Widows and Orphans

Two predators are at work in Denton, and Frost has a new partner in DS Maureen Lawson, played by Sally Dexter — the first of the series' serious female detectives. The first predator is a burglar working the homes of pensioners; the second is far worse. one elderly woman is beaten so badly she dies, then another pensioner is discovered beaten to death in her own home, and the papers begin whispering about a serial killer.

Frost concludes that the second victim admitted her killer, which meant him in — the killer is someone she trusted. That points to Ronald Gould, a bus driver played by Christopher Fulford with a face that shifts from helpfulness to fury in a heartbeat. Gould had volunteered to fix the door chain on the door of one victim, and he is finally cornered at his grandmother's house, where the old woman rebukes him; he almost bludgeons her too. The psychology is sketched with care: as a boy Gould was assessed as fixated on the approval of the elderly, prone to violent outbursts when upset, and his victims are struck on or near 26 March — his mother's birthday. Frost ties him to a still-earlier killing of an old woman and the case closes.

The burglaries, meanwhile, tie to a non-violent thief, Bernard Elliott, who breaks in only to steal — never to hurt. The episode's title, Widows and Orphans, is the point: these are crimes against people the town has forgotten, and the series has rarely been so direct about who its victims are.

Underneath the cases, the personal thread thickens. Frost's romance with Shirley Fisher, who had nursed his late wife, edges forward, and his chemistry with the brisk, capable Lawson — who sees through his act without ever resenting him — adds a new register to the show. Written by Richard Harris and directed by Roy Battersby, Widows and Orphans is a quiet, cruel episode about loneliness: the lonely old people the killers prey on, and the lonely detective who keeps showing up at their doors.

For all its darkness, Widows and Orphans is also one of the series' most tender episodes — a reminder that Frost's world is full of people the town would rather forget, and that he, stubbornly, will not. The Lawson pairing would not last, but it gave the show one of its best double acts.