In The Dark

Once again Dempsey and Makepeace are witnesses when a fellow policeman is shot, and this time the victim is Tom Bishop, one of Makepeace's former partners. His dying words are cryptic: millions in cash, and a warning about 'the man in the red coat'. It is a gift of a setup, and the episode works it hard. It went out on 26 October 1985, and it is the second episode in a row to open with a policeman shot in front of the leads, an echo the show does not try to hide.

David Crane wrote it, Graham Theakston directed. Benjamin Whitrow's Lindsay and Caroline Bliss's Laura sit at the official end of things, with Ian Price's Piers Aylward and Nick Hobbs's Blaker further down the chain. Bunny Losh's Tom Bishop gets the brief but vital role of the dying man, and Kenny Ireland's Lucky Livingstone is exactly as suspicious as his name suggests. David Savile, Mary Jo Randle and Gareth Milne complete the guest list, and Tony Osoba's Chas Jarvis and Ray Smith's Spikings keep the SI10 regulars present, grounding a story that runs on rumour and paranoia.

Caroline Bliss would, within a couple of years, be sitting outside M's office as Miss Moneypenny in the Bond films, which tells you something about the company this episode keeps.

The red coat clue is the sort of detail that keeps a conspiracy story honest: odd enough to be real, vague enough to send the pair chasing shadows, and the episode never cheats on it. Bishop's warning gives the pair a thread to pull, and the millions he mentions give the conspiracy a size that makes the red coat matter. It is a dark, twisty hour, and the darkness suits them. The show's usual knockabout energy is dialled down, and the pair work by instinct and by ear, trusting each other when the official line turns useless.