Under Plain Cover

A man's body comes up out of the river, and Pru Standfast starts asking who he was and how he died. The answer she gets is a wall. Someone official has put a block on the case, and the people who could tell her anything have suddenly lost their memories. Any detective would recognise that smell: it means the dead man mattered to somebody with power.

But Pru keeps pushing anyway. The block is there to hide a secret deal to build a new CIA listening post in London, and behind that deal sit investors who were quietly defrauded while the men in charge took their cut. Pru can have the second thing, but only on condition that she stays silent about the first. The dead man's story, the listening post, the investors: each piece only makes sense if you hold them all at once, and Pru is the one who can. It is the kind of bargain that leaves a bad taste, and the episode doesn't pretend otherwise.

Jeremy Burnham wrote it and William Brayne directed. Rosalyn Landor's Pru does the heavy lifting, with Jill Gascoine's Maggie and Leslie Ash's Fred backing her up, David Garlick as Gonzo, David Baxt as Lyman, Bob Sherman as Vic, Leonard Trolley as Dr Chalmers, Anthony Milner as Inspector Phelps, James Cosmo as McNeill and Richard Beale as Prinley. It went out in May 1985, when the first series was still finding its audience. The title comes from the postal trade: to send something under plain cover is to wrap it in an unmarked envelope, which is a fair description of Pru's position.

There is something properly British about the resolution: justice for the small people, silence about the big ones. Pru gets what she can and swallows the rest. It isn't the show's most heroic ending, but it is one of its truest. And it is a small study in what the job costs: Pru does good work, gets no credit for it, and goes home knowing she has traded one secret for another.