The Victim

Maggiemaybe Dan and that other lad (he who shared a cell with Eddie/Craig) were being hinted at as possibly the real Eddie J. It was all about laying fake trails to keep us guessing.

I think the ‘torture’ was a red herring and injuries inflicted after death by the piling on of bricks etc in an effort to hide the body. That’s how I read it anyway.

Dan didn’t report the body allegedly at first. That wasn’t fully explained unless I missed that bit.

Danny said he felt very isolated with his experience of finding the body. He must have been just a kid himself and he said he had no one he could talk to who could understand. Also a boy from a troubled background I assumed. When he first met Lou, she mentioned straight away about her brother's murder, and Dan realised that here was someone who understood, whose family understood, so he attached himself to them.

He was also a red herring, as someone else has pointed out.

There were many victims in this drama, and I know I'll be mulling it over for a few days to come. I may even watch it a 2nd time.

I can understand her going to see her first husband because, although her 2nd husband was lovely and kind and very understanding, no one else would ever be able to totally understand what they must have gone through except the 2 biological parents themselves. It's the same with any traumatic experience - illness, divorce, abuse - only a fellow sufferer can truly empathise.

Can't help thinking that during the court case some newspaper hack would have traced the fact that he was Eddie and splashed it all over the papers.

Ah right, thanks Anja, I must have missed the bit about the murder being committed in Edinburgh. I'm still a bit about Dan, though. Didn't someone say at one stage that he found the body, but didn't report finding it straightaway? And the "torture" aspect of the murder didn't seem to be explained properly. I thought he was going to be part of it

I was rather confused too - was the bridge they visited in Edinburgh then?
And the storyline about Dan was not explained, nor the torture.

Initially I became very hooked into this drama and the ethical issues it posed. I think it was intended that the mother would not play a part that encouraged sympathy. The last episode I have to say I found distasteful in the extreme with the graphic description of how the child died. I just hope that anyone whose had a loved one who had been murdered didn't watch this. I don't suppose they would. I can usually cope with violent scenes on tv because I know it is not real, but I found this too close to cases which have happened in RL as someone has mentioned.

Please put me out of my misery - what did she say right at the end....."he wanted to be ?"
I rewound a couple of times but still couldn't make out that last word

He wanted to be big

Craig/Eddie said that the police etc said he tortured the child but that he did not.

Oh of course thank you Nannylovesshopping

Yes nanaK54 everything that was in the present was in Edinburgh and the original crime. The scar was a big help.

He took refuge in Port Glasgow after he was released from prison and lived there with his new family. It was there he was assaulted.

By ‘the present’ I mean the trial.

Those in authority who gave him the new identity would have arranged for him to move to Port Glasgow - but it is not that far from Edinburgh, 70 miles or so.
I am surprised that he hadn't been moved much further away.

It’s actually 58 miles but whereas Edinburgh is on the East Port Glasgow is on the west. Scotland is very narrow at that point and that central belt is the most heavily populated.

I think he said he chose that over England as his cell mate lived there and he wanted to have one person who knew who he really was.

But it’s easy to pick holes whereas it’s the central question/dilemma that really matters.

But it’s easy to pick holes whereas it’s the central question/dilemma that really matters.
I wasn't picking holes for the sake of it; it just seem to be in rather close proximity. Usually if people have been given a new identity for whatever reason, criminal or witness, I do not think they are relocated that close to their original address.

Yes, I know where they are, I have a friend from Edinburgh and another from Port Glasgow.

I think, because there were so many knife wounds, the police assumed that the little boy had been tortured. Although the report was that the child had been abducted, Eddie said that the child had in fact disturbed him while he was self-harming. It seems that Eddie was the victim of extreme parental neglect and possibly others forms of abuse and, on being interrupted and questioned by the little boy, all his anger and frustration came out in the violent attack.

Of course, some people will see the plot as distasteful for a number of reasons, including its similarity to real life crimes and its graphic descriptions. My own opinion was that it raised some important issues. Unlike many dramas these days, it was not cliched and did not use acts of extreme violence to entertain people or reinforce populist views but to make them think.

The torture/not torture marks came from him dragging the body down the bank to hide it.

'Out beyond the ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I'll meet you there'. Rumi.
I enjoyed this series very much. Thought provoking. There was a quote from Rumi at the end which I liked.

The rest of that quote is (Googled it) "When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about"

I still have not a single clue what it means though.

Does it mean when we cease to judge others the world appears a much richer place? ?

Yes momb I think that is exactly what it means.

How refreshing and inspiring ?

But I couldn't not judge the man who killed the child. No matter what happened to him in his past.

So your soul is not ready to ‘lie down in that grass’ but perhaps it’s not yours to judge because it is fiction.

Nope. Can't get it.

Ne'er mind.

The man didn’t kill the child - a damaged 13 year old boy did