Catherine Cawood

Competent and caring, Sergeant Catherine Cawood works with tireless good humour, serving the West Yorkshire community of the exquisitely beautiful Calder Valley (or ‘Happy Valley’ as the police call it, due to the high incidence of drug related problems). Catherine lives with her sister Clare, who is a recovering heroin addict. Between them they bring up Catherine’s 8-year-old grandson, Ryan.

Catherine urges ex-husband Richard (a local journalist) to highlight the drug problem in the area. She’s amazed it isn’t more widely known or talked about. She fears nothing ever changes because a lot of apparently respectable people would have things to lose if the drug dealing hierarchy was blown apart. During a conversation between the two, Richard lets slip that convicted drug dealer Tommy Lee Royce has been released from prison. Catherine is clearly taken aback, why does the revelation make Catherine’s world come to a standstill?

Beneath Catherine’s robust good humour, we quickly start to understand there lurks a woman to whom something tragic has happened: Catherine is a bereaved mother. Her daughter Becky took her own life after giving birth. Becky had been raped.

Things take a dark turn in Happy Valley as a kidnap plot goes horribly wrong, but not even Catherine realises how her world collides with the kidnappers; one of the culprits is Tommy Lee Royce...