In Dubio Pro Reo:The Investigation.

"What we assume is what we cannot prove. What we know is what we can prove" - Jakob Buch-Jepsen

"In dubio pro reo" is Latin. It translates as "(when) in doubt, for the accused" and what this means, legally, is that a defendant may not be convicted by a court when doubts about their guilt remain.

This is the principle at the crux of Tobias Lindholm's brilliant The Investigation (BBC2/iPlayer) which follows the case of the Swedish journalist Kim Wall who was murdered at sea near Copenhagen in August 2017.

The murderer's name is known to the public but Lindholm, respectfully and so as not to glamourise homicide, never allows one of his characters to utter his name once. We never ever see his face. Lindholm's decision here is familiar to that taken by New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern following the Christchurch mosque shootings, in which 41 people died, in March 2019.

It doesn't detract from the drama one little bit. The Invesigation (or, to use its Danish name, Efterforskningen) is a show about those that solve murders, not those who carry them out. When report's of Wall's disappearance, while interviewing a man on a homemade submarine, first emerge the case falls into the hands of experienced homicide investigator Jens Moller Jansen (Soren Malling).

On hearing of the suspect's behaviour, Jens has him charged with murder immediately and we, the audience, rarely have any doubt as to his guilt (not least because this was a very famous case) - but just because we know who the murderer is that does not mean a court will necessarily find him guilty.

For that proof is required. Proof beyond doubt. Jens and his team (Nikolaj Storm (Hans Henrik Clemensen), Musa Amin (Dulfi Al-Jabouri), and Maibritt Porse (Laura Christensen)) will need to work long days, and long nights, to obtain that proof. They will need to find the body (probably still in the sub, at the bottom of the Oresund), they will need to establish a motive, and they will need to ascertain the cause of death. All while fending off intrusive, and sometimes lubricious, press inquiries.

They will need to prove wrong the killer's lie that Wall's death was an accident and then, when the killer changes his story - which he does nearly as many times as Boris Johnson denying a Downing Street lockdown party - equally unconvincingly too, they will need to disprove those lies too.

The search begins for witnesses and for evidence but it is, at times, painstakingly slow. The head of the dive team, LM (Henrik Birch), and the forensics guy, Klaus (Henning Valin Jakobsen), both despair of the amount of work they, and their teams, are asked to do. But they remain sympathetic to Jens and his work as do Wall's distraught parents Joachim (Ralf Lasgaard) and Ingrid (Pernilla August) with whom Jens builds a relationship based on trust, honesty, and empathy.

As he does with his team and the man who will, ultimately, prosecute the case, Jakob Buch-Jepsen (Pilou Asbaek). This is not a drama of car chases, shoot outs, shouting matches, and double dealing. Instead it is one of sombre men and women in formal clothes working in nondescript offices and exploring avenues of investigation that often lead to dead ends before, slowly but surely, making breakthroughs.

Some of these breakthroughs prove false which leads to intense frustration. But The Investigation remains fascinating from start to finish. The glacial pace of progress is no less gripping than in much flashier dramas and even though, if you know the case, the final outcome is never in doubt you find yourself rooting, desperately, for these decent, honest, hard working men and women in their oh so vital work.

These investigators are not the grizzled gumshoes of fiction. There's no heavy drinking, no sleeping in their cars, no having affairs with witnesses. None of that nonsense. Just quiet lives of pleasant yet modest homes, sensible family cars, dogs, coffee, and, er, clay pigeon shooting. But we do see how the stress and the hours involved in the job affect at least Jens' home life. His wife Kirstine (Charlotte Munck) is sympathetic and supportive but his pregnant daughter, Cecilie (Josephine Park), begrudges that Jens' work has taken him away from her at such an important time in her life.

It's not just Jens' constantly ringing mobile phone or the demands on his time that affect him but the sheer weight of emotion that comes with being forced to try and understand the mind of a depraved killer and the sense of responsibility when it comes to potentially not being able to secure a conviction and leaving a dangerous man at liberty to kill again.

This is perhaps why The Investigation occasionally references an earlier case, that of Ronnie Asgaard, in which a killer did walk free. But everything Jens feels is, of course, felt more extremely by Wall's parents, Joachim and Ingrid. They hear, first, that the investigation has been raised from that of one into a missing person to that of one into a murdered person on the television news. That's shocking enough but when Joachim ask Jens is there is any 'hope' his daughter is still alive we're into lump in the throat territory.

Of course, it only gets worse for Joachim and Ingrid. Their agony gets more and more acute with each new, and disturbing, revelation. The disappointment they feel when some so called journalists try and drag their daughter's name through the mud is tempered with the pride they feel when boasting of Kim's own, more edifying, journalistic achievements and, as ever in these terrible circumstances, it is the acts of kindness in the depths of exquisite pain that stand in starkest relief and thus affect us most profoundly.

 

 

Ingrid offering Jens a coffee after he's confirmed Kim's death to her or a little girl passing a bouquet of flowers to the grieving parents in sincere condolence. These moments made me cry and by the end of The Investigation those tears were not just welling in my eyes but rolling down my cheeks. 

Each and every performance in The Investigation was absolutely superb. Understated and superb. The final denouement brings a sense of relief but no great celebration. An overwhelming sense of loss remains at the heart of this drama from the start of the first episode to the end of the sixth and that's how it should be because loss, specifically wanton loss at the hands of a murderer, remains even after justice has been served. 

There are several scenes of dinghies floating on the choppy Oresund in The Investigation. Their divers scour the sea bed for grisly evidence of the worst humanity can do but in the work done by Jens, Nikolaj, Musa, Maibritt, and many others and in the dignity shown by Joachim and Ingrid in the most trying circumstances imaginable we are shown that what truly lurks beneath in far more people than not is kindness, empathy, and a desire to make the world a better and a safer place. That The Investigation was a serious, dignified, and empathetic piece of film making did justice to that belief. There is horror in the world but there is far more kindness.