TV’S most addictive thriller The Missing finishes tonight as cancer- stricken detective Julien Baptiste races against time to catch paedophile Adam Gettrick.
Set around a British Army garrison in Germany, the complex eight-part second series began in 2014 with the return of a young woman believed to be schoolgirl Alice Webster, who disappeared in 2003.
She is reunited with her family, but suspicions soon arise about her true identity.
French detective Julien Baptiste (Tchéky Karyo) believes she is Sophie Giroux, another missing girl.
The plot twists and turns with the “suicide” of the returned girl, an apparent Army cover-up and Gettrick fleeing to a Swiss chalet with Alice, Sophie and a young child called Lucy.
But as well as wanting to know if Baptiste will catch Gettrick, viewers are desperate for answers to a host of questions.
Here are just some of the riddles — and the theories that could finally resolve them.
Whose charred remains were found in the shed?
The body was reported as a DNA match for dad Sam Webster (David Morrissey) by Army doctors. But viewers now know Alice, and impostor Sophie Giroux (Abigail Hardingham), are alive.
It’s most likely the body is that of missing Lena Garber, thought to be the third girl in the rollercoaster snap spotted by Alice’s mum Gemma (Keeley Hawes).
Sophie, when posing as Alice, claimed she had escaped and left “Sophie” to starve to death.
Or the body could have been that of a secret love child of Sam’s. He was having an affair with Brigadier Stone’s daughter Eve, so he could have had an earlier fling.
If not, who faked the DNA result?
Why do Sophie and Alice have spider tattoos?
Senile Brigadier Adrian Stone told Sam he remembered his daughter was obsessed with spiders — how does he know. Did Lena have one too?
Whose daughter is Lucy?
We know Sophie has had a baby, and Lucy appears to be hers. But when German copper Jorn Lenhart visited (only to be murdered with a power drill) Lucy showed him a drawing of “me and Mummy in the basement” — the same basement we now know Alice was kept in.
To further confuse matters, Sophie told the Websters her baby had died.
Does Sophie love Gettrick or is she trying to help the others?
Either she is an evil accomplice truly under his spell or she has bravely hatched a plan to win freedom for all of Gettrick’s captives, having gone to extreme lengths to win his trust.
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Did Henry Reed commit suicide? If so why?
Henry Reed apparently killed himself over the guilt of accidentally burning a nine-year-old girl alive in Iraq back in 1991 when he and Adrian Stone rescued Adam Gettrick. We know Reed had been sending money to her brother for years but why take his own life more than two decades on?
To add to the riddle, Sophie left flowers on Reed’s grave. Perhaps Reed stayed friends with Gettrick and visited her when she was Gettrick’s prisoner.
Or maybe it’s a big red herring and Reed killed himself over his secret relationship with trans- gender prostitute Ilsa.
Either way, with two explosive secrets he was ripe for blackmail.
How is Brigadier Stone involved?
We know Brigadier Stone was covering up his part in the killing of the nine-year-old Iraqi girl, but is that what Sophie was referring to when she asked him “How can you live with yourself after what you’ve done?”
Stone told Sophie the fable of The Turtle And The Stick. Was it a coded message to keep quiet?
Stone also appears to have avoided investigating Gettrick ever since Alice went missing, despite knowing he was a paedophile.
Why was Major Evett so “out of it” on pills and booze in Iraq?
Why did Major Evett — who later became butcher’s wife Nadia Hertz — refuse to help Gettrick in Iraq all those years ago and why did she agree to cover up her three soldiers’ dirty secrets?
Viewers also wonder if it makes sense that she turned her back on her husband, butcher Kristian Hertz, so quickly despite there being little evidence against him.
Will Gettrick be brought to justice?
Gettrick is well ahead of Baptiste thanks to the detective’s arrest and the intervention of his worried wife Celia. He’s now in Switzerland in a cottage left to him by his uncle. But did he slip up buying the toy monkey for Alice using his credit card?
He could also be tracked down via the waiter who chatted up Sophie, or the child who saw the campervan in the woods.
Baptiste has asked the police to check if Gettrick has other properties — but will they?
Why was Kristian Hertz framed?
Gettrick could be getting revenge on Nadia for refusing to send men out to look for him in Iraq.
After her husband’s arrest, Nadia was attacked by vigilantes and left in a coma but has now recovered.
Is someone still helping Gettrick?
Gettrick has avoided suspicion for so long it seems logical he has had an accomplice. Instead of being booted out of the Army when he was medically discharged; he became a press officer.
And he would probably have needed help faking the DNA result on “Alice”.
Keeping his house shuttered seems odd too. And at least three other officers knew he was a paedophile.
Will Baptiste die?
Baptiste urgently needs surgery on his brain tumour, and risks the cancer spreading every day he delays it — to his wife’s frustration.
But actor Tchéky revealed: “I would love to do a third series. I love the character and I love the complicity between the BBC and the writers.”
Who is the mystery man following Baptiste?
The bald bearded man was in the market when Julien arrived in the Middle East, then in the Iraqi warzone, inside his car and finally in the Army canteen — where Baptiste attacked him only to realise he was hallucinating.
Is he purely a figment of Baptiste’s imagination due to his illness or does he hold the key to the mystery?
Why is Matthew set on his own brand of justice?
Alice’s brother Matthew is on a downward spiral inspiring the attacks on Nadia Hertz and Brigadier Stone. He also locked Sophie in the shed at her request. Does he know more than he’s letting on?
Will there be a third series?
Nothing has been confirmed as the show’s creators, brothers Harry and Jack Williams, are still waiting to come up with the right plot.
Harry said: “We’d done the story about losing someone, now we’re doing the story about finding someone.
“It would have to be saying something new. Never say never.”
Fingers crossed.
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