park, and killing a policeman, is claiming his innocence. Boyd's colleagues question his loyalties when he seems unwilling to re-investigate. As DC Mel Silver digs deeper, she discovers some disturbing truths about her boss.

Boyd struggles with his past while continuing the investigation on a mass murderer who was also guilty of killing his close friend. Are the Gunman's claims of innocence true? As the team investigate it looks as if someone else may have been involved.

When a convicted killer is cleared at appeal for the murder of his adoptive father ten years previously, Boyd is not convinced that the man is innocent. But the only way to find out is to track down the rest of the family - and with a big inheritance at stake, both parties appear to have a lot to hide..

In 1948, post-war Britain, an ex-soldier has been found dead with his skull nailed to the floor. Now this case has been re-opened due to media attention and pressure created by his grandson.

Is the Second World War the linking factor? The team must find the next possible victim but no-one knows where he is.

As a garage is demolished in contemporary London, demolition work is halted at the sight of a skeleton sitting in the driver’s seat. An unexploded bomb is found under the car which is soon linked to an Irish terrorist cell from the late 1970s.

A mummified body is discovered in a disused airliner that has been parked in the desert for 6 years. There are indications of a link to an armed robbery at Heathrow Airport six years earlier, and a murder at around the same time. Our team gains two new members. DS Andrea Stephenson takes over for DS Mel Silver, and the new mad scientist is Dr Felix Gibson.

Spencer goes undercover as a prison inmate to investigate the possible reasons for the murders from the man convicted of committing the crimes. To Spence's dismay, the man (who is too scared to say anything about what happened) commits suicide before he can be coerced into revealing who the real killer is.

Under the impression that he may receive a confession, Boyd accepts the invite for a visit to the prison from former police officer Eddie Vine, who is serving a life sentence for murdering his friend and former fellow officer, Tom Pallisser.

The team re-investigates the death of a teenage boy who was found on a building site some years ago, drowned in concrete. Part of a human ear is found in his stomach, linking him to the dumping of another seriously injured teenager in a hospital at around the same time. The ground on which the dead teenager was found belongs to a Catholic abbey which is soon to be dissolved, and the abbey owns a shrine which might contain evidence and has to be dismantled - a task which falls to the unwilling Stella Goodman.Meanwhile, new forensic scientist Dr Eve Lockhart makes her mark on the case.

Continuing the investigation of the death of a teenager whose body was found in concrete on a building site years ago. The injured Joe McDonagh finally wakes from his coma - but how much light can he throw now on a boxing bout which went badly wrong long ago? Meanwhile, there are surprises in store for Boyd and Jordan.

MI6 asks Boyd to reopen the case of the killing of an Iraqi dissident.Meanwhile, a man running for election as President of the Sudan announces he is going on hunger strike to protest at Britain's refusal to return the skull of a 19th century leader.

When a woman defends her daughter from a mugger, it sets into motion a chain of events that places herself and her children in mortal danger.

Boyd and the team investigate Lore's true identity and the reasons why she is in danger.

The Cold Case team investigate the mystery surrounding human remains found in an urban canal with links to the murder of a prison governor.

After a women running naked along a country way is picked up there are two cases to solve. The first one is to find out how she got there, a complicated task because she suffers from memory loss. The second case goes back quite some years as her DNA was found in a strange cold case with two bodies and a sword.

After the shooting in the hospital in which Stella is wounded the involvement of the priest becomes clear. With the shooter killed there is no chance for interrogation, but his body provides a useful clue linking back to the cold case. In the meantime things become even more complicated when a women turns up who looks a lot like the one in the hospital.

The failed suicide of a women called Gemma who has been raped 12 years ago, when she was just a girl by two men, causes Boyd and his team to re-open the investigation. But as the previous investigation went nowhere there aren't any leads left to start from.

Boyd has to break in a new team member of equal rank, Detective Superintendent Sarah Cavendish, a high-flyer recently grounded by a hushed-up failed operation.After the empty and abandoned car of banker Donald Rees is discovered threee years after he went missing, Boyd decides to take on the case in an effort help the man's family find some closure with their lives.

Boyd is convinced that the missing Donald is not a murderer, and pushes his team to try to make sense of all the vague connections in the case and eventually confront the unfathomable evil lurking within the heart of this sad, unfortunate family.

After a woman is discovered stabbed in the eyes and incinerated in her car she is identified as Claire Somers, a neglected child who was taken into care, then later kidnapped in 1986 at the age of seven. Robert Fenchurch had his eyes stabbed out on the night Claire was kidnapped as her abductor fled the scene. The team soon find out that Claire had snatched 15-year-old Abigail Harding, who was found locked in a hotel room.