The case of the week
Family and employment questions collide when an Estonian woman asks Peter to recover the baby she says her former employer took.
The request to recover a baby gives Peter a difficult question of family responsibility, while the dyke-leaping event places the story in the town’s public life. The trail from Simon’s telephone to Christopher Waller links the immediate case with the larger mystery. Beatrice’s disruption at the office adds a third strand, so the episode moves between client need, local custom and Peter’s unfinished search.
The second episode widens Simon’s mystery through a practical family case, making questions of parenthood and possession echo across both plots.
The Kingdom family story
The trace on Simon’s telephone introduces Christopher Waller and turns a private disappearance into a larger investigation.
How the stories meet
The request to recover a baby gives this episode a more urgent shape than the premiere. Peter has to begin with the woman’s account, then work through the circumstances that might confirm or complicate it. The story is concerned with parental responsibility and with what happens when another person controls access to a child. That makes the case personal before the programme’s larger mystery is considered. The Estonian client is also placed within a public celebration, so a private appeal for help unfolds against a town keen to present itself through a traditional event. The contrast keeps the weekly case rooted in Market Shipborough: the competition may be communal theatre, but the client needs Peter to take her individual circumstances seriously.
Simon remains absent, but his telephone gives Peter a trace that can be followed. The connection to Christopher Waller and the payments made to Waller’s parents do not solve Simon’s disappearance; they make it harder to dismiss as a simple absence. Each new detail points towards choices Simon made that affected other people. Beatrice’s disruption at the office adds a lighter surface to the same episode, but it also shows how little separation exists between the practice and the Kingdom family. Peter is trying to establish what happened to a stranger’s child, to an unreachable brother and to the balance of his own office at once. The episode’s final effect is cumulative: no single discovery closes the case, yet the pattern around Simon becomes more troubling.
The episode’s strands leave Peter with several different kinds of unfinished business. The baby’s situation calls for immediate attention; the dyke-leaping celebration moves towards its public conclusion; Simon’s telephone trace creates a new question rather than an answer. Christopher Waller’s connection gives that question a human history, because Simon’s conduct has already touched people who never meet him on screen in the weekly case. Beatrice’s behaviour asks Peter to offer support without controlling his sister. By placing these developments together, the episode makes the practice and home part of the same community network: legal work is one way the town’s private lives become visible.
Where it fits in the Series
The second story broadens the programme beyond the Kingdom family by placing an urgent request about a baby beside a community event. Simon’s telephone supplies a clear thread from the opening episode, so the mystery advances through Peter’s ordinary work rather than replacing it.
The reported audience for this broadcast was 7.05 million. Across the original run, that places it at number 2 among the 18 reported episode figures. That context gives the episode a place in the series’ original reception as well as its story sequence.
Reveal the complete plot summary — spoilers
Plot summary
An Estonian woman asks Peter to help recover the baby she says was taken by her former employer. As Market Shipborough prepares for its traditional dyke-leaping competition, Peter traces the mysterious call to Simon’s telephone and uncovers a troubling connection between Simon and a deceased client named Christopher Waller. Meanwhile, Beatrice creates havoc in the office.
Themes to notice
- Parenthood. The request to recover a baby places parenthood at the centre of a case about responsibility and care.
- Trust. The trail from Simon’s telephone complicates the trust Peter can place in the first account he hears.
- Belonging. The Estonian client’s appeal brings a question of belonging into the town’s public celebration.
Where it was filmed
Swaffham’s market-town setting places the dyke-leaping story among the public streets and community life of Market Shipborough.
The family request and the trail from Simon’s telephone provide the episode’s two main routes into the story.
For the wider Norfolk screen geography, use the Kingdom filming locations guide.