“Episode #1.3” is episode three of season one of Hard Sun.
In the previous episode Renko had told Detective Chief Superintendent Bell that she hadn’t found anything linking Hicks to the murder of his friend, Butler, and the husband of the woman he was sleeping with. Renko was looking for this information in exchange for her son not being prosecuted for attempting to murder her. At the end, DCS Bell told her that there was something that was apparently proof. This is interesting, as if Bell had proof, why was Renko investigating? Possibly Bell had received it from the MI5 woman who had threatened to murder Hicks’ wife and then later told him that Renko knew something she didn’t about the murder. This woman is deliberately undermining things and has also now visited Renko’s son, Daniel, in the facility he is currently resident at.
Hicks had stated that, as the Hard Sun data spread, the nutters would come out of the woodwork, and one already has. A figure in a hooded raincoat is walking down a street in the rain and enters a phone box, one with ‘What is Hard Sun?’ written on the side. He calls a woman who says that she is there to help – she would appear to work for the Samaritans or a similar organisation.
Renko is interviewing a man who is making a deal. In exchange for a reduced sentence and witness protection he will give evidence against the Nicholson family. He admits to killing a man who murdered one of his boss’s girls, a man who wasn’t even known to be dead. Possibly because the body was put through an industrial mincer and then fed to the dogs. The woman’s body was found in the boot of a man who was found guilty of her murder. A man who was a rival of the Nicholson family. Renko then shows the man a picture of Butler and Hicks. She says that she thinks that Butler and Hicks worked for the Nicholson family and put the girl’s body in the boot of the rival’s car. Hicks may be even more bent than he appeared. Renko is also speaking to the reporter she spoke to about Hard Sun, who lost his job after the story was discredited. He is concerned about what will happen in five years. The conversation takes an unexpected turn.
The figure in the raincoat is now watching as the woman he spoke to on the phone attempts to start her scooter. Which isn’t starting as the vehicle has been sabotaged. The man gets closer to the woman but walks past. Then, of course, he returns.
The woman is found dead – she volunteered for a suicide helpline – in the middle of a road intersection. She was alive when he left, but had been attacked with a knife and died as cars drove past. The murderer – who worked helping refugees – confesses to a priest friend of his about what he did. The killer, Tom, appears to have lost faith in a benevolent deity from what he has seen and experienced, and did what he did to see if God would do anything about it. The priest, Dennis, cannot break the vow of the confessional and Tom will apparently keep killing – and choosing those who do the right thing – until God stops him.
It seems that Daniel attacked the MI5 woman because of something she told him. Renko has not seen this woman yet, even though she knows of her from Hicks, so she doesn’t recognise her on the video, even though she suspects. Renko’s discussion with Daniel reveals how she came to have a child at a young age. Renko’s solution to the threat the woman, who is probing for weak spots, poses is something Hicks thinks is a step too far.