A Moveable Feast

The case is a catering business, which sounds like the gentlest possible way for a private detective to earn a living. A couple who run the service need help, and Bulman gives it, and the episode settles into the kind of contained mystery the show does well: a local problem with local roots, solved over tea rather than gunfire.

Paul Wheeler wrote it, Bill Gilmour directed, and the tone is exactly what the title promises. A moveable feast is a good description of the couple's trade and of the episode itself, which moves lightly between kitchens and function rooms, stopping at the quiet conversations where the truth turns up. The catering detail is used properly too: food brings people together, and the case turns on the people, as these cases always do. The episode is warm without being cosy, which is the line the show walks better than most.

Don Henderson and Siobhan Redmond are in their comfort zone here, and it shows in the relaxed rhythm of the piece. Bulman approaches a catering problem the way he approaches everything else, which is to say he refuses to be impressed by it and therefore gets to the bottom of it. That refusal is a running gag that never wears thin, because Henderson plays it as genuine temperament rather than a routine. Lucy McGinty is the one who notices what the clients are not saying, which is the whole game, and the episode is generous with both of them.

The episode is a reminder that the show's small cases are not lesser cases. But a business in trouble is someone's whole life, and the couple's anxiety is treated with real respect. The problem gets solved, and the episode lets the solving breathe. Some weeks the feast is a banquet. Some weeks it is a plate of sandwiches, and that is plenty.