In the opening episode of "Under Salt Marsh," Jackie Ellis is stunned to discover a lifeless body sprawled in the cornfields. As she approaches to investigate, she suddenly wakes up. This revelation marks a significant part of Jackie's past and serves as the foundation for the story.
Jackie is a respected schoolteacher in the local community of Morfa Halen, adored by her students. The eccentric local, Osian, is known for his erratic behavior, and he grabs one of his pupils, Cefin, insisting that the world is coming to an end. However, Jackie manages to calm him down and send him on his way.
Despite the impending storm, tensions are high across the town. Rumors are swirling that the storm could raise sea levels by 5-6 meters. The community has come together to raise funds for a sea wall to mitigate the worst-case scenario, but it may not be enough.
As things escalate, Solomon Bevan arrives with a flock of sheep, using them as a testament to their resilience in the face of adversity. That night, on her way home, Jackie is shocked to find another student, Cefin, face-down in the water by the marshes. She struggles to control her grief and panic as she calls the emergency services.
Jackie also has the difficult task of breaking the news to Cefin's family. She wants to provide a softer touch compared to the police, having been in that field before, and she heads over to do so. Cefin's parents, Shelley and Danny, are shocked by what's happened. They immediately rush over to the crime scene while Jackie waits at the house. She's clearly devastated as the police arrive to take control of the situation.
Fronting the investigation with determination is Detective Constable Eric Bull, who is working hand-in-hand with his partner, Jess Deng. They waste no time in piecing together the events that have transpired. When Bull learns that Jackie was the first on the scene, he immediately heads over to speak with her.
Jackie and Eric have a complicated history, given their previous work together on the force. However, there's certainly no love lost between them. Jackie tries to get Bull off the case, calling to speak to the Superintendent and urging him to be removed. She doesn't get through to them, but she's also avoiding him too.
Interestingly, we also discover that Jackie is actually pregnant, although it's still very early days. The father is Dylan Rees, the man whom she's been secretly seeing whenever she gets a free moment.
While Eric Bull bide his time before taking Jackie's statement, he also inspects the crime scene too. The rainwater ditch poses a particular challenge, and they need to work quickly to prevent the water from washing away crucial evidence. Whoever did this clearly knows what they're doing.
Down on the shoreline, Eric finds James Rees, Dylan's younger brother and Cefin's best friend, sitting alone while the other kids in Jackie's class play by the water. Eric questions James, where he learns that he plays at Solomon's Farm quite a bit with Cefin. Now, Solomon is also Cefin's grand dad, and that afternoon, James was with Cefin after school.
Before they can continue, Jackie gets involved and stops this interview. Bull is quick to point out to Jackie that her telling the family was not the right procedure, but she shuts down, refusing to speak. However, he's determined to take her statement at 3:30pm on the dot.
Before reaching her, he spoke with the council worker, Gareth Morgan. It was he who had previously warned everyone about the rising sea levels earlier in the episode. He was with the councillor that afternoon and left at 8pm, providing him with an alibi. The councillor could corroborate his story, and Cefin's death was estimated to have occurred around 7:30pm.
However, there shouldn't have been any salt water at the crime scene, given their distance of a mile from the sea. Traces of it were found over Cefin, adding an extra layer of suspicion to the case. It seemed to hint at someone dragging the body there.
Eric Bull then headed over to see the family, and Solomon certainly made his thoughts felt. There was a palpable tension in the house, especially since they were well aware that he had been in charge of a similar investigation years back involving a girl named Nessa. Back then, Jackie and Eric had worked on the case together, but it seemed like he had messed up, betraying her, which caused her to leave the force.
Before getting to the full extent of what had transpired, Eric and Jackie finally spoke. He took her statement and recorded everything, but they constantly had to pause the recording to go off the record to discuss various incidents - including Jackie lying to Dylan about James being informed of Cefin's death.
Eric Bull didn't apologize for his actions though, and when he found Morgan later that night in the lashing rain, he learned that there was more trouble coming. They were currently eyeing a storm off the Gulf of Mexico that was heading eastbound. Should that system arrive over the UK, they could be looking at an evacuation-level flooding situation.
Eric was also staying at the local pub, at least in one of the rooms upstairs. When he called HQ, he learned that there was a hair on Cefin that wasn't his. There was no sign of abuse but it did look like an accidental drowning.
That ditch was definitely not where Cefin died. While Eric headed out to the crime scene that night, intending to piece together what he may have been missing, Jackie looked through a box of Nessa's old things. It was here she learned that Nessa was actually Jackie's niece. Inside one of her sketchbooks was a picture of a man in a white suit. Interestingly, Cefin had also drawn the exact same figure in his book.
