Thin Ice

The rumour arrives before the news does: Bill Dugdale has been found dead. Bulman hears it, and the episode follows him trying to establish whether the rumour is true. It is the kind of case that has no case at all until you know whether there is a body, which makes it a strange and rather good premise. A rumour is a strange thing to build an episode on, and the show deserves credit for trusting it.

Thorley Walters is on the cast list as Dugdale himself, which tells you the show is not in a hurry to kill off its old friends. Murray Smith wrote it, Bruce Macdonald directed, and the hour works the gap between rumour and fact with real skill. But the rumours are everywhere while the witnesses are nowhere to be found, and Bulman walks the ice of the title, never quite sure where it is safe. The title is doing double duty too: thin ice is exactly where an old copper treads when the story involves his own circle.

Don Henderson carries the episode on the strength of a man asking the same questions in different rooms until the answers start to agree. Siobhan Redmond's Lucy McGinty is the sensible half of the partnership, the one who points out that rumours have sources and sources have reasons. There is real feeling under the professional manner too: Dugdale is one of the few figures from the old life that Bulman can stand, and the possibility of his death lands accordingly. Walters' Dugdale is missed from the action, which is a compliment to the character.

The ending keeps its cards close, and the episode is better for it. Not every mystery needs a body to be worth investigating, and this one proves the point. A man's friends do not wait for a death certificate before they start worrying.