The Name of the Game

A woman decides that a policeman killed her husband, and she says so loudly enough that everyone has to take her seriously. The officer concerned is still on the force, still going about his day. Bulman is called in to help the police walk the line between protecting one of their own and finding out what actually happened, and he does it with the particular caution of a man who knows how fast a uniform can close ranks.

It is a revenge plot in a raincoat, domestic rather than operatic, and the episode is at its best when it stays on that level. The woman is not a villain, and the show never treats her as one; she is a bereaved person with nowhere to put her anger. DI Holmes and DS Mackay do the official legwork, John Benfield and Simon Molloy giving the uniforms a solid, unglamorous presence. They have the thankless job of being in the right while everyone assumes the worst of them, and they do it well.

But Bulman's job is to keep the peace long enough for the truth to arrive, and Don Henderson sells the quality it takes: a man who has seen enough grieving spouses to know that most of them are right, or think they are. Murray Smith wrote it, William Brayne directed. The partnership with Lucy McGinty is at its most efficient here, less banter than division of labour, and Siobhan Redmond is good at the quiet competence the role demands.

The episode keeps its focus on the aftermath rather than the crime, which is the right call. Blame is a poison that spreads, and the interesting question is not whether the woman will act on her threat but what the truth does to her when it arrives. Grief of that size does not vanish with a verdict. It just finds a new place to sit.