In the first few minutes of Patience, PBS' latest crime drama, a man throws an envelope filled with cash in a bin and later burns himself to death. Although all the clues point to an unsuspicious suicide, leading the local investigative team to put the case to rest, further concerns resurface as an archivist named Patience Evans (Ella Maisy Purvis) gives Detective Inspector Bea Metcalf (Laura Fraser) a file that proves there might be a deeper connection between the victim aforementioned and that of another crime proceeding from years back. It is from that point onward that Patience goes from hiding in the Yorkshire Police basement, organizing criminal records, to being a valuable asset in solving crimes.