MURDER in mind

JAMES NESBITT on playing a bereaved cop desperately searching for answers

- VICTORIA WILSON

SUSPECT

NEW SUN-WED, 9PM & 9.30PM, C4 DRAMA

James Nesbitt is no stranger to playing detectives in a career spanning 40 years, and now the popular actor is adding another tortured crime-fighter to his CV as he headlines C4's new thriller Suspect.

Based on Danish drama Forhøret, the eightparter - airing in double bills over four nights sees James play Danny Frater, a veteran officer who arrives at a mortuary for a routine identity check only to find the deceased is his estranged daughter, Christina (The Bay's Imogen King).

While a post-mortem suggests she took her own life, Danny's convinced his child has been murdered, and each 30-minute episode sees him share an intense exchange with someone who may know more about her untimely demise.

Here, in an exclusive interview, James, 57, tells TV Times why viewers will be gripped...

What's your take on Danny?

He's a very complex, difficult, sad, angry man, who we find in quite a bad state. He was once a very good cop, and had loving relationships with wife Susannah [His Dark Materials star Anne-Marie Duff] and daughter Christina, whom he adored. But then the demons within him destroyed all that.

When he sees Christina's dead body in the mortuary, it reignites both the copper and the father in him as he tries to unlock the truth about what has happened to her.

Does Danny feel somewhat responsible for her death?