Country Matters

Series Nine, Episode Six

Country Matters

Airdate

10 September 2006

Village or Location

Elverton

Writer

Andrew Payne

Director

Richard Holthouse

Episode guide
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Four Funerals and a Wedding	Death in Chorus

Country Matters is the sixth episode of the ninth series of the popular ITV crime drama Midsomer Murders and originally aired on 10th September 2006.

Synopsis

Frank Hopkirk is found dead in a deserted timber yard by taunting school children, Otis Piggott and Dora Southerly. The deserted timber yard is a bone of contention between the local residents of Elverton; they are bitterly divided by plans to open a Goodfare supermarket in the village. Frank indulged in some of the local 'pursuits' and DCI Barnaby and DC Jones must try to discover who stabbed him to death and why.

Plot

There's friction among the villagers in Elverton where there is widespread disagreement over the construction of a large Goodfare supermarket. Those in favor see it as a convenient way of getting their shopping done without having to drive great distances while those opposed see it as the beginning of the end of village life. Emotions are running high, including a bout of fisticuffs at a village meeting. With all of this going on around them, DCI Barnaby and DC Jones investigate the murder of Frank Hopkirk, an environmental consultant who was in the village working on the supermarket project. He was found stabbed to death in an old mill but as the police investigate, they learn that he was something of a Lothario. In fact, several of the leading citizens of Elverton are involved in sex games, from role-playing to mild S&M, all of which the dead man happily participated in. Jealousy however played the major role in his death.