The Only Good Copper

A police constable is stabbed to death on duty, and the station reacts the way stations do: the dead man becomes a hero, the funeral is a procession, and nobody wants to hear a word against him. But Clark's leave gets cancelled so he can investigate outstanding complaints against P.C. Norton, and the question the episode keeps asking is whether the saintly version of the man is the true one.

It's a neat flip of the old saying in the title. The only good copper is a dead one, goes the joke, and here the dead copper's reputation is the thing under examination. Russell Lewis wrote it, Tom Clegg directed, and the case gives Clark room to do the thing he's best at, which is being the only man in the room willing to ask the awkward question.

Jonny Lee Miller, years before Trainspotting, plays David Ringwood, the youth accused of the stabbing. The casting around him is a quiet parade of dependable faces: Trevor Peacock's Sgt. Don Royal, Judith Scott's Insp. Jane Toynton, and Jerome Flynn, fresh from Soldier Soldier, as D.S. Eddie Hargreaves. Tony Haygarth's Colin Keogh and the rest of the uniforms fill out a station that feels properly staffed, which is more than many procedurals manage. Howard Ward plays the dead Norton, and Mary Jo Randle's Kate and Ben Maw's Matthew give him a family, so the grief at the funeral never feels like a crowd scene.

The ending is deliberately uncomfortable. Clark finds out what he finds out, but Norton's memory doesn't get to be either clean or simple, and the episode leaves the two pictures of the man sitting side by side. Sometimes that's the best you get from an investigation. The funeral scenes do their quiet work, and the episode is careful not to sneer at the grief; the dead man's family deserve their ceremony. It's the legend they're mourning as much as the man, and that's the distinction the episode keeps prodding.